2
25
106
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1385/25578/SBakerDA19210428v20033-0001.1.jpg
e0d1494049f2745dd5d83d87ed7244ab
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1385/25578/SBakerDA19210428v20033-0002.1.jpg
e40d30f98388599bce5124a126e93d2d
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
Baker, Donald Arthur
D A Baker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-11-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Baker, DA
Description
An account of the resource
187 items. Donald Arthur Baker (b. 1921) travelled from Southern Rhodesia to England in 1940 to join the Royal Air Force. Trained as a pilot in 1941 he was operational with 144 Squadron at RAF North Luffenham flying Hampdens. He was shot down on 5 November 1941 and remained a prisoner of war mostly in Stalag Luft 3 until 1945. He return to farm in Southern Rhodesia after the war. The collection contains letters to his mother throughout the war as well as other correspondence and documents including his prisoner of war log with photographs and notes.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by June Baker Maree and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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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
Forty-nine airmen
Description
An account of the resource
Forty-nine airmen wearing tunic and side caps, sitting and standing in four rows. In the background a brick building with two windows. On the reverse 'P/O Baker, Cranfield, FTC, Advanced Flying Training Unit, flying Oxford trainers'.
Format
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One b/w photograph
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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SBakerDA19210428v20033
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
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
Advanced Flying Unit
Oxford
RAF Cranfield
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/586/26629/SHorryM[Ser -DoB]v10008-0003-0001.jpg
9a603824cb11792a14f4bd30869d0315
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/586/26629/SHorryM[Ser -DoB]v10008-0003-0002.jpg
213fcc8bf3aeb0e5c8afc6b03ad86899
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Horry, Margaret
M Horry
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Horry, MA
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. An oral history interview with Margaret Horry, and her brother, Gordon Prescott's log book (1582098 Royal Air Force), documents and family photographs. She discusses her brothers' and husband's service during the war. Gordon Prescott flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 12 Squadron and was lost without trace 7 January 1945. <br /><br />Additional information on Gordon Prescott is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/119000/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Margaret Horry and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2016-08-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Title
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Frank Horry's Record Sheet
Description
An account of the resource
RAF Form 543 issued to Frank Horry. It contains details of his service record.
Format
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Two printed sheets with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
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SHorryM[Ser#-DoB]v10008-0003-0001,
SHorryM[Ser#-DoB]v10008-0003-0002
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
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Holbeach
England--Bedfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Lincolnshire
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.
149 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Medal
RAF Henlow
RAF Mildenhall
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/459/8034/BNorthGJNorthGJv1.1.pdf
e2ed89186df7c2effb65cb00cef77577
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
North, Geoffrey John
North, G J
North, Johnny
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey John 'Johnny' North, DFC, (173836, Royal Air Force) who served as a rear gunner on 428, 76 and 35 Squadrons flying Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He was called up in 1940 from his job as a tailor in Saville Row where he returned after the war. He was shot down on an operation to Duisburg on 21 February 1945. The collection contains his logbook, an account of his shooting down, capture and time as a prisoner of war, including documentation, forced march to another camp in 1945, liberation and repatriation. The collection includes membership documents for Royal Air Force Association, Pathfinders Association and Caterpillar Club as well as personnel documentation, Pathfinder badge correspondence and photographs of crew and squadron as well as other memorabilia.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Bishopp 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
2016-05-20
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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North, G
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PART I
I WANDERED
LONELY AS A
CLOUD !!
21/2/45. Baled out 23.05 landed
23.20. S/C 23.59 walked 12 miles.
22/2/45 Captured 10AM by Civil Police.
10/12 Police Station. 12/2 Jail, 2/6 Motorbike
to front line. Watch etc taken. Marched 8
miles via transit camp with 8 soldiers to
[undecipherable] village. Slept in stairs in
abandoned school.
23/2/45 First Food, Bread Marg. Tinned Meat
Tea. Marched 14 miles via Rhine Ferry to
Transit Camp. Lt Lindsey.
24/2/45 [undecipherable] Horse & Cart to Stalag
at Barchalt. 5 to a cell, radiator, [undecipherable]
& 1 blanket. Comfort!
[Page Break]
25/2/45 Barchalt. 26/2/45 Barchalt
27/2/45 Barchalt to Hansdorf Marched 8
miles through [cross out] Munster.
28/2/45 Left Hansdorf 1/3/45 Travelling
2/3/45 Travelling, Kassell, Legless Aussie
3/3/45 arrived Obereusel. 4/5/45 Obereusel.
5/3/45 Obereusel 6/3/45 Left Obereusel.
7/3/45 Arrived Dulay Luft. 1st Shower,
Food, Beds, Clothing. Soap, Hair Cut, etc.
8/3/45 Left Dulay,
9/3/45 Train Bombed at Niederhausen [inserted] By USA MARAUDERS [/inserted]
Walked 5 k’metre to Eppstein.
10/5/45 Eppstein. 11/5/45 Left Eppstein
at night. travell [crossed out]] 12/3/45 Travelling
13/3/45 Travelling 14/3/45 Travelling
15/3/45 Arrived Stunlayer Thank God!
[Page Break]
PARTII THE TREK
4/4/45 Left Kreigsgefangenenlager der Luft III
on the march. Slept in Pine Wood
5/4/45 Divebombed [inserted] BY USA THUNDER BOLTS [/inserted] Reached outskirts of
Neumarht @1500. Raining at 1800
[undecipherable] at 2300.
6/4/45 Fell in @ 02.00 marched in Rain
till 0600. Slept in pine wood in the
rain. S/C 10.00. Reached Barching Stadt
Ground Bread Honey Tinned Meat, Traded
for bottles & matches. Slept church.
7/4/45 Left column fort before [undecipherable]
Bathing Pond
8/4/45 Lift to top of hill. Walked on
alone caught up column, Frosty.
9/4/45, With column all day. Issued
[Page Break]
Parcel at Nieustadt. Bridge mined.
10/4/45 Stayed near Nieustadt all day with
sick. Wizard Farm, Lau Joe Darky Ben Eggs., all our aim.
11/4/45 French Parcel. Bullock Waggon
for 11 k’ometres. Break at midday, forts
bombing all round us.
12/4/45 Stayed in same village, Lau Green, Joe
Darley, Ben Chris & Me. Orchard.
13/4/54 Refined Mess Party on the
road Marched 5 K’metres
14/4/45 stayed put all day, old lady no trade
15/4/45 Stayed Put.
16/4/45 Marched 10 K’metres to Pfeffenhausen.
Kimi and myself. Large Spud issue
17/4/45 Marched 10 k’metres to Obermunchen
3 Eggs. 20 French Fags
18/4/45 Left Obermunchen 17.00 marched 7
K’metres to Naider Munchen
[Page Break]
PART II CONTD
19/4/45 Stayed Naider Munchen. Acquired
a new bottle.
20/4/45 Marched 8 k’metres. Arrived
Maasburg.
[Page Break]
PART III
KRIEGIE No MORE
29/4/45 Fighting heard @ 09.00. Stars
& Stripes raised in camp at 12.30. Tank
& Jeeps in compound @14.30.
1/5/45 Issue White Bread, Flour, Good
[undecipherable] Kiwi acquired Frying Pan.
Rhubarb
2/5/45 Rice + Rhubarb Pancakes.
3/5/45 Doughnuts
4/5/45[undecipherable] + Mirror Pictures Rhubarb
Potatoes, Killed Pig.
5/5/45 Wood from house. Celery Onions
& Parsnips acquired. Pork Chops & chips
for breakfast.
[deleted] 6/5/45 pork chop and chips [/deleted]
[Page Break]
6/5/45 Pork chops, Roast and Mashed spuds
Parsnips, Plum Pudding. Killed a
Rabbit. Announced 10,000 leaving
Tomorrow
7/5/45 Breakfast Pork chop and chips,
Deloused. Rabbit Stew. Corned Beef
Hash Prunes & Toothpaste blancmange
8/5/45 Kiwi & Tom left @ 05.30, Fried Eggs
Spam Spuds & bread, Cereal. Victory Fudge
Moved out @ 5minutes notice left camp at 13.15
Lorry to Landshut airfield. Back to Landshut &
in billet @1800. K Rations, Bouillon, corned
Pork Roll, Plum Pudding. German Beer!!!
9/5/45 Ham & Egg Toast & Marmalade. Airfield
All day, Landshut Bouillon, Canned Pork Loaf
& Spam and Tomatoes.
16/5/45 Shredded Wheat, Ham & Eggs, LT.
HARRINGTON DAKOTA B 09.35 2.25
[Page Break]
PART III Cont’d
To Rheim. Lorry to Camp. Meal Corned
Beef Peas and Potatoes Peaches Coffee, Lorry
To Juviencourt w/o BELIVEAU. Lancaster
18.25
W 01.35 to Westcolt.
11/5/45 00.30 Lorry to Leighton Buzzard. Train
to Cosford. Registration Telegram Bath [deleted] Bed [/deleted]
& Breakfast & bed. 14.00 – 17.00 Doc
Clothing etc.
12/5/45.
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
Geoffrey North account of being shot down and time as prisoner of war
Description
An account of the resource
A day by day account consisting of three parts. Part one covers his being shot down on 21 February 1945, his capture and journey to prisoner of war camp arriving 15 March 1945 including an mention that his train was bombed by Marauders. Part two covers forced march from prisoner of war camp 'Kreigsgefaninenlager der Luft 3' from 4 April 1945 to to Moosburg on 20 April 1945 and includes account of being strafed by Thunderbolts. Part three covers liberation by United States army on 29 April 1945 to his repatriation by C-47 and Lancaster on 10 May 1945. In part 3 he writes enthusiastically about the meals and food. The account is written on American red cross paper.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoffrey North
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight page handwritten document
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
BNorthGJNorthGJv1
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
United States Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Bocholt
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Oberursel
Germany--Eppstein im Taunus
Germany--Neustadt an der Weinstrasse
Germany--Moosburg an der Isar
Germany--Landshut
France
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Aylesbury
England--Bedfordshire
England--Leighton Buzzard
England--Shropshire
England--Telford
France--Reims
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-02-21
1945-02
1945-03
1945-04-04
1945-04
1945-04-29
1945-05
1945-05-10
1945-05-11
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
bale out
C-47
Dulag Luft
Lancaster
military living conditions
Operation Exodus (1945)
prisoner of war
RAF Cosford
shot down
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/459/8035/BNorthGJNorthGJv2.2.pdf
e93160163154f39a8cee009159ed8663
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
North, Geoffrey John
North, G J
North, Johnny
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey John 'Johnny' North, DFC, (173836, Royal Air Force) who served as a rear gunner on 428, 76 and 35 Squadrons flying Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He was called up in 1940 from his job as a tailor in Saville Row where he returned after the war. He was shot down on an operation to Duisburg on 21 February 1945. The collection contains his logbook, an account of his shooting down, capture and time as a prisoner of war, including documentation, forced march to another camp in 1945, liberation and repatriation. The collection includes membership documents for Royal Air Force Association, Pathfinders Association and Caterpillar Club as well as personnel documentation, Pathfinder badge correspondence and photographs of crew and squadron as well as other memorabilia.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Bishopp 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
2016-05-20
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
North, G
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GEOFFREY JOHN NORTH. REAR GUNNER.
PART 1. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.
21/2/45 20.05 [inserted] R [/inserted] LANCASTER F/LT TROPMAN D.F.C. REAR GUNNER. OP.DUISBERG.
21.02.45. Bailed out at 23.05, landed 23.20 S/C 23.59.
Walked 12 miles.
22.02.45 Captured 10 am by civil police. 10.12 police station. 12.02 jail. 14.06 motorbike to front line. Watch etc. taken. Marched 8 miles via transit camp with 8 soldiers to burning village. Slept on straw in abandoned school.
23.02.45. First food – bread, marg, tinned meat, tea. Marched 14 miles via Rhine Ferry to transit camp. Lt. Lindsey - ? one of “Geoff’s” crew.
24.02.45. Soup! Horse and cart to Stalag at Bocholt. Five to a cell, radiator, pallias[?] & 1 blanket. Comfort!
25.02.45 – 26.02.45 Bocholt Stalag (POW camp).
27.02.45 Bocholt to Hansderf(?) marched 8 miles Munster.
28.02.45 Left Hansderf.
1.03.45 Travelling.
2.03.45 Arrived Kassell, “Legless” Aussie – as in “no legs”.
3.03.45 Arrived Oberursel [left to right arrow] 6/03.45.
7.03.45 Arrived Dulag Luft. Hot shower, food, beds, clothing, soap, hair cut etc.
8.3.45 Left Dulag.
9.03.45 Train bombed at Neidernhausen by U.S.A. marauders, walked 5k to Eppstein.
10.03.45. Eppstein. 11.03.45 Left Eppstein at night.
12.03.45 – 14.03.45 Travelling.
15.03.45 Arrived at Stanlayer? [?] Staumlager? [?] THANK GOD.
PART 2 The Trek.
[deleted] Lasted until [/deleted]
[page break]
04/04/45. Left kreigsgefanginenlager [sic] der Luft 3 POW camp, on the march, slept in pine woods.
5.04.45 Dive-bombed by USA Thunderbolts. Reached outskirts of Neumarket at 15.00 hrs. Raining at 18.00, soup at 23.00.
6.04.45 Fall in at 02.00, marched in rain until 06.00, slept in pine wood in rain. S/C 10.00. Reached Berching Stadt. Issued bread, honey, tinned meat. Traded for bottles and matches. Slept church.
7.04.45. Left column just after Beilingries [Beilngries] bathing pool.
8.04.45. Lift to top of hill, walked on alone, caught up with column. Frosty.
9.04.45. With column all day. Issued parcels at Neustadt. Bridge mined.
10.04.45. Stayed near Neustadt all day with sick Lou, Joe, Darky/Darby Ben. Wizard farm, barn, eggs, all our own.
11.04.45. French parcel. Bullock wagon for 11km. break at midday, forts? fortress bombing all round us.
12.04.45 Stayed in same village. Lou Green, Joe, Darky/Darby, Ben, Chris & pal. Orchard.
13.04.45 Rejoined main party on the road, marched 5km.
14.04.45 – 15.04.45 Stayed put. Old lady “no trade”.
16.04.45 Marched 10km to Pfeffenhousen.[sic] Kiwi and myself. Large spud issue.
17.04.45 Marched 10km. to Obermunchen. 3 eggs. 20 french fags.
18.04.45. left Obermunchen 17.00, marched 7km. to Neider Munchen.
19.04.45. Stayed at Neider Munchen. Acquired a new bottle.
20.04.45. Marched 8km, arrived Moosburg Stalag.
PART 3.
KRIEGIE NO MORE.
[page break]
29.04.45. Fighting heard at 09.00. Stars and Stripes raised in camp at 12.30. Tanks and jeeps in compound at 14.30.
01.05.45. Issue white bread, flour, good soup. Kiwi acquired frying pan, rhubarb.
02.05.45. Rice and rhubarb pancakes.
03.05.45. Doughnuts.
04.05.45. Into town. Mirror, pictures, rhubarb, potatoes. Killed pig.
05.05.45. Wood from house. Celery onions and parsnips acquired. Pork shop and chips for breakfast.
06.05.45. Pork chops, roast and mashed spuds, parsnips. Plum pudding. Killed a rabbit. Announced 10,000 leaving tomorrow (Moosburg – 80,000 detained).
07.05.45 Breakfast pork chop & chips. Deloused. Rabbit stew. Corned beef hash, prunes, [underlined] tooth-paste blancmange. [/underlined]
08.05.45. Kiwi and Tom left at 05.30. Fried eggs, spam, spuds, bread, cereal. Victory fudge. Moved out at 5 minutes notice; left camp at 13.15. Convoy to Landshut [deleted one letter] airfield Back to Landshut, in billet 18.00. Krations, bouillon, corned[?] pork roll, plum pudding. GERMAN BEER!!!
09.05.45. Ham and eggs, toast & marmalade. Airfield all day Landshut. Bouillon, corned pork load, spam and tomatoes.
10.05.45. Shredded wheat, ham and eggs. LT. HARRINGTON DAKOTA.B09.35 2.25 to Rheims. Lorry to camp. Meal, corned beef peas potatoes, peaches, coffee. Lorry to Jurincourt. W/O BELIVEAU, Lancaster 18.25/01.35 hrs. to Westcott.
11.05.45. 00.30 lorry to Leighton Buzzard. Train to Cosford. Registration, telegram. Bath, breakfast, bed. 14.00 – 17.00 Doctor, clothing etc.
[page break]
Footnotes.
Kassell – HQ for WEHRKREIS IX, & local sub-camp of Dachau concentration camp; provided forced labour for Henschel facilities. SEVERELY BOMBED.
Oberursel – North West of [deleted] Franf [/deleted] Frankfurt, east of Kronberg. U.S. & G B Airmen passed through, interrogated & “processed” into P.O.W. system. “Transit camp of Luftwaffe”, in town. Name shortened to Dulag Luft, or Dulag.
Neidernhausen – Allies advance in ’44 due to strategic rail importance. Heavily bombed especially on 22.02.45.
14/4/45. Old lady no trade – Geoff told me they had tried to barter with her in exchange for food, but she refused. Maybe terrified of recriminations?
Moosburg – Stalag (POW camp). Originally planned to hold 10,000 prisoners, by end of war some 80,000 detained.
[deleted] Keirgie [/deleted] Kriegie – slang for Allied POW in WWII German POW (internment) camp.
Jurincourt – abandoned (now) military airfield, in Aisne region of France. Built by French air force before WWII, grass runways. Taken over and expanded to become one of the main Luftwaffe air bases during German occupation – fighter and bomber planes. Seized by Allies in ’44, became major USAF base for fighter, bomber, & transport units, for remainder of war.
[page break]
Hasderf / Hansdorf )
Stamlayer /Staumlager ) no trace on internet for these spellings.
11/4/45 “forts bombing - ? Fortress planes?
[page break]
Three months after repatriation Geoff was flying again, 35 Squadron 8 Group, Grarely. [?] He flew three missions in Lancasters, 2 with F/Lt. Ashwell, one with Sq/Ld[?] Baldwin DFC, DFM, DSO.
In September 45, he flew twice as a passenger from Graveley – Tibbenham – Berlin, with F/Lt. England and returning Berlin – Tibbenham – Graveley.
His total Daylight flying time shows 289.40
His total Nightime [sic] flying time was 381.15
Total flying hours 670.55
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
Geoffrey North rewritten account of being shot down and time as prisoner of war
Description
An account of the resource
A day by day account consisting of three parts. Part one covers his being shot down on 21 February 1945, his capture and journey to prisoner of war camp arriving 15 March 1945 including an mention that his train was bombed by Marauders. Part two covers forced march from prisoner of war camp 'Kreigsgefaninenlager der Luft 3' from 4 April 1945 to to Moosburg on 20 April 1945 and includes account of being strafed by Thunderbolts. Part three covers liberation by United States army on 29 April 1945 to his repatriation by C-47 and Lancaster on 10 May 1945. In part 3 he writes enthusiastically about the meals and food. The account is written lined paper. At the end footnotes concerning Kassel, Oberursel, Neidenhausen, Moosburg, Kriegie and Juvincourt. Followed by some research notes and descriptions of Geoffrey North's flying after his repatriation.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six page handwritten document
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
BNorthGJNorthGJv2
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
United States Army
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Bocholt
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Oberursel
Germany--Eppstein im Taunus
Germany--Neustadt an der Weinstrasse
Germany--Moosburg an der Isar
Germany--Landshut
France
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Bedfordshire
England--Shropshire
England--Cambridgeshire
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-02-21
1945-02
1945-03
1945-04-04
1945-04
1945-05
1945-05-10
1945-05-11
1945-09
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoffrey North
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
Anne-Marie Watson
Emily Jennings
35 Squadron
bale out
C-47
Dulag Luft
Lancaster
military living conditions
Operation Exodus (1945)
prisoner of war
RAF Cosford
RAF Graveley
shot down
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/939/25664/LMackieGA855966v1.2.pdf
fcf6fb7f9ed67b82fbba69f08697fa3d
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
Mackie, George
George Alexander Mackie
G A Mackie
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with George Mackie (1920 - 2020, 855966 Royal Air Force) with his log books, diary extract, list of operations, battle order and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 15 and 214 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-22
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
Mackie, GA
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
George Alexander Mackie’s pilots flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book one, for George Alexander Mackie, covering the period from 17 September 1940 to 30 September 1942. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Meir, RAF Cranfield, RAF Bassingbourne, RAF Wyton, RAF Waterbeach and RAF Castle Combe. Aircraft flown were Magister, Master, Oxford, Wellington, Anson, Stirling, Tiger Moth, Heinkel 111 and Lancaster. He flew a total of 22 operations, 2 daylight and 15 night operations with 15 Squadron and 5 night operations with 1651 Conversion Unit. Targets were Lille, Frankfurt, Arques, La Rochelle, Berlin, Mannheim, Stettin, Nuremberg, Brest, Pilsen, Kiel, Dusseldorf, Emdem, Hamburg, Cologne, Cape de Antifer and Bremen. He flew as a second pilot on operations with Pilot Officer Jones. The log book also contains photos of aircraft, crews and sketches.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
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.
Format
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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
LMackieGA855966v1
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Wiltshire
France--Arques (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Brest
France--La Rochelle
France--Lille
France--Normandy
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nuremberg
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-07-06
1941-07-07
1941-07-08
1941-07-12
1941-07-23
1941-07-25
1941-07-26
1941-08-25
1941-08-26
1941-09-19
1941-09-20
1941-10-12
1941-10-13
1941-10-24
1941-10-25
1941-10-28
1941-10-29
1941-10-30
1941-10-31
1941-11-01
1941-11-02
1941-11-15
1941-11-16
1941-11-25
1941-11-26
1941-11-27
1941-11-28
1942-01-10
1942-01-11
1942-01-14
1942-01-15
1942-05-30
1942-05-31
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1942-06-22
1942-06-23
1942-07-28
1942-07-29
1942-09-14
1942-09-15
1942-09-16
1942-09-17
11 OTU
15 Squadron
1651 HCU
aircrew
Anson
arts and crafts
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
crash
Flying Training School
He 111
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
love and romance
Magister
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Castle Combe
RAF Cranfield
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Wyton
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/939/25665/LMackieGA855966v2.1.pdf
373629f09a105028803c922e214a5645
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
Mackie, George
George Alexander Mackie
G A Mackie
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with George Mackie (1920 - 2020, 855966 Royal Air Force) with his log books, diary extract, list of operations, battle order and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 15 and 214 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-22
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
Mackie, GA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[photograph]
[photograph]
Gm
[page break]
[assessment form]
([symbol]4690 – 117) Wt. 51983 – 5030 48,500 4/40 T.S. 700 FORM 414 (A)
[underlined] SUMMARY of FLYING and ASSESSMENTS FOR YEAR COMMENCING 1st [/underlined] August [symbol][underlined] 19 [/underlined] 43
([symbol] For Officer, Insert “JUNE” : For Airman Pilot, Insert “AUGUST.”)
S.E. AIRCRAFT Day Night M.E. AIRCRAFT Day Night TOTAL for year GRAND TOTAL All Service Flying
DUAL 81.00
PILOT 1070.00
PASSENGER – – – – 35.00
[underlined] ASSESSMENT of ABILITY [/underlined]
(To be assessed as:– Exceptional, Above the Average, Average, or Below the Average)
(i) AS A HB [symbol] PILOT Above the Average.
(ii) AS PILOT-NAVIGATOR/NAVIGATOR Above the Average.
(iii) IN BOMBING
(iv) IN AIR GUNNERY
[symbol] Insert :– “F.”, “L.B.”, “G.R.”, “F.B.”, etc.
[underlined] ANY POINTS IN FLYING OR AIRMANSHIP WHICH SHOULD BE WATCHED [/underlined]
– NIL –
Date 2nd Oct. 1943
Signature [signature] W/C
Officer Commanding 1651 Con Unit.
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
[page break]
[photograph]
[page break]
[leave pass form]
SO.P. FLYING CONTROL
[underlined] R.A.F. Sub Form 295. [/underlined]
[stamp] Stamp of Station not Unit. [inserted] 35/89 [/inserted]
ROYAL AIR FORCE.
Monthly LEAVE PASS FORM 295
[deleted] This Pass is/is not valid for Northern Ireland and/or Eire [/deleted]
Station WITCHFORD Official No. 2016392
Rank Cpl Name DEAN
Form 1250 No. 1231123 has permission to be
absent from [deleted] his [/deleted][inserted] her [/inserted] quarters from 13.00 hrs on 18.11.43 to 13.00 hrs on 19.11.43 1943. for the purpose of proceeding on [deleted][underlined] leave [/underlined][/deleted] [inserted] SO.P. [/inserted] to NEWMARKET
[deleted] Pass [/deleted]
Date 16.11.43. J.A. Spring A/S/O. for Commanding Officer
[signature] Strike out the words inapplicable.
[continued on duplicate page]
[sick form]
[inserted] Pilot 214 Sqd. Chedburgh Bury St. Edmonds. [/inserted]
[underlined] CONFIDENTIAL [/underlined]
SICK REPORT
MEDICAL INSPECTION REPORT
R.A.F. Form 624.
Unit
Station [indecipherable word] Sands
Date 30/11/ 1943
Official No. G45866
Rank W/O
Name and Initials MACKIE. [inserted] (member of aircrew) [/inserted]
Whether a [missing letters]ulter or if [missing letters]or duty [symbol]
Disease Abrasion and bruising of [symbol] upper arm due to injury by shrapnel. E.A.
Medical Officer’s Remarks [indecipherable words]
Disposal [indecipherable word]
[symbol] Strike out whichever is not applicable.
[symbol] State nature of duty for which warned. In the case of [missing word] for medical inspection the reason, such as “joining the station,” etc. should be stated against their duties.
Orderly N.C.O.’s Signature
Medical Officer’s Signature Dr. Andrews HW
WI. 23194/1307. 205031. 6/42. V.B. 51-2700.
[page break]
[continued on duplicate page]
[newspaper cutting]
[missing letter]LANE KILLS FIVE CHILDREN
CRASHED ON SMALL FARM-HOUSE
Five children, aged from 1 to 9 years, were killed when an aircraft on Wednesday night crashed into Cliffe House, a small farmhouse near Amble, Northumberland. One of the crew was saved. The farmhouse is occupied by Mr. William Robson.
The children were Sylvia Robson (9), Ethel (7), Marjorie (5), William Matthew (3), and Sheila (1). They were in bed at the time following a party, and the father and mother and two friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. Rowall, of Pilston, Amble, were injured but not seriously.
The survivor of the crew said that the plane had been experiencing trouble, but the pilot managed to keep it in the air until he was safely over [missing word] town, but after that was unable to maintain control and crashed into the farmhouse.
The airman saved owed his life to the courage and promptitude of Mr. Rowall, who rushed out and pulled him from the ‘plane though the man’s clothes were on fire. He rolled him on the ground and put the fire out.
With the children’s deaths Mr. and Mrs. Robson have lost the whole of their family.
Mr. James Rowell told a Press Association reporter last night: “We heard a ‘plane flying very low. I shouted, “Look out!” and we all threw ourselves on the floor. The house collapsed above our heads, and, looking upwards we saw the sky. Mrs. Robson shouted “Oh my poor bairns!” and tried to make her way towards the stairs, which had been blown away.” The children’s partly-charred bodies were later recovered.
Mr. and Mrs. Robson would have been in bed when the ‘plane crashed if they had not been visited by the Rowells. Mr. Rowell said: “We are the luckiest people in the world to be alive to-day. The chairs we were sitting on were smashed, and the walls in that part of the house are not more than 3ft. high now.
[page break]
[sketch]
[inserted][missing word] Pontoon [missing word] Marked Dec 1943 [/inserted]
[inserted] Pedro (Honeyman) Downham Mkt December 1943 [/inserted]
[inserted] my Flight engineer South American [/inserted]
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
Dick Gunton
Flight engineer
(died. Atkinson’s disease c. 1995)
[photograph]
? / MG owned by Gm
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
[photograph]
[page break]
F/LT Vern L Scantleton DFC War Experience 2
On the 11th March 1944, I was called to the Wing Commanders office and told that I was to take Flight Lieutenant Cam Lye, a pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and Roy Forbes, my navigator and a skeleton crew and go to Langford Lodge R.A.F. Station in Northern Ireland and fly back a B-17 aircraft. This on the surface looked to be a simple and routine exercise. Pilot Officer George Mackie and crew were to fly us over and wait until we had taken off which was to be the following morning. At this stage it is worth giving a few comments on George Mackie. George was one of the great characters of the Royal Air Force. In 1940, he was studying architecture at Edinburgh University when he joined the R.A.F. and gained his wings as a pilot. George was well read, witty, highly intelligent and one of the few to have had his log book endorsed as an exceptional pilot.
--
On the debit side, he was very bad tempered, argumentative, sarcastic, “red-ragger” and a true Scot in that he had an intense dislike for the British. He did little to conceal his various dislikes and thus paid a high price as he was only commissioned in 1944. With his ability, he should have won a commission in 1940 and with the passing of time and the loss of pilots, he could have reasonably have expected to have risen to the rank of at least Wing Commander by the end of the war. George apparently has not changed and fifty years later I was to read a humorous letter that he had written to Roy Forbes in New Zealand in which in part, he refers to the fact that his unmarried daughter lives in Spain and collects cats, dogs and men in that order. I well remember the trip across the Irish Sea as it was a beautiful day and as we approached the Isle of Man, George took the aircraft down to zero feet and skimmed across the waves. This is a very dangerous stunt as water is very deceptive and a moment’s inattention can put the aircraft into the drink. As we approached the Isle of Man, George raised the nose of the aircraft and we slid across the Island at tree top height, no doubt frightening the hell out of animals and humans alike.
[page break]
[photograph]
[page break]
[photograph]
[page break]
[underlined] No. 214 (F.M.S.) Squadron. [/underlined]
[underlined] BATTLE ORDER. [/underlined]
[underlined] 21st May, 1944 [/underlined].
Pilot – “N”(386) P/O Mackie & F/S. Hill. – “B”(382) W/O Morrison
Nav. – F/O O’Leary – F/Sgt. Mitchell
Wo/Air – P/O Campbell – F/Sgt. Thompson
A.B. – F/Sgt. Morris – Sgt. Finch
M.U.G. – F/Sgt. Flack – Sgt. Mael
A.G. – Sgt. Foll – Sgt. Wing
F/Eng. – Sgt. Honeyman – Sgt. Carr
Ball Gnr. – W/O Taylor
Spec. Op. – Sgt. Hoffman – Sgt. Lloyd
Pilot – “A”(384) F/O Corke – “H”(388) P/O Gilbert & F/Sgt. Archibald
Nav. – Sgt. Podger – F/O Knight
Wo/Air – Sgt. Bonner – F/O Crossman
A.B. – F/O Foskett – P/O McGilchrist
M.U.G. – Sgt. Roose – Sgt. Boyle
A.G. – F/Sgt. Boanas – F/Lt. Sharpe, AFC.
F/Eng. – Sgt. Barber – Sgt. Pugh
Ball Gnr. – Sgt. Delisle – F/Sgt. West
Sped. [sic] Op. – Sgt. Stelling – Sgt. Haveland
[underlined] CERTIFIED FLIGHT OVER FOUR HOURS DURATION [/underlined].
Briefing . . . . . . . . . . 18.00 hrs.
Meals . . . to be notified.
Officer i/c Operations: W/Cmdr. McGlinn.
[signature] F/Lt.
for Wing Commander, Commanding
No. 214 (F.M.S.) Squadron.
[page break]
From : 169724, P/O G.A. Mackie.
To : Wing Commander, Commanding No. 214 (F.M.S./B.S.) Squadron.
Date : 27th June, 1944.
Sir,
I have the honour to forward this [deleted] my [/deleted] application for your consideration.
My crew, undermentioned, and myself, wish to complete our tour of operations with a 3 Group Lancaster Squadron. The reason for the application is that the crew have been with 214 Squadron for 12 months now, and have done on an average only 16 operations each. I myself have been with 214 Squadron since 2nd October, 1943, and have done only 11 operations. (Second tour.) The navigator has been trained on H2S.
Nav. F/O O’Leary [inserted] .156452. [/inserted]
B/A. F/S. Morris [inserted] 1338960. [/inserted]
F/Eng. F/S. Honeyman [inserted] 1394447. [/inserted]
W/Op. P/O Campbell [inserted] 169395. [/inserted]
R/G. W/O Taylor [inserted] A.410278. [/inserted]
M.U.G. F/S. Fell [inserted] 141058595. [/inserted]
I have the honour to be, Sir, you obedient servant,
P/O
[page break]
[photograph]
SR386
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
? Gunton
[photograph]
[page break]
To : O.C., No. 214 (F.M.S.) (B.S.) Squadron.
From : 169724 F/O G.A. Mackie.
Date : 19th August, 1944.
[underlined] Aerobatics over Moreton-on-Marsh [/underlined].
Sir,
I have the honour to report that on the night of 6/7 August I was diverted to Moreton-on-March while returning from an operational flight in Fortress aircraft Mk.11, HB.763.
I took off for base at mid-day on the 7th. After doing a normal circuit I lost height over the airfield, where the only activity was one Stirling aircraft taxying on the perimeter track. I then pulled up into a climbing turn to port, followed by a climbing turn to starboard. I then continued climbing on course.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
[page break]
[photograph]
? – Moorby – Fell – Taylor? – F/O Wells
W/O Taylor? NZ – ‘Pedro’ Honeyman Engineer – Gm – O’Leary Navigator – W/O Hoffman?
[photograph]
[page break]
[underlined] No. 214 (F.M[missing letter]) (B.S.) Squadron [/underlined].
[underlined] BATTLE ORDER 22nd AUGUST, 1944 [underlined].
[underlined] “G” (HB.774) [/underlined]
Pilot F/O Wright
Nav F/S Mulligger
WO/Air F/S Bates
A.B. W/O Sherbourne
M.U.G. W/O Robson
A/G F/S Southgate
F/Eng. Sgt. Williams
Wst. G. F/S Williams
Wst. G. Sgt. Barrett
Sp. Op. Sgt. Bayliss.
[underlined] “T” (HB.763) [/underlined]
Pilot W/O Lee
Nav W/O Gibbons
WO/Air Sgt. Smith
A.B. Sgt. Pitchford
M.U.G. Sgt. Barkess
A/G Sgt. Williamson
F/Eng. Sgt. Curtis
Wst. G. F/S Boag, DFM.
Wst. G. Sgt. Caulfield
Sp. Op. Sgt. McNamara.
[underlined] “B” (HB.788) [/underlined]
Pilot F/Lt. Bray
Nav F/O Blyth
WO/Air F/S Roberts
A.B. F/O Murphy
M.U.G. P/O McGarvis
A/G P/O Lyall
F/Eng. P/O Sainsbury
Wst. G. W/O Moore
Wst. G. F/O Bryant
Sp. Op. F/O Lang.
[underlined] “C” (HB.780) [/underlined]
Pilot F/O Bettles
Nav. F/O Evans
WO/Air F/O Kinzett
A.B. F/O McGilchrist
M.U.G. P/O Connolly
A/G F/S Smyth
F/Eng. F/O Cann
Wst. G. Sgt. Chalk
Wst. G. --
Sp. Op. Sgt. Peters.
[underlined] “Q” (HB.772) [/underlined]
Pilot F/O Rix
Nav. F/S Sargeant
WO/Air F/S Irvine
A.B. F/O Lovel-Smith
M.U.G. Sgt. Cuttance
A/G Sgt. Douglas
F/Eng. Sgt. Pond
Wst. G. Sgt. Gamble
Wst. G. Sgt. Burgess
Sp. Op. F/O Darracott.
[underlined] “R” (HB.765) [/underlined]
Pilot F/Lt. Lye
Nav. F/S Stemp
WO/Air F/S Ord-Hume
A.B. F/S Braithwaite
M.U.G. F/S Stokes
A/G Sgt. Knowlton
F/Eng. F/S Currie
Wst. G. F/O Ufton
Wst. G. F/S Lumley
Sp. Op. Sgt. Mackintosh.
[underlined] “D” (SR.378) [/underlined]
Pilot. F/O Mackie
Nav. F/O O’Leary
WO/Air. W/O Mooreby
A.B. F/S Morris
M.U.G. W/O Flack
A.G. F/O Wells, DFM.
F/Eng. F/S Honeyman
Wst. G. W/O Taylor
Wst. G. F/S Fell
Sp. Op. P/O Hoffman.
[underlined] “F” (SR.383) [/underlined]
Pilot. W/O Archibald
Nav. Sgt. Cottrell
WO/Air. F/S Shepherd
A.B. W/O Harriott
M.U.G. F/S Hodgson
A.G. Sgt. Larcombe
F/Eng. F/S Richardson
Wst. G. F/S Phillips
Wst. G. F/S Earle, DFM.
Sp. Op. Sgt. Herbert.
[underlined] CERTIFIED FLIGHT OVER FOUR HOURS DURATION. [/underlined]
Meals 17.45
Transport 18.15
Briefing 18.30
Officer i/c Operations – W/Cdr. D.J. McGlinn.
[underlined] NOTE. [/underlined]
THERE WILL BE NO ALTERATION TO THE BATTLE ORDER WITHOUT AUTHORISATION BY THE SQUADRON [underlined] COMMANDER OR HIS DEPUTY. [/underlined]
Keith EW Evans F/O
For Wing Commander, Commanding,
[underlined] No. 214 (F.M.S.) (B.S.) Squadron [/underlined].
[page break]
[underlined] Return of Operational Aircrew as at 16.00 hrs. on 31st August, 1944 [/underlined].
[underlined] “A” FLIGHT [/underlined].
Pilot F/Lt. Bray 22.
Nav. F/O Blyth 20.
WO/Air F/S. Roberts 19.
A.B. F/O Murphy 20.
M.U.G. P/O McGarvie 20.
R/Gnr. P/O Lyall 19.
F/Eng. P/O Sainsbury 19.
W/Gnr. P/O Moore (30)13.
W/Gnr. F/O Bryant (31) 8.
Pilot F/Lt. [inserted]£[/inserted] Peden 25 1/2.
Nav. Sgt. Mather 23 1/2.
WO/Air F/S. Stanley, DFM. 19 1/2.
A.B. F/O Waters 25 1/2.
M.U.G. F/S. Lester 21 .
R/Gnr. W/O Phillips 22 1/2.
F/Eng. F/S. Bailey 22 1/2.
W/Gnr. F/S. Walker 14 1/2.
W/Gnr. F/S. Hepton 12 1/2.
Pilot F/Lt. Scantleton 19 .
Nav. F/O Forbes 20 .
WO/Air W/O McDonald 20 .
A.B. Sgt. Scott 19 .
M.U.G. F/S Hewitt 14 1/2.
R/Gnr. W/O Connolly (30)12 1/2.
F/Eng. Sgt. Nuttall 18 1/2.
W/Gnr. F/S. Taylor 17 1/2.
W/Gnr. P/O Milton (18)10 1/2.
Pilot F/O Corke 12 .
Nav. F/S. Podger 10 .
WO/Air F/S Bonner 9 .
A.B. F/O Foskett 10 .
M.U.G. F/S. Roose 10 1/2.
R/Gnr. W/O Boanas (24)12 .
F/Eng. F/S. Barber 10 1/2.
W/Gnr. W/O Delisle 9 .
W/Gnr. Sgt. Gregory 5 1/2.
Pilot F/O Lawson 19 1/2.
Nav. P/O Chappell 19 1/2.
WO/Air F/S. Atkinson 17 1/2.
A.B. W/O Halldorson 18 1/2.
M.U.G. P/O Knight 17 .
R/Gnr. W/O McCann 17 .
F/Eng. Sgt. Anstee 16 1/2.
W/Gnr. F/O Hawkins (21)15 .
W/Gnr. W/O Gill (34) 8 1/2.
Pilot F/Lt Gilbert 19 .
Nav. F/O Knight 22 .
WO/Air F/O Crossman 19 1/2.
A.B. P/O Watts (29) 8 1/2.
M.U.G. W/O Boyle 23 .
R/Gnr. F/O Claxton 17 .
F/Eng. F/S. Pugh 20 .
W/Gnr. W/O West 19 1/2.
W/Gnr. P/O Mardell (27)10 .
Pilot F/O [inserted]£[/inserted] Jackson 14 .
Nav. F/S. Harding 14 .
WO/Air F/S. Pollard 14 .
A.B. W/O Picciano 14 .
M.U.G. F/S. Hardie 16 .
R/Gnr. F/S. Bright 14 .
F/Eng. F/S. Bartlett 14 .
W/Gnr. P/O Jones, DFM. (27)10 .
W/Gnr. Sgt. Fletcher 3 1/2.
Pilot F/O Wright 16 .
Nav. F/S. Mullenger 16 .
WO/Air F/S. Bates 16 .
A.B. W/O Sherbourne 15 1/2.
M.U.G. W/O Robson (28) 10
R/Gnr. F/S. Southgate 17 .
F/Eng. Sgt. Williams 17 .
W/Gnr. F/S. Williams 17 .
W/Gnr. Sgt. Barrett 5 1/2.
Pilot W/O [inserted]£[/inserted] Archibald 10 1/2.
Nav F/S. Cottrell 10 1/2.
WO/Air F/S. Shepherd 10 1/2.
A.B. W/O Harriott 12 1/2.
M.U.G. F/S. Hodgson 10 .
R/Gnr. F/S. Larcombe 10 1/2.
F/Eng. F/S. Richardson 4 1/2.
W/Gnr. F/S. Phillips (26) 7 1/2.
W/Gnr. W/O Earle, DFM. (28) 5 1/2.
Pilot F/O Bettles (21) 15 1/2.
Nav. F/O Evans 19 .
WO/Air F/O Kinsett 19 1/2.
A.B. F/O McGilchrist 25 1/2.
M.U.G. P/O Connolly 23 1/2.
R/Gnr. F/S. Smyth 24 1/2.
F/Eng. F/O Cann 19 1/2.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Chalk 5 1/2.
W/Gnr.
Pilot F/Lt. Savage 3 1/2.
Nav. F/S. Pike 1 1/2.
WO/Air Sgt. Rishworth 1 1/2.
A.B. F/O Craven 1 .
M.U.G. Sgt. Astbury 1 1/2.
R/Gnr. Sgt. Kenney 1 1/2.
F/Eng. Sgt. Lee 1 1/2.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Judge 1 1/2.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Hamblett 1 1/2.
[underlined] “B” FLIGHT [/underlined].
Pilot S/L. Miller, DFC. (36)7 .
Nav. F/Lt. Graham, DFC. (34)8 1/2.
WO/Air W/O Lancashire (34)6 1/2.
A.B. F/Lt. Taffs (35)7 .
M.U.G. W/O Burn (29)7 1/2.
R/Gnr.
F/Eng. F/S. Cox 7 .
W/Gnr. W/O Rogers (25)7 .
W/Gnr. Sgt. Finnigan 3 1/2.
Pilot F/Lt. Puterbough 21 .
Nav. F/Lt. Dickson 18 1/2.
WO/Air F/S. Wright 19 .
A.B. W/O Joyce 18 .
M.U.G.
R/Gnr. W/O Bowman 20 .
F/Eng. Sgt. Parkington 19 .
W/Gnr. Sgt. Logan 15 .
W/Gnr. F/S. Brown (25) 7 .
Pilot F/Lt. [inserted]£[/inserted] Lye 14 1/2.
Nav. F/S. Stemp 14 1/2.
WO/Air F/S. Ord-Hume 14 1/2.
A.B. F/S. Braithwaite 14 1/2.
M.U.G. F/S. Stokes 15 .
R/Gnr. F/S. Knowlton 14 1/2.
F/Eng. F/S. Currie 15 .
W/Gnr. F/O Ufton (31) 8 .
W/Gnr. F/S. Lumley (28) 8 .
Pilot F/O Bayliss 16 1/2.
Nav. F/S. Creech 15 1/2
WO/Air F/S. Charlton 15 1/2.
A.B. W/O Crerar 15 1/2.
M.U.G. F/S. Edmonds 15 1/2.
R/Gnr. Sgt. Bailey 14 1/2.
F/Eng. Sgt. Carter 14 1/2.
W/Gnr. F/S. Wilson (13) 7 .
W/Gnr. Sgt. Christie 10 1/2.
Pilot F/O Rawlin 24 1/2.
Nav F/O Owen 20 .
WO/Air F/S. Bonnet 22 1/2.
A.B. F/S. Andrew 21 1/2.
M.U.G. Sgt. Ward 22 1/2.
R/Gnr. F/S. Fothergill 22 1/2.
F/Eng. F/S. Pottle 22 .
W/Gnr. W/O Stewart, DFM (25) 6 .
W/Gnr. W/O Heath (26) 8 .
Pilot F/O Mackie (20)16 1/2.
Nav. F/O O’Leary 21 1/2.
WO/Air W/O Mooreby 14 1/2.
A.B. F/S. Morris 23 1/2.
M.U.G. W/O Flack 21 .
R/Gnr. F/O Wells, DFM. (27) 5 1/2.
F/Eng. F/S. Honeyman 23 1/2.
W/Gnr. W/O Taylor 25 1/2.
W/Gnr. F/S. Fell 22 1/2.
Pilot F/O Morrison 15 .
Nav. F/S. Mitchell 15 .
WO/Air W/O Thompson 15 .
A.B. Sgt. Finch 15 .
M.U.G. W/O Lyon (29) 10 1/2.
R/Gnr. F/S. Wing 16 .
F/Eng. F/Sgt. Carr 12 .
W/Gnr. F/S. Mael 15 .
W/Gnr. F/S. Dutton (25) 7 1/2.
Pilot F/O Hill 15 .
Nav. P/O Honsinger 15 .
WO/Air [inserted]F[/inserted] /Sgt. Goodwin 15 .
A.B. F/O Harrison 14 .
M.U.G. F/S. Ives 15 .
R/Gnr. F/S. Andrews 17 1/2.
F/Eng. F/S. Gregory 15 .
W/Gnr. W/O Clark (28) 7 1/2.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Brown 9 1/2.
Pilot F/O Rix 3.
Nav. F/S. Sargeant 1.
WO/Air W/O. Irvine 1.
A.B. F/O Lovell-Smith 1.
M.U.G. [inserted]F[/inserted] /Sgt. Cuttance 1.
R/Gnr. [inserted]F[/inserted] /Sgt. Douglas 1.
F/Eng. Sgt. Pound 1.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Gamble 1.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Burgess 1.
Pilot F/Lt. Filloul (30) 2.
Nav. P/O Dodds 2.
WO/Air Sgt. Birkby 2.
A.B. F/O Dack 2.
M.U.G. Sgt. Benson 2.
R/Gnr. Sgt. Billington 2.
F/Eng. Sgt. Wilson 2.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Dobson 2.
W/Gnr. Sgt. Cooper 2.
[underlined] SQUADRON H.Q. PERSONNEL [/underlined].
W/Cmdr. D.D. Rogers 9. [underlined] Squadron Commander [/underlined]. F/Lt. D.J. Furner, DFC. (24) 7 1/2. [underlined] Navigation Officer [/underlined]. F/Lt. V.V. Doy (30) 5 1/2. ([indecipherable word]) [underlined] Signals Leader [/underlined].
F/O E.J. Phillips, DFC. (18) 11. [underlined] Gunnery Leader [/underlined]. F/Lt. R. Gunton (28) 9. [underlined] F/Eng. Leader [/underlined].
([underlined] Continued over [/underlined].)
[page break]
[newspaper cutting]
D.F.C. FOR CUPAR OFFICER
Flying Officer George A. Mackie (24), son of Mr and Mrs D.G. Mackie, Monreith, Cupar, who has been awarded the D.F.C., was educated at Bell Baxter School.
Prior to joining up in 1940 he was a student at Dundee College of Art. His father was colonel and O.C. of 1st Fife Home Guard.
Flying Officer Mackie, who has taken part in many operations against the enemy, in the course of which he has displayed the utmost fortitude, courage and devotion to duty, was commissioned in 1943, after service in the ranks.
[page break]
[assessment form]
([symbol]4690 – 117) Wt. 51983 – 5030 48,500 4/40 T.S. 700 FORM 414 (A)
[underlined] SUMMARY of FLYING and ASSESSMENTS FOR [deleted] YEAR [/deleted][inserted] 214 Squadron [/inserted] COMMENCING 1st [/underlined] October 1943 [symbol] 15 Sept [symbol][underlined] 19 [/underlined] 44
([symbol] For Officer, Insert “JUNE” : For Airman Pilot, Insert “AUGUST”)
S.E. AIRCRAFT Day Night M.E. AIRCRAFT Day Night TOTAL for year GRAND TOTAL All Service Flying
DUAL – – 1.30 –
PILOT – – 139.30 111.00 252.30 1409.40
PASSENGER – – – –
[underlined] ASSESSMENT of ABILITY [/underlined]
(To be assessed as:– Exceptional, Above the Average, Average, or Below the Average)
(i) AS A H.B. [symbol] PILOT Above the Average.
(ii) AS PILOT-NAVIGATOR/NAVIGATOR Above the Average.
(iii) IN BOMBING N.A.
(iv) IN AIR GUNNERY N.A.
[symbol] Insert :– “F.”, “L.B.”, “G.R.”, “F.B.”, etc.
[underlined] ANY POINTS IN FLYING OR AIRMANSHIP WHICH SHOULD BE WATCHED [/underlined]
Date 15 September 1944
Signature DD Rogers W/Cmdr.
Officer Commanding No 214 Squadron.
[newspaper cutting]
R.A.F. Awards
The following R.A.F. awards are announced to Scottish officers and airmen who have displayed the utmost fortitude, courage, and devotion to duty.
DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS. – Flying Officer George Alexander Mackie (Cupar), Flying Officer Thomas Newlands [indecipherable word] (Edinburgh), Pilot Officer Thomas Bowley [indecipherable word] Pilot Officer George [indecipherable words], and Warrant Officer John Wright (Glasgow).
[page break]
[stamp] SECRET
[stamp] IMMEDIATE
[inserted] 3310/6/2 [/inserted]
[inserted] 33/510
550
oc214 [/inserted]
RAY – SNO –[inserted] Snoring [/inserted] – FLS [inserted] Foulsham [/inserted] – OUL [inserted] oulton [/inserted] – NCK – MSM – SNG
V EDR NR HBC 140/12 ‘OP’
[stamp]12 SEP 1944 R.A.F. OULTON
FROM HQ BOMBER COMMAND 121840B
TO AIR MINISTRY WHITEHALL NOS 1 3 4 5 6 8 19 92 93 100 GROUPS
AND ALL BOMBER COMMAND BASES AND STATIONS IN THESE GROUPS
1 2 3 BOMBARDMENT DIVISION
INFO ADMIRALTY
SECRET QQY BT
[underlined] BOMBER COMMAND INTELLIGENTCE NARRATIVE OF OPERATIONS NO 901 SECRE[missing letter][/underlined]
[underlined] PART II. [/underlined]
[underlined] NIGHT 11/12TH SEPTEMBER [/underlined].
DARMSTADT. 5/5 LANCASTERS OF 1 GROUP, 204/221 LANCASTERS AND 14/14 MOSQUITOES OF 5 GROUP ATTACKED IN CLEAR WEATHER WITH SLIGHT HAZE. MARKING WAS PUNCTUAL AND WELL PLACED AND BOMBING IS REPORTED AS VERY CONCENTRATED. FIRES QUICKLY GAINING SUCH A HOLD THAT THE ENTIRE TARGET AREA BECAME ENVELOPED IN A MASS OF FLAME, THE GLOW OF WHICH WAS VISIBLE 100 MILES AWAY. SLIGHT TO MODERATE [deleted] HEAC [/deleted] HEAVY FLAK WAS ENCOUNTERED, BUT FIGHTER ACTIVITY WAS EXPERIENCED THROUGHOUT THE ROUTE EAST OF 5 DEGREES EAST. PARTICULARLY IN THE TARGET AREA.
12 LANCASTERS ARE MISSING.
BERLIN. 41/47 MOSQUITOES OF 8 (PF) GROUP BOMBER FOR 21,000 FT. TO 28,000 FT. IN GOOD WEATHER CONDITIONS. T.I’S WERE WELL CONCENTRATED AND BOMBING WAS CARRIED OUT WITHIN THE MARKED AREA. ONE LARGE EXPLOSION AND SEVERAL SMALL FIRES ARE REPORTED. DEFENCES WERE MODERATE TO INTENSE HEAVY FLAK.
1 MOSQUITO IF MISSING.
STEENWIJK/HAVELTE A/F. 3/7 MOSQUITOES OF 8 (PF) GROUP ATTACKED AND BOMBED FROM 30,000 FT IN CLEAR WEATHER. THERE WERE NO DEFENCES.
MINELAYING. 7/8 LANCASTERS OF 1 GROUP 27/30 LANCASTERS OF 3 GROUP 18/20 HALIFAXES OF 4 GROUP AND 17/18 HALIFAXES OF 6 GROUP LAID MINES IN THE ALLOTTED AREAS.
[underlined] BOMBER SUPPORT. 100 GROUP [/underlined]
13/13 A/C PROVIDEDMANDREL SCREEN.
[inserted] GM – [/inserted] 5/5 A/C CARRIED OUT H.F. JAMMING, ACCOMPANYING THE BOMBERS TO DARMSTADT.
17/18 MOSQUITOES COMPLETED SERRATE PATROLS TO THE EAST, NORTH AND SOUTH OF THE DARMSTADT AREA, AND CLAIM 1 ME 110 DESTROYED AND 1 CHASE.
14/14 MOSQUITOES CARRIED OUT INTRUDER PATROLS OVER ENEMY A/F’S AND CLAIM 2 UNIDENTIFIED E/A DAMAGED.
12/12 MOSQUITOES CARRIED OUT HIGH LEVEL INTRUDER PATROLS IN THE DARMSTADT AREA AND IN THE VICINITY OF ENEMY NIGHT FIGHTER BEACONS IN DENMARK. 3 JU188’S ARE CLAIMED AS DESTROYED AND 1 JU 188 DAMAGED.
9/11 A/: COMPLETED SIGNALS INVESTIGATION PATROLS, ESCORTED BY 2 MOSQUITOES WHO CLAIM 5 CHASES.
[underlined] A.D.G.B. [/underlined]
16/17 MOSQUITOES PATROLED A/F’S IN GERMANY AND HOLLAND CLAIM: 1 JU88 DESTROYED
BT 121840B
MP BB+ [inserted] R2030 KQ [/inserted]
[page break]
[vertical][posting notice]
[inserted] 10524 02 214 Sqa [/inserted]
[underlined] POSTGRAM POSTING NOTICE [/underlined] A.M. FORM 1693
COPY “A”
TO: DESPATCHING GROUP
NO. GROUP
100
[cross hatched] COPY “B”
TO: DESPATCHING COMMAND
Bomber
COPY “C”
TO: RECEIVING GROUP
NO. GROUP
44
COPY “D”
TO: RECEIVING COMMAND
Transport
COPY “E”
TO:
[indecipherable]
(ACCOUNTS 2’d)
[indecipherable]
COPY “F”
TO:
[indecipherable words]
COPY “G”
TO:
[indecipherable words]
[/cross hatched]
ORGINATOR’S ADDRESS.
AIR MINISTRY,
LONDON, W.C.2.
TAKE ACTION ON THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTION
NAME AND RANK OF POSTING OFFICER} H.D. Wardle S/L for D.G. of P.
SERIAL REF. DGP/BC/8926/44/17
DATE 25.9.44.
PERSONAL NO. 169724
BASIC RANK. F/O
ACTING RANK –
NAME AND INITIALS Mackie G.A. [symbol]
BRANCH OR AIRCREW CATEGORY Pilot
[symbol] NATIONALITY
[symbol][underlined] POSTING/[deleted][indecipherable][/deleted][/underlined]
FROM: UNIT [circled] 214 Sqdn. [/circled] GROUP 100 DUTIES Flying RANK OF POST – }
TO: UNIT 1332 C.U. Langtown GROUP 44 DUTIES F/I RANK OF POST – } DATE OF EFFECT 2.10.44.
[underlined] ACTING RANK [/underlined] (QUOTING RANK AND DATE OF EFFECT) GRANTED RETAINED RELINQUISHED
[underlined] REMARKS [/underlined]
[underlined] ACTION AND CIRCULATION [/underlined]
1
[underlined] DESPATCHING GROUP [/underlined][inserted] HD [/inserted]
TO NOTE AND PASS TO
[underlined] DESPATCHING UNIT [/underlined]
FOR ACTION
2
[underlined] TO AIR MINISTRY POSTING BRANCH [/underlined]
CERTIFIED INDIVIDUAL HAS BEEN INSTRUCTED ACCORDINGLY AND P.O.R. ACTION TAKEN.
(UNIT) 214 Sqdn (SIGNED) GA Mackie F/Lt DATE 29/9
3
AIR MINISTRY ACTION:
TO [underlined] D.G. of P. (DUPLICATE RECORDS) [/underlined]
TO NOTE AND RETAIN
[symbol] DELETE AS APPROPRIATE. [symbol] PERSONNEL OF DOMINION AND ALLIED FORCES ONLY. [/vertical]
[page break]
[assessment form]
([symbol]6392 – 117) Wt 39210 – 2791 33,000 1/41 T.S. 700 FORM 414 (A)
[underlined] SUMMARY of FLYING and ASSESSMENTS FOR [deleted] YEAR [/deleted][inserted] Period [/inserted] COMMENCING [deleted] 1st [/deleted] 15/11/44 to 25/11/[/underlined]44[underlined]
([symbol] For Officer, Insert “JUNE” : For Airman Pilot, Insert “AUGUST.”)
S.E. AIRCRAFT Day Night M.E. AIRCRAFT Day Night TOTAL [deleted] for year [/deleted] GRAND TOTAL [deleted] All Service Flying [/deleted]
DUAL – – 8.20 – 8.20 8.20
PILOT – – – – LINK 6.00
PASSENGER – – – – – –
[underlined] ASSESSMENT of ABILITY [/underlined]
(To be assessed as:– Exceptional, Above the Average, Average, or Below the Average)
(i) AS A Range [symbol] PILOT PROFICIENT.
(ii) AS PILOT-NAVIGATOR/NAVIGATOR ) –
(iii) IN BOMBING –
(iv) IN AIR GUNNERY –
[symbol] Insert :– “F.”, “L.B.”, “G.R.”, “F.B.”, etc.
[underlined] ANY POINTS IN FLYING OR AIRMANSHIP WHICH SHOULD BE WATCHED [/underlined]
–
Date 25 th November, 1944
Signature [signature] F/Lt
Officer Commanding No.1527 B.A.T. Flight, Prestwick.
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
[page break]
Canadian [symbol]
? name [photograph]
[photograph]
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
[page break]
[sketch]
F/L Buckwell PI 8AM over the Med 10/5/45
[page break]
[sketch]
A boozer
Taff Price
Spring 45
Straight
[page break]
[photograph]
Sterling V
[page break]
[photograph]
[page break]
[photograph]
Peden Gm Gm’s car
Gunton
[page break]
[photograph]
[page break]
[photograph]
Gm with Turbo
[page break]
[photograph]
Feb, 1944 Sculthorpe
Lancashire (Seattle)
[photograph]
Escape photo
for forged papers if shot down
[page break]
[newspaper cutting]
SIR – Once again we get near Remembrance Day, which always brings back memories of one of the best friends I ever met in my life.
We met when serving on 57 Lancaster Sqdn during the last war.
We were friends because we had mutual interests, our love of poetry and cricket.
We were all very young in those days.
He was a ‘Lanc’ pilot who paid tribute to the 55,000 aircrew who were killed in bomber command flying on nightly ‘ops’ into Germany, many of who had also been our friends.
Only two weeks after writing his brief poem to lost friends he himself was shot down and killed flying over Cologne.
Sir, it would give me great pleasure if you would print the above poem he wrote.
I have never forgotten him.
ALF RIPPON,
Lincoln Road,
Stamford. [inserted] 1998 [/inserted]
Lines written by a wartime friend who died over Cologne
My brief sweet life is over
My eyes no longer see
No summer walks, no Christmas trees
No pretty girls for me
I’ve got the chop, I’ve had it
My nightly ‘ops’ are done
But in a hundred years and more
I’ll still be 21
[photograph]
Control-Tower staff Wychford nr Ely
1944
[photograph]
Elsie
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
George Alexander Mackie’s pilots flying log book. Two
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book two, for George Alexander Mackie, covering the period from 24 September 1943 to 17 February 1946. Detailing his instructor duties, operations flown and post war flying with 46 squadron. He was stationed at RAF Waterbeach, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Downham Market, RAF Tempsford, RAF Sculthorpe, RAF Oulton, RAF Longtown, RAF Nutts Corner, RAF Prestwick and RAF Stoney Cross. Aircraft flown were Stirling, Fortress, Oxford and Liberator. He flew a total of 22 operations with 214 squadron, 23 night and one daylight. Targets were Pertius D’Antioche, Leverkusen, Laeso, St Omer, Cherbourg, Otignies, Tours, Lanveoc-Poulmic, Kiel Bay, Saumer, Sterkrade, Saint Leu D’Esserent, Schouwen Island, Overflakee Island, Brunswick, Frisians, Bremen, Rotterdam, Darmstadt and Eindhoven. The log book also contains photos of himself, aircraft, crews and various sketches.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
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.
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
LMackieGA855966v2
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--Kiel Bay
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Belgium--Ottignies
Denmark--Læsø
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Hampshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
France--Cherbourg
France--Creil Region
France--Poulmic
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Saumur
France--Tours
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Leverkusen
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Overflakkee
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands--Schouwen-Duiveland
Netherlands--West Frisian Islands
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1943-10-17
1943-10-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-20
1943-12-01
1943-12-02
1944-01-04
1944-01-05
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-07-07
1944-07-08
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1945
1946
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
11 OTU
1651 HCU
214 Squadron
aircrew
animal
arts and crafts
B-17
B-24
bombing
bombing of the Creil/St Leu d’Esserent V-1 storage areas (4/5 July 1944)
C-47
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
military living conditions
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Downham Market
RAF Nutts Corner
RAF Oulton
RAF Prestwick
RAF Sculthorpe
RAF Stoney Cross
RAF Tempsford
RAF Waterbeach
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/9640/PMooreWT1508.2.jpg
46d70c19f0283282b575e00c8060bca7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/9640/AMooreWT150728.2.mp3
c01c152b10f0fbf9438d9f8a3ee5b0c3
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
Moore, Bill
William Tait Moore
William T Moore
William Moore
W T Moore
W Moore
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Three oral history interviews with William Tait "Bill" Moore (1924 - 2019, 1823072 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He served as a navigator with 138 Squadron.
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
2015-07-28
2016-03-18
2016-07-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Interview Agreement Form - Moore, WT, William Moore-03
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Moore, WT
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
This is Andrew Sadler interviewing Mr. William (Bill) Moore at his home in Woking on Tuesday 28th July 2015 for the Bomber Command Archive.
AS: Thank you Bill for allowing me to come and interview you.
BM: You’re very welcome indeed.
AS: Can I start with some background information, where and when were you born?
BM: I was born in Dunoon in Scotland on 26th August 1924
AS: And um, can you tell me a bit about your family background?
BM: My, my father was a regimental sergeant major in the Invergyle Southern Highlanders, my grandfather was a chief petty officer in the Navy, we’d twenty two children, I am one of a family of five and, um, I first got in touch with the, err, Royal Air Force as a cadet with the Air Cadet, Air Cadet Association, which was the forerunner of the Air Training Corps.
AS: And presumably your father, was your father involved in the First World War?
BM: Yes my father and my grandfather was in the First World War, my grandfather was also in the Boer War and he was also in the First and Second World War, and my father was in the First World War and he was called up for the Second World War to the Colours and, um, later stood down when the BEF went to France, and he later took over the, what became the Home Guard for the whole of the County of Argyle in Scotland.
AS: Did he talk about his experiences in the First World War?
BM: Yes he um, he was a Royal Scottish Fusiliers and um, he was in quite a number of the big, of the big battles, and, um, then he was taken, he was taken prisoner in late 1917 and he was shipped out to Poland then and, he was wounded in the legs, he was given very good treatment by the German, um, medical people at that time.
AS: And how did you come to join up into the Royal Air Force?
BM: Oh that was through the, the Air Cadets which was the forerunner of the Air Training Corps. The reason for that was I had been a drummer boy in the band of the Argyle’s and um, I fancied the Air Force after having two flights at a place called Montrose quite a long time before the war started.
AS: Can I just stop what, - okay we are restarting now after closing the windows
BM: Right
AS: Noise outside, sorry you were telling me about how you came, you joined the Royal, the Air Cadet Force.
BM: That’s right the Air Cadet Defence Couriers
AS: And why did you do that, what made you interested in?
BM: So it was after I had two flights we’er with the Argyles as a drummer boy in the Band at Montrose on the east coast of Scotland.
AS: And that made you want to fly?
BM: That’s quite correct.
AS: So what year did you actually join up to the Royal Air Force?
BM: Well for the, well it was 1940-41 when I was in the Air Defence Cadet Corps and then of course when the Air Training Corps started I joined that immediately and, err, on the Monday night I joined up and um, of course naturally I had no rank and then the Friday night of that week I was made a flight sergeant in the Air Training Corps, within one week.
AS: And can you tell me how that came about?
BM: Oh the experience of the Air Defence Cadet Corps, that was why.
AS: So can you tell me about your training?
BM: Oh the training in the, in the Air Training Corps. Yes the Air Training Corps we, um, we attended night school classes in the school along with students who were actually full time students of the school, also members of the Air Training Corps and this was taken by Mathematics teachers and English teachers all the way through, and they had become officers in the Air Training Corps, and one gentlemen Mr. Ozzy Broon, he was the maths teacher and very good in navigation and um, he made it all very, very interesting for us and, um, later on I met up with him but that will come into this later on, um, but he was a person who really gave us the foundation in navigation and bringing us up through math and made it interesting for us.
AS: So what age were you at this time?
BM: By that time I was sixteen.
AS: And um, when you joined the Air Force could, you were immediately made a flight sergeant and what sort of work?
BM: No that, no that was just the Air Training Corps I’m talking about, and that was made immediately. Now what happened was that um, we um, when I was, um, seventeen and a quarter I actually volunteered for the Royal Air Force and um, because of my background in the Air Training Corps I, um, had all certificates following examinations that was, um, especially orientated towards air crew, and with that I was selected at Edinburgh to actually join air crew formally and I was given the silver badge and um, became a member of the Royal Air Force on reserve which was actually the, um, Auxiliary Air Force.
AS: And what year would that have been?
BM: That was, that was beginning, the beginning of ‘42, ‘41-‘42 yes.
AS: And can you tell me how you came to be in Bomber Command?
BM: Well that’s quite a story, but I’ll cut it short as much as possible, we, we were invited to London to Lord’s Cricket Ground where we were given the medicals etcetera and passed all these things and tests, various inoculations etcetera, etcetera, and um, we were billeted at Avenue Close, um, and fed at the, at the Zoo there, and of course, um, after a few weeks we actually were sent to Scarborough where I, I joined number 17 flight, of the air crew selection, and um, that was at, that was the beginning of our formal training with the air crew, Royal Air Force, the Royal Air Force. They, um, that was when we conducted drill, navigation, signals, um, engines, everything that you had to do in preparation to become a member of air crew, but not a specialist at that time, you were given that particular course so that you could be able to fit in somewhere along the line, we were actually called PNB, pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, at that time. That’s what we were, PNB. We um, I had at that particular time I had a flight and that flight, it was a mixed flight of British, French, Belgians and we graduated, we graduated from there and were given various jobs around Scarborough until I was posted to Scoon, now at Scoon in Scotland that was where we got, we got training on Tiger Moths, and then from there, after that was we, we seemed to be doing all right, we were sent to Brougton in Furness where we, where we did a commando course on, in other words it was an escapees course. If anything happened and you were on the other side then you knew what to do to try and get away, and that was where my army training had come in very good and I was appointed a section leader. After that we were posted to, to Heaton Park, Manchester and that is where we were either billeted on homes around the perimeter of the park or actually in the park. Firstly we were actually on the perimeter with a family and, um, that lasted for about two weeks, and then for about three weeks we were actually billeted in Heaton Park in Manchester, and um, then of course we were given various courses etcetera, etcetera, and, um, during that , during that time you got selected for, for to go for training in different parts of the Commonwealth and Empire. At the beginning I was actually getting posted to go to Rhodesia and the reason we knew that was because of the kit that we were getting, not South Africa but Rhodesia. We got on board the ship in Liverpool and um, on the Mersey, and we got on, we got on board the ship there and, um, it happened to be a ship that I knew very well which was brand new at the beginning of the war and I’ve actually got a model of it here, and um, we, we set sail and, um, one evening I, I was presuming that we near the Bay of Biscay, I turned round and I said to my friend, Alec Kerr, I said ‘Alec this ship is going the wrong way’, he said ‘you and your [inaudible] navigation, how do you know?’ I said ‘I’m looking at the stars’ and we landed back up in Liverpool again, we presumed then of course that the word had got out, that was probably a fleet of U-Boats hovering round about the Bay of Biscay and um, they changed their mind about sending us on that ship, which was called the Andes [spells it out]. We got back into Liverpool and we were there about um, two days on board the Andes, and the next thing we were told that we were being transferred onto another ship and um, I looked across and there was a three funnel boat over there, and, I said to this chap Alec, Alec Kerr, I said ‘Alec that’s a five, three, four over there’ he said ‘what’s a five, three, four?’ I said ‘I’m not telling you that’s a secret’. Well the five, three, four was the Queen Mary, the five, three, four was the number that the Queen Mary had in John Brown’s yard in Scotland, in Glasgow when she was getting built. Anyway we got on board that ship and the next thing we knew that we were in New York and we were there overnight, and the next thing we knew we were on the train and we were bound, bound for Canada and we went all up the, the East Coast of Canada and we arrived at Moncton, New Brunswick, and that was the home station in Canada for air crew who were going to be training under the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme. We were there for ten or twelve days, um, not in winterwear as it was six months of the year in Canada, you get a lot of cold weather and um, they just said ‘oh we don’t know anything about you, we’ll get a message one of these days and we’ll give you some uniform’ , so we walked around there um, at one time I used to say like a [inaudible] nanny, but as I say, in Canada there we walked along like squaws because we covered ourselves in blankets to keep warm, but that was only, that was only a gimmick, once you were inside you were nice and warm. Eventually we got kitted out we with Rhodesian Air Force kit which was very good indeed, it was far superior and a lot more modern than what we had previously, for items like shirts the collars were attached instead of getting two collars with a shirt, the great coats were extremely different and the average cloth was a lot finer, anyways that was one of the good points that we had there. The next thing we knew was that we were, I’d say sent across country and um, that was to be going on to various stations now – this was where our actual training began and we had landed in Moncton and then from there, as I say, we travelled by train across to Dauphin, Manitoba, and Dauphin, Manitoba was just a little bit bigger than a village at that particular time but it was really getting populated with the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force, and um, that is where we had bombing and gunnery courses on Ansons and Bolingbrokes. The Bolingbrokes, of course, was the Canadian/ American version of the Blenheim Mark IV which was a very good aircraft. We graduated from there and we went from there to aye, err, Portage la Prairie, Portage la Prairie, I’ve got photographs here and there we are at Portage la Prairie which is, and was, and still is today, one of the major stations of the Royal Canadian Air Force. I said today because I have met wing commanders and group captains who have just recently been in charge of Portage la Prairie, and that is where we did the Air Observer School, that was Air Observer School Number 7 which is navigation etcetera, etcetera, and that was on Ansons and Cranes. We, err, we had a mixed bunch there of New Zealanders, Canadians, and British and we actually graduated from there and um, that is the photograph of it there see.
AS: And you’re on the front row, second from the left.
BM: That’s right [laughs] yeah. That is when I became an air observer, the air observer, of course, has got another name but in this interview I won’t say what it was called.
AS: You told me before.
BM: [Laughs] that’s exactly what it was, yes. Anyway, as far as we were concerned we err -
AS: I think could I, could I maybe I could say it
BM: Yes
AS: For the record you were known as the flying arseholes.
BM: That’s quite correct [laughs], that is quite correct, yes. Now um, with that, we were, we were given our wings there and that was a great occasion because we were made up to sergeants which was, the lowest rank by that time that you could have as air crew. Quite a lot of people don’t understand and don’t know was that right through, for a couple of years the war was on, there was fellow air crew were either AC2’s or AC1’s or LAC, leading aircraftsman and it was only after a while that the rank of sergeant was introduced for minimum rank for aircrew, there’s quite a number of people never knew about that but um, having come through the air cadets etcetera, etcetera, we knew people who were actually flying in operations who were leading aircraftsman and had done quite a number of operations as such and were never recognised as anything else. If they got shot down they never got promotion, they were still at the end of the war leading aircraftsmen. Then um, from Portage la Prairie, um, we got a jaunt down, down to America, I think it was just a matter of, they didn’t know what to do with us for a while and we went down to Florida, and we were flying on Catalina Flying Boats and doing maritime navigation which, from a place called Pensacola. We were there a few weeks and the next thing we knew we were back to Moncton, New Brunswick in Canada, and of course there wasn’t six feet of snow this time, it was a lovely spring cum summer day in Canada. We, we were there for just a few weeks and um, we were told we could have two kit bags and we said ‘why two kit bags?’, ‘well one kit bag you can travel with and if you get a flight back to the UK then that other kit bag will be sent on to you later on’. I was quite happy in one way, I didn’t need to fly back, I got on board a ship and then we were taken from Moncton, New Brunswick to Halifax, Nova Scotia. And when we got to Nova Scotia I recognised the ship and I said to my friend, I said ‘oh I don’t like that one’ and he said ‘why is that Bill?’ I said ‘because that’s the Empress of Japan’, he said ‘what!’, I said ‘yeah that’s the Empress of Japan’. Anyway we got on the ship and by that time it was called the Empress of Scotland, they had changed its name during the war from the Empress of Japan to the Empress of Scotland, and we boarded that and we were put onto D deck which is a long way down and um, when we, we tried to get up for the, for the boat drill for emergencies we found that we were only halfway up, so anyway we thought of a plan. If there is going to be an emergency and they want us up on deck why don’t we try and get a place to sleep on deck because it was summertime, anyway we weren’t allowed that. Anyway we eventually landed in the Clyde and from the Clyde we, we got on the train and we went to Harrogate in Yorkshire, and we were held at Yorkshire, in Harrogate for a short time and um, from there I was sent over to Halfpenny Green. Now Halfpenny Green was a mixed unit it was, a normal navigation advanced school for navigators so and there was also an advanced school navigating on, what will I say, um, yeah, this was to become a specialist on map reading, not just normal navigation a specialist on navigation by map reading and that was the section that I was detailed for. When I asked the ‘chiefy’ why I was a chosen, he said ‘why’ he says ‘because we found out that you’re a country boy’, ‘Oh,’ I said ‘that’s nice’, he said ‘also you’ve been around quite a bit’, I said ‘oh thank you very much’. Anyway, ‘chiefy’, the reason I called him ‘chiefy’ was because he was a flight sergeant and the reason you called them a ‘chiefy’ was because when the Royal Air Force and the Naval Service had been amalgamated during the First World War, a lot of the people from the Naval side came across and they were Chief Prison err, Chief um, Chief Petty Officers and they were the chaps who became the first flight sergeants in the Royal Air Force and the name ‘chiefy’ has been there ever since, ‘cos’ if you called someone a ‘chiefy’ today they wonder what the hell you are talking about, but anyway we could often make a few bets on that one, that’s on the side. But Halfpenny Green, we were flying there on the advanced Ansons, Mk V Ansons, which um, had completely closed bombing doors etcetera, etcetera, and of course it was ideal for map reading because your maps weren’t getting thrown about in the lower part of the cockpit when you are trying to do the map reading, but we didn’t realise why it was done, but in the Air Force, once you joined up, you volunteered ever after that, you did what you was told. Right now, I managed to go through that course, came through with very good marks and um, I was then posted to Desborough, um, at Desborough. We were crewed up and that was part of a Wellington crew and um, also flying there I was flying as second dickie, in other words we only had one pilot and um, I got the job within the crew of being the person to be able to, err, take off and land and of course do a bit of flying in between, in case of emergency I could always land the Wellington. That was because of the position and the type of training that we had got in the past. Now from, from Desborough we um, we were transferred to various stations and where I went to, I went to a place called Tempsford. Now Tempsford was one of Churchill’s most secret aerodromes, airfields, when you got there you had to, you had to sign the Official Secret Act which was slightly different from the one that you normally took. In other words this was top secret, anything you said outside of that aerodrome you could be held responsible, and taken into custody, or shot, if it was got the wrong way. The reason for that that came up during your last week of being at Tempsford. Now at Tempsford we, we were crewing with various people, the reason I say that is because being an observer from time to time I wasn’t with the, the same, same pilot, although for some time I was with a chap called Neil Noble and also with err, a young PO who was a chap called Murray, anyway that was very good indeed. Noble was from New Zealand, and err, he was an excellent chap and he was also a country boy and he was excellent for the type of flying that we were doing and likewise was Murray. Now what happened was that during that time at Tempsford that is where we did flying of taking people out and into France, quite often it was on, it was on Lysanders and you didn’t have much room in Lysanders because err, it being a small one engine aircraft and you were flying low and you were actually taking these people into France. It wasn’t the first time that we had to bring people back from France and on various occasions, the group had actually brought back four gentleman who later on became Premiers of France and they actually also were leading lights in the resistance movement, what we called the Maquis. Now one of the things that happened at Tempsford was that um, we later on had an aircraft and this aircraft was called a Hudson, now that Hudson was an aircraft, American one, which was designed to land on the prairies in America. It was heavily undercarriaged and it was ideal for what we did, it was a way from the Lysander with the single engine and was a twin engine aircraft and what was happening there was that we were carrying a lot of heavy goods for the Maquis. That was the bombs, sticky bombs, all sorts of bombs like that, grenades, ammunition, weapons, oh up to medium sized weapons which they could use without using vehicles to carry them about. Now there was one particular trip when we were on the Hudson and we were on one of the airfields that had been selected by the Maquis, now what had happened was the Maquis people, quite a number of them, had been brought over to the UK and they were given special training as to get airfields that we could land in, the idea being was that the drop zones or picking up and laying down of agents, and it was essential that they were kept on this secret list ‘cos only a few minutes normally that we were on the ground. On this particular occasion what happened was that we came into land and we landed very well, we got to top of the, I call it run section, we turned round and as we turned round we began to sink in the mud, well it felt like mud to us, I suppose it was only a wet piece of ground, and we sank down, and um, I said to the skipper, ‘oh were in trouble’, he said ‘oh we’ll get off all right’, so anyway the Maquis arrived and they got all their stuff out and um, the leading agent there was a lady and she cleared an area, got all the Maquis away and we were ready to take off and then we realised that we couldn’t get out the mud, or whatever it was. So anyway we were about ready for to put the bomb in the air trap and blow it up and then get the hell out of there, but anyway she said ‘no’ she said, ‘we think we’ll get you out of there all right’ and she got the people from a nearby village to come to try and help us out because they were on their way up they met what they call the German sergeant who was in charge of the village and he said ‘right where are you people going?’, ‘oh your big black aircraft, your big black aircraft is on the ground there and if we don’t get it out of the mud the Gestapo is going to shoot us and they’ll shoot you as well’. So his retort was back to hers was that he would look after the village, they could go and get the aircraft out, so anyway the people got all sorts of equipment and we managed to take off again, that was the longest that we were ever on the ground until a few years later, it certainly felt like hours and hours and hours but was, it was just over an hour and a quarter on the ground which was an extremely long period and we got away.
AS: Was this work part of what was known as part of the Special Operations Executive?
BM: We were working with the SOE, yes that’s exactly what we were doing. Now that was one of the moments where various escapades like that but that that was the one of the longest times on the ground. Quite often we landed in a field and of course one or two of the fields had been used in the past for gliders but of course nobody had been near them in years, not even the Germans had used them and that was why they, the Maquis, had actually selected them for us, and they had um, they hadn’t done any work on them as such just hoping that the odd tree stump or that, that we landed in was, would be avoided which they were quite good. There was quite often a brush, as we called it, on the ground but we managed to sweep that aside when you are landing and take off. Now the thing about that was that um, the area dropping and picking up and laying down of agents was essentially an extreme secret list and only a few minutes were allowed between knowing the target area and the take off and only the crew members concerned knew exactly where. As little contact as possible was allowed between any agents and the crew, I don’t care what people say, Americans and different books nowadays I will call them ‘Joes’, as far as we were concerned we had as little contact as possible so that if anything happened to them or happened to us we couldn’t divulge anything and neither could they, because later on Hitler had said that anybody with knowledge of the situation would be shot as spies, so as little contact as possible was allowed between any agents and the crews. The airfield contacts or landings were seldom used again and again, although there were one of two were very suitable among them was Paris and Chateauroux and various other ones, these were the favourite ones that they were ones that were used quite a few times.
AS: When you were working, when you were on those flights you were acting as an observer?
BM: An observer yes.
AS: And what was the role of the observer?
BM: An observer was, it was a navigator but also you did everything, you did everything.
AS: So, you were a backup if something?
BM: That’s right. The observer learnt to fly, that was one of the other things an observer did, later on of course that was taken over by, on the bigger aircraft, by the flight engineer, but in the early days that was the observer that did that, aye. Now later on, later on during the war once it became apparent with the advance of the allies in France, the role of 138 Squadron and 161 Squadron was diminishing so what happened then was that 138 Squadron we went back to Bomber Command and with that we went to Langar where we actually um, we actually flew on Lancasters and then the Lancasters and then of course we were, I’d say we were part and parcel of the Bomber Command operations and that was from Tuddenham, and at Tuddenham we lay alongside 90 Squadron which was one of the main, main squadrons that occupied Tuddenham right through during the war.
AS: And what year was that, that you became part of Bomber Command?
BM: That was beginning that was the beginning of ‘44-‘45 and that was from, we started there, the actual squadron according, according to the history, was that everything came into being in March of 1945 but of course it was long before that we were [inaudible] but that’s just from the history books. Later the events all changed and we were sent to Langar to receive conversant to Lancasters, which turned out to be the light of my life as the aircraft which was the one that I favoured best, and from Langar we went to Feltwall, Mildenhall, Methwold, and Stradishall for other special duty training and eventually to Tuddenham. We took part in many of the operations but on the big one to Potsdam our Wing Commander Murray took over as captain of the night. Now that Wing Commander Murray was a pilot officer that I flew with, aye, early in my career with 138 Squadron and he became eventually the, the squadron leader, wing commander for 138 squadron, he took charge of that. Along came the Operation Manna which gave us great pleasure in being part of and likewise to Juvincourt where we brought home many of our fellow air crew members who had been prisoners of war, and after a few weeks of PRDU work at Tuddenham we were allowed to transfer to RAF Benson where we took over our own Lancasters and became part of the operating across Europe and photographing the whole of Europe for um, the secret stations that Churchill had wanted when he was Prime Minister. So that was there crew there, the other air crew in Bomber Command where we did all our operations.
AS: And were you still working as an observer at this stage?
BM: Yes, yes
AS: You were still an observer?
BM: Aye
AS: And this is your crew next to a Lancaster?
BM: Yes, that’s the crew that we eventually had, yes.
AS: And which one is you Bill?
BM: [laughs] Probably go with the height you’ll maybe get me, [laughs] can you recognise me?
AS: I think you are the one on the left on that side on the right.
BM: Yes that’s me [laughs], that there the tallest one actually became the rear gunner .
AS: And were you always with the same crew?
BM: Once we, once we got to Tuddenham we were all with the same crew yes.
AS: So these are the same, so this is the same people?
BM: That’s right yeah.
AS: And obviously you all made it through the war?
BM: Oh yes.
AS: ‘Cos a lot did not.
BM: No, that is quite correct we were lucky.
AS: So when you were on the bombing raid can you tell me exactly what your role would have been?
BM: Oh we were, there were two things so we acted as a full navigator and sometimes as an electronic navigator and also a bomb aimer as well ‘cos we were qualified to do all these jobs.
AS: So you moved from one role?
BM: One role to another yeah.
AS: To another.
BM: In our crew everybody could do everything else except on the Lancasters. The skipper Neil Noble and, and myself were doing the flying, and also our flight engineer ‘cos he only joined us on the Lancasters ‘cos when we were flying in the Wellingtons and that we didn’t have, we didn’t have a flight engineer. The flight engineer were only brought on when we started with the Stirlings and Halifaxes and then the Lancasters.
AS: Can you tell me what it was like to fly the Lancasters as opposed to the Wellingtons?
BM: Oh yes, it was a much easier aircraft to fly than even the Wellingtons and the Wellington was a good one to fly.
AS: In what way was it easier?
BM: Well the, the, the controls were simpler, it was easier to control them than it was some of the former aircraft.
AS: And can you describe the procedure when you went on a bombing raid?
BM: Right, well what happened was once you were crewed and once you had done a few operations like mine laying and things like that, minor operations and then of course you were selected by crews that you moved up the ladder a bit and then of course you were formally taken on to the, I would say, the senior strength of the squadron, but our squadron did not like to put rookie crews onto the heavy stuff at first, you got a baptism of fire by, as I say, doing the mine laying jobs and various other ones which you weren’t so likely to have been involved in heavy enemy fire etcetera, etcetera. We were thankful for that because you were given that training and there was actually training in the actual thing. So what happened was that once you, once you were there then of course you had briefings where the whole crew was together, then of course you had briefings where there was selected sections of the aircrew, mainly the pilot, navigator, and quite often the flight engineer and radio operator were involved. When we were doing special duties with Lancaster’s we had the whole crew together ‘cos we felt as if everybody should know exactly what’s going on and not be a surprise to anybody with what we were doing because quite often there was raids that was known to only a section of a squadron and sometimes a full squadron, whereas if it wasn’t a joint operations with the other squadrons, or the other squadron are out and you lay down so that was how it went, but you were actually given as much information as possible about the targets, about where you were going, the flight, the enemy aircraft etcetera, etcetera.
AS: How many missions did you fly with Bomber Command?
BM: About thirty six.
AS: That was quite a lot wasn’t it?
BM: Yes it was quite a lot.
AS: It sounds as if you were lucky to pull through because?
BM: I was extremely lucky, I was extremely lucky, because with 138 Squadron we had, we had quite a [long pause, shuffling papers], with 138 Squadron, 138 Squadron had taken in nine hundred and ninety five agents, they’d taken in twenty nine thousand containers and they’d taken in over ten thousand packages. We lost seventy aircraft and three hundred aircrew, our motto was ‘for freedom’, that was 138 Squadron you know.
AS: Yes you had different people on different stations?
BM: Right, now also what did happen was that with 138 Squadron we had a flight of Poles, Polish chaps. Now what happened with them was that they was declared by the German forces that if the Poles were shot down they were to be treated as spies, so I didn’t like the idea of that and all the ones on our flight I taught them a bit of Gaelic, I gave them little addresses from on all the outer isles on the west of Scotland and I gave them Scottish names, and I told them if they got shot down they would have to use them as identification plus their rank and number, and I, ‘cos I do know that quite a number of them actually survived like that because they pretended to be Scottish, Gaelic, and where they pointed to on the map was where they came from and it was a real island but I gave them all different islands, and of course when they were on the squadron if they spoke to anybody they had to say who they were and not who they were in Polish.
AS: And why the Poles singled out for special harsh treatment?
BM: Oh because their country had been occupied by the Germans. They took it that they were, if they did that they were actually against them that was the end of it.
AS: Mmm, when you um, when you were flying with Bomber Command how often, you said you had thirty six missions, how far apart were they, were you?
BM: Well sometimes you might be on three nights in a row, sometimes it might be two, two in one week, but it was surprising just how much, just how of course some operations like mine laying and things like that were considered quite minor ones so you probably fitted them in in between times.
AS: And went you weren’t actually flying when you were on the ground how did you occupy your time?
BM: We kept ourselves fit, we played a lot of squash or we played a lot of rugby that was the two things we did as a crew because we could play together, and we were together, we were a crew.
AS: And when you were not flying you stuck together as a
BM: As a crew yes. We used to have, in the Nissen huts, we normally had two crews to the hut and we pretty well stuck together.
AS: And what sort of conditions were you living in, was it, were they good conditions or?
BM: Well, well when we were one squadron there was err, there was a Nissen hut set of accommodation which was two crews, as I say two crews about fourteen men to a hut and a potbelly stove in the middle and then of course your, your, your mess and that on the squadron was a Nissen type building. There was one or two squadrons which were peacetime ones, the RAF Benson was a peacetime one and there’s still peacetime one, but Methwold and quite a few of these other ones were established pre-war and the accommodation was slightly better, but anything that was rushed up during the war time was normally the Nissen huts.
AS: Now after the war, what, how did you, what happened after the war?
BM: Well what happened after the war, like what I said earlier on, was that we did some PRDU work from Tuddenham.
AS: What’s PRDU work?
BM: That’s Post RAF Reconnaissance.
AS: Ah.
BM: What we didn’t realise it was like a programme to see if we were suitable to do the job and there was three crews were picked, three, with their aircraft and we were sent over to RAF Benson and we then came under PRDU people there and, err, we photographed the whole of Europe, north to south and east to west, and we photographed the likes of the city of London, and other big cities from two thousand feet. Towns like Woking and this area would be from about five-six thousand feet and um, then the general countryside was anything from ten to twenty thousand feet, and we did that for the whole of Europe. We also had bases all over the country and also had bases in Norway, bases in South of France and various places like that, so what we actually did was that at one time, one time we landed at one, one particular station and it had been used as a transit camp and we woke up in the morning scratching like hell and we found out we had scabies so of course that was us isolated. We go back to our own station and we were isolated by the, by the medical people until we got rid of it, and then we, what we said, wherever we went after that we took our own kit with us so we didn’t get scabies.
AS: And this would have been after 1945 you were doing this?
BM: Yes
AS: And how long did you stay in the RAF for?
BM: Middle of 1946.
AS: And, and what did you do after you left?
BM: Well I went back into the building industry, and um, it wasn’t that long before I went to Rhodesia where I was supposed to have gone with the with the Royal Air Force and the idea there was that a federation was starting up between Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, and um, I went out there and I went out as a general building foreman, and instead of staying four years with the company that I worked for I stayed fifty years. I built schools, universities, colleges, hundreds of local houses, all over the territories, and then of course gradually it worked out that Rhodesia was the only one that didn’t get its independence, Nyasaland 1963, Nyasaland was given independence then and became Malawi, and more or less at the same time Northern Rhodesia, which had been a Crown Colony run from Britain, they also had theirs, but Southern Rhodesia, which became Rhodesia, had been a self-governing colony since 1926 and they were not granted independence. And what happened was in 1926 there had been a vote there to say if whether they were going to pick up as a province in South Africa or stay as Rhodesia as an independent self-governing colony and the vote was to stay as Rhodesia self-governing colony, so if they’d had went the other way it would have been a province of South Africa.
AS: So what year did you come back to the United Kingdom?
BM: I only came back twelve years ago.
AS: Oh gosh. So have you, after the end of the war have you kept in contact with your crew mates?
BM: Oh yes, well I’ll tell you what, Jimmy Dugg, his great grandson is Israel Dugg who played full back for the All Blacks against the Springboks on Saturday and various other ones.
AS: So you kept in contact with them?
BM: Oh yes.
AS: Did you, um, I mean after the war?
BM: What happened in Rhodesia, put it this way what happened there was that I had, in the short term, I had reinstated the family business in the building trade, I found out that the contracts were not being run honestly as far as I was concerned and that’s when I said to my brothers ‘you can have the company I’m going abroad’, I had thoughts for Canada, I had thoughts for Australia, I had thoughts for New Zealand, and at the time they wanted people to go to what was going to become the Central African Federation, um, and that’s where I decided to go to. I had no regrets, no regrets at all. I was there from 1952-53 right up until I came here, came back here and that was in 2003, but during that time, as I said before, I built schools and hospitals and other things all the way through. I even, in 1960 the Queen Mother had come out previously and laid the foundation stone of the hospital in Blantyre, Nyasaland which she named the Queen Elizabeth Hospital then she came back in 1960 and declared it open, now of course it wasn’t just a hospital it was like a major township around the hospital that we built that what took us so long, anyway what did happen when we had a ball at Zumba, the capital, after she had declared it open etcetera, etcetera, and the following the morning the Governor, Glynn Jones came to me and said ‘I’ve got a job for you’ I said ‘No, no, no I don’t need no freebies sir’, he said ‘it’s for the old lady’, I said ‘what’s that’, he said ‘I want you to build a racecourse for her,’ I said ‘what! I don’t know anything about building racecourses’, he said ‘go and find a plan somewhere’ he says ‘I want you to build a racecourse for her’, I said ‘all right how long have I got?’ he said ‘you’ve got ten days’. So anyway I got my own crew which was about fifty-sixty chaps and I went along to Zumba Prison and I got hundred bandits from there, short term bandits, and I asked for all the ones who had been Queen Victoria men, or King George men, or Kind Edward men, people like that and I got volunteers and I looked after them. I said they would be rewarded which they were, properly and kindly, etcetera, etcetera, and we did the job, and instead of what you do today, putting up things in canvas, I did it all in pole and thatch, and um, she, what happened is that she went on the Ilala which is the ship that plies up and down Lake Nyasa, and Lake Nyasa is three hundred and sixty five miles long and fifty two miles wide and there are various ports along it that the Ilala used to either go into or stand off and it used to take cattle, people passengers, VIP’s everything, there were ten or twelve cabins on it so it wasn’t a small one. It was actually built in, in Scotland and taken out in pieces to a place called Monkey Bay where it was put back together again and floated on Lake Nyasa and she has been going there ever since [laughs].
AS: Excellent. Can I um [end]
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Bill Moore. One
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Andrew Sadler
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-28
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01:10:53 Audio recording
Language
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eng
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Sound
Identifier
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AMooreWT150728
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
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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
William Moore was born in Dunoon, Scotland in August 1924 and joined the Royal Air Force after spending some time in the Air Cadet Defence Corps and in the Air Training Corps. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force at the age of 17 and completed his training in Canada, after which he qualified as an air observer.
William flew Ansons and Cranes and learned navigation in America on Catalina flying boats. He also tells of flying Lysanders and transporting agents for the Special Operations Executive into France. He also tells how he helped Polish airmen with different information to keep them safe if they crashed.
William flew a number of aircraft including the Lancaster, Stirlings and Halifaxes at different locations and was on 36 operation with Bomber Command, taking part in Operation Manna. He served with 138 Squadron and 161 Squadron. He also tells of his life after the war, when he went to live in Rhodesia where he helped to run the family business before returning to Great Britain in 2003.
Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
United States
France
Germany
Netherlands
England--Bedfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Staffordshire
Zimbabwe
Africa--Lake Nyasa
138 Squadron
161 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aerial photograph
aircrew
Anson
Catalina
flight engineer
Halifax
Hudson
Lancaster
Lysander
navigator
observer
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
RAF Benson
RAF Desborough
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tuddenham
reconnaissance photograph
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/8757/PMooreWT1506.2.jpg
ba450a2587f7d4bdd809b39eda3c5fa9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/8757/AMooreWT160318.1.mp3
06f88d173f760d9f30a9e3038f1f9794
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
Moore, Bill
William Tait Moore
William T Moore
William Moore
W T Moore
W Moore
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Three oral history interviews with William Tait "Bill" Moore (1924 - 2019, 1823072 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He served as a navigator with 138 Squadron.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-28
2016-03-18
2016-07-06
Rights
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Interview Agreement Form - Moore, WT, William Moore-03
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Moore, WT
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 18th of March 2016 and I’m meeting with Bill Moore who was an Observer with the RAF and he is accompanied by his friend Tony Boxall. And we’re going to talk about Bill’s life from the earliest days to the periods after the war. So, Bill, could you start by telling us about your early days?
WM: Well, I was, I was born in a town called Dunoon in the West of Scotland in 1924 and I was, at that time, I was the eldest of three children, I became that, and then of course what happened? We moved house from a little single ended cottage and we moved in to a brand new council house. And of course we gradually became a family of five. I was the eldest of course, as I said, with —
CB: Keep going.
WM: With two sisters and two brothers. My, my father was a slater and plasterer, Builder, and my mother had been what later on in life people called them Land Army girls because she’d done that during the First World War and my father had been in the Royal Scots Fusiliers right through, right through the First World War. And later on he, he was, he was taken on ship board to India where they, they actually were the garrison at various towns for a, for a few years up to there, you know. Alright. And then, and then of course what happened was that he came back to Dunoon and met and married my mother and as I say he also then went back into the building trade, you know. That is the sort of life that people did, they were in the army and then back into Civvy Street and later on in life that’s exactly what happened to us. Now, I, I attended Dunoon Grammar School all the way though, Right from the infant class right through into, into High School and I enjoyed it. I was never a person who didn’t enjoy school and at the same time after school I worked in various sort of capacities like in butchers shops and deliveries and all these sort of things that, in those days, people had to do to help augment the family incomes. I left, I left school when I was thirteen. The reason why was because the incomes that they could draw at that time wasn’t sufficient to keep the family going and being the eldest one I was out of school, as I say, at thirteen and I [pause] I was employed. I was employed by people called the Richmond Park Laundry which is, or was at that time, the biggest laundry in Glasgow but which is now gone. Then what happened then was, was that the war clouds were coming and I joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps. The Air Defence Cadet Corps was the forerunner of the Air Training Corps. And of course to do that we had to go to Abbotsinch, which is now Glasgow Airport and that was where we, we got the feeling for the Royal Air Force. Also that was where I saw my first Wellington and we certainly fell in love with it because all the other aircraft that we had seen from there, there on for many years was all the old ones that had been scattered around the country. Then of course, when the, when the Air Training Corps started we changed over, we volunteered for that and on the, on the Tuesday night I joined up and signed up. I went back again on the Friday night and the Friday night I became a flight sergeant which was instant promotion. And the reason for that was, was that I had been in the Air Defence Cadet Corps. We er, what we did was we, we had courses run in the Dunoon Grammar School by teachers who had become officers in the Air Training Corps and one particular gentleman there — Mr D. J. McDermid was the one that I’d looked up to for many years through the Boys Brigade and other organisations like that. And also a Mr Oswald Brown. And Mr Oswald Brown was the mathematics teacher and of course he was the one who actually taught us the rudiments of navigation. And we did that until we were old enough to, to volunteer for the Royal Air Force. Now, during, during that time we sat the examinations and all the way up through till we were actually ready for the aircrew selection. When I was old enough I went to Edinburgh and I was on the selection course there. I come out with very high marks and I got my little silver badge and I then became a member of the Royal Air Force. We, we didn’t get a number but we had various facts and figures written down about what we were. Then of course you had to wait your turn until such times as, as they had space for you. Well that’s what they said. So you got called up and then of course you were VR. And we eventually went to London and, of course, with that of course that was ACRC and that was at Lord’s Cricket Ground along with many other people which was quite strange. I met one or two chaps that day from all over the country, Some of them that I was with for quite a long time and before we actually finished at ITW. From, from London of course we went to ITW and my ITW was Number 17 in Scarborough based at the [pause] now what was it? Based at one of the, one of the hotels in Scarborough. And likewise of course in Scarborough there was about five other different ITWs. My, my hotel that I eventually landed up with was the Adelphi Hotel which was right above the Italian Gardens in Scarborough itself. In the Italian Gardens there was all the swimming pool and all the little offices attached to the swimming pool and that is where we did all the navigation and training like that, in the actual [pause] actual course at Scarborough. The gymnastics, the PT and all that other stuff was held at Scarborough College which was a very good asset. We had our own swimming pool in the Italian Gardens so that was also very good for us. Most of our drill and disciplinary actions was taught on the esplanade in front of the Adelphi Hotel and above the Italian Gardens. We [pause] we had a small, a small flight, and a few days after we were beginning to settle down, we got quite a surprise and we had a group of Belgian boys came across and joined us. They joined us there and it was a very good experience because most of them had been through High School and their English was very good compared with our limit in French or whatever dialect they said that they spoke. But it was very good because we got a good background of the continent which most of us had never had. Well, on completing of the ITW course I was given a job which was a temporary thing, I became the rations officer and I used to deliver all the foodstuffs from the main offices in Scarborough to all the different ITWs and that lasted for a couple of weeks. It was very good to get a responsibility like that because you really had to make sure that everything was right on the button. Otherwise, the sergeants and people in charge of all the kitchens as you went around certainly were very tough on you. During, during that particular time we, we went round all, all the various ITWs in Scarborough and as a matter of courtesy we actually visited one after the other and they did the same to us. And then of course we used to always go on a journey, see all the different church parades, you know. And an aside to one thing was my great friend here — and Ernie Taylor his name, who later became a fighter pilot in Spitfires and Hurricanes and Mosquitos, and although we were in Scarborough at the same time and been on parades at the same time and did various other things we never actually met up and we didn’t meet up officially until I came here in nineteen eighty — [pause] I beg your pardon, in [pause] yeah, 1983, when I returned from Africa. But that’s a different story, I can come back to that one. When people had vacancies for us then we went to different places from Scarborough. Well the first place that I went to was to Scone, Scone in Scotland. Just outside of Perth, and that was where we were, we were flying on Tiger Moths. We did the course there And anybody who has ever been to Scone Airport always remember that they had a bump in the, in the runway and when you went down there you lost the horizon, then all of a sudden you were airborne, and if you missed the bump you were always in trouble. But that was it, it was a good thing to know. And the instructors there were mainly, mainly chaps who’d, who had served all over world with the Royal Air Force. A lot of them had been out in the desert, various ones, And they had been recalled for to train people like us. Especially at Scone near where we were. Well we, we actually graduated from there and in those days you said that you were a LAC, Leading Aircraftsman, Which was quite good, It meant that you got a few more shillings in your pocket but that was about all it was. Sometimes they didn’t even have time to issue the propeller to you, but before you knew where you were you were away doing something else. But anyway, what happened to us, I say us because there was a few from 17 ITW, we, we went to a place called Broughton-in-Furness. Now Broughton-in-Furness — that, that was a, like an escape course, or a commando course or whatever you wanted to call it but really and truly it was like an escape course and you were taught all the rudiments of, of the bush. Well, as a matter of fact being a country boy I quite excelled in that and I got the red lanyard again which I already had when I’d been at Scarborough which gave you a little bit of authority, but as soon as the parades were off you took the lanyard off and that was it. But the lanyard, lanyard was just to give you that bit of authority for parades etcetera, etcetera. From, from there we went to, to Manchester, to Heaton Park. Now, Heaton Park you were either billeted in the Nissen huts which was standard accommodation, about fourteen men to a hut, or you were lucky enough to be billeted outside in somebody’s back room, Or front room, And we enjoyed that for, for a couple of weeks. We were actually put in to a lady’s front room, Two of us, And that was a chap called Alec Kerr and myself, And Alec was one of the ones that, from Peterborough, that I had met on that first, first day in London. It seemed to be that we kept bobbing up wherever we were on, maybe because Kerr and Moore was near enough on the alphabetical list. But anyway we shared the room there and if we gave the lady a half a crown a week each she used to leave the window open so that there was no bother about coming home at night time. But that was, that was more or less just across the road or nearby to Heaton Park. We never took advantage of it, always made sure that we were in before midnight although you were supposed to be the same as the camp, in about half past ten, you know. Well once we got over that stage we were called up into the park and put into a Nissen hut, the same as everybody did, and then we did some more drill and discipline and listened to the Royal Air Force tunes that was drummed into you so that you’d know whatever was being sounded was what you did. And of course if the, if the tunes came up to a certain degree then you had to — whatever you were doing — you had to march to attention, and if you got caught not marching to attention when these tunes were being played you found yourself on KP or something else like that. I managed to avoid that so I was quite lucky. Maybe it’s because it was drummed into my head that you always smartened yourself up whenever these tunes were played. Anyway, we, we eventually got we didn’t really do a lot of, we had a lot of talks on various things but we didn’t do any stuff for examinations. But all of a, all of a sudden you began to, you began to assemble in to different groups, your name was put here and then was put there and it wasn’t alphabetical either and the next thing you knew that you were ABC or DEF or whatever else it was, and eventually these groups were how you were going to be posted away from, from Heaton Park. And with that at Heaton Park — Heaton Park I was, I was KL and KL and M was quite good for me, I didn’t know too much about it and neither did anybody else. But one day, one day we were fitted out with kit and we were told that we would probably go to Rhodesia, And everybody said, ‘Oh. We’re going to Rhodesia. Oh that’s — that’s a cushy number there. You go all the way in the boat and then you go to Cape Town and then you go on a train and you go all the way up to either Salisbury or Bulawayo.’ Well everybody thought oh this is, this is good, anyway , that was a special uniform you got for going to Rhodesia, it was different from those who went to South Africa. Anyway, what happened then was that we, we started assembling in these groups. So the groups one day were 12 o’clock noon, the bell went and we formed up and the next thing we were told, ‘Get your kit together. You’re off.’, ‘Oh. We’re off. Where are we going?’, ‘We’re not telling you where you’re going. You’re off.’ So we got all this kit and we went to Liverpool and [pause] a little memento here of a ship called the Andes, A N D E S, which was a brand new ship just before the war. That ship had come up the Clyde in to the Holy Loch in all its glory because it was supposed to be on the South American run. And it was a beautiful ship, all brand new, And we boarded this ship in Liverpool. And who was beside me? Alec Kerr. Oh, ‘Alec. How did we manage this?’, He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He says, ‘Just the names seemed to come up again and we’re here together.’ I said, ‘Oh good.’ So, anyway we went down to K deck, I thought it wasn’t bad, it was well down in the ship but being a new ship it was quite good. Anyway, we, we stayed there overnight. The ship didn’t move. And we had another fellow with us there and his name was Ted Weir, and Ted Weir was thirty three. Thirty three. And we were only leaving UK. So he said, ‘My God,’ he said, ‘my wife’s expecting a baby,’ and we said, ‘What? You’re an old man for having a baby.’ He said, ‘Yes. I’ve just got word.’ I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ He said, ‘I’m going to slip off tonight and go and see the baby. In case I never get another chance.’ I said, ‘Alright. Alright Ted. How are you going to do it?’ He said, ‘I’m going to go down the anchor [inaudible].’ I said, ‘Well if you don’t come back you’re in big trouble.’ Anyway, about 2 o’clock in the morning and he came back. We hadn’t moved. So Ted Weir, thirty three plus, had seen his baby, a little boy with ginger hair like him, so he was quite happy. But we never saw the baby, we never saw photographs but we were told plenty about him. So anyway around about mid-day the next day the Andes took off. So anyway away we go, away we go down the Mersey and around the top of Northern Ireland. We were sailing well and it was good weather, we went, ‘Oh this is a piece of cake. Nice cruise we’re on on a ship.’ So there we go. Judgement, you know. I said, ‘We’ve left. We’ve left Ireland now. We’re heading for the Bay of Biscay.’ Anyway, that night we were up on a deck and I said to, I said to Alec and Ted, I said, ‘This ship’s going the wrong way.’ And they said, ‘You and your Clyde navigation.’ I said, ‘Me and my Clyde navigation. We’re going the wrong way.’ So, in the morning we were back in Liverpool, right back where we left. Anyway, we wondered what was going to happen there, so we were told to keep our kit all close together and all the rest of it. Anyway, I looked across from where we were, out and I said to, I said to Alec, I said, ‘The 534.’ And Ted Weir said, ‘What’s the 534?’, I said, ‘I’m not telling you. You might be a spy,’ you know. He says, ‘Come on Bill. Tell me. What’s the 534?’, ‘Oh a 534’s got three funnels hasn’t it?’ He said, ‘Yes.’, ‘Well that’s the Queen Mary.’ [pause] So we, we were twelve hours later, we were on the Queen Mary and the next thing we knew we were heading west. So where did we go? We landed up in New York. We were only in New York about twenty four hours, a bit longer. We had a great crossing, everything was fine. And as I say we got in to New York and we had a bit of shore time which was unusual. We were given strict instructions that you would be in the chucky if, if you didn’t come back in time. So anyway they trusted us so off we went, came back, and we, we were taken to the train station as they call it there. And we were all put on these lovely trains with beds and everything, you know, so, oh this is ideal. Anyway, it was American trains and sometime, sometime the following morning we pulled out and we wondered where, where we were going. There was all sorts of bets on, we were going to Arizona, we’re going to this, we’re going to that. No, no, we didn’t go there. We went to Moncton, New Brunswick, in Canada. And that’s where we, where we started getting a bit of trouble because we, we didn’t have much uniform. Some of it, we’d changed some of the stuff, you know. Typical Air Force . You weren’t allowed this if you had that and things like that. Anyway, we walked around there and the saying up there was like a squaw and later on in life I used to call like a ‘Matabeleland nanny,’ you know. Anyway, we got up there and Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick was the centre in Canada where, where people were sent all over Canada and sometimes down to the States etcetera, etcetera, you know, so once we get up there then we found out what we were actually going to do. Anyway, Alec Kerr and Ted Weir and myself, we were still together and, well it was more luck than judgement, and we didn’t do much there. As a matter of fact we learned, we learned all the names for Canadian names, American names for things. Pie a la mode for a sweet and this, that and the next thing. All the fancy things which we thought we might be getting to eat. Although the diet there was terrific compared to what we had in the UK, the UK diet was excellent. Plain Jane and no nonsense but when we got to, we got to New Brunswick we even got ice cream and things like that. Anyway, one day we, our names appeared on, on a notice board and we were deftly got different parades as people called it in the Air Force , you know. Now, when you join the Air Force you volunteer, butthat’s the last time you ever volunteer for anything, so by this time we were just told what we were going to do. So some people were down for pilots, some people for navigators, some people for wireless operators, all sorts of different things come up, you know, and then of course there was various other bits and pieces that came up, you know. Anyway, we went off in the train and about five, about five days later we got to Winnipeg. We changed trains in Winnipeg, all the way across to Canada to there. We’d actually been in one train and one bed and we used to get off and stretch our legs and get an hour or so while they put new coal and stuff on the, on the train and then we went back on and away we went to the next station. And we had quite a wee bit, and there was one, there was one time I was off and somebody says, ‘You’d better have a haircut’. I said, ‘Alright. I’ll have a haircut’. So I went in and typical me, you know, I went in and I said, ‘Can I have a haircut please?’, ‘Yes. How would you like it?’, ‘Oh I don’t want it, I don’t want it too short and I don’t want it long otherwise I’ll be in trouble’., ‘We’ll give you a Canadian one’., ‘Ok. Fine’. Anyway, I got settled back in the chair and the next thing I knew it cost me fifteen bucks because I went to sleep. I’m still a person who could go to sleep with just sitting, sitting around for a few minutes. Anyway, when I woke up, he says, ‘Yes. You agreed. Every time I told you what you wanted you nodded your head’. I said, ‘Oh. Thank you very much’. So I was fifteen bucks short. Anyway, that was alright. Well, eventually from from Winnipeg we went up to Manitoba. Dauphin, Manitoba. Right up, right up in the top of Manitoba itself, right up north, Dauphin and Paulson and various places like that. And we looked around for the town. It was a hamlet. Dauphin wasn’t too bad but Paulsen, I think it was twelve, twelve houses that was there, you know and we had, we had more people in the camp then there were civilians around us, you know. Anyway, that was quite good. We, we went training there and we did, we did the basics of gunnery there, and started off with the, we had 22s and we did a lot of clay pigeon shooting in the hangars because by this time there was six feet of snow outside, you know. And we didn’t, we didn’t go very far, but we got one or two flights in those Ansons, the early ones, so that wasn’t bad. Getting us accustomed to, to flying as they called it and then, and then of course what happened after that was that they began to tell us what we were going to do. Well some of the chaps, some of the chaps were down as pilots and they went off to another ‘drome nearby. Some of us took in navigation, and some, some took in wireless and gunnery. But what we did was we did the whole lot, we did POSB, you know. And that was, that was the, we all took the full course pilot — pilot, observer, navigator the whole thing, you know. We were beginning to find out what it was all about. It was very gentlemanly, there was civilian pilots and civilian instructors, things like that. All sort of chaps in their early thirties — early forties or thirties and they were our instructors. Anyway, about a few weeks later we were divided up again and this time it was a full, a full gunnery course that we did, everybody had to do that. We had a full gunnery course, and then we had a wireless course, and that kept us the whole time. Even the gunnery course kept us going the whole time. And you might, you might have, instead of maybe having five or six courses for gunnery or something like that they slackened down so you were beginning to realise what you were actually going to do. So what we did then, what we did then was we went across to the pilot’s school. They never told you whether you failed or otherwise. They would say we need seven pilots and that was seven pilots. The first seven in the list became pilots and the rest of us then went in for, for navigation and bomb aiming, and we still carried on with the wireless and we still carried on with the gunnery. Then of course we went up and the next thing, the next thing what we knew was we were concentrating more on navigation than we were anything else although we still carried on every now and again, keep our hand in at wireless, at wireless and gunnery. Well we actually graduated in each of these places and were passed on to different, different sections there and then we had a big change. We went over to Dauphin. Dauphin, Dauphin was quite, quite a town by their standards, there were shops in the village and places like that and we got quite friendly with the local people, and I got friendly with a couple who’d come out from Scotland many years ago. And they had a grown up family of a son who was already in the Air Force and a daughter and there was another girl who stayed with them and she was the fiancé of the son. Anyway, that’s another little story. Anyway, we were quite friendly with them and visited them when we could and had the usual, we had our Christmas lunch there for a start. We went to dances, we went to everything in our spare time, the usual sort of thing. Made ourself, we were told to mix which was very good. And then of course we went up through and you actually, you actually graduated or you failed. If you didn’t graduate and you failed then you were sent to a straight gunnery school and that was, that was to be, that was just to be on a gunnery course. There was no shame to it, it was a good course. Other people went to wireless operator and gunnery, that was also a good course but certainly a little bit different. Anyway, we did, we went on to the straight navigation course and that was, that was fine. Then of course we graduated. You didn’t get any, any stripes, you didn’t get any. You just, just moved out and of course by that time they had, they had AC2s and AC1s instead of the, instead of the LACs so we never did get these props, but we were changed from LACs to AC1s. Anyway, the next thing we knew we had, we had a week’s leave, a week to ten days leave and which was very nice. We got rail warrants for where we could go and all the rest of it, that was ideal. And then we came back and when we come back from there we actually got posted to different places and I got posted to a place called Portage la Prairie. Now Portage la Prairie is a very special, a very special school. Portage la Prairie was Number 7 Observer School. In other words you are doing things slightly different from navigation and we concentrated a lot on [pause] on different, different subjects and one of them of course was low flying and be able to map read. That was quite easy in Canada but, anyway, later on it was a different story. But that was, that was Portage la Prairie. Now Portage la Prairie is still going today and every four years the commandant of Portage la Prairie comes across here to the UK and he and his family take up residence here, and I have, I have met three different families now that came from Portage la Prairie. Anyway, going back, going back to Portage we did this specialised training, navigation etcetera, etcetera like that and observer training and then we, we went in to, we went into Winnipeg. We went to Winnipeg and we attended various courses in there which we didn’t really know what it was all about but it was courses that we were really specialists in. That was what it was, we were specialists in different things, you know. Then we went back of course to, we went back of course to the main station again, and then we got leave. We got some leave and I managed to, I managed to get to see quite a bit of Canada. And then the next thing we knew we were back in Moncton. Moncton, New Brunswick. In Moncton, New Brunswick we had, we had maybe a week or a couple of weeks or whatever, whatever was, until we actually got sent back to the UK. Now, when, when that, when that happened you were called in to a room and we were allowed two big full size kit bags. One that you could take your Air Force kit in and one that you could put all your civilian stuff in, including all the things that you’d bought when you were in Canada and the States and things like that. [pause] And then of course what happened, you were told that you might have a preference of flying back which meant that you could only take one, one kit bag with you and that would, that would be your service kit bag and the other one would come later. On the other hand if you, if you went by sea, returned by sea, you could take the two of them. So at that time everybody thought, ‘Oh well. Everything we’ve saved up for is in that other kit bag.’ [laughs] So we opted to try and get back by, back by sea. So anyway that did happen and we went down, we went down to, [pause] we went down to the railway station this day with all our kit and there we were heading towards the sea. So we went down and when we went down there, there was a ship there. And this ship that was in the dock, I recognised it, and I was just saying to the fellows that were with me, my other two friends had gone, but other ones, I said, ‘This looks like the Empress Line, you know’, ‘Oh. Empress. How do you know that?’ I said, ‘They used to sail down the Clyde every Friday night and we used to watch them, you know. So, anyway, this one turned out and it was named the Empress of Scotland, you know. As I was walking around it I picked up a little bit of information. It used to be the Empress of Japan and during the war they had changed it, changed it from the Empress of Japan to the Empress of Scotland. So, that was Halifax that we were in. So what we did was one day we up-anchored and away we went and of course as we were going out there we were, we had some little ships, something like the corvettes that we had in the UK, and they followed us out quite a bit in to the Atlantic. Then one morning they weren’t there, so you were on your own. Anyway, we, we were sleeping once again away down in the depths of the ship and we said, ‘You know, if we go down there and we are in the mid-Atlantic and we get torpedoed I don’t think we’d ever get out of there you know’, because we timed it and the timing was pretty good because we’d done two or three different runs. And we said, ‘Oh bugger it. We’ll try and sleep up on deck’, but by this time it was summer weather so we actually slept up on deck. And then one day I looked up and I said, ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I know where we are’, I said, ‘We’re heading for the Clyde’. And we did. And we sailed right up the Clyde, up to Gourock and we lay off Gourock there and I saw a lot of the older men who were working on the boats there that I knew from my home town. Dunoon area. But we weren’t allowed to talk to anybody. We were told, ‘No, No, No, No, We don’t want anybody to know where you’ve come from or anything like that.’ So we got down and got onto a boat which was called the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Mary 2 was a passenger boat that used to ply between Gourock and Greenock and Dunoon on the Clyde but she was bare by this time and she was painted grey the same as the rest. But she was used to ferry people from the liners across to Gourock or Princes Pier, and what happened then was that you went on a train to somewhere, you know. And of course eventually, eventually we did that. And we landed up, landed up in, we landed up in Yorkshire, that’s where we got to, you know. And we got there and we were billeted in one of the colleges and that was great. There was running hot and cold water and things like that and at night you could get out and you could go up to the pub because you’d already been given some money, British money, and we had two or three days there, you know and during this time this friend of mine and I’d met up with Alec Kerr again and we, we went in to this pub and I looked in this big mirror, you know and I said, ‘Look, I know that chap, that Canadian over there’. He said, ‘No you don’t’, I said, ‘Look. I’ll bet you a couple of pints’. He says, ‘Are you sure? Alright I’ll take you on’, ‘Alright’. I said. I said, ‘Yeah. I’m sure. Are you betting against me?’ He said, ‘Yeah. You don’t. There’s so many Canadians here’. Anyway, I went up to him and I said, ‘Oh by the way that was a nice wristwatch that you gave to your girlfriend at Christmas’. He was just about ready to put his [inaudible] up. He said, ‘Why?’ I said ‘Because I took her to a dance’, you know. And I said, ‘Draw that back’, I said, ‘Your names Nicholson, you know. And your, your girlfriend is staying with your mother and father because your parents are working on the railway’, you know. [laughs]. So what he was going to do to me, you know. Anyway, it was quite fun. We had, we had these couple of pints and we had a good night and he had to go his way and we went ours, I never saw him again after that. But it was quite strange. By the time I got home my mother and his mother had been corresponding, you know and she knew all about him and all the rest of it and that was it, you know. And apparently, apparently, the other one knew all about me, you know. [laughs] But from there, from there we, we were, we were back in the Royal Air Force, you know. It was entirely different again you know. Back in the Royal Air Force. This time we were shipped, shipped down to [pause] where would we call it? [pause] My kid’s staying there at the moment. I’ll get back to it. Let me get this. [pause] What — it was a station. The station is Halfpenny Green, you know and we, there were several of us went there, about a half a dozen, but other ones were scattered all over the place, you know. And once, once we get into Halfpenny Green we discovered that we were on specialised training of low level flying on the, on the new Anson, you know. And we did all sorts of stuff but this time of course it was Royal Air Force pilots and they were a lot of chaps who had actually been on service and they’d been lucky enough to have done a tour on something or someway and landed up there on the same as us, low level flying. But as I say most of them were actually stationed there and knew they were there for a while. Anyway, we went, we went there and we actually wondered why we were doing this because really and, really and truly it was just about the only thing we did. We did the night flying and we did this, we did that. We was also a lot of it was either moonlight or daylight. Anyway, what happened then was, of course what we didn’t know was that we’d been selected, selected for duties where, where your low level flying and stuff like that was good, you know. Of course, anyway, by that time that was one of the things we wondered why but you never asked too much. And then of course you had some night flying where you’re up flying low over Wales and all the rest of it and going, actually doing bombing runs under different bridges there and things like that just to keep your hand in, and then eventually we went to, we went to different, different stations again, you know. From [pause] from there [pause] sorry about that.
CB: Do you want to stop for a mo?
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
[Recording paused]
WM: I had a break there.
CB: We’re re-starting.
WM: Fine.
[pause]
CB: Ok.
WM: From there we were actually transferred to a secret ‘drome. We didn’t believe it was secret until we got there. As a matter of fact on the way everybody was saying it must, it must be like an ordinary station, and then as we, as we get nearer there with the talk that was coming back to us it really was secret, and that turned out to be Tempsford. Now, the big thing about that was, was that the first thing you did when you get inside you get lined up and you had a nice, sort of friendly talk. And they said, ‘Right you’ve now got to sign the Secrets Act again but this time it’s for real.
CB: Right.
WM: If you talk about anything and it gets out anywhere you will be shot, that’s how serious it is. And as a matter of fact a couple of times the little pub there — The Wheatsheaf — was closed because they thought that it might have been that some information might have been getting out through the pub. There was always the chance that somebody might have said something, although , as I say, we were sworn to secrecy. Now, what we didn’t realise at the time was what we were going to do because nobody told us and nobody would tell us. Now, after, after about a week I think what had been they were actually assessing our characters as they could see them there. They began to take confidence in us and give us that little bit of confidence, you know, and then we found out what it was all about. At that time the CO come in and he spoke to us and he told us what it was all about. And then we realised to what extent the secrecy was demanded because not only was the fact was that the people you were taking in to the occupied countries were in danger of their life but you also were. And what was given to us was, ‘You don’t communicate with them, and they don’t communicate with you’. I do know for a fact that the Americans later on when they started getting into things they used to call the people Joe’s and things like that, but we were not for that at all. We did not say, we did not take, if you turned around and say, ‘You’ve got a bunch of Joe’s there’ well right away people would know you had a bunch of people and where they come from. But the big thing about it was that in most times you just went out on one aircraft to one airfield, and that wasn’t too bad at all. Although there was a couple of occasions where about twenty agents who had been rounded up and all shot out of hand by somebody who had given, given them away, and that happened to be a person of the same nationality. We don’t like to say exactly what it was, I know people have written about it. But on the other hand is this, that we don’t like to think that, that the people helping our agents once on the ground was people that gave them away but it’s a sad story to say that it was. The worst part of that from time to time was in Holland, you know. And the bad thing about it was that the man who was responsible for so many deaths at one time was actually based in London, you know. He was, he was a, he was a Dutchman, yeah, and of course the Dutch people are still horrified about that, you know. That their own people could give them away, you know. Anyway, what did happen was that we were told exactly what was going to happen was that you would be allocated a pilot because then by that time I was classified as an observer. You had your pilot and you and he actually spoke over about what was going to happen. Once we knew where we were going and how many people we were liable to be taking. Well the thing is this. You can all imagine about Lysanders, they can’t carry very many people, but the lighter the people were the more we could actually take and that was a fact. And of course we were, we were told all sorts to keep our weight down. Now, I can assure you that it wasn’t too hard to do that but at the same time you had to make sure that you kept within limits. Now, when, when an operation was on, whatever was going to happen, however you wanted to count it or name it then everybody, everybody who was concerned once again knew what was going on. They knew how secret it had to be, they knew that people’s lives were depending on it, whether it was the team flying them out or the people going out. Now, what did, what did happen was that going back, going back to the time of navigating and taking everything on the map-readings and being able to do that. Nine times out of ten we were jolly lucky but sometimes you might have been landing in a field which was next door to the one that you were supposed to be landing, and the ground wasn’t exactly good. But, of course, the fields that we were landing on had, nothing had been done to them since the pre-war days and one or two of them had been glider schools that people had been taught to glide from, because then these fields had been disbanded and walked away from, you know, and people kept away from them. But they were the kind of fields that were the best for landing on. They had been, they had been more or less gone over in early days because gliding, gliding in Europe was quite a sport before the war. It wasn’t too, too strong in the UK but in, in Europe it was very strong from time to time, you know. And of course, as I say taking, taking people in it was the big thing was to make sure where you were going, how long it would be and as much as possible you had to be exactly on time because a few minutes either way could have cost people their lives because there was people that was coming in to meet the ones that was being taken in and there was also people further along the lines to receive them, so everything had to be timed exactly. If you had strong headwinds going across to the continent and you might have lost twenty minutes or things like that. That was too bad but at the same time, at the same time you had to try and do something about it. And the best thing that we used to do was to try, try and get that little bit extra speed and keep down as low as we could, then of course you had, you had more dangers than you normally would have with wires and all the rest of it, you know. But everything was done more or less by moonlight and that was as best as we could do it. The big, the big thing about it was trust. Now, with the early, the early days there was quite a few of the chaps who were flying there had, had been flying over that area either as people who had money and could fly about etcetera, etcetera or they were people who had been in flying clubs, so they were the best people to get some of the ideas from of how you could do it. Now, the big thing too was that we had, we had some officers with us who were exceptional in whatever it was, whether they were pilots or whether they were navigators or whether they were doing exactly what we were doing, you know because [pause] when they, when they told you about things you certainly listened to them.
[pause]
WM: After a while we actually got, we got some twin-engined aircraft from America and with them they were quite good because they were actually designed to land in the Prairies in Canada or America and their undercarriage was strong. That the likes of the fields that we were operating on they could be taken in and that was, that was one of the good things that happened there. Now there was one particular night and we were loaded up with guns and ammunition and all these sort of things for the Maquis and we had our target where we had to take it to. Anyway, we set off and we had just the three of us in the aircraft. There was the skipper, myself and another chap who, well, nowadays you would call him a loadmaster or something like that. He was the chap that made sure that the load was alright, well maybe that was where the name came from, I don’t know, but that was what he always had to do. Anyway, this particular night we came in to this ‘drome which had been an airfield for, for the [pause] I beg your pardon, an airfield for the gliders. As we came up and we turned around we began to sink. And we felt, well, that would be alright. Nobby turned around and said, ‘Its alright Bill. Once we get rid of this stuff we’ll rise alright’. you know. So Jim, in the back, shouts, ‘Well I bloody well hope so. I don’t want to be kept around here for a while’, you know. Anyway, what did happen was that the Maquis came there with their person in charge, they got all their stuff away and off they went into the bush and that was the end of them. They were gone. Anyway, we tried to get out and we hadn’t got out at all, we’d got out a little bit. Not bad. Anyway, the leader of the group on the ground, and it was a lady, and what she says was, ‘We’ll get you out. Don’t worry. We’ll get you out.’ And we said, ‘How?’, ‘Oh we’ll get you out’. So she actually went to the village and she rounded up everyone in the village and of course they weren’t supposed to move, they weren’t supposed to go out after dark, but man, woman and child all came out to help get us out and of course they had to try and find articles that would help. Anyway, when they were half way up they met a German sergeant, and the German sergeant said, ‘Right. You people. You shouldn’t be out at night time. What are you doing?’ Or words to that effect. And she says, ‘We’re trying to get your big black aircraft out of the mud and the Gestapo’s going to shoot us all including you if we don’t get the job done’. So he says, ‘That’s alright. I’ll go and look after the village and you can get the aircraft out’. So, anyway, he went back to the village and they got us out, but that was about an hour and a half on the ground instead of, at the most, twenty minutes. And as I say when we took off that was one of the best take-offs we ever had because we made sure that she was up and ready to go. But the only thing, time, well, what used to happen to us was we used to get the odd chap on the ground who heard an aeroplane coming and you used to hear ‘bang, bang’ and he would shoot at us with a rifle or something like that, or sometimes even thought it was somebody with a shotgun because we didn’t know it at the time but when you got back again you found the results on your aircraft. And these old aircraft, they could take it you know which was, which was a big thing. But that that was the nearest that we got to ever being interned because we were, we were very lucky. I put, I put it down to each of us doing our own work, you know and able to do the job that we set out to do. There’s the big black box down there if you want to take it home and use it. Would you like to use it?
CB: Yeah.
WM: [laughs] Do you know what it is?
CB: No. What is it?
WM: What is it Tony?
TB: I don’t know. What are we talking about?
WM: In there. Around this side. [pause] Down.
TB: That. No. Where am I looking?
CB: We’ll have a look in a minute.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Over there.
TB: Ok.
WM: No. The big thing. The big thing down there.
TB: I don’t know.
WM: It’s alright. It’s been shifted. The girl shifted it. Sorry. I beg your pardon for this.
CB: That’s alright.
WM: It’s —
TB: Not this.
WM: No. It’ not that, Tony.
CB: We’ll have a look in a minute.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Sorry. Sorry about that.
CB: That’s alright.
WM: Ok. Not to worry Tony.
TB: Oh.
WM: I know where it is now.
TB: Oh.
WM: She shifted it. I’ve got somebody that comes in, I beg your pardon, anyway , as I say between, between our training and respect for each other and what we did, I reckon that is why we survived. And not only that but the code of silence that we had. Now, what did happen was that later on, later on, once, once it started getting where they didn’t need so many people on the ground in Europe then we moved over to Tuddenham and then to Bomber Command, you know. And then later on all the station and everything else moved away from Tempsford across to Tuddenham, you know. And what happened was that the chap that I was flying with in the beginning, a chap called Murray, by that time he was, he was our wing commander. And he was the wing commander for 138 Squadron after the war as well for quite some considerable time, you know. Now, what happened, what happened to me was that on Bomber Command we did, we did thirty six ops on Bomber Command over and above what we did for the other ones but from time to time, our people just called them trips, there was no such thing as tours with us. It was if the old man let you off for a few days you got off for a few days. If he couldn’t afford to let you go you didn’t get, that’s how it was and you also had to make sure that you didn’t talk about what you were doing there. And that wasn’t just on the oath but that was also on the comradeship that we, that we had there, you know. Anyway, after that, after the end of the war the next thing we did was to fly back, fly back all our ex-prisoners of war and we were flying them back and also we were designated to take displaced persons down through France, down to the South of France, you know, and they had special camps there for them, to help them get rehabilitated, you know. And one of the biggest ones was at Istres you know.
CB: The who?
WM: Ist ISTRVS. In the south of France.
TB: Istrvs.
WM: Then of course, after a while there was three crews selected with their Lancasters and their ground crews and we went to RAF Benson. And we didn’t know what we were doing at first but eventually we found out what it was and one of the things that Churchill wanted was to have everything photographed from the air. The likes of London and cities like that we photographed them all from two thousand feet, then smaller towns. went I down gradually to about ten, fifteen thousand feet, and then of course the countryside was at twenty thousand feet. We didn’t only do the UK and Ireland but we also did right from the North of Norway all the way, right down to the Mediterranean and as far around to the east as we could go and come back on the fuel that we had. And that was an operation that had been put in place by Churchill when he was still in office, you know.
CB: So this was coastline? Coastlines?
WM: Sorry?
CB: Just the coastlines.
WM: No. No. Internal cities. Everything.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: Now we had bases, we had bases in Norway, we had bases in France, we had bases all over. And that was 138 squadron.
CB: Then what?
WM: Then I went. I was told I wasn’t going to get made up to another rank that I thought I was going to get and —
CB: What was that?
WM: A warrant officer then. And I didn’t get that and by that time instead of going out on class A, I took class B which was an early release for anybody who had been in the building trade and essential industries like that and that’s what I did from there, I took that and back in to the building trade.
CB: So what did you do in the building trade?
WM: Well we, we started, we revamped the family business and carried out many jobs, many contracts, but in the end we were finding out that all the spivs were getting the jobs instead of honest contractors. And then one day I decided now that enough’s enough and I said to the family, ‘Right’, the younger brothers, ‘You can take over the business. I’m going’. I didn’t know where I was going to but eventually I landed up in Africa with the African, what it was, was that the, the Mandela, Mandela, which was a trading store in Africa had started up a building section and they recruited me to go and take over a dozen sights there, you know. And that’s when we started building the schools and the hospitals and the universities and all sorts of things like that. First of all in the Nyasaland, as it was and then, and then in the Rhodesias and then that became the Federation. And then that went ahead by leaps and bounds until the UK government gave the countries away. And then eventually I came back here after fifty years.
CB: Where did you retire to?
WM: Well I retired here because I retired supposedly in 1980. What happened, my wife didn’t want me around the house so I went consulting, and I was a consultant for the Zimbabwe government, Zambian government and Namibia and Mozambique and Northern South Africa wasn’t it? [pause] Yeah.
CB: What made you choose this area?
WM: Well, what happened was that I came, I used to fly around here but also the fact was that I came back here in 1991 when one of my nieces and nephews were staying here and he’d been given, got a job as a bank manager from Africa to be here. And I rather liked it, and eventually my wife and I decided to come here, you know, and now that all my family are either in here or down in the Bournemouth area.
CB: How many children have you got?
WM: Three. Three children and then six, six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Yeah.
CB: What was your wife’s name?
WM: Phillis. P H I L L I S. Like that.
CB: Yeah. Ah fantastic. Yeah. And when was she born?
WM: On the 1st of February 1926.
CB: When were you married?
WM: The 3rd of January 1947.
CB: So when were you actually demobbed?
WM: The end of February 1946.
CB: Ok. You talked about a lot of interesting things and one of the questions really is, we haven’t touched on is, what were the planes you were using when you were with 138? On the agent’s side.
WM: The twin engines were Hudsons.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. And then of course we had the single engines then.
CB: Did you, did you fly in Lysanders?
WM: Yes.
CB: You did. Right.
WM: Yes.
CB: How many people could you take in a Lysander?
WM: Well it all depended on the weight that you were carrying, you know. Yeah.
CB: But if it was just agents.
WM: Well that was, well that was, you could get three in, you know.
CB: As well as you and the pilot.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok. And in the Hudson?
WM: Well the Hudson mainly was, we took quite a few people on board, yes, about ten of them but we were mostly on the Hudsons taking in supplies to the Maquis.
CB: So how often did you air drop the supplies? Or how often did you land them?
WM: Well on the air drop, on the air drop was between, between fifteen and twenty, yeah, and then the land drops. The land ones, we landed with them, the special stuff. That was about five or six. Five or six.
CB: Six people.
WM: No, No.
TB: Six times.
WM: Six drops.
CB: Six drops. Yeah. Right.
WM: Yeah.
TB: How many Lysander trips did you do?
WM: Eh?
TB: How many Lysander trips did you do?
WM: About twelve altogether.
CB: Twelve Lysander trips. Ok. And Hudson? Because sometimes you didn’t find the location did you? So —
WM: No, we went, no well, we always seemed to, always seemed to be quite lucky that way. We were, you know. You know turn around and say it might have been the field next door or something like that but it wasn’t far away. We always managed to get our targets and get our stuff away.
CB: But it took exceptional navigational skill in the dark to be able to get to these places.
WM: It was.
CB: So what was the, what was the real key to that?
WM: Well they told me I had a countryman’s eyes.
CB: Because not everybody could do it.
WM: No, that’s right. As I said right at the beginning when I told you about the Clyde and the Clyde navigation.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The stars and things like that. You know, as a, as a boy I used to wander the countryside in the dark and it didn’t matter what the weather was.
CB: Right. So you had an eye for it.
WM: Oh yes. Aye.
CB: So the navigation itself. What were you flying? What height were you flying on the transit?
WM: Well the, no more than a thousand feet.
CB: Right. So that made it difficult.
WM: It did.
CB: To see laterally.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And when you got to the target then, where you were going to land, how did you do approach that? Did you do a straight in or did you fly over and around or —
WM: It all depends. If you recognised it and the code looks right you went straight in. Sometimes you buzzed it a couple of times because you weren’t sure whether it was a decoy or not. Because once or twice where the Jerries had set up decoys.
CB: So you were warned off were you?
WM: Yeah. Well it was the people on the ground you know.
CB: That’s what I meant, yeah.
WM: They always seemed to manage to do something that upset the Jerrie’s decoys. However, there were one or two chaps [pause] that didn’t.
CB: Yeah. The, so you’re coming at a thousand feet. Is this a wooded area or does it tend to be open country?
WM: Well most of them were open areas that we landed in, you know. Oh yeah.
CB: And how would they know you were coming in practical terms. At the last minute.
WM: Oh well. I would say they had a rough time of when we’d be there. That was what it was.
CB: So were they using lights to identify?
WM: Sometimes you had lights because we used to even take the lights in to them, you know. And sometimes the remote areas — sometimes they, they had little bush fires.
CB: Right.
WM: I call them bush fires. That’s from Africa, bush fires.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. So in landing they were fairly small strips.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: So how did you know, because you’ve got wind to consider?
WM: Yeah.
CB: How would you know which direction to approach for landing?
WM: Well, well you’d try and find your winds on the way through.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: And what navigation aids were you using?
WM: Well mostly, mostly, most of it was the navigator’s computer. There was a computer on the knee. But nine —
CB: The Dawson Computer.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Nine times out of ten, nine times out of ten it was just the old fashioned hit and run, you know.
CB: You didn’t have Gee.
WM: Oh no, not at that time. We never got Gee until we were flying in, we never had Gee until we, we flew in Lancasters.
CB: Right. Ok. So when you, when you were loading up to leave in the winter what was happening? Was the aeroplane sinking in? Is that what you were talking about earlier?
WM: Yeah. That’s what you had to watch out for.
CB: What did they do to help that?
WM: Well our people were very good because you know they made sure everything was alright for us but the ones on the other side as much as possible they had firm ground for us, you know.
CB: So you land the aeroplane. You had to taxi back.
WM: Yeah.
CB: In order to take off again.
WM: That’s right.
CB: How long are you on the ground between?
WM: Well, as I say, about twenty minutes.
CB: Right.
WM: Well, some, some of these trips. Other ones were a wee bit longer you know.
CB: The Lysander could get in a pretty small spot could it?
WM: Oh yes. Yeah. As a matter of fact most of the first groups — they used to land on the roads.
CB: Oh did they?
WM: Oh yes. Aye. Used to land on the roads.
CB: Between the trees.
WM: Yeah. ‘Cause you could do that with the Lysanders. Aye.
CB: What was the loss rate? Did people tend to —?
WM: Well I’ll tell you about it if you give me a few minutes.
CB: Yeah.
WM: I’ll give you it exactly, you know.
CB: Right. I’ll stop just for a moment.
WM: Yeah. Sure.
[Recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re talking about the loss rates in 138 in the flying over Europe.
WM: 138 Squadron. The Royal Air Force Association. The Royal Air Force, I beg your pardon. Royal Air Force. At Tempsford, during the time we were there we lost nine hundred and ninety five agents.
CB: Blimey. So when. When’s that from when to?
WM: That was right through the war.
CB: Right.
TB: When you say lost do you mean —
WM: Lost.
TB: What? Captured by the Germans.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: We dropped twenty nine thousand containers.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We dropped seventy, we dropped ten thousand packages.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And there was seventy — seven zero aircraft lost.
CB: On the SOE operations.
WM: Yeah. And there was three hundred air crew lost. The motto for 138 squadron is “For Freedom”. “For Freedom.”
[pause]
CB: Right.
WM: It may be that you’ll come across some day — the United States Air Force 7th Airlift Squadron came to be with us and they actually adopted our motto — “For Freedom.”
[pause]
CB: Now, what were the aircraft used? Because we’ve talked about the Hudson —
WM: Yeah.
CB: And the Lysander.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: But were you using bigger planes as well?
WM: Oh yes. Of course. We used, used Stirlings and Halifaxes.
CB: In the squadron.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Part of the same squadron.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: So they had lots of different aeroplanes. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. We used Whitleys. We used everything.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We used to say that the junk that the old man didn’t want they used to pass it down to us.
TB: How did the Stirlings and Halifaxes get off then because they needed quite a long runway didn’t they?
WM: Yeah. Well that was, that was fine there at Tempsford.
CB: Tempsford had a long runway so that was ok.
TB: But the other end?
CB: It’s a standard A airfield.
TB: The other end then. How did they didn’t actually — they didn’t actually land in those?
CB: They didn’t land those.
WM: No, no .
CB: They didn’t land at the —
WM: No. They were for the heavy stuff they were dropping.
CB: Yeah. So fast forward then to going to Tuddenham.
WM: Yeah.
CB: That was because the SOE bit stopped.
WM: That’s right.
CB: What did 138 do from Tuddenham?
WM: Well we were on Bomber Command.
CB: Yes. So what type of bombing were you doing there?
WM: Well we were on a lot of the big ones that was available at that time. Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: Including, including the various ones like [pause] Where was one? There was the Kiel one.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The Kiel. Then there was, was —
TB: Did you do Cologne?
CB: And a, so you did a lot of different raids there.
WM: Yes.
CB: What, what about D-day because you got the Legion of Honour.
WM: Yeah. On, well, apart from the Legion of Honour wasn’t only just for D-day.
CB: No.
WM: That was for all the stuff we were doing for the French, you know.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: But during D-day time what we were doing, we were dropping H2S. It seems a funny thing for us to be doing a thing like that, but H2S and you did so many trips during that particular time they just called it one. One day. One day. They didn’t call it, didn’t call it so many trips.
CB: Right.
WM: That was one day.
CB: Right. Ok. So what were you actually doing? What were you actually doing at that time?
WM: That was, we were dropping, we were actually dropping, dropping —
CB: Window.
WM: Window.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But at the same —
CB: Not H2S.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Because H2S is the radar isn’t it?
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Well H2S is our side.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Whereas, whereas the window was against the Germans so —
CB: Yeah. Quite.
WM: But of course, on the other hand we’d divert and do a short bombing run somewhere else. Somewhere, somewhere else.
CB: Oh as well.
WM: To try and convince them that we were all over the place.
CB: Yes. Yes.
WM: So one flight might go off after twenty minutes, another one after half an hour and go and drop something, and things like that.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So just on timings. When did you start with 138 squadron at Tempsford?
WM: When?
CB: When was that?
WM: When. In Tempsford? Well we went back to Tempsford at the beginning of March.
TB: What year?
WM: Yeah.
CB: Nineteen forty —?
WM: 1945.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: But originally when did you go to Tempsford?
WM: Oh Tempsford. Not Tempsford, no, that was Tuddenham.
CB: Yeah.
WM: That was Tuddenham.
CB: Yeah. So when did you go to Tempsford?
WM: ‘41, ‘42
CB: Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right. And from then you went to Tuddenham.
WM: Tuddenham was at the end.
CB: Right. What did you do in the middle?
WM: Tempsford.
CB: Always Tempsford.
WM: Always Tempsford.
CB: Yeah. Ok. Good.
WM: It didn’t matter what job come up, we were a Tempsford squadron. Yeah.
CB: Ok. Good. Thank you very much.
WM: And that is, that is and that was very important was that we were. Well 219 Squadron came and joined us from time to time you know but I had nothing, I had nothing to do with them, you know.
CB: The same idea. You don’t talk to each other.
WM: Much the same idea. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Right. So when you were at Tuddenham and you were in Lancasters, how many sorties? How many ops did you do?
WM: That was thirty six.
CB: That was thirty six. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So that that until the end of the war.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Ok. And how did the crew get on?
WM: Oh, we had a great crew. What we, what we did, we went back to a place called Langar.
CB: In Nottinghamshire. Yes.
WM: In Nottingham. And that’s where we, where we picked up the rest of the crew.
CB: Right.
WM: And also there was one funny one we picked up, and what he was, he was the youngster, just come right out of university and we didn’t know how many languages he could speak but he could speak just about everything on the continent. And he used to carry his black box with him wherever he went and he used to, he used to speak into that. We never knew exactly what he was doing but we had an idea that he was talking to the German control.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And everything else like that.
CB: Yeah.
WM: A very important job, but as I say he was just straight out of university.
CB: But he was completely detached from the rest of the crew.
WM: No, no, no.
CB: On the ground I meant.
WM: He was a part of the crew.
CB: No. On the ground.
WM: Oh, on the ground. On the ground, yeah. He’d his own, he had his own station on the aircraft. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Where was that?
WM: Yeah. He was behind the radio operator.
CB: Right.
WM: Because they had to work together on it.
TB: But you dropped food stuffs into Holland as well didn’t you?
WM: Oh yes. That, we were on, we were on that drop.
CB: On Manna.
WM: Oh yeah.
CB: Operation Manna. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: How many drops did you do on that?
WM: We did, at the beginning we did three in one, three a day.
CB: Right.
WM: We did that for about fifteen days.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Aye. Yeah.
CB: And what height would you be flying for that?
WM: Well some of it we were just over, some of it, at the beginning there was about a thousand feet, then it was down to six hundred, you know. But there was one, one little story which is quite, quite a good one. We, it was the first Sunday we were on the run and we were on our second, second run, anyway what happened, As we were flying up, you see what had happened the ladies, we called it ladies, we used to call it ladies they had made white crosses like that.
CB: The WAAFs.
WM: Yeah. Well we said that was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We didn’t really know but the women used to say it was them.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And what it was that became our drop zones.
CB: Oh I see. Right.
WM: And that was inside —
CB: In Holland.
WM: Football grounds and thing like that.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Enclosed areas. Anyway, what happened was as we were coming in and just about ready for the drop and I saw this other Lanc coming in like that.
CB: Oh.
WM: And I said, ‘You’re bringing sprogs, you know’, and we went a little bit that way and dropped because we couldn’t do anything else, we’d already gone, you know. More or less gone. Top they went and the stuff went outside and landed here.
CB: Right. On the outside of the designated area.
WM: On the railway, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Yeah. Anyway, what happened was that years later we’d just opened a rugby ground in Africa and I was saying, I said, yeah, I said one of the stories I was saying, ‘And there we were, we dropped the food’. This lad came across. ‘And the stuff fell outside on the bloody railway line’, you know. And I said, ‘It looked like a whole lot of little black ants around a sugar lump, you know. In Africa that was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: All of a sudden I had a hand on my shoulder, and I looked around and somebody bigger than Tony, or he seemed bigger than Tony. I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘You nearly killed me’, I said, ‘What?’, ‘You nearly killed me’. I said, ‘How?’ He said, ‘That was, I was that first lot of black ants’. And there’s another lady here, she was at church with us on Wednesday and she was five year old then and what happened was that her mother heard the bombers coming in and she, her granny said, ‘Hide under the table. Hide under the table. We’re going to get bombed. Going to get bombed’. And her mother said, ‘They’re very low’. The next thing they saw these funny things coming down because that was before the arrangements were made.
CB: Oh.
WM: And that was on to like a golf course. An open area. It wasn’t any good for landing.
CB: No.
WM: It was undulating stuff, you know. And what, what happened was that as I say she was five year old and that was the stuff landing right in front of her, you know.
CB: Amazing.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And she’s here.
CB: Is she? What an extraordinary thing.
WM: And the number, the number of people that I’ve met is terrific. Well Tony was with us.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Tony was with us. I had a photograph here. Well it’s not a photograph.
TB: Yeah.
WM: There’s a painting done by a Dutchman, you know that was bigger than that.
CB: Right.
WM: No. It’s not there now Tony. It’s gone, my daughter’s got it. Like that. A great big mural, yeah. And he had it, he gifted it that day we were up there at Lincoln and it shows you the Lancasters all coming in, dropping the food and all the rest of it, you know and he actually gave me one just bigger, a little bit bigger than that envelope there.
TB: But the Germans were allowed to eat the food as well that was meant —
WM: Oh yes.
TB: There were people.
CB: They were starving too.
WM: Oh yeah. Well that was one of the reasons why, why, well, do you know the story behind it? Right. The people in Holland, both indigenous ones and members of the German armed forces, were starving and two young Canadian officers, lieutenants, had been talking to their CO and said, ‘Hey man, can’t we do something about that? These people are starving’. And he says, ‘We’ve got plenty of food’.
CB: These were army officers.
WM: Yeah. ‘We’ve got plenty of food. Let’s give some to them’. He said, ‘How are we going to do that?’ He says, ‘Let us go in and see the German. See if he’ll allow it’. He said, ‘They might, you never know’. The two of them. No guns, no nothing like that, no knives, and they went in and they walked right into the German headquarters and demanded to see the number one. So they got in there and they put their case to them that the aircraft coming in wouldn’t drop bombs as long as you didn’t shoot at them, and we’ll drop food and you can share it. Of course he thought that was a good idea. You can share it. Anyway, that happened. So the first thing that people said was, ‘Where are we going to get containers?’ Everybody said, ‘138 squadron. They’ve got hundreds of them’, you know. And so we had. And what they, did they next thing we knew there was American, American trucks, Canadian trucks, all of that coming on to our secret ‘drome, you know, with food. And of course they were all loaded up and taken to us and put in these containers. That’s why I’m saying about contained looked like. They must have had quite a job trying to get into it of course, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But that, that was the first lot of containers that were been dropped. Then they used to drop them in the reinforced mail sacks, you know. Well they were, they were run up special. People were running up up them special night and day to drop, so we could drop, so we could drop them.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Some of them were great big things. They weren’t small, you know. Aye.
CB: So even at six hundred feet the power of the drop would have been —
WM: Oh well.
CB: Difficult for the —
WM: Well that was, that was —
CB: They were breaking.
WM: Well, that was the chance. Yeah. But most of our containers were alright because —
CB: Yeah.
WM: They were used to being dropped, you know.
CB: No. Quite.
TB: [inaudible] Lancasters were dropping the food?
CB: Eh?
TB: Were they using Lancasters?
WM: Lancasters. Yeah.
CB: Lots of squadrons did it.
WM: Oh yes. There was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Aye.
CB: Right. What was the most memorable thing about your experience in the RAF?
[pause]
WM: It was when we were dropping the food to Holland and the response that we got. Yeah.
CB: What? What was the response?
WM: Oh terrific.
CB: In what way? How did they demonstrate it?
WM: Oh well. The crowds. Hundreds of people come out and waving to you and everything like that. And the, and the messages that was coming across, illicit radios and everything else. The airwaves were full of it. Aye.
CB: Were they?
WM: Aye. Oh yes.
CB: And then after the war did anybody go back to Holland to see? What?
WM: Oh yes. Yeah. Not only that, for quite a number of years they held food drops there, cheese drops. I was, in the beginning, alright but then I was away for fifty years. It still carried on during that time, and what used to happen was that the Dutch people came, came across on light aircraft and they brought all these little parachutes with these, you know these wee round cheeses and used to drop them at the various Royal Air Force Association homes on one special day at one special time. Yeah. And that was the food drops.
TB: ‘Cause you’re got a Dutch reward haven’t you as well? As well.
WM: Aye. I’ve got a Dutch medal. Yeah.
CB: What’s that called? What’s that called?
WM: Would you like to see it?
CB: Yeah.
[Recording pause]
CB: So we’re talking about your Dutch award for Manna. What’s that called?
[pause]
WM: I’ve got it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it.
CB: What’s it say?
WM: Thank you. “Thank you Canada and Allied Forces. Awarded the Medal of Remembrance. Thank you Liberators. 1945. To Mr W.T. Moore.”
CB: This is a plaque on the wall.
WM: Yes.
CB: Yes. Framed.
WM: Yes.
CB: Yes. And then after the war there were regular contacts but you were abroad.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So you didn’t get involved.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Since I’ve returned I’ve been highly involved with them.
CB: Yes. That’s really good. And this year, on the seventieth, last year just gone, the seventieth anniversary. Did you go to Holland?
WM: No. I didn’t. I didn’t manage to go.
CB: Right.
WM: But I had quite a number of Holland and Dutch people come here and saw me.
CB: Did you? Fantastic.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Can I just wind things back a little. Tell me about the crew. How, at Langar you crewed up. How did that happen?
WM: Well [laughs] it was an old RAF system.
CB: Go on.
WM: Open the hangar door, everybody goes in and they shut the hangar door and you’re told to, to crew up. In other words you have to try and find a crew. And well we were alright, Nobby and I were alright, we knew each other.
CB: That’s the pilot.
WM: That’s right.
CB: What was his name?
WM: Noble. Noble.
CB: Noble. Right.
WM: Yeah. Because I had a few pilots before that but he was the one they were going to fly Lancasters with, you know, and so then we —
CB: Who took the initiative in selecting the rest of the crew?
WM: Well, it just happened that, happened to be we that were standing around and this old man came around, you know and we said, ‘Oh he looks alright. He’s got experience. What’s your name?’ ‘Graham. Graham Wilson’, ‘What are you?’, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m a tail gunner’, We said, ‘Oh bugger off. We don’t want, you’re six feet and odd and you don’t tell us that’, you know. ‘You’re something else’, you know. Anyway, Graham Wilson became the tail gunner. He was, he was already twenty five plus twenty six.
CB: Yeah. An old boy. Yes.
WM: I know about that but —
CB: Yeah.
WM: And of course, then of course we had we had Jimmy Dagg. Jimmy Dagg from New Zealand and he became, he became our, [pause] well what he, what he actually did was he was our radar man. He was a radar man. He looked after all the radar equipment, and operating that as well. And then we had, we had radar, we had the wireless operator. We had a wireless operator and he was a signaller, Wireless Op/AG. He was a signaller as they called themselves, and he came from across the Clyde from me and his name was Dave Mitchell. [pause] Then of course the mid-upper, the mid-upper gunner, well he come from Canterbury. Peter. Peter Enstein and he and the family have a, have a hotel in Canterbury still, you know.
TB: You met up with one of them at the ITV do didn’t you?
WM: Sorry?
TB: You met up with someone at the ITV do.
WM: Yeah.
TB: Who was that?
WM: Well, that was that, that was the same ones that we met later on in life. Yes.
CB: Who was the flight engineer?
WM: The flight, the flight —
CB: Flight engineer.
WM: The flight engineer was Gus. He come from, he came from London, you know.
CB: Gus.
WM: Yeah, Gus Mitchell. Not Mitchell [pause] Oh what was his second name. Gus. Oh I’ll come back to him in a minute.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
WM: Sorry about that.
CB: Right. Now, anything else that we need to cover that comes to your mind particularly?
[pause]
WM: Well, just about [pause] Well I think we’ve been covering it in general. We’ve covered in general, you know.
CB: Yes.
WM: We haven’t gone into designated drops and designated flights and —
CB: Ok.
WM: Where people got shot up and things like that.
CB: Yeah. Well that’s —
WM: I haven’t done that.
CB: No. Can you do that?
WM: I haven’t done that on purpose.
CB: Oh right. Ok.
WM: I haven’t done that on purpose.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We were quite lucky. We were quite lucky. We went in, in to Bomber Command as a crew and we come out as a crew. We were lucky.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We, the pilots I had earlier on for the small and light aircraft and things like that the most memorable one to me was this chap as I say when I started off he was a, he was a pilot officer, you know, and he finished up as the, as the wing commander. And with that he [pause] he actually, well to me he was a person who deserved everything he ever got because he was, he was a first class team leader, he was a first class gentleman. If he told you a thing then he meant it, he didn’t elaborate on it, you know. And his name was Rob Murray. Of course he had various, various high decorations during his time.
CB: Yeah. Such as?
WM: Well he got all the high ones.
CB: DSO, DFC.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And bars?
WM: Well he did. He did, yes.
CB: So, when you were on operations, what was the most challenging thing on that? So you’re on the Lancaster —
WM: Well on a Lancaster the main challenging thing was to watch out for night fighters.
CB: Right.
WM: You know, by that time your navigational aids were good but the worst thing about it was the German night fighters. Because there were so many young crews, as I call them, shot down before they even left the UK. The likes of chaps just about ready to shove off the cliffs there, you know, they got shot down, you know.
CB: The night fighters were in that close were they? On the way to meet you.
WM: Oh yes. Now then and also at night time on the return trips. That was also the night fighters rejoice.
CB: Right.
WM: Oh yes. You don’t hear a lot about that but there was a lot of chaps were actually shot down here.
CB: Yeah.
WM: On the return.
CB: Yeah.
WM: On the return journey.
CB: And what about the British night fighters that were counteracting those?
WM: Oh well that was up to my Jimmy Dagg and our boffin boy to do that. To try and, try and keep our special signals going. Aye.
CB: So Jimmy Dagg was, where was he operating? Behind the signaller.
WM: Yeah. That’s right.
CB: And who was your bomb aimer?
WM: I did the bomb aimer as well as that because I did, I did the navigating and the bomb aimer.
CB: Oh did you? Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok. Right. And so when you were on the sorties in the night obviously.
WM: Yeah.
CB: In the squadron. Then what, you were in a stream.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Did you ever see other aircraft while you were there?
WM: Oh yes, yes. Oh yes, we did.
CB: How close did any of them get?
WM: Well I think sometimes within a hundred metres. And other than that you had to watch out for chaps who were either too low or too high. Or too quick on the bomb release. Yeah.
CB: Any coming down from above you?
WM: Oh yes. But you know the thing is that if you went straight through on the guidelines of what you were told to do you were much safer than if you tried to do something different.
CB: Right.
WM: Aye.
CB: So because you’ve got the extra person on board then you’re doing the bomb aiming as well as the navigation.
WM: That’s right. That’s right.
CB: So the practicality is on the run in. How far out from the target are you doing straight and level.
WM: Well a lot of that depended on the territory and the terrain and how it was at night time you know. But generally, generally in later days when the pathfinders were going it was twenty, thirty miles and more.
CB: And you are, you are not. You are releasing the bombs as the bomb aimer.
WM: Yeah.
CB: But you’re not controlling the aircraft. Is that right?
WM: No. Well you did control the aircraft.
CB: Oh.
WM: Because you were controlling the pilot.
CB: That’s what I meant, you’re telling the pilot.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Rather than having the remote.
WM: Yeah. Oh yes.
CB: Yourself.
WM: Oh yeah. The thing is as I often joke about coming out of the road here at night time I say to people, ‘Left. Left. Left. Left. Right.’
CB: Yes.
WM: You know.
CB: And then you had to do the photoflash afterwards. So how soon would that be after you’d released?
WM: Well that. All that, that depended on how the target was.
CB: Right.
WM: But what you did was you counted in. You say each, each lot of bombs were [pause] were going to go off at different heights because they were different types of bomb types you were going. It wasn’t just all the same type
CB: Ok. So what were the types?
WM: Well you had everything from the small incendiaries, well the nuisance bombs, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The big incendiaries that used to drop and probably set two or three buildings going you know.
CB: Right. So your load would be a mixture of high explosive.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And incendiaries.
WM: Normally was.
CB: So the photoflash was to illuminate the target.
WM: Oh to try and, yeah.
CB: And when did the camera fire. How did that happen?
WM: Well that was timed, that, we didn’t —
CB: Automatic.
WM: We didn’t actually do the timing.
CB: Right.
WM: That was actually arranged ahead of time you know.
CB: So if you weren’t at the right height for the original calculation.
WM: Yeah.
CB: What happened?
WM: Well then, then of course they could give you, could give you, you know say whether you were actually within that area or not, you know.
CB: Yes.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Ok.
WM: A lot of people turn around say now that it was scattered and all the rest of it but a lot of them didn’t realise that you might have had a change of wind. The wind might have went up from fifty or sixty knots to about a hundred knots.
CB: Right. And how did you detect that change?
WM: Well, well what you did was you were finding your winds all the time and that. You had to try and allow for that you know.
CB: But you’re not using a sextant.
WM: That was the old days.
TB: Looking out the window.
CB: So you’re using Gee.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Are you? And GH.
WM: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: And GH?
WM: And of course. Yeah. And otherwise H2S, you know.
TB: H2S. Yeah. Just a quick one —
WM: Once you, once you started on H2S you know it was a different story entirely.
CB: So what could you see with H2S?
WM: Well if you had water around you it was excellent. If you were going up alongside a canal you had excellent because the more water you had around you the better it was.
CB: The contrast.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So how did you use H2S? For navigation? Or could you use it for the actual bombing?
WM: Well we could use it, could use it for navigation. You could use it for bombing as well. Oh yes.
CB: But what was the downside of using H2S?
TB: The tracking.
WM: [laughs] You should know what that was.
TB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: That was as bad as the night fighter.
TB: Yeah. Yes.
CB: So the practicality of it is that you’d only switch it on occasionally.
WM: Well the trouble was the better you were on the other instruments, the better your crew were on the other instruments, the safer you were.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Once you got the run ups and different things like that you then you were taking your chances.
CB: Yeah. To what extent were you aware of the German system of upward firing guns in night fighters?
WM: Well the thing is, the thing is this. With that —
CB: The Schrage music.
WM: It was something, it was something your rear gunner was dreading because after a certain angle he’d no control over that at all but if he, if he was on his, on his proper lateral defences for the aircraft, fine . Now, it’s, you couldn’t turn, you couldn’t turn around, turn around and say that the rear gunner missed something you know because it was a big bit of sky you know.
CB: How many times did you get fired on from a fighter?
WM: Very seldom. I dare say we actually got fired directly on with the other ones but we were aware of them, you know.
CB: And did you do many corkscrews?
WM: Oh yes, quite a few. Quite a few of them. Yeah. That that was a lot of the targets like Kiel and places like that that was when you did a lot of corkscrews was on that.
CB: Yeah. And they were using box flak were they?
WM: Yeah. Well you see, along, along the canals and that you had your pockets because, you know, the canal was where there had been several good attempts or big attempts at different things. Like one night we went out on the Friday nights and we bombed this battleship, you know and we actually put it on its side, you know. And the Sunday night we were called up again and somebody said, ‘you’ve got to go and so and so’. And a voice chipped up and said, ‘Hey are you wanting us to right and put it back up the way it was before?’ [laughs] That was a fact, that’s what he said. That was actually recorded as being recorded. [laughs]
CB: So when you were bombing shipping what bombs were you using?
WM: You had a medium height bomb you know but we weren’t in for the shipping direct we weren’t in a lot of these special ones.
CB: Right.
WM: But dropping bombs. Dropping bombs in the submarine pens, nowwe had the big ones for them as well.
CB: You did carry the big ones.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: But you see the thing is this. We had a modern, we had a modern Lancaster, the most up to date one, yeah, And the thing about them was, was that you were, you were dropping. Later on what we were doing although we thought we were dropping on submarine pens, it wasn’t. We were dropping them because the V2s and the V2s were in there and at the beginning we didn’t even know that there was V2s and V1s, we just thought they were submarine pens because the amount of damage that the government believed was going to come on the London area was going to be horrendous and there could have been, you know. It was bad enough the likes of people down this area knew about the V2s and V1s and things like that.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right. Do you want to stop there for a mo?
TB: How did they discover, the Germans discover —
[Recording paused]
CB: What was the role, the difference between you, sorry, the wireless operator and Jimmy Dagg. So Jimmy Dagg —
WM: Well the wireless operator had, as you say wireless.
CB: Yeah.
WM: He had his official work to do.
CB: Yeah. Signaller.
WM: Yes.
CB: Right.
WM: When Jimmy was doing this other thing you had, you had lots of stuff that was introduced that Jimmy used to use, you know. A lot of it, we never touched it, we never touched it, you know. Same as the, same as the youngster with his black box, we never saw what was inside that.
CB: So, Ok. Who was the youngster then?
WM: Eh?
CB: Who was the youngster?
WM: Well, he was young Weir.
CB: Oh he was young Weir was he?
WM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: But we never, well maybe a bit [laughs] [coughs] we didn’t, we didn’t treat him as a kid, you know, but we did actually look after him, you know, because by the time we were doing that we were, you know, we had quite a few things under our belts sort of thing, you know. Yeah.
CB: So he only came in later did he?
WM: That’s right.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Where did you meet your wife and when?
WM: Oh I met my wife in 1944 in Dunoon, in Scotland.
TB: Up there.
WM: There it is. There. Up there.
TB: Yeah.
WM: That’s the picture up there.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But what it was, was we got, we got some leave and I managed to persuade the old man to give us a few days extra. And I said, ‘It takes us two days to get there and two days to get back again, you know’. And he said, ‘Ok’. So we got about ten, got about ten days and that, and that was the July of ‘44. As I say we thought we deserved a, we deserved a bit of a rest after what we’d been doing for D-day and all the rest of it, you know.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: And how many other bombers did you see blow up?
WM: Quite a few actually but you were never sure whether it was your ones or the enemy that had been got at, you know.
CB: How do you mean your ones?
WM: I mean, I mean our aircraft. Some other Lancasters.
CB: Which, whether it was a German plane that blew up.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Or a British one.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Ok.
WM: Sometimes they went, they went puff too. Yeah. But no, no, it was hard to say.
CB: And your rear, Graham Wilson in the back.
WM: Yeah.
CB: At six feet he was squashed in. Did you have the later .5 machine guns in the rear turret?
WM: Yeah. Yeah. We had that. I’ll tell you what we did, I never mentioned this with —
CB: Previously.
WM: At one time from [pause] this was one of the sort of trips that we did from [pause] from Tuddenham. We, we went up to Abbotsinch and we got new engines put in, you know, and , well they turned around and said these ones were getting a bit old and so they were but we got these new engines put in.
CB: More powerful.
WM: Powerful. We could fly faster, fly further, fly higher, all the rest of it. Anyway, there was only three. So anyway we went up there and we got up to Abbotsinch which is now Glasgow airport, you know. I knew it as Abbotsinch as a kid, you know. Anyway, we left that aircraft. We had taken our own ground crew with us.
CB: Oh.
WM: We were told to do that, they also got leave, and we went home and all the rest of it. We didn’t scatter because everybody came and stayed with my mother, you know. Anyway, we got back and they had these new engines and the ground crew were back. They also had a couple of Scotsmen in the ground crew and we had to test these new engines and fly them around and give a report. So we used to take the chiefy, if you know what a chiefy is. Do you know what a chiefy is?
CB: Yeah. The chief technician. Yeah.
WM: No, no.
CB: The ground crew chief.
WM: No.
CB: Oh. Which one?
WM: No. A chiefy was a flight sergeant.
CB: Oh.
WM: [laughs] That is where it came from.
CB: Yes.
WM: The equivalent from the, from the Navy.
CB: Right.
WM: Was the chiefy.
CB: Right.
WM: And the flight sergeant became a chiefy. But anyway their chiefy came along and we got these engines back and had to run them up, so we did that and we had a couple of days flying around and one night in the, in the mess and the naval boys were shooting a line about HMS Forth and the submarines in the Holy Loch and they said that nobody could get near them, you know. Well, I’ll tell you what, I just, I never said a word and I’d told the crew already you don’t mention anything about. They might have guessed my accent a bit but, you know. Anyway, so anyway what we did we went into Paisley and we got a whole lot, a whole lot of little bags of lime, you know, and we loaded it up in the Lancaster and we took off. So, we had, we had permission to fly anywhere we wanted as long as it wasn’t in one of these defensive barrages, you know, whatever they call them. Anyway, we decided that we’d go and see The Forth. So we got in, we revved her up, we took off, we went across the Clyde to Erskine. We went up in to Loch Lomond and flew up Loch Lomond and flying low, used to flying low, then we jumped. We jumped over the section where the Norsemen used to draw their boats across Loch Lomond to Loch Long. And we jumped across there, down Loch Long, moved over into Loch Eck, down Loch Eck, Glen Massan and then we just opened up the throttle. Full throttle right down the Holy Loch and dropped all this stuff on HMS Forth and all the submarines and got the hell out of it, you know. Anyway, we got, we did, we went away down the Isle of Arran and all the way around about, the bottom of the Clyde, you know, and back up again about an hour later, you know. So, eventually we landed and this lieutenant commander sent for us, and we paraded in front of him, all scraggly buggers, you know. None of us had proper uniform on, we’d just what we used to use around the aircraft you know. Anyway, he says, ‘You’re all on a charge’. ‘Why sir?’, ‘Well it’s my Lancaster that did this, AC-Charlie, and I won’t have it’. I said, ‘What do you mean your Lancaster, sir?’ He said, ‘Well they’re based here and they’re my Lancasters. I’m in trouble for them’. I said, ‘Oh. Why’s that?’, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You made a mess of the Forth’. ‘Don’t you remember the other night in the mess? All these naval boys were saying it was impossible, you know’. ‘Well. Dismissed. We’ll see you later when you come back from your next job’. So we went up and went up north and we loaded up with bombs and eventually the idea was to go up into Leningrad, you know, so called Leningrad then, you know and the siege. A lot of people thought the siege was just like across the road there you know but it wasn’t, it was about forty or fifty miles away, you know, but at the same time old Jerry had it all wrapped up, you know. But the Russians had their great bunkers there that you could land a Lancaster on. Well they had, they used to say, ‘Watch the bloody holes in the runway’. But they used to fill them in all the time. Anyway we landed there, got under this big, what was supposed to be bomb proof shelters, you know. Well we knew what we were doing the other side but anyway that was it. So we stayed there until the wind changed because we couldn’t have the wind that we came in on otherwise we’d be flying over the Jerries’ lines immediately, you know, at low level. So we waited until the wind changed, right, Gulf of Finland, away, good.Back up were Russian bombs then, Back right down we dropped the Russian bombs. Now this was all his majesty’s ideas and I don’t mean the King either. This was Winston Churchill’s ideas to show what, what we could do, you know. Anyway, we went back to Lossiemouth and back again and back again and we were lucky, you know. We had a few chips and things like that. Anyway, the last time we got to Lossiemouth they said. ‘No. It’s finished. You did enough’. ‘Oh thank you very much. Where do we go now?’, ‘Go back to Abbotsinch.’ Back to Abbotsinch and all the boffins came up from the, from a factory which is, well the factory’s about twenty minutes in a motor car, you know. About five minutes in a aeroplane, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But that’s where they used to make these engines, you know. Anyway, all the boffins were there. Took the, took the engines off, took them away again and then we went up to see the old man as we call a lieutenant commander. So we got up there and I knocks on the door. No lieutenant commander, full commander. And I said to the boys, I said, ‘Oh this is alright. He’s been posted somewhere’, you know. He wasn’t posted somewhere, he’d been promoted to full commander which is just under a captain in the Navy . Yeah. So I saw his secretary, a very nice young lady, I got on well with her, you know. Anyway, we said to her, ‘When can we see the boss?’ Well, she said, ‘I’ll make an appointment for you’,’ Alright’. The next morning appointment everybody had their best blues on, shining, buttons polished, boots polished. She led us in. He was out in his other office. ‘Come in. [pause] Morning gentleman. Why are you here?’ I said, ‘Beg your pardon sir. You’re the one who told us to come back here when we come back and you would sentence us to that escapade that we had’. ‘Don’t know anything about it’. I said, ‘But —‘, ‘I don’t know anything about it’. He said, ‘Good trips boys?’ ‘Yes’, ‘And they had theirs?’,’ Yes’. ‘My Lancasters’. So there it was. Nothing happened about it.
CB: That was lucky. Yeah.
WM: But the, there was a great friend of mine. He’d got a book, another book I think over there somewhere. Anyway, he’s written it. Peter. Peter Lovatt, you know.
TB: Oh that’s the bloke you met at the what’s name isn’t it?
WM: Sorry?
TB: That’s the one you met at —
WM: Oh right
CB: Is it there Tony?
TB: Yeah.
WM: Eh?
TB: Yeah.
WM: One on submarines, and one on this, and one on that.
CB: Yes. Lots of captains on HMS Forth.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yes.
WM: And [pause] and of course as I say what happened was that I lost touch. And you know the Millies? [pause] Well the Millies are sponsored by the ITV and The Sun newspaper and one of the first ones that was done I was asked to go on it. Anyway, I’d been, I’d been speaking to a young lady at the Bomber Command luncheon on the Sunday.
CB: Yes.
WM: And this thing was going to happen about ten days later, you know. But at that time I didn’t know. So, anyway, what happened was that I couldn’t, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I’d written to him, we’d lost touch and that was it, you know. Anyway, I even got a letter from him. It took fourteen years to come to me, I got it though. Fourteen years to come to me. Anyway, I tried to find him, couldn’t find him. Anyway, on the, on the Saturday [pause] no, I’ll tell you a sad thing that happened was on the Sunday I’d been at the Bomber Command luncheon and my wife was dead and my children said, ‘No dad. You must go and we’ll see to everything at the moment.’ So, anyway on the Friday we had the service and on the Saturday morning my daughter got a phone call saying that I was wanted for something special for the Millies. We’d never heard about the Millies. Anyway, she got to know a bit more than I did and then apparently this lady went to work to try and find Peter and she found his son playing golf and then that led to them finding Peter. And then of course on the Wednesday I got a car that came here for me. I was warned about this. First of all they said black tie and wearing black tie is fine. The next one was lounge suit, yeah, that’s fine. Next one was blazers and badges, that’s fine, you know.Anyway, what did happen was that I took the whole lot and I got dressed here in the dickie suit. All the way down to London, just myself in this green tomato carriage. The next thing I knew we stopped at this hotel. ‘No. Keep in where you are’. ‘Where are we going now?’ ‘Just you wait and see. I’ve got my orders not to lose you’. I said, ‘Oh. Thank you’. So they took us to Number 10. So that was fine. So we had a photographic session and shaking hands and all this. And then we got taken back to the hotel. We went to the Dorchester first and we, we had drinks there and then they said, ‘Time up. Everybody in’. And we had buses by this time, great big buses, you know, and the driver had already told us that, ‘You sit in the place where you are because I’ve got you on camera and you don’t dare go and move. Or another bus’. Anyway, we got back to the hotel and somebody says, ‘How about dinner?’ ‘No. You’ll get dinner where we’re going’. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘We’ll take you there’. So we don’t know where we’re going. So all done up in dickie suits and medals and this, that and the next thing. And we get there and we’re at the War Museum and it’s all lined up like Hollywood. All these searing lights and all this thing and we get escorted up. Once again, in the bus they said, ‘Have you got your number?’ The bloke next to me, he keep talking away to me and he turned out to be with, he was the boss of the Royal Navy you know. And he was down in the dumps because they’d just took his aeroplanes away that day, you know. He wasn’t very happy with them, you know. On the other side of me was a young pilot officer who’d a brand new DFC up here, you know. Anyway, that was fine. Anyway, we got there and they said, ‘Right. As you come up if you get a green ticket you go to the right. You get a red ticket you go to the left.’ Alright. I got a red ticket. I’m going this way and all these film stars and all these other high [unclear] and had a great run ‘cause you meet everybody because that’s the idea of the two lots. Then all of a sudden somebody shouts out. ‘Ready. The doors will be open in five minutes ladies and gentlemen. And after you get in through the doors there’s toilets on the right and the left that you may use’. [laughs] Anyway, we get there and then of course they tell us what table we’re at. Then I find out that I’m with another five Bomber Command boys. Bomber Command. Five. Five and one is six. Something wrong. Anyway, we go back. We go, we sit down and we get our nibbles and this, that and the next thing and that’s the beginning of a good evening, you know. Plenty of wine coming around you know. Very nice. Good stuff. Then the next thing I noticed that there were people going up to the platform. So this man went up and this lady went up and this man went up and eventually, ‘Bomber Command. Table Thirteen.’ We go up. There’s still six. Anyway, we get up there and as we get up one of the chaps, about his size, what does he do? He falls down through the trapdoor. Honestly all you could see was he was down to about my size. [laughs] So, anyway, what happens then is that we’re beginning to get the idea there’s presentations going on. So we got this presentation, a beautiful glass ornament we’ll call it, a beautiful thing. We’ve got it. Anyway, what happened, we got that and everybody else had moved away when they got theirs and this presenter, that fella, same height as me, white hair and this young blonde girl. She was here and he was there and wouldn’t they let me move. No. Then the next thing was the roll of the drums. ‘Brrmbrrrm brummmm brmmm’. What happens?
TB: Peter comes in.
WM: They have it like that programme, “Your Life.” Eventually what happens, I get to see something. I thought to myself it can’t bloody well be. There’s Peter Lovatt there and of course they said to me, ‘What would you like to do tonight?’ I said, ‘I don’t know but I’m beginning to think my imaginations’, you know. Anyway, apparently my accent was broader than it should be. Anyway, what happened, It was Peter. They’d found him and they had him dickied up and they had him there after all these years. Yeah.
TB: [inaudible]
CB: Extraordinary.
TB: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
CB: We’re restarting. So what you’ve got is a plate here.
WM: Right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Now —
CB: So they presented to you.
WM: Now, when we went in to the, when we went in there, on the table, there were lovely sets of plates were all on the table and of course everyone was admiring them and reading them. And then of course when we came back from being on the platform they had disappeared, you know. But unbeknown to us they’d made up bags. Extremely heavy, strong, beautiful carved out, set out plastic bags. Now in the audience was my friend. Who?
CB: This is your pilot?
WM: Camilla.
CB: Oh Camilla.
WM: Camilla and her husband.
CB: Right.
WM: So, anyway, what happened during the time we were going around and they went outside and then everybody came back inside after the toilet, you know. What happened then was that we were at the tables and the VIPs came around to greet us although everybody told us we were the VIPs and not the ones coming to greet us. So, anyway, the Prince of Wales and his good lady was coming around and they got to me and I was told that, you know, we could talk to them. They’re here, we could talk to them. You’re the VIPs and you can tell them any stories you like so long as you don’t go on too long, you know. Maybe they knew me. Anyway, what happened, when they came to me I said, ‘Good evening ma’am. Good evening sir. Thank you very much for coming tonight. We’re very happy to see you here’. I said, ‘By the way can I tell you a little story about your granny’. That’s to him. And Camilla takes out a wee book, I’ve got one of them here, yeah, h, a little book like that, you know, and her pen. I said, ‘This is a story’, I said, ‘In 1960 I built a race course for your granny and I was given ten days to build it while she went on a cruise up and down Lake Nyassa in Africa’, and of course then the ears were going but I hurried the story up. So, anyway, anyway Camilla’s busy writing and she says, ‘This is going to be our story at Christmas’. Christmas is only a few days away, you know. ‘This is going to be our story. Nobody knows that one’, you know. So, anyway she writes down all this stuff about what I told her and all the rest of it, you know. And I said, ‘I hope you can read that’, and she said, ‘Yes. I better’. I says, ‘Ok’. And Charles is watching her. Anyway, the next thing that happens, the next thing that happens is he says, ‘Is that all?’ I says, ‘Aye. I can tell you a lot of stories about your mum if you like too’, you know. He says, ‘Another time’, he says. I said, ‘Alright, we’ll make it another time’, [laughs]. Anyway, I’ve met them several times since. Anyway, what did happen the people on the platform turned about to these ones? Yeah. Now, he’s a secretary for Bomber Command and has been for generations. There’s myself there and this was my nominated girlfriend for the evening. Well the thing is this, she’s married now and got a baby now. [laughs] And this is the one that fell down the hole. Well there you are.
CB: Fantastic.
WM: This is us shaking hands on the — yeah. That’s my friend Peter Lovatt.
CB: Yeah.
TB: Have you heard from him since? Have you heard from him since?
WM: Oh yes. Aye.
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 Bill Moore. Two
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-18
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMooreWT160318
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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02:45:48 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Moore joined the Royal Air Force after spending time in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, qualifying as an observer. He tells of his family history in wartime and his transatlantic trip, landing in New York before heading to Canada for his training. He went to 138 Squadron and tells of his time flying Lysanders from RAF Tempsford, taking members of Special Operations Executive over the France and also of dropping supplies to the Resistance. He also tells that on one of these operations, his aircraft had to be helped by local villagers to get airborne again. As well as Lysanders, William flew in Hudsons, Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters in Bomber Command. Bill tells about 138 Squadrons part in Operation Manna - he received the Legion of Honour from France and also a Dutch Medal of Commendation. He also tells of his time after the war when he returned to the building trade working in Rhodesia and Zambia.<br /><br /><span data-contrast="none" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW153699638 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW153699638 BCX0">Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.</span></span>
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
Canada
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
France
France--Istres
Netherlands
Zimbabwe
Zambia
138 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
displaced person
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Hudson
Lancaster
Lysander
observer
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Benson
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tuddenham
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/665/10069/AAdamsCB170802.2.mp3
70f515073c186da3731f0b76d4da4eef
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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Adams, Cyril Bristow
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Cyril Bristow Adams (1921 - 2017, 1429890 Royal air Force). He served as an engine fitter with 49 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-08-02
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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Adams, CB
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JH: My name is Judy Hodgson and I’m interviewing Cyril Adams today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We are at Mr Adam’s home and it is the 2nd of August 2017. Thank you, Cyril for agreeing to talk to me today. Also present at the interview is Sue Ford, his daughter. So, Cyril can you tell me your date of birth, where you were born and something of your early years with your family?
CA: Well, I was born 9th of December [pause] which — 1921. I lived with my father and mother and sister and grandma in a house in Battersea, London. Unfortunately, it was bombed and they were killed. I was in the Air Force at the time so probably I was lucky.
JH: And what were you actually doing though in the years before the war as a young boy?
CA: Well, I was apprenticed. Well, after school I was apprenticed to an engineering firm until I joined up in 1941.
JH: And where was that?
CA: We went to where the airships —
JH: Cardington. Cardington.
CA: Cardington. That’s where it started. And [pause] well from there you go to — you were introduced to the ways and wherefores of the Air Force and they send you away to do some training in, and square bashing and all that sort of business. Then I went to [pause] a place called — oh what’s it called? Where they do — I was on a fitter 2 course. Where I became a fitter 2E. AC2.
JH: And was the training in various places? I mean, did you move around?
CA: I moved around. I went to [pause] Scampton with 83 Squadron as a fitter 2. 49 Squadron. That was at Scampton too. And then I went to a Heavy Conversion Unit. 1661. Which was at [pause] where we played bridge. What was that called?
SF: Swinderby, was it?
CA: Swinderby. Yeah. And when I was at Swinderby I got, I went overseas to — I left Bomber Command. I went overseas to Transport Command at Lydda in Palestine. And I was there for — to the end of the war.
JH: So, what year was that then? Do you remember?
CA: Well, it was 1944 to ’46. And then we came home on what they called the Medlock Route which was, we came by lorry across the Sinai Desert into Egypt by the Bitter Lakes. And from there we went by boat to Toulon. And then by train across France to Calais and then Dover and then up to where we got demobbed. That’s roughly what happened.
JH: And what aeroplanes did you actually fly in throughout the war? What? Were they all the same?
CA: Hampdens.
JH: Right.
CA: That was the first lot. And then we had Manchester which was the forerunner for the Lancaster. And then we had Lancasters with 83 and 49 Squadron. I left there. They became a unit and I went to 1661 Conversion Unit where we built up engines from, for the Lancaster and Stirlings. When I was abroad I worked — it was like, Lydda was a Transport Command aerodrome and we serviced aeroplanes that were going out to the Far East. And it was quite pleasant in Palestine. We had the trouble with the Arabs and Jews but, well it’s history isn’t it?
JH: And what was your actual job, if you like? When you were —
CA: I was a fitter 2.
JH: Yeah. All the time. All the way through.
CA: On the engines. Yeah. I became a corporal, acting sergeant. Which I fulfilled the job of looking after and the daily running of the maintenance on the planes that came through. Or planes that — I was on a squadron as well.
JH: Do you remember any particular operations that you did throughout the war with — you know?
CA: Well, I can remember the German Navy going up the English Channel. That’s the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst. Planes I was on, they went in to bomb it and they were damaged. I can remember the Peenemunde raid which was in Poland which where they were trying out all the V-1s and V-2s. And I can remember the first thousand bomber raid which took place while I was at Scampton.
JH: Did you have many crews? Did you change crews very often?
CA: Well [pause] we had like a engine fitter, aircraft [pause] like an aeroplane fitter and they were on probably two planes. They used to do the maintenance and then that’s while I was on a squadron.
[pause]
JH: Were you anywhere where you had any near misses through your, you know, flights or —
CA: Misses?
JH: Any?
CA: Well, we, when you did a, any work on the aircraft they went up on what they used to call a night flying test and you had to go with them. Just as a, it was posted, issued out with parachutes and you went up with the plane and checked everything was alright with what you’d done. While it was flying. These amounted to, well they varied from half hour if it was quick job or if they went a bit further could be an hour. So, I could see the idea that if your work wasn’t up to scratch you were — you reaped the benefit [laughs]
[pause]
CA: It, it was a, well we wouldn’t say it was a really hard life. But you were out in the elements all the time and most of the work was done out on the dispersals. But some of the work was done in a hangar. Engine changes and things like that, as and when they came up.
JH: How many of you would be working on —
CA: Pardon?
JH: How many of you worked together? You know, on a job sort of thing. How many of you?
CA: Oh, the ground crew I should think was about fifty for a squadron. And we used to march from the hangars out to dispersals. Used, used to have a transport listing circulate the aerodrome and they used to get lifts out to where ever you were wanted to work.
JH: Did you actually have much leave? You know.
CA: Well, leave. We got —
JH: What did you do?
CA: A week. A weeks’ leave every three months. And seven days. And then you’d, if you were lucky you could get a forty eight hour pass. But as most of that was taken up in travelling it didn’t seem much point really because most of it was done with hitchhiking you know. The forces seem to be well catered for on the lifts they got. There weren’t many cars on the road because of the petrol shortage. But there was always lorries that you got a lift in.
JH: And where did you go when you went on leave anyway?
CA: Well, went in to London. The family were there until they were killed and then after that we — I got the wife accommodation in a nearby town and I used to go there you know. Whenever I got a pass.
JH: When did you get married then?
CA: 1942.
JH: How did you meet?
CA: Well, before I joined up. About 1940. We met at — we both worked at Harrods. I was in the, on the, in the engine room because they generated all the power for the shop from the engine room. Diesel generators and steam boilers. And they had a hundred and forty lifts which were maintained. A lot of them were goods lifts as opposed to what the customers used. And while I was there they fitted in an escalator. And when the, when there was an air raid the girls that did the — on the switchboard went down to the shelters and the lads who worked on the engineering side used to go up to the exchange and work the switchboards up there ‘til the air raid was finished and we swapped back again.
JH: And what did your wife do there then if she was working there?
CA: She was working there for a time and then in haberdashery. And then she went and worked for Selfridges after that until our first child was born. And that’s my, that’s Susan’s brother and he was born in ’44. It was very, it was a very fortunate birth because she was in St Thomas’ at the time that the V, V-1s destroyed our house. So — and that was that.
JH: And then what? You finished in ’46 was it?
CA: Yeah. Finished in ’46. In November.
JH: Were you in touch with any of your old mates? Crew mates, you know. Or squadron mates.
CA: Not since. No.
JH: No.
CA: I haven’t been in touch.
JH: No.
CA: Well, the chaps I used to work with on the squadron some of them came to my wedding but after that everybody split up and went, you know different places.
JH: And after that? You know, when you’d left your squadrons and what did you do sort of then in later years then?
CA: What?
JH: Work and —
CA: When I came back into England I went to get my old job back but the, the recompense wasn’t very good. So, I got a job with [pause] with the Vestey organisation. And I became eventually their chief engineer. I had to study at night school to get where I wanted to go but eventually got there.
JH: Where you based then? Where was this?
CA: This was — I lived in Battersea. Then we had what they used to call [pause] accommodation that was bought by the government and then you were able to live as, as a family in the house that the government had bought. And then I got a — after about two years, that’s when Susan came along. We went to live in Shaftsbury Park Estate which was an estate mostly of terraced houses. And then we moved out of London where we bought property in [pause] in Hertfordshire.
JH: So, did you still work at the same place or was this after all this?
CA: Oh, I worked all over the place.
JH: Oh. Right.
CA: I worked in Northern Ireland. A place called Carrickfergus. And then I went to work in Nigeria for the same firm doing much the same job.
JH: What — did your family go with you or —
CA: On one occasion they did. But not the children. It was just the wife because they were growing up and they were at the teacher’s training college weren’t you? And my son John was — he joined the Stock Exchange. And I didn’t really benefit from that [laughs] Unfortunately, he’s died since but [pause] we had our moments. And that — I was working in Peterborough when I was made redundant in ’81. And we lived in a place called Deeping St James which was just on the corner of Lincoln and Peterborough. Lincolnshire. Not Lincoln. And then after that I — my daughter, who lived in St Neots, near St Neots she thought when my wife died in ’98 [pause] she thought it would be better if I came down nearer to where she lived. And I’ve had this flat and I’ve been here, well eighteen years now. So, that’s, that’s me.
JH: Did you ever fly after the war? You know, have you gone into aeroplanes on holidays.
CA: No. I didn’t. No. I didn’t do any. Only as passenger. That’s all.
[pause]
JH: There aren’t any particular exploits that you remember? That —
CA: Pardon?
JH: Can you remember any particular exploits that happened? Any of your, you know, through your war years. Do you remember?
CA: Well, I did mention some of the bombing raids that I was servicing the aeroplanes that took part in it previously. No. I don’t think there was anything outstanding really.
JH: You didn’t feel in danger particularly. You know, from —
CA: Oh, we came under fire several times when I was in Palestine. The, the Irgun Zvai Leumi. That’s a terrorist group. A Jewish terrorist group. And, and I was taken prisoner by the 6th Airborne Division and kept in a compound overnight until the adjutant vouched for me that I worked for him. So, that was — well it was —
JH: Quite scary.
CA: Part of the job that. What I was used to.
SF: You formed a Cycling Club, didn’t you? Out there.
CA: What?
SF: You formed a Cycling Club out there.
CA: Oh yeah. We had cycling. I was always a cyclist. And we [pause] the place I was at at Lydda we formed a cycling club and we used to tear around the roads doing time trials in Palestine with the — and the Arabs knew what we were doing. They used to throw stones at us knowing we wouldn’t stop. So, we got the help of the Palestine police. They marshalled the route that we were on so that put a stop to that. These were bikes that we bought in Italy and sent out because being in Transport Command you could utilise the aircraft for, for well for your own purposes sometimes. The, and we were able to buy fruit and stuff that the civilians in England hadn’t seen for all, all the war. And we got that sent back by bomber — well, they weren’t Bomber Command. They were Transport Command. They used to run a service and all the Prisoners of War that were out in Far East came through our aerodrome in transit to — they were flown home. It took us three months to get home but they had bigger. They had the opportunity of flying so they took it I think. And they weren’t in very good condition either some of the poor devils. Mostly from the Far East. Japanese Prisoners of War. So that’s, that’s my story.
CA: Ok. Is there anything else that you can think of that he might mean to add or —
SF: I can remember him telling me what it was like to come home on the train. How uncomfortable it was going through France.
CA: Oh yeah. We used to travel by train. They used to be old German carriages, and with wooden seats. And they used to stop in a siding for hours and hours while the rest of the railway went rumbling by. And also they had places where you could use washing facilities. Not showers but washing facilities and food. It was all arranged on this Medlock Route across France. When we got to Paris the, all the bridges were down [pause] and we, they were all temporary bridges that were built for trains to go across. And they weren’t very stable. I can remember that.
JH: Why was this called the Medlock Route? What, what —?
CA: Well, it was [pause] we got a boat across the Mediterranean from Port Tewfik. Up the Canal and in we went. The boat we were on broke down and they towed us in to Malta. And we transferred on to another boat but we weren’t allowed to go ashore so we didn’t see much of Malta. And we went off between Sicily and Italy. Saw Mount Etna and other volcano islands. And eventually we got to the South of France and we went into transit camp there until we got the train. Took three months to get home.
JH: I can imagine.
SF: I also remember dad telling me about when he went up to Cardington when he was a young lad or man. And he had, they took you to big hangars there.
CA: Yeah. We slept in one of the airship hangars.
SF: Slept on the floor.
CA: Really draughty old places they were. But that was where they gave you brown paper and string to wrap all your civilian clothes up and sent them home and issued you with a uniform. When we got back they issued with civilian clothes. The other way around when we got to the demob centre which was near Birmingham.
SF: And mum went up to live there for a while, I think.
CA: Yes. She did.
SF: Because she had been bombed in London and you had a room somewhere. Was it Grantham? I can’t remember now.
CA: We had a room there. Yeah. We had to move the bed to open the door. Still it was a place to live. That’s in a place called Newark, Notts. And I used to cycle into, to Swinderby from Newark. It was only about ten miles and used to, sometimes used to get passes for weekends and things like that. While I was there at Swinderby I was in a Nissen hut complex on the side of a river. And there was no [pause] facilities for washing or anything like that. So we used to wear Wellington boots and go down and shave in the river and wash. And it was all good fun that was. Right.
JH: Ok. We’ll just, just pause for a moment then.
[recording paused]
JH: I’d like to thank you, Cyril today for allowing me to record this interview. Thank you very much.
CA: Right.
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 Cyril Bristow Adams
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Judy Hodgson
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
2017-08-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AAdamsCB170802
Format
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00:41:36 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Northern Ireland
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Peterborough
England--London
England--St. Neots
Middle East--Palestine
Nigeria
Great Britain
Great Britain
England--Huntingdonshire
Description
An account of the resource
Cyril was born in London in 1921 and lived in Battersea with his relatives; he met his wife in 1940 while working at Harrods. His family were killed by bombing after he joined up. Cyril enlisted at RAF Cardington in 1941 and was trained to be a fitter, then joined Bomber Command at RAF Scampton working on Hampdens, Manchesters and Lancasters for 83 and 49 Squadrons. He got married in 1942 and lost his house to a V1 while his wife was in St. Thomas’s hospital having their first child. Cyril was transferred to RAF Swinderby to 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit working on Lancasters and Stirlings before being posted to Transport Command serving in Palestine from 1944 to 1945. After demobilisation he worked in Northern Ireland, Nigeria and Peterborough. After being made redundant and losing his wife in 1998, he moved to St. Neots to be closer to his daughter.
Contributor
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Steve Baldwin
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1998
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
49 Squadron
83 Squadron
bombing
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Manchester
RAF Cardington
RAF Scampton
RAF Swinderby
Stirling
training
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/882/11709/PHorshamES1602.2.jpg
67e67ad73fa2fc212dac0e588fd3a172
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/882/11709/ASymondsHorshamE170105.2.mp3
7d055b8f4144ed6db659e469c9e75ac0
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
Horsham, Eric
Eric Symonds Horsham
E S Horsham
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. An oral history interview with Eric Horsham (b. 1923), 9 photographs, and his memoirs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 102 Squadron from RAF Pocklington.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Eric Horsham 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
2017-01-05
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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Horsham, ES
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
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 5th of January 2017 and I’m with Eric Horsham down in Warminster and he was a flight engineer. And he is going to talk about his experiences in life but particularly with the RAF. So, Eric what are you earliest recollections of life?
ESH: Well, every year we went off to Devon for a holiday at relations because my people came from Plymouth and Devonport and this was held good right up until my teenage years. But early memories really, I suppose began at the age of about, serious memories, seven when we heard a very strange noise on one occasion and we all rushed out to see what it was. And do you know what? It was the R101 which was on its way to London and of course guided by the River Thames because that’s where we lived. In Plumstead. So it was logical. In fact the best view from Plumstead was the Ford Motor Works which had four big white chimneys and so that was a landmark. And following on from there it wasn’t until I was [pause] well I suppose fourteen really because that’s when I left school and they said, ‘Well, there’s a couple of jobs and one is — would you like to be a messenger in the Royal Ordnance factory?’ Which was right adjacent to Plumstead at Woolwich, you see and also the headquarters of the Royal Engineers. So that’s what I did for six months because it was destined that I should take the Railway Clerical Examination and join the rest of the family working on the railway. So that’s subsequent to that they sent me to train as a booking clerk. But I didn’t show up very brightly so they said, ‘No. We’ll send you to a goods depot.’ Which was rather like being banished, you know [laughs] because, can I be humorous at this point and say, well yes I was sent to a depot call Nine Hills which was in Vauxhall near Waterloo and on one side I had the Brand’s Essence and Pickle factory churning out pickle. And looking the other way we had horses because everything was delivered, delivered by horses, and drays at that. And on the other side we had the gaslight and coke company pushing out fumes so that was my early memory on the railway and then a friend of mine said [pause] well I told the friend of mine in the railway business that I was very unhappy there. So, indeed the friend said, ‘Well, we’ll try and rectify that,’ and apparently I didn’t shine as a booking clerk either. So they sent me to the estate office of the Southern Railway which was way out in the country at Chislehurst, but I digress because previous to — I mean we, talking about the year 1937. As you’ll appreciate if I was ’23 — born ‘23. ‘33, ‘37 that’s thirteen or fourteen years and 1939 came along. We can verify those dates and we had to join anything organised. All young people. So, but I think maybe I’m a bit previous to that because I went along to the Air Defence Cadet Corps. This would be somewhere about 1937 at least. So from there of course we went on to the Air Training Corps which was very much in evidence at Woolwich because we were, had the run of the Woolwich Polytechnic, and the chief there was indeed given the rank of wing commander in the Air Training Corps. Wing Commander Halliwell. So, that’s where I first got my, sort of my aircraft experience and of course it was a very good base for workshop practice. We all started off wanting to be flight — to be aircraft fitters. Fitters and turners. And the very basic things that we did were of course in connection with Tiger Moths where you really had the history of aircraft from very early days, and we had to learn all about turn buckles and things which kept the wings in place. But of course as time went by, here we are in ’39 and we were getting heavy bombers coming in, and if you’d, you had to decide, you know, really what you wanted to do because you were going to be called up for sure. And state a preference. So of course I did. And that was to be a flight engineer. Now, as an aside to this, engineers in the Air Force — flying, got twelve shillings a day. Now, you, you know seven twelves is eighty four. That’s four pound forty a week which is not to be, not to be sniffed at. But of course we also had to join something anyway. So, off I went to, to be called up but unfortunately there was a problem because I’d had a medical earlier for call up and the doctor discovered that one leg, ankle or calf, was slightly different to the other one. And of course yes it would be so because when I was born it was in a splint up until a year, eighteen months which straightened it out but it never did quite catch up with the other leg. Anyway, they said, ‘No. You’re grade three. We don’t want you.’ So off I went back to the estate office and soldiered on. Filing I think was our main job then because the railway had a vast estate. However, ok, come twelve months I was getting pretty fed up so I went up to the local recruiting office and said, ‘You know, I’m available. And I’m partly trained as an engineer. I want to join the Air Force,’ and they said, ‘Well that’s alright. You’re in the Air Training Corps. You should be alright.’ So they sent me off to Cardington and, for a medical. Went to Henlow actually. Adjacent. Just down the road from Cardington. Saw the top brass and he said, ‘Well, jump up and down there,’ and so I did. And he said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, off you go.’ So back to an interview at Cardington. The very, very modern method of identifying people. You had all these puzzles in a book, and you went through the book. A hundred puzzles and things like a bit of algebra, you know. And I knew a little bit. Anyway, I got the question right and I was the only one in that class who got it. So the squadron leader who was interviewing, and he was loaded with gongs, of course to a young man I couldn’t take my eyes of these gongs. Anyway, he put me through all the paces and he had a civilian officer too, with him, in the interview. And in his room he had every kind of aircraft and I was to — aircraft recognition. So I did very well at that because we were well trained in the Air Training Corps. So off I went then back to civilian life and then a little while later got called up for Aircrew Reception Centre at Lord’s. So we had a, we were very honoured because we had to be kitted out in the Long Room which was famous as you know. We had drill on the famous turf. Now, that lasted about three weeks by which time we were fully kitted up and said, ‘Right. Off to Torquay you go.’ We thought that was jolly good because Torquay was a lovely holiday centre wasn’t it? Anyway, we did, I did eight weeks there altogether. And we learned administration and the law of the RAF and the time came when they said, well, you know, off to the squadron — no. Off to the big training centre you go. And I remember I slept the night on Bristol Temple Meads Station because that was it. We were going to St Athan in Wales. And the train service being what it was we did arrive at St Athan with two kit bags by the time we got there. And humped them all the way up to the camp which we thought rather naughty. Anyway, we went through twenty six weeks, I think it was, of training throughout every facet of aircraft construction and the essential things that one would have needed to know. Like you had to be au fait with a very complicated system of petrol tanks. Now, each wing of a Halifax had six tanks. And this had to be in flying whittled down from, so that your main petrol was in the mid-section, in tanks one and three. Funny enough on the test training board they said, ‘No, you really ought to have another think about this. Go back and think for another week.’ So, then I passed out and they put a little white flash in my cap and they gave me papers for the Number 1652 Conversion Unit which was that Marston Moor.
[Telephone ringing. Recording paused]
CB: So we’re just re-starting now with St Athan and the rest of the things that you were doing in training there.
ESH: Yes. I’ll go straight into leaving St Athan.
CB: What else did you do in St Athan? Hydraulics. What else?
ESH: Is that running?
CB: Yes.
ESH: Well, yes, you had your petrol system. You had the other power that was likely to be in aircraft which were accumulators. Now, not as you would think an electricity accumulator but this was liquid in a cylinder. Oil actually I think it was. And air was pumped in giving it a pressure and on selecting undercarriage down the accumulator would push it down. This is in the case of a Halifax which was either hydraulic or pneumatic. So the way to get services to operate was by his accumulator. But not only that of course because you did have [pause] now let me think. You had the port inner engine on a Halifax is the one that supplies power to your services and —
CB: Electrical power.
ESH: Yes. Some of it would have been electrical power.
CB: But also hydraulic.
ESH: And hydraulics had to be learned. Flaps were hydraulic. The other services control are foot and pedals by the pilot on the fin and rudder. And the elevators — well they would be hydraulic you see running a pipeline out. And flaps for instance. Fairly high pressure, well two and a half pounds I think were the standard pressure in the system but it was enough to push a big flap down against the airstream. And so electrics — you had to be au fait with the electrical services, and therefore you had to mug up on Ohm’s Law if you like in order to appreciate the power that you could get from electric motors. So, and then of course you had to know the different gauges of the stressed skin of the alclad which was a compound of the aluminium NG7. You see, the mind gets very hazy when it comes to the complete structure but you were able, by the end of six months, to walk through a mock-up of an aircraft with your eyes closed. You could have bandaged the flight engineer. He was the one who moved around and you were perfectly au fait with where the main spar came across so you could sort of jump over that. And of course the controls for your petrol were underneath the, what’s called the rest position which was a little sort of bunk for resting people. We didn’t go to sleep there actually but it was very useful. And then in the front of the aircraft of course you had the pilot with the wireless op immediately underneath him. And the navigator and the bombardier in the nose proper. So they, we were pretty well genned up by the time we left there. We could go anywhere blind folded within the air craft there and operate switches without thinking about it. So then they said, ‘Right. Here’s, here’s your ticket.’ You’re on your on your way,’ to a place called Pocklington — no. Sorry. Marston Moor. The sight of the famous battle actually was just down the road. And this was number 1652 Conversion Unit where all the crews got together as and made up as crews. Now, I hadn’t met our crew before then but we were very late. The mid-upper gunners and the flight engineers only met the crew, the other crew of four who’d come along from EFTS and their various ‘dromes where they had been instructed, to make up a crew. And it was strange because we assembled in the hall and the flight engineers and the gunners — mid-upper gunners, would be sitting in chairs and then in came the existing crews because they’d been flying Wellingtons which only required five people. And then — how do you find a pilot? They said, ‘Join up with somebody,’ so eventually, I think we were down to about two flight engineers and a chappie came along and said, ‘I need a flight engineer. You’ll be my flight engineer won’t you?’ And it turned out that he was a very very competent pilot. His name actually was, he was a Pilot Officer Francis then, who came from a village near where we are now called Stoke St Michael near Shepton Mallet. Anyway, he was quite stern. He always said that he’d seen our records but I don’t think he had. Anyway, he brought the crew along and said, ‘This is our flight engineer. Do you think he’ll be alright?’ So that was it. That was our crew. And so then we started training on the next day on circuits and bumps because this aircraft was totally new to our pilot. And while we’re on the subject of crew we had a very important chap in the crew who is of course the navigator. Now, we had actually in retrospect, having had thirty odd ops to prove himself, and we wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t have been for Oscar Shirley, who was our navigator, because you could turn him upside down. You could have umpteen course changes. He knew exactly where he was. Because it could be very, I mean I heard of crews who had navigators that weren’t too good and that was curtains. However, we won’t dwell on that. But, and while we’re on crew our bombardier was fresh from the first few months of a teacher training course. He was called Johnny Morris but not to be confused with the comedian. And Alan Shepherd was our wireless operator. Now, Alan Shepherd came from Ringwood, off a smallholding. Wonderful chap really. Did a lot of good work after the war. Who else have we got to account for? Oh rear gunner. Yes. Rear gunner, another Londoner. I’m just desperately trying to remember his name. You wouldn’t believe it would you? [pause] I’ll remember it in a moment. We’ll come back to that. Now, who haven’t we accounted for? Mid-upper gunner. Jimmy Finney from Hull. Lovely lad who later got shot up on one operation and had to pack it in.
CB: And your bomb aimer?
ESH: Ron Alderton was the name of the rear gunner by the way. He is still with us as far as I know but when I phoned him the other day he said, ‘I’m losing my marbles. I can’t come and see you.’ So, there we were. Crew set up. And then of course we all had our bicycles with us. Off in the van and off we went to — I think we went by train from Green Hammerton to York. And then York out to Pocklington, and the station yard was just gravel in those days. And then of course we walked over to the ‘drome which was quite close. Each of us had two kit bags and a bicycle. But we knew we were going to Pocklington and it didn’t have a very savoury sort of record. In fact they said, ‘Now you’re here you’ll be lucky if you last three weeks.’ Which was a throwback from — 1943 was a desperate year and here we are in January or February was it of ’44, at the Conversion Unit. And Pocklington had, sorry not the Conversion Unit. Pocklington — the actual RAF station and there was definitely a pervading sort of sense that this was a bit dodgy, you know. However, we were led into operations in around about, just before D-Day. We’d done all our circuits and bumps and cross country’s and they let us down very gently on short trips to France. I mean the first trip we did was to a place called [unclear] which was a P-plane place. P planes were coming in thick and fast so Churchill had said to our boss Air Chief Marshall Harris, ‘Look get your lads on this. I want it stamped out.’ Because they knew the 6th of June was coming up. So we continued to do that until right through until well after D-Day. To various places which you wouldn’t be able to find on the map because they don’t give, you won’t find them as places like Foret de Dieppe. Which is unheard of, I mean, but there you are. And then we started ops didn’t we? And of course our accent was on night bombing. Can you imagine having a sheet of aluminium stood up against the wall and you gathered up in your hand and [pause] gravel? Now, you threw the gravel at the aluminium. Now that’s just what it’s like when you’re being shot. If you’re near a shot. Because all the shrapnel comes and hits the aircraft like that and that is getting just a bit too close for comfort. However, they were nights. Now, what you don’t, what you can’t see you don’t worry about do you? Even though it was seven or eight hours sometimes. Or five or six to the Ruhr. Because we were concentrating on the Ruhr. I mean Essen after we’d been there and some of the other lads had been there previously there wasn’t one brick standing on another. And that’s where Krupps the armament works were ruined, you know — finished. Because we were mainly at that time after [pause] I mean our targets were decided by the Ministry of Economic Warfare. And they said, ‘Right. Wipe out Germany’s oil and that will end the war.’ So that’s what we did. We went to all sorts of obscure places trying, in bulk, to wipe out an oil plant. Because, I mean, you’re looking at a complex in the middle of a small area of a village. Now it took a lot of aircraft to plaster it so we did a lot of this up and down the Ruhr. I mean there were so many places I won’t bore you with that. But that’s what we did. But also we went to one or two further places like Brunswick. Way across east to Berlin. And then Hanover, Soest, Osnabruck and they were very well defended. And of course the night fighters hadn’t quite been been nullified as they were a little later. So we had, I suppose a charmed existence. And one of the deadly things the Germans did was to position a gun at a fixed angle — called a shrage gun and it would come out and go straight for the port inner. Once you got the port inner — well that’s where your services came from. And there’s no way really you could put a fire out. You’d try by diving [pause] but no really we had a charmed existence I suppose. And then D-Day came along and in preparation for that the squadron was busy but we didn’t actually get over Normandy until, I think it was July the 18th 1944 when it was, there were troop concentrations around Cannes. Now, if you remember Montgomery couldn’t shift them and everyone was looking to him and saying, you know, ‘You’re going to be a failure aren’t you? You can’t. You’re army can’t do it.’ So they whistled up the Air Force east of Cannes where Tigers tanks had dug in in expectation of a bombing raid. and of course we were there 5 o’clock in the morning and it soon became obscured by dust and smoke. And really it was pretty terrible for the Germans I’m sure because they staggered out of their bunkers and that, having been bombed by I think it was a thousand aircraft. Not all at once but over a period of about half an hour. Your concentration was so great yes you could time them and of course this was, in effect, an army cooperation. We had to be very careful because the army had to lay down a yellow barrier of flares with a given margin which they decided was safe so — and I do remember on that occasion I think as we were coming — as we were going out on that raid as you’ll realise Cannes isn’t that far from England. They were coming back. So, quite amazing you know to see these aircraft coming back and you hadn’t got there. Now, this was daylight of course because they switched us from night after a time because we went on to daylight because of course if you can see something it should be, you should be more accurate. Now, we did go on right through the summer. We went to one P-plane place seven days running. Foret de Dieppe. If you can find it on the map. Because one operation was preceded by Mosquito. Now the Mosquito could — it was planned he would be on a fixed from England on the exact spot. So we were trundling away there getting towards — and the secret was when he dropped his bombs everyone else would do theirs. And of course unfortunately we got up near the target and one aircraft opened its bomb doors and dropped the bombs and of course everybody else did the same. So really that was — the idea was good but it didn’t work in practice. Whether the Air Ministry would like you to know that I don’t know. But yes, it was so. So, we were largely on P-plane bases but then we went on, as I say, to daylight. Oil installations. Because at that time it was really beginning to show that the Germans couldn’t really put enough in the field because they hadn’t got the petrol. So, mainly of course we were up at the Ruhr at places like Gelsenkirchen where there were oil installations and that more or less saw the summer out. But one operation did stand out for us and that was army cooperation with the Americans who were trying to push into the Ruhr and we hadn’t yet, they hadn’t yet done it but there were three towns. Julich, Duren and Eschweiler, and I think they are adjacent to the [pause] now what was the name of the forest?
CB: Ardennes.
ESH: The Ardennes, yes. Indeed. The Ardennes and these Germans had all their batteries concentrated in that area and they could dig in these Tiger tanks and they were very difficult. I mean they were very difficult to move. And the crews also were dug in and ready to come into action as soon as the raid had passed over. Anyway, we went through the target and on our way out and we must have wandered. At that time of course to nullify guns you dropped out metallic strip, Window, which really foxed the German radar. And they were pretty good on this radar. And we did wander around to one side on the way out. Out of radar — out of the Window cover and you could see. I was lucky I had a little dome and I could look out as a flight engineer to the rear and you could see these black dots coming up, but you didn’t know whether that one was going to follow that one but it did. And there was an almighty bang and so skipper Francis knew what that was so immediately put it into a dive. Now we were about fifteen thousand feet I think and we ended up diving and ended up at eight thousand feet hoping that the Germans wouldn’t be able to follow us down but the place was full of smoke and cordite. The smell of cordite. If you’ve opened up a firework or let it off you’ll smell cordite and that’s what, that’s what was filling up the aircraft. So you couldn’t communicate. Everyone had gone deaf so you had to wait for your hearing to come back. But being a flight engineer I was able to walk around because we were at level flight by that time. Previous to that we’d been pinned in our stations. The G-effect being such. And so the first thing I saw — the aircraft looked like a pepper pot on one side, the starboard side, and daylight was streaming out. No flaps. And unfortunately Jim Finney in the mid-upper turret was pointing to his leg and the shrapnel had gone through at the thigh which rendered him, his control of his foot etcetera to be nullified. So wireless op and bombardier got him out of the turret and laid him down in the fuselage, bandaged him up and they cut his trousers first in order to find out where the where he’s bleeding. And they did a good job on him because you know if a chap’s losing blood he’s losing life blood. So, anyway, the skipper said to navigator, ‘Give me a course for home.’ He gave him a course irrespective of what we were flying over and he pointed the nose in the right direction and off we went and we were soon back. I suppose at — oh yes it was awkward because there was a mist coming up and a fog but we were pointed towards Orfordness and the aerodrome there which had FIDO. Fog Dispersal [pause] Fog Incandescent Dispersal Organisation. So we were able to fly around once firing off all the red flares that we had so they should know down below that we hadn’t got radio, we hadn’t got brakes. But it’s a long runway and it was called [pause] There were two — one was at Carnaby further up the coast. This was Woodbridge. Straight in off the sea straight on the ‘drome. So it was getting pretty misty and it was closing in. November is a bad month isn’t it? Anyway, we got down didn’t we? And we managed to take up the full length of the runway, ended up on the grass at the end. But nevertheless we were off out of trouble. And along came, well they knew full well that this aircraft was damaged. Couldn’t talk to us. So they sent out the wagon and dear Jim was soon in hospital. And we, along with a couple, quite a few dozen others descended on the cookhouse for a supper, you know. Which we did eventually get because they didn’t expected all these people to come in 5 o’clock in the afternoon. And so what do you do? We’re down at Orfordness there in the east coast of Essex. They gave us tickets back to London and then back to York which was an excuse for everybody to spend the night in London. But I was lucky because I could get an electric train just down to Woolwich as it were and back home. We never got pulled up. None of us had hats. Well, I think, I think the skipper did because he was very particular about carrying his nice peak cap, you know. However — yeah, so we, but that’s only one of about six different aircraft that we had on the tour. Some of the numbers are in the logbook. But where we had different problems — for instance on one occasion we had a seagull in the engine nacelle which put that out of action. So of course you didn’t use that aeroplane the next day. We had so many we could have a new one every day if necessary. As I say, we had about seven. We got the undercart. That went down alright otherwise we wouldn’t be here would we? But it could be things like that which would be, could be very dodgy. And we eventually finished our tour on oil installations. Let’s see [pause] towards the end. Towards the end. Towards the [pause] October. October. Through Christmas. Probably about January or February of ‘45 and that was the end of our tour. And we had done twenty daylights and about thirteen night trips which clocked up something like four hundred, five hundred hours flying. Full stop.
CB: We’ll stop there for a —
[recording paused]
CB: So we’re just, we’re just doing a recap now which is on the damage on the aircraft.
ESH: Yes.
CB: So starting at the point of the big explosion. Then what happened and what was the effect?
ESH: Well I hope I can remember.
CB: That’s alright.
[pause]
ESH: Well we left the target area and unfortunately we may have erred to one side of the Window cover which of course blocks out their radar and nullifies their accuracy. But nevertheless they caught us up and in a flash there was an almighty bang and our hearing disappeared straight away and the skipper put it into a dive, And down we went. Down. Down. Down. Something like eight thousand feet I suppose before we levelled out and that was a relief but we were then, I was then able, as a flight engineer to move around and observe any damage and by jingo there was. Looking out the port side — the starboard side the flaps had disappeared. One important, very important thing. The whole side of the aircraft was peppered and daylight was, it was more or less a window. And our mid-upper gunner, now our hearing had come back and our visibility was quite goon— pointed to his leg and indeed he had caught, been caught by shrapnel right through his thigh from his turret. So that very shortly after our wireless operator and our bombardier came out and got him out of the turret and cut his trouser and stopped the flow of his blood. And we realised it was very urgent to get back to England because, fortunately our four engines are still turning over in spite of losing some major control of the aircraft, so on arriving at Woodbridge which was a mighty long ‘drome a mighty long runway and very wide too we had to circle. We had to tell the ground what was happening. And so there we were flying, running off red verey lights in case there were other aircraft in the circuit, but there was no issue. We did one. One circuit around the flying control and straight in to the funnel of the runway. Without — without radio we felt pretty helpless. The fog had closed in on the aerodrome now at this time but he was an A1 skipper and as I say one of his things that he was so good at was flying blind, he could fly in any condition. He got us down and we got Jimmy into the transport and away to the nearest hospital.
[pause]
CB: Was there any fire on the aircraft?
ESH: No. Fortunately we didn’t have fire. Which is a pretty terrible thing.
CB: So you had no, no hydraulics and you had no electrics. How did you get the undercarriage down?
ESH: Well, it’s heavy, it’s a very heavy undercarriage. Massive wheels on a Halifax. Six foot high nearly. If I remember rightly the hydraulics had gone which serves flaps, bomb doors, undercarriage and, actually what happened is [pause] there is another precaution because if your —
[pause]
CB: You could wind it down could you?
ESH: No. There was a precaution against it falling down which is called withdrawing the uplocks. This is a job that the flight engineer had to do. He would go down to what the rest position which is where our mid-upper gunner was. And there are two D rings. One each side protruding from the fuselage. The cable obviously comes through the back of the wing because the undercarriage would have been beneath the wing, and it was a simple system. Ok. You pulled the D ring which pulled a cable which released a sort of a gate bolt. This bolt, if you can imagine a gate bolt, held up the undercarriage. So the undercarriage would automatically fall down. So that’s obviously what the, as flight engineer, I did on approaching. We were fortunate in as much as that was all intact. I mean if the aircraft had lost its undercarriage earlier you not only would it have caused a lot more loss of fuel flying with an undercarriage down, total drag. But in this case no. The uplocks worked. Irrespective of any hydraulic system. And of course your warning lights came on here and there.
CB: Ok.
ESH: We covered that have we?
CB: You have. Yeah.
ESH: So therefore we got — we were on the ground, Jimmy’s off to hospital and we are left to go and find our supper again with another hundred bods as we used to call ourselves. The next morning we were given a pass to go back to Pocklington via London so everyone had a night in London if they couldn’t get home. We all seemed to arrive the next morning for the 10 o’clock up to King’s Cross, up to York and that was the end of that sticky situation.
CB: When you had a night in London where did you stay?
ESH: Well I was able to go back. Once we got to London I was able to go back to Plumstead to my folks, and one or two of the other crew had friends that they could call on. Or relations. In fact Skipper Francis had some relations down in Slough way. Now, Ron Alderton, the rear gunner, had Canadian friends temporary and he did a night of the rounds of whatever pubs he could find and night clubs. He had quite a roaring time. I mean we didn’t need to get a train before 11 o’clock from Kings Cross to get back to York. So, on the train back we were, you know, reminiscing. And I always remember I’d tried to write out something for the, for the skipper at the time when all our hearing had gone and it was an absolute shambles. Unfortunately, you couldn’t hear anything and I found I couldn’t even spell the word fuselage. What I should have done was “Jim hit.” Two words would have conveyed that but instead of that — in the event you do not act logically and you would find that you had difficulty in getting to grips with language. You could move about and you knew exactly what you should do but you couldn’t think it through. But we were all in the same boat weren’t we? We all lost our hearing for quite a time.
CB: So you —
ESH: But we got back. That was the thing.
CB: You experienced the initial shock. When did the secondary shock hit you and what was that like?
ESH: Well, we had a night’s sleep, as you will appreciate, in London and I suppose we were rehearsing the events in the train for five hours. But we well appreciated that we were very lucky. But I don’t think at that time that that sort of event had too much effect on a crew. We were all together weren’t we? Jimmy was unfortunate but he wasn’t killed. That would have been a terrible disaster. So therefore I think we’d already been used to five years of war. I mean I’m talking about ’39 onwards, you’ve already had four years and you became inured to stress, in effect. So although we went back over the ground again but we were as a crew, we were complete. We were very lucky.
CB: How long before jimmy rejoined you?
ESH: Jimmy, unfortunately was off to hospital in Oswestry and he was ruled out forever more as a flyer and we received then a young gentleman from Scotland called Onderson. He was very broad and I think mostly we didn’t call him Ian, I think we just called him Jock and he was quite happy with that. And he finished up something like five or six operations with us. He became one of us obviously.
[pause]
CB: Now, you were saying that you did thirty. In your tour there were thirty ops, twenty of them were daylight. How many of those were to do with the V weapons and what happened?
ESH: Well, as we said the V weapons and the P-planes. The V weapon was of course outside our control. It’s a rocket and you don’t hear it coming, you don’t know it’s left the ground even. And if you were anywhere near it then it could destroy half a dozen houses at one time. So we were mainly concentrating on P plane sites because you could flatten them. Until they put them on lorries and then of course you couldn’t find them. So, yes.
CB: So you were, you were in daylight but how easy or difficult was it to find the V1 initially and then V2 sites?
ESH: Well, I don’t think that we could ever find — the V1 for instance was secreted in the middle of a forest and certainly fighters could eventually have a go because they could see them and once we’d identified, or the Air Ministry had identified the location they knew what they were looking for on lorries. They would shoot them up but of course V2 was purely a mobile rocket. But once it was off it was off and it would perform a perambular and no one knew it had gone and no one knew it was coming. And there was just a terrible explosion and five houses could be — disappear.
CB: But the V1 sites, as you said, in forests — how effective would you say your endeavours were in dealing with those?
ESH: Well you want the truth. A question like where would you find the P- plane sites in a forest? All we had to go on really was what came back from our agents by wireless. That there was this activity in a certain place which the Air Ministry would identify, or the sight would be identified and it would be marked on our maps, as I say, as a very obscure village in Pas-de-Calais. The only thing we could do was mass bombing. In fact I don’t remember a site which wasn’t bombed on each occasion with less than three hundred aircraft. So that you hoped that within that aiming point you would destroy it. And I think we did a lot but not all.
CB: Saturation bombing.
ESH: Yes. That was the idea. Saturation bombing [pause] Stop.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: Now, some of your endeavours at bombing these V1 sites perhaps were more effective than others. Was there one site you went to several times?
ESH: What? A V1?
CB: Yeah. In Dieppe.
ESH: Yeah. Foret de Dieppe. Did I not mention earlier?
CB: No. So, just, just cover that can you? The fact you went several times.
ESH: Oh yes indeed.
CB: Why did you go to that several times?
ESH: Yes. In order to mitigate this nuisance of the V2, V1s of which many thousands were being aimed at England at the time on a fixed track. One morning, in fact five or six mornings continuously we searched out a fixed ramp in a forest called Foret de Nieppe. Which of course is in the Pas-de-Calais, if you can find it. And it took thousands of tonnes, must have done, to obliterate that site. But it was, it wasn’t able to fire off these V1s in rapid succession because, you know the Germans were very thorough and got it to a high state of proficiency but we did concentrate for many weeks and months on finishing off these P-planes because it was aimed at civilian population.
CB: How many times did you actually see V1s flying towards Britain on your way to the target?
ESH: Well fighter pilots did of course but not, not us.
CB: You were too high up, were you, to see them?
ESH: Yes. I mean they didn’t, they came in at about two thousand feet so I can’t say I saw one. But I saw the damage and I experienced a V2 standing on Albany Park Station which was on the, what’s called the Dartford loop line. Bexley Heath, Barnehurst and down there. And I was standing on the station and this thing dropped a quarter of a mile away and I had to ask the station staff what that was. I mean, you know, I didn’t see it. If I’d have gone along I’d have seen a row of houses demolished but that. No.
CB: And what was their reaction to your question?
ESH: Who?
CB: The railway people.
ESH: Well he sort of said, ‘Where have you been?’ Because it was — this is not live is it? Well he wondered where I’d been not to know that London was being plastered with P-planes bombs. That sounded by the way like a common 6oo cc motorcycle engine.
CB: And you weren’t able to tell them what you were doing to counter this. You weren’t able to explain what you were doing, to the people in London.
ESH: No. Well they could see —
CB: Bombing.
ESH: They could see I was in uniform.
CB: Yes.
ESH: But they were so busy with their ordinary lives that I was just one of two million servicemen. It didn’t rate more highly than that.
CB: Right. Ok.
ESH: Pause?
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: So what other events were noteworthy.
ESH: Ah well, now what comes to mind straightaway is on the way in to a target to see an actual aircraft hit. And you must remember this has got a full bomb load of what ten [pause] what had we got — five twenty thousand pounds of TNT going up as well as the fire bombs, and it’s the most horrifying experience. But I do remember that occasion when — and the skipper was quick to point out that the Germans did send up what they called Scarecrows. But I’m sure this would be more than that because the whole sky around that aircraft was just bits, black bits in the sky. Now, you see a Scarecrow couldn’t put up that much material could it? I don’t think so. I think this was a very salutary experience but you didn’t dwell on it because, well, you know, it could be happening at night time and you never knew anything about it.
CB: So we’re talking about night time now are we?
ESH: No. Night time, other than someone standing and throwing grit at your aeroplane that was the only indication you would have had that there were some shells very close by, but you see what the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve. Although you might feel the effect of it, especially if you’d another aircraft in front of you you’d be perhaps very difficult as a pilot to maintain your position because you’re right in his slipstream. And there’s a slipstream of four engines just in front of you. I mean there were so many aircraft in the sky that it’s a wonder and in fact we lost a lot of aircraft because of collision. Indeed we did if the truth is known. No, there’s a bit of variation. We also had some trips with mine laying. Now, what happens? Mine laying. Well we had a chap from the navy came up and showed us exactly what’s going to happen because these things are quite weighty. I think they weighed about a matter of hundred weights and I think the maximum we could carry would be two. But there would be a whole squadron perhaps, or a lot of aircraft from other stations, all on the same business, and so off we went out across the North Sea and in to the Baltic. We had to pass over an island called Bornholm. Now, how far it is into the Baltic I don’t know, not very far perhaps because we were after this shipping route between Swedish oil coming down to feed the German factories. But I do remember dear old Bornholm put up some ack-ack you know [laughs] as though they could catch us with it. One little gun you know. It was a bit of humour in a not too humorous event. But that made a change from flying over the Ruhr because actually the first time I saw the Ruhr at night, well you’d never believe it. We came into the south of Ruhr and there was a bank of searchlights for the next fifty miles. Up and curving around. And, you know, when the chaps had said you’ve got to avoid searchlights I can understand because once you get pinned or —
[Mobile ring tone. Recording paused]
CB: So we’re talking about in the Ruhr and the way they would have, the place was defended.
ESH: Yes. Right.
CB: And how they were able, in the dark to track where people were going.
ESH: Well if I describe the scene.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: The first time you saw these early night trips that we did it took a bit of getting used to. And the first time I saw searchlights. Now, if you can imagine Kiel up in North Germany. Right around and come down through the rest of the Ruhr down to [pause] what town would be the south of the Ruhr?
CB: Stuttgart. Stuttgart.
ESH: Stuttgart. And Nuremberg. That is something like fifty miles isn’t it? Or more.
CB: More.
ESH: A solid ring of thousands of searchlights, it was like day. And it curved actually from the north right down. Facing England to the south. Stuttgart. Nuremberg. And even further south than that I think. A solid — banks of hundreds. And if, if you got near one they had one particular, in groups, they had one particular searchlight which was extra powerful and it used to show up blue, and, well we did get coned on one occasion. We were lucky because very often you couldn’t get out of it. There were so many and they could sort of follow your track and there was this master searchlight and everybody else was following. And what we did, we managed to get out by just diving and weaving. And I suppose we lost a few hundred feet and you had to make that up because you had a flight plan. You know, you didn’t depart from that flight plan. You just didn’t go off on your own doing your own thing. That was certain, certain tragedy that would be because you had whole squadrons of night fighters still and they were still able to fly. Although, they couldn’t do the training because they hadn’t got the petrol, so the petrol bombardment was beginning to show. I mean we’re talking now about mid-’45 aren’t we, you see? Sorry —
CB: ’44.
ESH: ’44. From ’44 to the end of ’44 it was gradually having an effect on German oil production, synthetic oil. And of course being as they were small patches they were very difficult to find. I mean, you might have one oil refinery and its ten miles from the nearest town. Now, you’ve got to be very accurate to get anything delivered to that site and — if you could get there, you know. But of course the German fighter production was going down so fast that I think we had a charmed existence from nineteen — from June ‘45 really to, or September ’45 to the end of [pause] ’44 to the end of ’44. I mean we were very busy D-Day time for the next three months, and then it sort of slackened off because you were limited to what you could do in the way of army cooperation. In fact the army didn’t want the Air Force to take full credit for having liberated Germany. So [pause] but raids were still being, operations were still being carried out by the squadron right through to mid-‘45. Or ‘til D-Day.
CB: You talked about the intensity of searchlights. What effect did that have on the air bomber’s ability to identify the target?
ESH: Well, searchlights. Yes. But you had visual and of course later in — from D-Day onwards the squadrons were equipped with H2S which was radar with the ability to show up features on the ground. To be able to distinguish between water and land. Now, if an oil refinery was situated just off a river that aiming point would certainly be able to be calculated and it left an aiming point for a whole squadron of aircraft marked by Pathfinders. You didn’t go on your own. It was, at that time, after D-Day, everything was Pathfinders and they would blaze the trail and you’d have a Master Bomber and he would come through your RT. I remember one occasion when the Main Force was given a name so it would come out rather like this. ‘Widow 1, Widow 1 to Main Force. Bomb the red TIs.’ And then a minute later, ‘Widow 1 to Main Force. Bomb the yellow TIs.’ Because of bomb creep.
CB: TI being target indicator.
ESH: Target indicator. Yes. So you had a whole spectrum of colours. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. And they could be changed rapidly by RT from the master bomber to the main force so that he kept, you kept pace with bomb creep and you became more effective with that. In fact very effective in the end. I mean such people as Wing Commander Cheshire as he was then would be up the front there giving the, giving that RT direction.
CB: Would you like to just explain what is bomb creep? Bomb creep. What is it?
ESH: Bomb creep. Yes. What happens is that [pause] it creeps back rather than on to the target. How it happens — I suppose if you’ve got a conflagration then bombardiers could think that that was where you should be aiming. So a lot of aircraft, I mean, don’t forget there are five hundred aircraft on this job so that some of them would think that was the target. But, so the Master Bomber had to keep reminding people that it was creeping back and it shouldn’t do. He’s got to go on to his new target indicators. And he changed the colour of course. So you knew what to look for. Otherwise your bomb load was nullified.
CB: Ok.
ESH: Go on to [pause]
CB: Yeah go on. So we’ll stop there for a mo.
ESH: Yeah then —
[recording paused]
ESH: I said Cora’s mum and dad yes.
CB: Yes. On a slightly lighter note clearly as a crew you had your, and personally you had your social side. So what did the crew do, and what did you do individually?
ESH: Well, that’s what I did individually and didn’t take any part in any social activities with the crew.
CB: Right. So what did you do?
ESH: I didn’t go drinking, you see.
CB: No. So what did you do?
ESH: I spent most of my time in York.
CB: Right. And what did you find there?
ESH: This family.
CB: Right.
ESH: And I was made like a son.
CB: Were you?
ESH: So I didn’t — we all went as a family to the theatre one evening and we saw the famous lady who had just started acting. She was in, “Last of the Summer Wine.” Very famous. You chaps have got memories haven’t you?
CB: We’ll latch on to her later. So, but but the family —
ESH: I’d better jot her name down while I think of it.
CB: Ok. Yeah. So you —
ESH: Thora Hird.
CB: Yeah. So the family was in York. What did the father do?
ESH: He was invalided. He couldn’t do anything because of the start of silicosis.
CB: Right, but what was his trade?
ESH: That was — he was in charge. He had his own firm of plasterers.
CB: Right.
ESH: So I’ll go on to that. I’ll just make a quick note, Thora Hird.
CB: And they had a son and a daughter.
ESH: Yeah. Yeah. Famous restaurant in the middle of York. Still there.
CB: But you’d go to that as well would you?
ESH: Yeah. I’ve got it. Yes.
CB: Go on.
ESH: Ok.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: Live?
CB: Yes.
ESH: We were talking about the social life on the squadron. Well, as I say I think I was eighteen when I, nineteen when I arrived there, and went out into York and I met this delightful young lady called Cora. And she said, ‘Well, if I’m going out with you my people want to see you.’ So I went along and they became my mum and dad for that time. And her dad was a, had a plastering firm but he was suffering then from, I think, the start of silicosis and he couldn’t work but nevertheless they went out of their way to look after me, and of course the extra attraction was of course la belle Cora. And at that time there was a show going in York and who should be a young actress was Thora Hird. But I don’t think she remembers that herself now, bless her. She’s passed on hasn’t she? But Mr Parker’s claim to fame as a plasterer was the ceilings, for instance, in Betty’s Bar. Now Betty’s Bar is very well known in York and it’s still there. And if you go down into the basement you will find a mirror which is now cut up into three parts. And pretty well every famous flyer has got his signature on the glass having done with a diamond ring. And they’re all there. I think you’ll find Group Captain Cheshire left his mark there. And quite a lot of others passed through but they’re all on this mirror. So that’s down in the basement of Betty’s Bar. It’s worth going down to see. There’s history galore down there. So they looked after me like a mother and father, not withstanding the fact they had a son in the Middle East. With the 8th Army I think it was. But of course being really a dangerous occupation I had no business stringing this girl along. I mean I was her first boyfriend and you know the effect that has on young ladies. So, the crew were very good. They didn’t question me as to where I was spending all this time you see. Which brings us to —
CB: How you broke it off.
ESH: How we —?
CB: Broke it off.
ESH: Oh yes. I mean, we used to have, our famous perambulation was around the wall of York. And, you know it took quite a time so, and broke her heart I’m sure, but it had to finish. It would had been too traumatic otherwise. And we were then left to finish our tour which, there again was mainly oil installations. But come September of ’44 the CO called us all into the briefing room and said, ‘Now we’re all going to France tomorrow. We are bringing petrol to the army.’ The army was fighting at Eindhoven and so they said, ‘You are going to be loaded up with petrol,’ which they did. Each aircraft. Two hundred and fifty, five gallon cans stacked along the fuselage and tied in so they didn’t bounce around. Off we went to a German field which they’d laid out what’s called Sommerfield tracking to stop an aircraft or aircraft and vehicles bogging down in a puddle. So that was rather jolly. I mean there we were — flew a hundred feet all the way. And really that’s one of the nicest things to do, you know. Flying low level where we’d see haystacks with pigs on top because Jerry had pulled the plug on the dyke. Very naughty of course but you know it really devastated thousands of acres. And we had to fly over that into Brussels. Well into an area of Brussels called Melsbroek which was just a grass field. And it was very enjoyable. We landed there and fresh air and went to the village and do you know what? There were grapes growing on the trees. Oh grapes. Well, I mean who wants to leave there? Anyway, this so happens, you know that we tried to get off the next day, I’m sure it was the next day. So soon you could be accused of organising this. But we oiled up the plugs trying to get out of a big puddle and there’s no way you’re going to get out of it because what the wheels do and they’re big, they just churn a great gap, pit in the soil. So therefore that was, we were stuck there until you get a fitter out with a set of plugs to put it right, and I think all four engines were oiled up. Anyway, that meant that we had three days in Brussels. So what did we do? The first day we piled into a local tram and went into Brussels where we stayed at the Gare de Nord Hotel. And I was the only one who had any money [laughs] you know, because they said now any money you’ve got to change it. You’ve got to, sorry we had to change it for the currency that was wartime currency. And so of course our money was soon gone staying at hotels. And we went in to one, oh yes we, I must tell you a little story here. We went in to one hotel and up to the second floor and it was a night club with an amphitheatre and a stage and events, you know. Acts taking place. But on the way up the staircase in a corner there were two six foot six American sergeants and they had a lovely carton of cigarettes, a big carton. And they were presumably flogging them off. I mean if they could get another carton like that they’d make a fortune because there were no cigarettes in Europe. In fact, people would give you their gold watch for a packet of cigarettes but that — now our rear gunner being a sort of international type said, ‘No,’ we must find, he’d come from Canada on, he was trained for something else in Canada because he talked about Montreal. And he said, ‘We must see an exhibition.’ And actually it wasn’t what I fancied but anyway we didn’t get that far because there was no exhibition. So we met this old boy in the road and Ron says, ‘Exhibition?’ So, he didn’t speak French perfectly. The chap was quite happy. This old boy. ‘Come with me. Come with me.’ And off we went with this chap down the main thoroughfare and down some back entrances, back places, back roads, alleyways to a pub. And this pub was run by this aged lady who sat at the high stool and dished up what went, passed as beer. And there were us. We were all sitting around on stool, a continuous stool like in a queue. And I mean, you know, it was alright. A bit of light fare. And the skipper was there of course and he hadn’t taken his hat off that time. And in comes all th ese girls in bathing costumes. I mean, to eighteen year olds you know this is seventh heaven isn’t it? What’s next then? And they were sitting on our knees and some of them very shapely. And the skipper suddenly caught on, he said ‘Right. Here’s the gun. Out you lot.’ And we had to leave because it was a brothel wasn’t it? And he wasn’t, he wasn’t having his crew sullied by such goings on. So, that was, that was Brussels for me.
CB: So you got two black eyes and you couldn’t hear anything either.
ESH: [laughs] So. No. We had to make apologies to these young ladies and disappear. We would have liked to pass on perhaps a bar of chocolate.
CB: Of course.
ESH: But we didn’t go prepared. But it’s a pity. But Ron did — he went to a private family that night. I don’t know what the attraction was but anyway he did — no. Johnny Morris this is, ex schoolteacher. He obviously thought about it because he brought a bag of coffee back next time and made arrangements for it to be delivered to a particular curie. A priest at the local church who he had met somehow. But that’s the best we could do really. Normally you went in with your two hundred and fifty gallons. The army came up with a truck, unloaded [pause] and there we went off again. The next day with another load. So we were really kept busy bringing in something like two thousand gallons at a time for the army to use up at Eindhoven. Because they were six hundred miles from the port at that stage and just couldn’t keep going, you know. I thought I saw somebody moving out there but maybe I’m wrong.
CB: So did you carry, did you then later deliver any other kind of goods or was it only petrol?
ESH: Only petrol. But I believe later. Very soon. Our squadrons were engaged on dropping supplies to Amsterdam and it made a great impression on our Dutch friends.
CB: That was food. Operation Manna.
ESH: Yes.
CB: Yes.
ESH: We weren’t engaged on that but rather carried on with the last few trips into Europe.
CB: So when you come to the end of your tour what happened then to the crew?
ESH: Ah yes. Well, do you know on the aerodrome was an experimental department run by a squadron leader. And they, one of the problems with the Halifax was coring of the oil in the oil tank. Super cooling. And it was called coring. And every effort was being made, well funny enough in my tour I never came, never had the problem. I dare say we never flew in an icing. What you call an icing.
CB: Weather condition.
ESH: Yeah. You get icing conditions at certain heights and if you stayed in it it was very bad for the oil coolers but we managed to keep out of that. But a lot of experimental work was being done because a lot of the aircraft did — was affected. And so they, we worked for the experimental department there which was set up at Pocklington. Going on cross country’s with modified aircraft that in effect would fly through anything up to Scotland and back in the hope that we would be able to pinpoint the procedures to cure it. But unfortunately we had an aircraft, an aircraft engine go over speed for some reason so that rather folded up at that time.
CB: Which kind of engine was that?
ESH: Well, Halifax — a Bristol Hercules 100. That was the latest. But coring was a very difficult thing. So of course what was happening was that everyone was now asking us to be re-mustered. There was nothing for us to do except hang around. So —
CB: Was there an option of going on another tour?
ESH: Oh yes, that was always an option, yes indeed. But — and a lot of the chaps did but I think I was more anxious to go back to civilian life. But I was ‘Duration of Present Emergency.’ Or I was D of P E.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: And of course they were not giving out any commissions at that time. So there wouldn’t have been a lot of future in staying so I applied to be re-mustered.
CB: And what happened?
ESH: And then left Pocklington.
CB: Ok.
ESH: Being posted to whatever came up in the Air Ministry I suppose. And off we went then re-mustering at a famous station for the army in north Cornwall — north [pause] Catterick. Now, there was a little RAF station for re-mustering at Catterick in an ex-mine working. Anyway, my number came up eventually but in the meantime we were sent on indefinite leave. Now, I didn’t want to have to pay to go to the skipper’s wedding because train fare was quite expensive. But I gave his address on my 48. My seven day pass as it were. Or indefinite leave. The consequence of that will be explained a bit later.
CB: Right.
ESH: But from there I got a letter a little later being posted to the Isle of Man as an airfield controller. But it just so happened that my papers actually never got to my home. They got to the skipper’s address. Now, you can have a bit of a laugh if you’ve been in the service because this was six weeks later, or rather that was alright but it was the last seven days. I was absent without leave. But I turned up. I was on my way to the Isle of Man. Well, I got to the Isle of Man alright. Yes. And having got to the Isle of Man you got off at Douglas and, you know, looked at the local restaurant. Two eggs, steak and chips, that’s marvellous. Have some of that. So immediately dived in and had a good nosh as we used to say. And then you got a little local narrow gauge train up to the Isle of Man up to the north. Because I was going to be stationed at a little place called Jurby which was a good hopping off point for anybody going to or coming from Reykjavic. Which, I would then put three searchlights up to guide them in. But it was more disastrous from my point of view because what could the CO do? He has a chap seven days adrift. The first — I went to the guardroom and he said, ‘We’ve been looking for you. You’re seven days adrift.’ So, go up before the CO. Very nice chap. By the way first of all you have to be vetted by the station WO and he actually said, ‘Do you know I’m awfully sorry to have to do this but you’re up before the CO tomorrow.’ So, you march in, in the usual way with the, you know, left right left right left. Turn right. ‘So young man. What do you want to do? A court martial or do you want my punishment?’ ‘Well your punishment sir. Thank you.’ ‘Right. Seven days loss of pay.’ And do you know what? You can imagine the scene can’t you? Pay parade. And you announce yourself before the cashier’s table, ‘1869854 Horsham. Sir.’ And he would say, ‘Three and sixpence.’ This went on for weeks at three and six pence a week it takes quite a time to get to four pounds forty. Seven days pay you see. You can clue that if you like but its [pause] but indeed I think because we had a chap at High Wycombe and he was called Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris and of course they did think twice before they shoved the book at one of Bomber Harris’s boys. And I think I was saved by that because it’s a heinous crime in the air force to be AWOL anywhere. Anyway, we carry on from there because I enjoyed the time on the Isle of Man. Being in charge of the airfield. Not a lot went on but we did [pause] we were a home for stray aircraft and of course the station was very busy training the rest of The Empire Air Scheme for training navigators. And we would use, or they would use Ansons. So of course we had a squadron of Ansons to fulfil the contract. And of course my job, one of the jobs, mine and my crew — I had a crew by then of Scots lads that were setting up a parking area with glim lamps every day, because they were doing night flying, and these glim lights were fuelled by accumulators and shone a red light. And you had to put them in a certain order because then the aircraft on the way back knew where they were to park. And they used to get it in the neck if they ran over a glim lamp. Other than that when we wasn’t flying we were all in flying control and we used to do a shift where we had two and a half days off. They still do that in the police force apparently, here. Afternoon, next morning or night, off the next day and the next day and the following morning. So that enabled you to go and see the local sights. Peel Castle on the Isle of Man. And of course we did get busy aircraft and they would come in some awful times from Reykjavik and sometimes I was, what did they call it? Duty officer? Duty. Yeah. Duty officer. And I had to find them accommodation so I had to lay the law down. Pull rank on whoever was in charge of the blanket store so that these chaps had a night’s sleep and could get, we would — the cookhouse would provide a supper for them. That broke up your time. So, in effect, eventually they sent us back to the mainland. To top — I was stationed at Topcliffe which was an ex-Canadian station and underneath every table and ever chair was chewing gum [laughs] That’s how I remember the Canadians. But there was no flying going on which was a shame because we [pause] I was only thinking these chaps had applied for discharge and therefore I was in charge of an airfield with no aircraft. We kept the grass nice and tidy. But as I say we could go into, no, we couldn’t go in to Topcliffe for two eggs, steak and chips. It was unheard of. But what you could do is you could go to a local village called Topwith . Now, there are two brewers in Tadcaster. One is Sam Smith and one is John Smith. Now, you’ll know John Smith because his beer is everywhere but what we ought to have down here is Sam Smith’s which was thick and black. And it was as black as your coat. Black as night and it was the next best thing today to Mackesons. But you could get quite squeamish, not squeamish — quite drunk on it. So then you met up with a lot of other interesting aircrew and you absorbed their experiences, and then gradually, one by one, they disappeared. As I did one day. On the 2nd of January 1947, in the bleak midwinter. It was very bleak down south anyway and there had been a lot of snow around. One interesting side now, talking about cold. We were very cold in Pocklington so we could burn, burn bicycle tyres in the hut. But old Jim said, ‘Do you know what,’ Jim Finney that was then [pause] now wait a minute I’m wrong. Jim has already had that shrapnel in his leg. But anyway, there was another member in the crew. It must have been Alan Shepherd, the wireless op. He said, ‘I know. There’s a bottle of petrol over there.’ And somewhere someone had left a bottle of petrol. And it was a hundred octane. So he said, ‘Stick it in the stove to get it nice and warm.’ And it did. It blew the whole thing apart [laughs] Which wasn’t very clever was it? Anyway, we’ve left. We’re at Topcliffe aren’t we? And then, sooner or later, ok the 7th of January or thereabouts I found myself out on my ear having been discharged at, somewhere near Preston. And we asked for a taxi and do you know that’s the only time in my life so far that I ever have driven in a Rolls Royce. There was a very famous place near Preston. If it wasn’t Preston it was Southport where there was a big demob place. Anyway, that’s where we ended up, in a taxi going to Preston Station. And home on indefinite leave still. Well, no a fortnight wasn’t it then? Fourteen days and that was it finished. Now, the thing is then going back to the old firm. Now, I found myself in the railway estate office before long but they didn’t really want me I don’t think. They said, ‘You can go up to Victoria Station and go to the archives.’ Temporarily. So that was a fill-in job. Going back through papers going back to 1900 where people had to pay for a sort of fly privilege to bring a pony and trap on to the station property and they had to enter into an agreement. Time goes by awfully quickly doesn’t it when you’re demobbed? So I stuck with the estates office for [pause] until 1957. And I didn’t seem to be going anywhere much so I went out into the big bad commercial world. And went to a builder’s merchants called Roberts Adlard who were quite famous in the southern counties. Their headquarters were Southampton. I had this friend of mine who was a rep and that’s how I got there. But, and mind you I’d left London so it was a big change to go to work in Rochester Cathedral, Rochester, the ancient town on the Medway. Rochester Cathedral. Yes. And this builder’s merchants wasn’t going anywhere so Horsham said to himself, ‘Look. Hadn’t you better find a job with a pension?’ So I had experience in the estate office which was very similar to the housing department of Rochester City Council. And applied and got the job as a rent collector of all things. Going around collecting. They had five thousand houses all broken up in to thirty different schemes or so. So that enabled a transition from that to a more permanent sphere. And of course the only way you can get up the scale in local government is either by passing a lot of examinations or becoming a professional man, like, I don’t know, an accountant which is a good solid five years work. But no there we were at Rochester with several other ex-service people especially from the navy, being next to Chatham. And so we said, you know, ‘What about a rise?’ They said, ‘Oh no. No. No. We can’t give you that but if you take a certain examination there will be money in it for you.’ So the one I took was the simple one. It was the clerical division of local government. That is talking about local and central government. Writing an essay etcetera. And after six months we took the exam and we all passed. So we thought go and see the governor again now. A different kind of governor. And for passing the examination I think — I was paid five ninety in those days. So he said, ‘Yes. Well, you can go up to five ninety five.’ A five pound a year increase. So we’ve got to do better than this. So you had lists of jobs you see, circulated. And the next port of call was Maidstone Borough Council as a senior rentable assistant in charge of five rent collectors and proving the books every weekend. Now Rochester City was a purely written system. Now I got to Maidstone and it was all done by a machine called a Powers - Samas punch card accounting. And a dreadful business because my collectors used to go out with a run off. The rent for various properties. And they would put X Y Z here and they wouldn’t put anything on their sheet. So, immediately you were what –? Two pound fifty out. I used to be there at half past nine, 10 o’clock at night on a Friday balancing the books because you had, in effect, over thirty different schemes so you had to sit down and balance these schemes to find out where the error was. Which was good training wasn’t it?
CB: Amazing. Yes.
ESH: I remember the deputy who we worked under. You never saw the treasurer. He was the high and mighty. The holy of holies. But I saw the treasurer on one occasion. He said, ‘Horsham,’ he said, ‘How is it that you spent all this overtime?’ Four hours on a Friday night, you know. I said, ‘Well you know. The chaps put one thing on the sheet and then put another in the book.’ He said, ‘Horsham you really should consider the propriety of asking for overtime.’ It’s not much of a thing to a chap who’s just put four hours extra sweating his guts out. Anyway, that’s another aside isn’t it? Next thing is of course to get promotion isn’t it? And where did I go from there? Yes. I applied for a job in the County Council’s office, in the planning department. Which is where I ended up in 1978. Yeah. 1978. And then took a sort of early retirement.
CB: How old? How old were you when you took early retirement?
ESH: In ‘78. I was born in 1923.
CB: Oh right.
ESH: ’23.
CB: Fifty five.
ESH: Just short of sixty. Oh there’s a bit more to come isn’t there?
CB: Go on then.
ESH: Yeah. Well then [pause] I go back, to retrack a little bit. Going back to my days at Maidstone Borough. Wasn’t getting much anywhere and a friend of mine, who lived adjacent to us said, ‘Why don’t you come into the poultry business with me?’ He said, ‘We could then step the production.’ Because he was, he was managing single handed two thousand layers. So we promptly put some new housing up and I put all my wealth into it and we ended up with eight thousand head of poultry. Not quite as big as JB Eastwood who came along and said, ‘Look you chaps. I don’t care, I’ve got millions of birds. And I don’t care if I only get a farthing a head. I shall still make a profit.’ Which was quite true but it was disastrous for us because we couldn’t compete with that although we did very well. I mean we had a neighbour a few miles away and he was able to keep five thousand which was less than we had. And he could work in the mornings and take all the afternoons off and play golf. That’s what he did. We thought that’s a good idea. But we were saddled with our eight thousand and with fowl pest in the offing if we didn’t look after it then we’d be sunk. Nobody else was going to look after it. So you put in a fairly, a fairly full day. Eight till five minimum. But it was very good experience because it sort of taught me that come what may I could always get a job because you’ve got some skills. Especially you’d be very valuable to a poultry farmer if you could go in and say, ‘I can go in and look after ten thousand.’ He’d say, ‘Well, you know, I’m like Mr JB Eastwood. I’ve got millions.’ But nevertheless it was the same principal. So we didn’t make a fortune but we didn’t lose our shirt. I say we being collective. And then what did I do next? Well, I went back to the old firm didn’t I? Back to local government. Into the planning department this time, of the County Council. And my draughtsmanship experience came in very handy because we dealt with maps all day long. And so in 1974 I got the most marvellous job because the ministries were all on to local governments and County Councils to find out how many, what land have you got. You don’t even know what you’ve got to build houses on. And he said, ‘Well Horsham. The job’s yours. And we will depict it on a twenty five hundred scale ordnance survey sheets,’ which was a bit better than what you get on your deeds, you know. You could even show a rainwater pipe on a twenty five hundred scale. And Kent had forty seven, forty eight District Councils which I had to visit one after the other because if you didn’t carry the local authority with you you’d be sunk. They hated County Council. And they hated them because they put extra on their rates didn’t they? So that was a very enjoyable job. So thirty nine, forty, forty one, forty two [pause] No. What do I say? 1974 — 5 — 6 — 7 - 8. It took four years to do but at the end of the time we could show in the planning department that we had fifty two thousand units of accommodation each housing three people. That was your capacity then but of course a lot of it was land that you wouldn’t want to release straight away. I mean there was something like fifteen, twenty acres at Folkestone on the golf course. I know because I lived looking over these lovely green fields but you couldn’t release it all at once but that was my job.
CB: And you enjoyed it.
ESH: I enjoyed that. I never — it’s a time when I was glad to go to work because it was so, it was my job and it was interesting and I had to fulfil this promise made to the governor that it would be finished in a certain time, you know. And then we, we retired officially.
CB: When?
ESH: In 1978. 1978. Yes. Yes and went off to live in Cornwall for seven years. Froze the pension which was the thing to do. So I froze mine for another eight years so I had to go and get a job to keep the wolf from the door.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: Which I did. In Cornwall.
CB: Doing what?
ESH: Well, I saw an advert in the paper to the effect that, “Handyman wanted,” and they gave the telephone number and it turned to be at what was the Ritz Cinema which is now a bingo hall. And the idea was that I was going to look after all the maintenance. Well, it was rather nice to do something different if you’ve done the other jobs for forty years, you know. So I did that for two or three years. The firm was called Mecca. You’ll know Mecca. They’ve got them everywhere of course. All your Ritz cinemas now have gone to bingo halls. I had to do many things. Change all the lights and there was a lot of lighting. Also you had an emergency system on what was it? Ten volt accumulators which you had to cut in if your mains failed you had your own generator as well. So you had that system and you had emergency lighting if all else failed. So I enjoyed that job really.
CB: ‘Til when?
ESH: About three years later. Right up until about 1981. In that time my and a crew of two or three lads we painted the whole of the inside of the cinema including the ceiling. Which pleased the powers that be because they said, ‘Well done Horsham. We will send you to Tenerife for a fortnight for you to recover,’ [laughs] So that was something that came out of the blue. Yes. You see every year they have competitions and whoever wins the competition probably wins a place to summer holiday. And this time it was Tenerife. So there were about a hundred of us went off to Tenerife. All found, you know. Very nice indeed. Now, you wouldn’t get bonuses like that in local government of course. Since then I haven’t done much of anything have I?
CB: Throughout this time you were —
ESH: Hmmn?
CB: Throughout this time you were supported by this lovely lady. Ellen.
ESH: Yes.
CB: Where did you meet her?
ESH: I met her the first day I went to work for the railway. She was going on the same train. There is a station south of London called New Cross. So that people from further down went up to New Cross on the train and then down to where the estate office was evacuated. It was at Chislehurst. Now there was a big house at Chislehurst called [Sidcup?]. And it was on an elevated position and there’s the railway coming up and there’s the tunnel. Elmstead Woods Tunnel. So that’s, I met her in the train and she was busy there with her needles and you know sticking her little fingers stuck up like that click click click. And so that’s how it started. Her and her friend actually. Her friend was called Winnie Glover and I suppose she thought, ‘Well, she’s done alright for herself,’ [laughs] And that’s, we’ve been going ever since.
CB: When did you marry?
ESH: 25th of May 1946.
CB: And how many children have you had?
ESH: Two girls.
CB: So one’s called Gillian.
ESH: One’s Gillian. Yes.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: And she trained and became a teacher and married a headmaster. And then she went, they went off to Hong Kong and taught for seven years. And now she lives in an old mill on the Vienne River just outside Chauvigny. Whereas Alison trained as a nurse here and she trained in Weymouth and Dorchester and then went on to the hospital at Warminster. Hence the reason that we’ve came somewhere near her in old age.
CB: And she married a —
ESH: She married a —
CB: A doctor?
ESH: A sergeant in the MOD police. A young sergeant who is now or rather shocking really some year ago he went in one Monday morning and they said, and he has twenty five years’ experience as a policeman and by that time as I say, he was a sergeant. No. She didn’t marry a sergeant then but he became a sergeant. And they said, ‘We don’t want you anymore.’ Made him redundant, just like that. So, but funnily enough he still works as an instructor for the police. Driver. He trains their drivers and that’s what he’s doing today. Alison’s just finishing up her last eighteen months as a nurse.
CB: Well I think many many thanks, Eric.
ESH: Pardon?
CB: Many thanks, Eric for two and a half hours of interview. And absolutely fascinating.
ESH: Well it’s one man’s experience isn’t it?
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Eric Horsham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-05
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASymondsHorshamE170105, PHorshamES1602
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:07:40 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Eric Horsham was born in East London in 1923. Leaving school at 14 he was a messenger at the Royal Ordnance Factory before working for the railways. In 1937 he joined the Air Training Corps and learned about aircraft maintenance. On his first attempt to join the Royal Air Force he failed the medical but a year later was accepted for flight engineer training.
Eric describes his basic training in London and Torbay then recollects his technical training at RAF St. Athan. He then went to 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Marston Moor and joined his Halifax crew. In 1944 they were posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington where there were told that they wouldn't last three weeks.
Eric and his crew carried out a vast range of strategic bombings including daylight operations on V-1 sites, night operations on The Ruhr and Essen, night and daylight operations to oil targets, minelaying in the Baltic. They also provided tactical support in support of Allied troops near Caen and in the Ardennes, where they were badly damaged by a fighter and the mid-upper gunner received serious injuries. After landing at RAF Woodbridge in fog using FIDO he was hospitalised and did not fly again. The crew also supplied petrol to troops in Belgium, enjoying the low-level flying on these trips
Eric describes the sound of shrapnel hitting the aircraft, recalls a bomber exploding in flight, but dismisses the Scarecrow theory. He describes the use of Schräge Musik against the bombers; how search lights in the Ruhr operated, the use of H2S and how the master bomber controlled the rest of the formation.
At the end of his tour Eric remustered and was posted at RAF Jurby as airfield controller. From there he went to RAF Topcliffe and was demobbed in January 1947. Eric went back to the railways for ten years before working in local government. He retired in 1978, moving to Cornwall. While at RAF Pocklington he dated Cora noting that her parents made feel like a son. But he then ended the relationship because, with his own life in such jeopardy, he thought it was unfair on her. After the war he married Ellen, who he had met when starting his first job with the railways.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Andy Fitter
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Bedfordshire
England--Devon
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man
Wales
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
France
France--Ardennes
France--Caen
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Nieppe Forest
Germany
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Denmark
Denmark--Bornholm
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1923
1937
1939
1940
1944-01
1944-02
1944-07-25
1944-09
1945
1946-05-25
1947-01-02
1957
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1981
102 Squadron
1652 HCU
Absent Without Leave
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
FIDO
flight engineer
forced landing
H2S
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
love and romance
Master Bomber
military living conditions
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
pilot
radar
RAF Pocklington
RAF St Athan
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Woodbridge
recruitment
runway
searchlight
tactical support for Normandy troops
target indicator
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46461/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v280003.mp3
08541f3b83154c41ee84b01a17e24c30
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Ernie who was in 97 Squadron, at Tattershall Thorpe Camp, visitor camp on the 17th of April 2011. Off you go Ernie.
EG: Right. I first approached the RAF at Kidbrooke in London to join in the RAF and they said that they didn’t really need anybody at the moment but if I would like to give them some details and that about my address and all the rest of it they would be in touch with me. And this was in 1940. I was working in the City of London in a textile firm and from there I then received a letter one day to report to Kidbrooke which they took all my details and told me that they would call me in due course and let me know where to go and all the rest of it and what to do. I then, this was on the two days before Christmas in 1940. I then received a letter to say to report to Cardington which was as you know one of the big RAF stations where they had the airships there and I can remember that as if it was now because I actually went in. When I went to Cardington I actually went in the airship to have a look around and I was amazed. I really was. But two, two days before Christmas I received this letter and my dear mother she says to me, ‘Look,’ she says, ‘Why don’t you ring the RAF up and tell them that you don’t want to go before Christmas but you will go after Christmas.’ And I then explained to her all about what, what goes on and all the rest of it and I should be there on the due date. So, she said, ‘Well, you can’t do anything about it.’ So I arrived at Cardington two days before Christmas and there I received a Christmas lunch which was entirely new to me because being a civilian having a lunch in London you know with turkey and all the rest of it. We had pork and there was one or two moans and groans but, at the time. But then I was then told about a week afterwards after they had given me all the tests and all the rest of it to go home and wait to hear from them. Well, this went on quite a time and I was wondering what was going on and so I phoned up Cardington and said, ‘You know my name and all the rest of it.’ And by this way I had a number then which was 1239, 1235939 and I put my number down and all the rest of it and they said, ‘Well, don’t worry, we will be in touch with you in due course.’ Lo and behold I was then called up and went to Cardington again and was told that I would be sent to Credenhill in a few days which was right up somewhere near Wales, you know. I can’t remember where it was and that and I went there and I was told that I was going to be an armourer. So, I said, ‘What the devil’s that?’ You know, business. I didn’t know what an armourer was and he said, ‘Well, you actually play about with guns.’ So I said, ‘Oh well, you know. That’s it.’ And so when I got to Cardington I then went on the armourers course which I passed out quite well you know. And from Cardington I was then shifted over to a place called Finningley near Doncaster. During the war this is, you know and I really enjoyed it there because in no time I’d risen from being AC2 which I passed out, I then got my LAC pretty quickly because the arming officer then said that I was quite good with my knowledge of guns and the working of them and all the rest of it. And I then, they shifted me over to a new station that was opened called Balderton which was not very far from Finningley. I think it was about ten miles or nine miles something like that and then from there I went to another new station called Bircotes which is near Doncaster which was fairly new opening and that and I was about the first or second one there because when I got there there was nobody on the station. There was no food being cooked or anything else. And we were then told to go down to Bawtry Hall which was then Group 1 and I used to have my food there for a time. And then everybody started coming there and they had the canteen there and the NAAFI and all the rest of it and we started having our food there and I stayed there. I was then called back to Finningley again and from Finningley I then went to Blackpool on a fitter armourer’s course that they thought that, you know he knows a bit about things now. And I went to there and I was there which I had a very enjoyable time. I won my first dance championship there with a young lady and I came back and I was then posted here.
Interviewer: To Woodhall Spa.
EG: To Woodhall Spa and had a wonderful time.
Interviewer: What would your duties have been?
EG: My duties then I was a corporal then and I used to because the actual squadron didn’t come there until a little while afterwards. This was, it was either in February or March. I’m not quite certain.
Interviewer: Of forty —
EG: 1942.
Interviewer: Right.
EG: You know.
Interviewer: Yes.
EG: And then they started coming here, and which was 97 Squadron. By this time I’d been over to Coningsby and introduced to the people of 97 and that, you know that was there and they all came over here, you know. And within a week, it was around about a week oh sorry we started ops and within a very short time we were the first daylight squadron to fly Lancasters over Germany with 44 Squadron. 44 Squadron put up six aircraft, we put up six aircraft. All our aircraft came back safely but they lost —
Interviewer: Was this, was this the Augsburg raid?
EG: This was the Augsburg raid, yeah. And we, we were quite famous, you know. Let me think some more. Then we went on and I then was sent back to Blackpool on Bofors guns. I had to learn about Bofors guns and the rest of it. The next thing I knew I’d heard that the squadron had gone to down the road. Not very far. In Cambridgeshire. Bourn. They’d gone to Bourn but I didn’t go to Bourn. I went to Wickenby in Lincoln, you know. But what annoyed me most of all I would have gone to the squadron but I was put in the station headquarters. I knew quite a bit about things and they wanted me if anything had happened and that you know I could be available and all the rest of it. And the rest of the war literally I wasted time. You know, it was a waste of good time. But somehow all of a sudden something happened and I got this trembling business come on me and I then went to Rauceby you know.
Interviewer: The hospital there.
EG: The hospital.
Interviewer: Yes.
EG: And saw a chappie there and that and literally I said to them, ‘I’m alright,’ you know. But he may have seen something that I didn’t see and so after about a few months or so they demobbed me and I was amazed.
Interviewer: Ah.
EG: But he must have seen something because after that I went back to London you know, my old job and I then started trembling. I had a period for many months you know and I went to Guy’s Hospital where the, where they used to give me tests and all the rest of it and so that’s the end of the story.
Interviewer: Did you meet Guy Gibson somewhere along the line?
EG: I met Guy Gibson and well really I don’t want to talk about him.
Interviewer: No?
EG: No.
Interviewer: Oh.
EG: It’s something that I want to forget because to me [pause] awful man. Awful man. But, but I don’t want to say anything else there if you don’t mind.
Interviewer: No, that’s quite alright Ernie.
EG: Because you know I, Guy Gibson and myself and I had a rough old bust up and he treated his pilots like dirt you know.
Interviewer: Yes, I know. Yes. So you came out of the RAF.
EG: Yes.
Interviewer: And was that the end then of your, of your war career as it were?
EG: It was the end of my war career. I went back to my old job in the City of London but I was off, on and off at work for a period of maybe two or three years. I even, I was amazed because they sent me in and said they would like to see me and there was about four people and about a month after that I received a pension.
Interviewer: Oh.
EG: I was amazed, you know. But then about three maybe four years afterwards they asked me to go there and they said, ‘We’re going to knock your pension down fifty percent.’ You know. So I thought to myself well that’s fair enough because I was feeling much better but I was still getting these shakes now and again. So the reason was I don’t know or mentally something had happened or something about me you know.
Interviewer: Were you attached to sort of one particular Lancaster that you would take care of guns for or was it –
EG: Yeah.
Interviewer: But you’d look after guns on a lot of the Lancasters.
EG: Well, no. When, when I first came here I went around with a chappie and he showed me, although I knew quite a bit about it he showed me the system. He called it the system. He was looking after three Lancasters. The guns, you know. The Brownings, .303s they were and I learned it all then. And then after a time I took over three Lancasters you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
EG: And then you had somebody else and you teach them what it’s all about you know. But lots of people say they hated the old RAF and they hated the Army and that but I loved it. And I would think, I’m certain that I would have stayed in.
Interviewer: Did you get attached to the crews that you came —
EG: Oh, yeah.
Interviewer: Very. Yeah. And so you were here for how long?
EG: Sorry.
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 Ernest Groeger
1025,1026-Groeger, Ernest
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v28
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennet
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-04-17
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
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00:14:41 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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
Ernie Groeger volunteered for the RAF in 1940 while working at a textile firm. He undertook training to be an armourer and was posted to 97 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa. Over time he developed ill health and he was discharged from the RAF on health grounds.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
97 Squadron
ground personnel
RAF Cardington
RAF Woodhall Spa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1060/11454/PBowmanFA1801.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1060/11454/ABowmanFA181121.2.mp3
f07920709970bb07c32383225c44434c
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
Bowman, Frederick Arthur
F A Bowman
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Fred Bowman (1924 - 2020, 429212 Royal Australian Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 138 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-11-21
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
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Bowman, FA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JH: This is John Horsburgh and this afternoon I’m interviewing Fred Bowman and we’re at [buzz] in Sydney, New South Wales. This is part of the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincolnshire. The Oral History Project. Today is the 21st of November 2018. So, good afternoon, Fred.
FB: Good afternoon. How are you? Lovely to meet you.
JH: Likewise. So, a very interesting interview we’ve, we’ve got coming up I’m sure. Fred was a wireless operator with 138 Squadron and Fred, maybe we can start with, right from the beginning. Your date of birth and where were you born.
FB: 17th of June 1924. Born in Paddington in Sydney.
JH: And you went to school in Sydney.
FB: Yeah. Sydney Boys High.
JH: A Sydney boy.
FB: Yeah.
JH: All through.
FB: And I made up my mind. I just didn’t, this business of running around sticking bayonets into people didn’t appeal to me. So I made up my mind that I was going to join the Air Force when I turned eighteen [laughs] and so I did.
JH: And was that because you were in the —
FB: ATC.
JH: ATC.
FB: Yes. Yes.
JH: When you were growing up.
FB: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That’s that was.
JH: Yeah.
FB: I had this interest in it, you know. Like most boys of that age, nineteen, twenty, they all imagined themselves to be Paddy Finnucane or somebody, you know. He was a fighter ace. I don’t know whether you remember the name, do you? Paddy Finucane.
JH: No. I don’t. I have heard about it.
FB: Yeah.
JH: But I can’t remember any details to be quite honest.
FB: So that’s where it all started.
JH: So, you were following the progress of the war. So what made you join up and when did you do that?
FB: Well, I knew after I joined the ATC and everything. Of course, when you turn eighteen, if you don’t join up in the Air Force or the Navy or something they conscript you in to the Army and I couldn’t imagine myself in the Army sticking bayonets in people so [laughs] So I, for my eighteenth birthday I went down to Bourke Street or somewhere. Somewhere in Sydney and signed on the dotted line. And most of the call ups were on a, for a Saturday and I got this one for the Thursday and they said my name had been accepted and so the next move is that you’ll be sent up to Kingaroy in Queensland to do your ATS, and the train leaves at, sets off at half past seven tonight and you’re on it.
JH: That’s unusual, going to to Kingaroy rather than —
FB: Yes.
JH: New South Wales.
FB: They must have been short of numbers you know to make up the intake. So I finished up in Kingaroy in November and the dirt and the red mud and the red dust. Shocking climate.
JH: And what sort of training were you doing at Kingaroy?
FB: You don’t do any flying at Kingaroy. It’s all ground stuff, you know, medical stuff and discipline and all that sort of thing.
JH: Some square bashing.
FB: Square bashing. That’s right. There was no flying at all until we went to Maryborough to do the wireless course, and they, you get flying instruction in the, in a Wackett trainer. A little single engine thing. Used to be a sort of a, do a competition amongst the crews there to see which of the first one that would have to do a crash landing because these things [laughs] they wouldn’t last. They were always sort of having to have a forced landing somewhere. These little CAC trainers there.
JH: So this would have been, correct me if I’m, if I’m wrong, in 1943.
FB: Yeah.
JH: This second training. And —
FB: The end of 1942 I went.
JH: ’42.
FB: Went to —
JH: Kingaroy.
FB: Kingaroy.
JH: Yes. Yes. And I presume you would have been hearing some of the stories of the Bomber Command effort.
FB: Oh yes.
JH: In Europe.
FB: Yes.
JH: Did that put any second thoughts in your mind?
FB: Well, it didn’t put any negative thoughts in there because you thought you’d, you know, ‘I’m here to win the war.’
JH: Invincible. Yeah. Yes.
FB: Personally.
JH: Yes. And —
FB: You just think you were [pause] you were just quite sure that you were going to survive it all and that’s it.
JH: Yes. But tell me a little bit about the final training. Maybe you did some gunnery training as well.
FB: Yes. We finished up. We did our wireless course and [pause] at Maryborough in Queensland and then we went on to Evans Head. That was the Bombing and Gunnery School there and they were flying Fairey Battles. One plane would have a drogue, dragging a drogue and then the guns that we were using were from the First World War. A Vickers GO Gun. GO meaning gas operated and two, two gunners went up in this plane and they used to, your bullets were in a round canister sort of thing with the tips exposed and I dipped mine. Two of us went up. They dipped the tips of these things in red for you and blue for me, and they could then work out how many hits you’d got with this Vickers GO gun thing. And that was our gunnery course at Evans Head.
JH: So it sounds like you passed that ok.
FB: Oh yeah.
JH: Main colours as they say.
FB: The worst part of it was the smell of that glycol. It’s a sort of a, like a burnt oil smell. Boy, it makes you feel a little bit ill just smelling it.
JH: Fred, at what point did you learn that you were being posted in, in Europe rather than the Pacific campaign?
FB: Well, when, when you finished up at Evans Head that was your last training post. And I think they told us right then that we were going to get leave and we’d be issued with another uniform I think and, and said, ‘You’re going to be posted to the UK.’ Joining Bomber Command over there. We didn’t think that was terrible. ‘We’ll fix Hitler,’ you know [laughs] ‘We’ll, fix Hitler.’
JH: Sure. So I assume an adventurous trip to the UK.
FB: Yeah.
JH: By steamer.
FB: Yeah. Straight across. We went across the Atlantic. Not the Atlantic. We went across the Pacific on the Matsonia which was a cruise ship. American cruise ship. No escort. It just did a few sort of zigzags as it went across. Went across. Went across the Pacific to San Francisco and then they put us on a train in San Francisco and we went across America by train in a sleeper. Lovely.
JH: And how many of you were there in the group?
FB: I think that course there was fifty of us I think in that course. Fifty Australians. And we went across to leave and had a week’s leave in New York. Spent every penny we had plus drew some of the next week’s pay and [laughs]
JH: Yes.
FB: Really whooped it up.
JH: Then you had to run the gauntlet crossing the Atlantic.
FB: That’s right. That’s right. The first thing we saw when we got, took us to the, in the, whatever the docks are in New York I just forget what they are there was the Lusitania that was scuttled or something in in, in the harbour. And as you get on to the boat the Queen, we went across on the Queen Elizabeth at that point and you get on there, you look straight down and here’s the remains of the Lusitania on its side. A very nice welcome, you know. This could happen to you.
JH: Back to reality. Yeah. Yes.
FB: This went across the Pacific, across the Atlantic on its own, just zigzagging.
JH: Zigzagging. Yeah.
FB: But no, no escort. We never saw any allied planes or allied —
JH: Yes.
FB: Boats or anything. Just should be alright mate.
JH: Yeah. So was that to Liverpool?
FB: No.
JH: Or up to Scotland?
FB: Greenock.
JH: Greenock. Yes.
FB: Greenock in Scotland. Yes.
JH: Yes. And still you had no idea exactly where you were going to be posted or what squadron at that stage.
FB: Not at that stage. Then you were sent, the Australians had a holding camp over there. Listen to this. A holding camp over there called 11 PDRC. Personnel Dispatch and Reception Centre, and do you know where this camp was? Where the, where the 11 PDRC was?
JH: No.
FB: It was in the, in fact it was in two hotels. Two of the best hotels in Brighton [laughs] Right on the sea front. You could look out your window and there was the sea front and all that. You weren’t allowed on to the seafront of course but that was the 11 PDRC. We thought how long has this been going on? And then, and the town was not open to civilians so we had all the town to our, to our own self. The town of Brighton. And we had a ball there.
JH: And then the Nissen huts was it?
FB: No. No. We were staying in these two hotels.
JH: Yeah.
FB: The Grand and the Metropole.
JH: Yes.
FB: But then after the war, well first of all we’d been there a few weeks, they said, ‘Listen, you blokes need a bit of toughening up.’ So they sent us up to a toughening up course at Whitley Bay that was run by the RAF Regiment. The RAF Regiment was a sort of a semi-army unit.
JH: Yeah.
FB: Operated by the RAF, and it was a toughening up school. You know, running up and down on the seaside.
JH: Sergeant majors. Yeah.
FB: With your signet on.
JH: Yes.
FB: Yeah. 11 PDRC.
JH: Yeah. So, so from there did you go to an OTU?
FB: Well, the first one you go to is an AFU.
JH: AFU. Yeah.
FB: That was at Millom. You go up there and just flying in an Avro Anson and getting accustomed to British radio expertise and so on and that. So that was about adjusting to English sort of operational —
JH: Yes.
FB: Conditions.
JH: And at what stage did you crew up? Was that after that?
FB: Yes. From OTU. No. Not OTU. From AFU they sent you to an OTU.
JH: Yeah.
FB: And that was down in Bed, yes in Bedfordshire and the CO came straight out when we got there. He said, ‘Now, look,’ he said, ‘The way we do this — ’ he said, is we all, you sort of get together at the White Angel Hotel or something in Aylesbury.
JH: Yeah.
FB: And you, you know talk around the blokes and you say, you know, you’re a wireless operator or I’m a navigator and how about crewing up? And so you crew up.
JH: Yeah.
FB: And they said, ‘It’s not binding. When you wake up the next morning and say, ‘I couldn’t possibly fly for that bastard, [laughs] So what?’ The raids were just cancelled. You were, you crew up again with somebody else.
JH: I wonder where it was in Bedfordshire.
FB: Oakley. Oakley and Westcott.
JH: Oh, ok. Yes. Yeah.
FB: Westcott was the holding —
JH: Yes.
FB: Station.
JH: Yeah. And was this not just Australians. This was British and —
FB: British and —
JH: Commonwealth.
FB: New Zealanders. Yeah.
JH: Yes. Yeah. Ok.
FB: South Africans. We had South Africans on the squadron.
JH: Yes. Yes.
FB: All on the OTU.
JH: Yes. And, and then how did you end up at, in Tempsford with the squadron?
FB: Well —
JH: How did that happen?
FB: I really don’t know whether we were asked to do it or not but we had a very conscientious bomb aimer and bomb aiming was very [pause], good bomb aiming was very necessary because we did a lot of map reading. But we were doing mostly low level trips into the occupied countries. Very low level. And so the bomb aimer used to go down in to the nose and then he’d actually map read.
JH: Yes.
FB: Map read.
JH: Not the navigator. The bomb aimer.
FB: The bomb aimer. Yeah. The navigator would keep the overall —
JH: Yes.
FB: Navigation but the bomb aimer would be specific. He’d be sitting in the nose.
JH: Yes.
FB: And he’d be directing the pilot.
JH: Yes.
FB: ‘Left. Left. Right. Right.’ And so on.
JH: So, I mean the reason I asked about that is that you ended up with a very unusual almost top secret.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Squadron.
FB: We were.
JH: And maybe that was one of the factors in the, in the selection of your crew.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Do you think it was?
FB: I’m sure. I’m sure our bomb aimer, our bomb aimer was one of those conscientious blokes. He wanted to be, he wanted to be involved and he was very very capable of map reading and so forth. He had all the attributes. So I’m sure he had something to do with it.
JH: Yes.
FB: And so we were just, when that finished we were posted to Tempsford.
JH: Yes. So, so what was it? How did you get there? You ended up in Bedford or Cambridge and then across to Tempsford.
FB: Well, I don’t know what, what trains or anything.
JH: Yes.
FB: If we couldn’t make it, find you somewhere to sleep for the night and they tell you nothing and it’s not until the next day that they get you assigned and tell you exactly what’s going on at Tempsford and the secret work they’re doing and all very hush hush, and hush hush and don’t say a word to anybody. So whether, I’ve got an idea our bomb aimer might have sort of asked a few questions as to whether we could go on this special duties squadron. He was that sort of a guy. So that’s where we finished.
JH: How different was it to other bases do you think? Presumably there wasn’t a signpost, “SOE —“
FB: No. No.
JH: “This way.”
FB: Well, I suppose the main difference was that it was all single flights. You’d be in a different crew to me and you’d be in a target to Norway. I might be out that night and I might be on a target up to Denmark and you didn’t know. But I didn’t tell you where I was going and you didn’t tell me where you were going. It was all terribly secret stuff.
JH: So —
FB: Say nothing.
JH: Yes.
FB: Don’t tell anybody sort of thing.
JH: Yes. So what, what sort of aircraft were used for these operations?
FB: Well, at that stage we had our first, the first operational aircraft we went on to were Stirlings because they were doing all low levels to the Resistance movements. We were only flying at a few hundred feet.
JH: Yes.
FB: And we used the treetops and so —
JH: Is it true you only went out on, you know like full moon?
FB: Yeah.
JH: Or moonlight.
FB: Yeah. That’s right.
JH: Yes.
FB: Well, you had to you see. Which was more important? You did your [pause] going, go out on a moonlit night so as you can see where you’re going and low level. You know, you had no accompanying, no accompanying planes with you. You were on your own, low level and there was no fighter escort or anything. You was just low level from here. It’s a long haul from Tempsford up to somewhere in Norway and you burst. You, well it’s hard to believe but when you leave Tempsford it’s all low level from then on ‘til you get to the drop zone, and it’s, you know, you actually, your objective is a field no bigger than a paddy field. And that’s where the drop zone is and that’s where the Resistance guys are. And you, if you think you’ve got to the drop zone they can hear you coming. The Resistance group can hear you coming and they’ll come out and flash a torch. A signal. And you, you just opened your bomb doors and let the stuff go and wave them goodbye and off they go and get rid of it the best way they can.
JH: I would guess the Germans on full moon or moonlit nights would be —
FB: Watching.
JH: On full alert.
FB: Watching for it. Yeah.
JH: And would, did they ever try and decoy these signals?
FB: Yes. They would. Yeah. They would. Yeah.
JH: Yes.
FB: We never struck it.
JH: Yes. So this was dropping off agents I presume.
FB: And supplies.
JH: Parachuting. And supplies.
FB: And supplies. Yeah.
JH: Were you on operations? I guess a smaller aircraft where you actually land and picked up people?
FB: Well that’s, that was, we were 138 Squadron based at Tempsford.
JH: Yeah.
FB: And there was 161 Squadron based at Tempsford and they were flying Hudsons.
JH: Hudsons. Yeah.
FB: Which was a twin engine —
JH: Yes.
FB: Plane. They wouldn’t land unless it was, it would have to have the proper provisions for them to land.
JH: Yeah.
FB: The main planes they were flying in, these were mainly operations in to France was a, was a Lysander.
JH: Single engine is that?
FB: Yeah. It was a single engine.
JH: Yes.
FB: And that would actually land and drop off these Joes in a field. Or pick them up and take them back to Tempsford. They would actually land on the —
JH: Yes. So, that was 161 also.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Not 138. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
FB: 138 was confined to the Stirlings, and 161 had the Hudsons and the —
JH: Yes.
FB: The Hudsons and Lysanders there.
JH: I would guess the problem for the Lysander if they’re landing and get stuck in the, in the field.
FB: Well —
JH: Did that ever happen?
FB: Not that I know of.
JH: No.
FB: I suppose they could have picked a muddy field.
JH: Yeah.
FB: You had to put in a report when you got back from these operations as to what, what you thought of the landing site that they’d given you. Whether you thought it was suitable for future. For use.
JH: Yes.
FB: Or whether it was a little bit dickie or so on so —
JH: Yes.
FB: There was full cooperation with, with the Army and the other [unclear] concerned —
JH: Yes.
FB: As to whether it was going to work or not.
JH: Yes.
FB: There’s some funny stories come out of it. I don’t know whether you’ve heard this one or not but [laughs] they had one where, I could go back to the start. Yes.
JH: Tell me a bit about the agents. I I would think that you didn’t know their names, for example.
FB: No. You —
JH: You couldn’t really talk to them too much.
FB: Yeah. You could talk to them. You could talk to them. We spent the night with one in particular. We took him over to Denmark and we came back, heading back to England across the North Sea and we had a radio message to say, ‘Don’t go back to Tempsford. Go to Lossiemouth.’ Up in the north of Scotland. So we went to Lossiemouth and just put us all, the whole seven crew plus this agent, they put us all into one hut and we had a great old talk to this bloke about it. We said to him, ‘Well, what happens when you, when you, if they catch you.’ He said, ‘Well, first of all— ’ he opened up his coat and he had this great big Luger pistol in his, in his coat and he said, he said, but he said, ‘They’ll interrogate me,’ he said, ‘They’ll torture me to find out more.’ He said, ‘Then when they are finally satisfied they’ll shoot me.’ He said, ‘I am not covered by the Geneva Convention in regard to prisoners of war.’
JH: Yeah.
FB: Because it’s not a, it’s not a wartime project that that they’re on. So I don’t know what the Germans would have categorised them as but they would just shoot them when they’d finished with them.
JH: Yes. Well, what about you and the crew, Fred? If you were shot down and captured by the Germans if, if they had any inkling that you were involved in special operations was there a feeling that you could get, could get harsher treatment from the Germans?
FB: I don’t know what happened. Some of my friends were taken POW but I don’t know. I’ll say this for the Germans they stuck by the rules of warfare, you know. They stuck by the, whatever the Geneva Convention said about that. The Germans stuck by it. They were very, well, they were a military nation and if that’s the way it should be done that was the way it was going to be done but —
Other: Mr Bowman.
FB: Yes.
Other: Oh, hi John.
JH: Hello.
Other: Happy hour upstairs Mr Bowman.
FB: Oh, I wouldn’t mind.
Other: You can bring your friend upstairs.
JH: Yeah. We’re just doing an interview then we’ll come up.
Other: You can carry on drinking as well while you’re interviewing.
FB: You’re trying to lead me astray aren’t you?
Other: Or maybe the other way around.
JH: [laughs] Thank you.
FB: Oh, deary me.
JH: Ok, I’ll leave that in there Fred. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were talking about you had some friends that were captured and you know in general the Germans were, were pretty good.
FB: Yes. They were.
JH: Yeah. Yeah.
FB: They stuck to the rules of the game.
JH: Yeah. One thing I’d like to ask you. I think you’ve touched on it is, is the number of countries that you went out to on these operations. You mentioned Norway.
FB: Norway. Denmark. Norway.
JH: And France would have featured quite a bit —
FB: Denmark, France, Holland mainly.
JH: Holland and Belgium. Yeah. Yeah.
FB: But I didn’t become operational until July 1944.
JH: Yeah.
FB: Of course, in July 1944 it was all France.
JH: Yes.
FB: But then as, as the British Army swept across France the operations converted then up to Norway and Denmark.
JH: Yes.
FB: Which was a long way away.
JH: So were you kind of following the lines? Keeping ahead of the, the front lines in operations to some extent.
FB: Yes. Yes. Yes. There was no point in getting behind them. You had to be in front. We had to be in front of them all the time and they had a special identification. They had armbands. I’ve got one sat in the window frame there. You’ll see it. The Cross of Lorraine. And there were armbands that we dropped to the Resistance movements and they had the Cross of Lorraine and when they decided that they would come out and surrender. Well, not surrender but join up with the advancing —
JH: Yeah.
FB: British and American armies. That they would wear these armbands to say that they were friends and —
JH: Yes. So the nature of the operations sounds like it was changing. The Resistance. As the front lines were going east they became more open.
FB: Yeah.
JH: More overt. The Resistance.
FB: Well, towards the end of that stage the only two German occupied countries left were Norway and Denmark, the others had all been liberated.
JH: Yes.
FB: And that’s when they, that’s when they said to us, ‘Oh, listen fellas. You’ve been [bludging] around for too long. We’re going to stick you on main force.’ [laughs]. So we finished up at a Lancaster Finishing School.
JH: That’s interesting. Just before we get on to that I read somewhere that the peak effort with the SOE work was about June, July ’44 which is —
FB: Yeah.
JH: Which was when you arrived there.
FB: Started there. Yeah.
JH: So it was full on then.
FB: Yes. Yeah.
JH: And so these operations were there occasions where you go out to say some, some target field in France and you couldn’t find the target area? Or you know, did you hit the target area every time?
FB: Not every time. No. No. You see, it could be any number of reasons. The whole drop area, drop zone might have been taken over by the Germans. They might have found them and no doubt they shot them and so that was one reason. They [pause] but —
JH: So a pretty good success rate to your, your missions.
FB: Well, I think we did. Yes.
JH: Yeah.
FB: I mean we didn’t have any of this flash blooming navigational equipment that they’ve got today.
JH: Yes.
FB: And we actually had to find, say in Norway an actual paddock. And in the bushes around that paddock was the Resistance group waiting. Waiting to hear an aeroplane.
JH: Yes.
FB: A Stirling coming. And then when they were identified as being a Stirling they’d come out and start waving to you. We’d make the drop and off we’d go. So —
JH: Was there radio contact with the people on the ground?
FB: There could have been. There was what they called S phones I think they called them.
JH: Yeah.
FB: But we never used it.
JH: Yeah.
FB: But, but we did carry this sort of portable phone to contact them but we never saw any reason to have to use it so —
JH: It would be quite dangerous I should think, communicating with the ground crew with the Germans trying to vector in.
FB: Yeah. No thanks.
JH: Yeah. Yeah.
FB: It opens up too many avenues.
JH: Yeah. So, of all those operations, Fred maybe give me one or two examples of ones that really stick out for whatever reason.
FB: Well, I think at that time when we dropped those two Norwegians in to Norway stands out in my mind.
JH: Just finding them. Finding the place to start with.
FB: And they did.
JH: And that’s a long, one long trip.
FB: Normally there’s somebody to meet them but they said, ‘No. Nobody will meet us. You get to the drop zone, where you think the drop zone is and kick us out.’ You know, out you go. ‘And we’ll find our destination from there.’ They carried their skis with them. They were sent out when they were shot out of the aircraft and they just teamed up with somebody that they would have gone to. So we had to be a hundred percent accurate when we were dropping so as they knew where they were.
JH: Yes.
FB: And knew which way to go to meet up with their, with their mates.
JH: Yes.
FB: And the next day SOE contacted us and said that the drop was successful.
JH: Yes.
FB: They were landed safely. You got them in the right place and everything else.
JH: Yes.
FB: So we were rather pleased with that. And that, that same people that I made contact with after the war.
JH: Yes.
FB: Mr and Mrs, well he was Mr Fosse.
JH: Yeah.
FB: I just, through the Norwegian Embassy in Canberra and they told, told me that yes they had got in touch with Mr Fosse. First of all to see whether he was happy to talk to me and he said, ‘Yes, I am.’ He said, ‘But I’m deaf. I’m not very good but my wife could take all the messages.’ And so I got on the phone to Norway and this voice answered the phone. A woman. And I said like a couple of, you know. She only speaks Norwegian so this is going to be a bit of a problem [laughs] So, I said, ‘Oh, are you Mrs Fosse?’ ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well, look, Bowman’s my name.’ I said, ‘You’ve probably been expecting a call from me.’ She said, ‘Yes. Yes.’ I said, ‘Oh, I can’t speak Norwegian,’ I said and so, you know, ‘What do we do? Speak English?’ She said, ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ she said, ‘I’m a Scot.’ [laughs] So, I said, ‘Look, that’s great. That’s great,’ I said, ‘So my name’s Fred. What’s your name?’ Whatever it was. And we had a great old conversation and he was sitting down beside her and I asked about the drop and she said it was spot on.’ She said, ‘They landed in the snow and it sloped down towards a lake.’
JH: Yeah.
FB: She said they would have rolled down that snow in to the lake, she said only they came up against a tree which saved them from [laughs] saved them from freezing to death. Honestly, I had a great conversation with her.
JH: Yeah. Did you ever meet up face to face?
FB: Not meet up.
JH: No.
FB: But I had a lot of, a lot off the telephone conversations.
JH: Yeah. How marvellous.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Yeah.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Gosh. Yeah.
FB: That’s why. So she was the one I said that, I said that sort of Mr Fosse went up to the north of England to do his training to become an agent and he met this girl and he went back after the war.
JH: Yes.
FB: And married her.
JH: What a story.
FB: They got married.
JH: What a story.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Yeah. Well, Fred, why don’t we move on to when you went on to heavy bomber conversion. Lancaster conversion. What, what happened there?
FB: Well, the [pause] at that stage when we did that all the other work, the other type of work was, was finished, you know. I mean virtually the whole of occupied Europe except Norway and Denmark had been relieved or released or whatever the word is.
JH: Liberated. Yeah.
FB: Liberated. Yeah.
JH: Yeah.
FB: And they said to us, well look, you know, over you go to Main Force Bomber Command. So we went and did a conversion course up at Blyton I think it was.
JH: Yes. Was this the end of ’44 or 1945 now?
FB: No. 1945.
JH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
FB: And so we went up there and did this conversion course on to, on to Lancasters and joined Main Force which was an entirely different thing because on this special duties thing that we were doing with the drop zones in to the Resistance movements was all low level and of course the other Bomber Command is all twenty thousand feet.
JH: In formation. Yeah.
FB: Oh no. Not formation. When I say not form, not the strict formation that the Americans used to do.
JH: Yes.
FB: You [pause] it’s a sort of a loose formation. You sort of congregate up around the Wash somewhere and you don’t fly in formation but you leave there in a group.
JH: Yes.
FB: And they used to divide at least, suppose there were six hundred planes on a job
JH: A stream. Yeah.
FB: There might be four meeting up times.
JH: Yeah.
FB: You say, you know when there was one group and then another ten minutes later the next group of that group sort of —
JH: Yes.
FB: Come to the fore and —
JH: Yeah. So, so were you assigned to a new squadron or was it your squadron en masse?
FB: No. No. It was our squadron there.
JH: Yeah. Ok.
FB: Which of course, it was, it was our squadron and they sent us to a new base. [unclear] Anyway, it was, it was a new base.
JH: Was it Lincolnshire or in Cambridgeshire?
FB: No. No. East Anglia. We had Cambridge groups.
JH: Yes.
FB: Bury St Edmunds. That sort of area.
JH: Was this Number 3 Group.
FB: Yes. All Number 3.
JH: Yeah. Still Number 3.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Yeah. Yeah.
FB: But as I say all the operations were initiated by SOE but Bomber Command —
JH: Yes.
FB: As such didn’t come into it.
JH: Yes. What the hardened bomber, Bomber Command crews what did, what did they make of you guys coming out of the blue?
FB: There was a little bit of a [laughs] there was what you might call a settling in period [laughs]
JH: Yes.
FB: Because we went over. Oh, I forget where we were based then, and of course this bomber crew was already, you know was already there and we were the sort of new boys on it.
JH: Yeah.
FB: The new boys. A lot of bloody skites you are.
JH: Yes.
FB: The usual story.
JH: So, was it sorted out in the pub?
FB: Yeah.
JH: On the dartboard.
FB: Oh yeah. It doesn’t take long. The old, the old pub solves a lot of problem. You probably asked me that question, I think. How you crewed up? Did you?
JH: Yes, I did. Yes. You went to the pub.
FB: Went to the pub.
JH: Yeah. Yeah. Not a bad place to start.
FB: I mean the CO told you to do that. He said, ‘Go to the pub. Meet up, crew up and if you wake up the next morning and say, ‘I couldn’t possibly fly with that so and so, just tell them you can’t. You won’t be joining the crew.’ And find somebody else.
JH: These, these days you’d do psychological profiling and see who matches up.
FB: Oh yes. There would be a lot of, a lot of tests.
JH: Yes. Yes. So, so, so you got on to some operations from there.
FB: Yes, we did. We did. Funny, I think we only did three or four bombing operations.
JH: Yes.
FB: It, it was right at the finish of the war.
JH: Yes.
FB: And, but we, we did one that was probably worth recording.
JH: Yes.
FB: And it was to Kiel.
JH: Submarines. Yeah. Submarine pens.
FB: Kiel. Kiel Harbour.
JH: Yeah.
FB: They said, they said —
JH: Yeah.
FB: We were bombing dock installations and so on.
JH: Docks. Yes.
FB: So we went to Kiel and we were making our run in and the Pathfinders had been there ahead of us and so forth and the, all of a sudden we had this terrific explosion or something go underneath us because we were about twenty thousand feet.
JH: Yes.
FB: And this explosion would have been on the ground. Anyway, we got back and reported it to intelligence at the interrogation and they said, ‘Oh, all the crews are talking about this.’ Anyway, so a day or so later the headlines, “RAF sink the German pocket battleship the Admiral von Scheer in Kiel Harbour.” Somebody, some plan ahead of us must have dropped the bomb down the funnel.
JH: Down the funnel. Yeah.
FB: And up she blew in Kiel Harbour.
JH: Yes.
FB: Boy. Yeah.
JH: Yeah. And in those operations I’m, I’m guessing that the fighters and the flak were manageable at that stage.
FB: Oh yes. It had eased off considerable. I mean, I’d have hated to have been doing the same operation in 1943 as what we were doing in early 1945. Early 1945 the Germans were —
Other 2: Sorry Fred.
FB: That’s alright.
Other 2: Come up for a drink you two if you like.
FB: Pardon?
JH: Yes. So, so then it was all over I guess pretty soon after that. Were you in any operations bringing the POWs back?
FB: Yeah.
JH: Or Operation Manna.
FB: Yeah. Manna.
JH: For example. Yeah.
FB: Yeah. We were in the one, the one bringing the POWs back was called Exodus, wasn’t it?
JH: Yes.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Exodus. That’s it.
FB: That we flew them back from Juvencourt.
JH: You might, you might have flown my father back.
FB: Oh, for goodness sake.
JH: He was a POW. Yeah.
FB: We flew a lot of Sikhs back.
JH: Yes.
FB: And they were very very disciplined too and I, one came up to me with a little box brownie which was quite illegal [laughs] And I said, ‘You line up. You line up there and I’ll take a photograph of you.’ Oh, he yelled out two few commands and this whole group, twenty four I think we took, yes so they all lined up outside the aircraft.
JH: Yes.
FB: And —
JH: And what about Operation Manna in Holland.
FB: Manna. Yes. That was, that was very interesting. That was —
JH: Yeah.
FB: That was dropping the food into, into Holland.
JH: Yes.
FB: And it was all dropped. Mostly it was either in sacks.
JH: Yes.
FB: Where they had just, we dropped them on to a muddy football oval or something and something went falling into the mud didn’t do any damage to them.
JH: Yes.
FB: And then we just dropped them there and, and went on our way. But the thing that struck me was the first one we did the war hadn’t finished. It was a couple of days before the war finished.
JH: Yes.
FB: But the Dutch people arranged with the German High Command or something to allow us to go ahead and drop this food.
JH: Yeah.
FB: To the Dutch people and the Germans said, ‘Yes, we’ll let you go in but you’ve got to keep at a certain height.
JH: Yes.
FB: You’ve got to have your guns pointing northwards.
JH: Yeah.
FB: And do this. Do this.
JH: Yes.
FB: You get one warning signal otherwise bang bang.
JH: I’ve read about this. I’ve read about this.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Yeah.
FB: And, and the thing I that always remember the first time we went and the war hadn’t finished. They had to, before the war officially finished over there and the Germans were in command and it was all done very Germanic, you know. Disciplined. The next day we went after that the Germans had gone. They’d said, let’s get back to Germany and the Dutch people had taken over.
JH: Yes.
FB: And along an embankment as we flew in on the starboard side on an embankment they’d put, they’d got old sheets of paper or just sheets of —
JH: Yes.
FB: Bedding sheets or something and they had this sign up, “Thanks RAF.” And, and honestly that sort of brought tears to your eyes to think of it, you know.
JH: Yes.
FB: One of the very few decent jobs of Bomber Command, I think.
JH: Yes. Well, my wife and I used to live in Holland in the ‘70s and we met people that still talked about Operation Manna.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Because there was absolutely no food.
FB: That’s right.
JH: They were eating, they were eating tulip bulbs, and they were very thankful of this Operation Manna. These people we talked to.
FB: But I’ve never forgotten that sign. It was quite big letters.
JH: That would have —
FB: “Thanks RAF,” you know.
JH: Yeah.
FB: That’s the first time any, anybody’s thanked us for what we’d been doing [laughs]
JH: That’s as good as a campaign medal.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Well, tell me a little about what happened then. I know, I know a lot of Bomber Command air crew especially the Aussies all went down to Brighton at some stage.
FB: That’s right.
JH: And my, my father went down. He was there on his honeymoon.
FB: Yeah.
JH: And he met up with his mates from prison camp.
FB: Oh, for goodness sake.
JH: So my mother wasn’t that impressed because they were down the pub.
FB: Yeah.
JH: On their honeymoon.
FB: I agree with your mother [laughs] Yeah. N [pause] Yes they were, they sent us to a place called Gamston I think it was. Gamston, somewhere. It was a holding unit and we just, they said to us, ‘You can go on leave. You can go on leave for as long as you like as long as you keep us informed where you’re going.’ So we had free rail travel and —
JH: Marvellous. Yeah.
FB: Yeah.
JH: And then, and then you were allotted a berth in a, on a ship.
FB: On the Andes. Yeah.
JH: Yes.
FB: Yeah. Boy.
JH: Was that through the Suez Canal?
FB: Yeah.
JH: That way.
FB: Yeah. Through the Suez Canal.
JH: Yes. Yeah. You weren’t on the same ship as Don Browning, our friend.
FB: Well, I could have been.
JH: Yeah. Yeah.
FB: I could have been. You wouldn’t know. There was —
JH: Yes. Yes.
FB: I mean as I say we were packed on. Goodness me.
JH: Yeah.
FB: I don’t know how many people were on a ship.
JH: Yes.
FB: Yeah.
JH: So what was the feeling? So where did you arrive? Was it in Sydney?
FB: No.
JH: Your landfall. In Melbourne?
FB: We went to Melbourne and then it was going on to New Zealand. It had a lot of New Zealand —
JH: Yes.
FB: Airmen. So it was going on to New Zealand and we had to change ship on to the Stratheden.
JH: Yes.
FB: To come up to Sydney.
JH: Yeah. So you came in through the Heads and —
FB: Beautiful day. Beautiful.
JH: Yeah, and family waiting.
FB: Yeah. At Bradfield Park.
JH: Yes.
FB: Yeah. So [unclear]
JH: Yes.
FB: It didn’t take long to find them.
JH: Yeah. So, so what happened? I suppose you had to get a life. Get a career.
FB: Oh, no. I’d started in the accountancy business and I’d passed.
JH: Oh, yes. Yeah.
FB: One or two intermediate examinations and —
JH: So you took off where you left off.
FB: Thank goodness I had enough sense at that stage to say well I must persevere with this and get, get qualified.
JH: Yes.
FB: And I did in that sense to do that.
JH: Yeah.
FB: I didn’t have much sense to do anything else.
JH: Yes. Yeah. So then you started a family. You married.
FB: Yeah. All those things. Yeah.
JH: Yeah.
FB: But I really didn’t have many troubles settling down I don’t think.
JH: Yes.
FB: You did get your odd outbursts, you know.
JH: Yes. Yeah. One I was going to ask you whether the kind of very secretive operation you did, did you have to sign a secrecy form, you know.
FB: No.
JH: Thirty years or something.
FB: No, didn’t have to sign anything.
JH: Yeah.
FB: You were told. You were told that was top secret.
JH: Yes.
FB: And don’t you dare infringe it.
JH: Yes. Yes.
FB: Or else.
JH: Yeah. Yes. Because I know my father didn’t talk about hardly anything.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Until later on in life.
FB: No.
JH: Yeah.
FB: No. All the stuff at Tempsford in those days was top, top secret, you know.
JH: Yes. Have you been back to Tempsford?
FB: No. I’m not able to travel like I used to.
JH: Ok.
FB: It’s a bit of a problem.
JH: Well, I’ll tell you what. Because I go back there to right there where, every so often where I was born and I’ll visit it for you and I’ll have a look.
FB: Well, thank you.
JH: There’s probably not much there.
FB: They, they have a yearly get together. I’ve probably got —
JH: Yes. Yeah.
FB: Some of them there.
JH: Yeah.
FB: So do you want to make yourself known?
JH: Yes. And is there a pub there? Well, maybe you weren’t allowed to go to pubs in Tempsford. Did, was there a local pub?
FB: Sandy. At Sandy. Sandy is in —
JH: Sandy. Yeah. Yes.
FB: There was a pub at Sandy.
JH: Yes.
FB: We used to call it the Sandy Battle.
JH: Well, I can’t believe it. My, my people used to farm all around Sandy and, yeah.
FB: For goodness sake.
JH: So I’ll do that. So —
FB: I just wish I could travel.
JH: Yes.
FB: And go back to Tempsford and have a, because they do have a big reunion there once a year.
JH: Yes.
FB: It’s amazing really how many people will —
JH: Yes.
FB: Must have got together to preserve the story of Tempsford.
JH: Yes.
FB: Incredible. And prince what’s his name? Prince Charles is a great supporter of them.
JH: Yes.
FB: He goes to their functions, of course.
JH: Yeah.
FB: So, I don’t suppose, I suppose the other squadrons, Australian squadrons, and they probably have much the same thing. 460 Squadron.
JH: Yeah. I don’t think you hear so much about Tempsford as the other bases.
FB: No.
JH: Mainly because it was probably, you know very secretive.
FB: Yeah.
JH: In the war.
FB: It sort of got something to do with royalty too because the commanding officer of Tempsford was the King’s pilot, Group Captain Fielden.
JH: Oh right.
FB: And he was, he was station commander.
JH: Was he the station commander?
FB: Yeah.
JH: Yeah.
FB: Group Captain Fielden.
JH: Fielden. That’s interesting. So there’s a special interest from Prince Charles. Yeah.
FB: So he became, he was knighted so I don’t know whether they call him sir now. Like they did with me [laughs] Yeah.
JH: Well, Fred this has been very interesting. I was going to ask you, you participate in veteran’s activities?
FB: Oh yes. I do, and I’ve had quite a bit to do with them because I don’t know where it all started but a lot of people have been writing books and writing articles on, on the special duty squadrons and Tempsford squadrons, and I guess I’m probably one of the very few still above the ground.
JH: Yes.
FB: And so I well get involved.
JH: Yes.
FB: Tell them what was is.
JH: So is there an Association here in Australia or are you linked up with a UK Association?
FB: Well, no. I think that was, what did they call them? ATVA. The Australian Tempsford Veterans Association, I think. ATV.
JH: Ok. I didn’t know there was one quite to be quite honest.
FB: Yeah. There is one. Yes.
JH: Yeah.
FB: But I haven’t, physically speaking I haven’t been able to travel.
JH: Yes.
FB: So, that’s my only regret. That I haven’t been able to go. Because they are big events. Once a year they have it at Tempsford.
JH: Yes.
FB: They come from near and far.
JH: Yes.
FB: I don’t think there’s too many of us left who served on the squadron operationally.
JH: Yeah. Yes.
FB: But Prince Charles is a great supporter of it. He, he goes to all the functions and of course his, he, he would know Group Captain Fielden of course.
JH: Yes. Yes. Well, Fred I’ve really enjoyed this interviewing you today and learning about this special duties.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Type of operations that you were on.
FB: It is very interesting, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve had some very interesting discussions with these agents at times, you know saying, ‘What happens if this happens? What will you do?’
JH: And I believe you had a word for them.
FB: Joes.
JH: Joes. Yeah. Yes. That’s it. I’d read that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
FB: I, I did write a book on it as a matter of fact.
JH: Oh, you have. Show it to me and I’ll mention it in the interview here. Yeah.
FB: Look, if you promise to give it back to me.
JH: Yes.
FB: Having said that where is it? Deary deary me where is it? [pause]
JH: Is it in these shelves here?
FB: Yeah.
JH: Let me see.
FB: Yes. Joes.
JH: What’s it called? The book.
FB: Oh, there’s been quite a few books written on it really. See what a shambles this is. Oh blimey. That’s, I don’t know whether you saw this or not. That’s the book that’s for me.
JH: Yes.
FB: Yeah.
JH: Yeah. I I had a copy the other day for you but you’ve got it. Yes. Is it up here? Is that it?
FB: No.
JH: SOE.
FB: Yeah. Look. SOE. Oh, that’s one of them. I’ve probably got all sorts of books on it.
JH: Yes.
FB: Oh, deary me. What’s over here? [pause] That’s the book.
JH: Oh, thank you. Yeah. For the interview Fred has shown me a book he has written. It’s called, “You’ll Be Too Young.” And it’s his memoirs and —
FB: If you promise to return it you can take it and read it if you want.
JH: Well, thank you very much. Yes. So, it was published in 2005 in Sydney.
FB: And it’s all true.
JH: Well, thank you very much.
FB: No bulldust [laughs] Now, if you —
JH: Thank you Fred.
FB: If you promise to return it.
JH: We’ll sign off now. Thank you very much for the interview.
FB: Oh, you’re welcome.
JH: So, I’ll stop the tape here.
FB: That’s all I ask is that it gets returned because —
JH: I will for sure.
FB: I’m going to have to approach them any day now to see if they can give me a reprint on all this.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Frederick Arthur Bowman
Creator
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John Horsburgh
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
2018-11-21
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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABowmanFA181121, PBowmanFA1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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00:59:00 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
England--Bedfordshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cumbria
Germany--Kiel
New South Wales
Description
An account of the resource
Frederick Bowman was born in Sydney in 1924. He was a member of the Air Training Corps, and when he was eighteen he joined the Air Force. He went to Kingaroy for basic training, and did his wireless course at Maryborough, and Evans Head for bombing and gunnery training. He arrived in UK at No. 11 Personnel Despatch & Receiving Centre RAAF in Brighton, and was posted to RAF Millom to the Advanced Flying Unit flying in Avro Ansons. He was posted to RAF Westcott where he crewed up, and was posted to 138 Special Duties Squadron based at RAF Tempsford where he flew on operations to Scandinavia. Close to the end of the war he joined Bomber Command on bombing operations flying in Lancasters, notably to attack the docks at Kiel which resulted in the sinking of the German Pocket Battleship the Admiral Scheer. He published his memoirs in a book titled, “You Will Be Too Young to Die.”
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944-07
1945
138 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
Bombing and Gunnery School
crewing up
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Millom
RAF Tempsford
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1021/11392/AMartinFJK180309.1.mp3
a7c8b2de21c5a8f6d71d637fd2e397d1
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
Martin, Frederick Joseph Keith
F J K Martin
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview Warrant Officer Keith Martin (b.1921, 1580351 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 626 and 300 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-09
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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Martin, FJK
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DH: Right. Ok. Right. Let’s start off with a serious thing to start off with. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Dawn Hughes. The Interviewee is Mr Keith Martin and you like to be known as Keith, don’t you? Yeah. The interview is taking place at Mr Martin’s home in Wem, Shropshire on the 9th of March 2018, and thank you Keith for agreeing to talk to me today. So, the first thing I wanted to ask was thinking about the lead up to joining the RAF how did it come about that you joined the RAF?
FM: Right.
DH: And what influenced you?
FM: I can go back to living and working in Shrewsbury. I was working for quite a big countrywide firm of agricultural machinery merchants with a branch in Shrewsbury. Hence that’s where I was working. My calling up papers came quite quickly. I was eighteen and my boss said to me, ‘You won’t need to go,’ he said, ‘Because you are on a Reserved Occupation.’ Well, I was very immature. Honestly. No, I was very immature and so that suited me. And it happened again a year later when I was nineteen. But when I was approaching twenty and I knew it would happen again I was reaching the stage where you felt guilty really if you were comfortably sitting at home, when even your own friends were going off and so I said to my father, ‘I’m going to volunteer.’ He said, ‘Volunteer for the, for the Royal Army Pay Corps,’ he said, ‘Because they get you, you’re excellent at figures,’ he said, ‘To get you well behind a desk.’ And, I, I thought about that and decided no. I liked the RAF uniform. It’s quite true. I don’t want to go in to the Army in case I land up with a bayonet. And I can’t stand the thought of the water but I can’t swim anyway. And so I went and volunteered for the Air Force which I was accepted straight away, and on the 20th of April 1942 I arrived at Padgate which is North Lancashire for my indoctrination. That’s the right word. I was there for five days only during which time there was a group of about thirty. This squadron leader addressed us and he said, ‘Would any of you like to take an aircrew medical?’ And so, well a damned good idea having a medical so I put my hand up didn’t I? And of course I passed the medical, which mainly funnily enough was, and several other failed through vision. Vision. What I didn’t know, I was innocent at the time, that I had already volunteered for aircrew and about four days, be about the 24th of the month, April I was interviewed by the same squadron leader and he said, ‘Martin, your legs are too short for us to train you to be a pilot.’ And he said, ‘Your educational standard is too poor for us to educate you to, to train you as a navigator.’ I accepted that, because I only went to the Catholic, Catholic ordinary school. So, he said, ‘We’ll train you as a wireless op air gunner.’ ‘Alright, sir.’ The following day I was posted to Blackpool, and I found that Blackpool was the school that taught you two things. One was, the important thing was how to learn the Morse Code and how to handle sending and receiving, and the other thing that was important to them but not to us was how to learn how to march up and down Blackpool streets. Behave ourselves because we were not in billets we were out to houses. Took us in, you know. So they took me. Was it how many? The school for wireless operators was I think three months. May. June. July. That’s right. And I left Blackpool having passed out at the required eighteen words a minute on the 4th of August. Went home for a, once you got a break you know. And then nine days later I received a posting to a place called Yatesbury in Wiltshire, which was the flying part of the learning to be a wireless operator. Doing it in the air. So, in effect that was the first, my first meeting with an aircraft. So, from August to November I was training as a wireless operator air, from which you got your sergeant’s stripes if you passed out. And I passed out, and got my sergeant’s stripes and was then sent for a short, what I call waiting to be properly dispersed. A small, well yeah it was a waiting station and that of all places was Ternhill. And I was at Ternhill for [pause] three weeks from the middle of November to the middle of December, and then I was posted to Calverley in Nantwich. Near Nantwich. And that really was further progress, and I have an idea of what we were flying then. Memory you know. Very good but —
[pause]
FM: I think. ’43. No. That’s right. Calverley as I was saying was again just further progress on generally learning how to fly in the air, you know. Nothing particular. And then I was sent to Aircrew Recruitment Centre in London, and I didn’t really know why but it, it did, how can I put it? It was, in fact to tell me or to tell the person that they had been selected for A — wireless operator, and B — air gunner. And I’d been selected for wireless operator. And then, so then I was sent to 18 ITW, Initial Training Wing, Brignorth for just a month. Initial Training Wing speaks for itself. And from there, from that very station I got married.
[pause]
FM: Then I was posted of all places to a place called West Freugh in Scotland which was Advanced Flying Unit, which you have to be in an aircraft flying over the sea, and you had to go through certain rules and regulations to do what you had to do. Having passed out there in May 1943 [pause] No. No. Sorry, no. No. That’s before, having passed out in August 1943. That’s right, when I finished at Yatesbury, and then to West Freugh. I passed out there in October ’43. Sorry. I was only there about six weeks and I was posted to Hixon, Stafford, which is an Operational Training Unit and we were, I was introduced to Wellingtons, Wimpies. I was also within the first week [pause] I was introduced if I can describe it as the crew. The crewing up procedure need, needs talking about because it’s something that outsiders wouldn’t know. How do you get crewed up? Who does it? The answer is the pilot chooses his own crew. The end of the week that you’re there being introduced as I said to Wellingtons, you’re told to report to the, what was the big room that was used generally for dances and things, and there was thirty wireless operators, thirty navigators, thirty engineers, thirty rear gunners, and thirty pilots. Now, that was a crew of a Wellington. Did not include a mid-upper gunner because a Wellington does not have a mid-upper gunner turret. So the skipper chose his own crew, and I was there in the room and this, seemed to be elderly gentleman he turned out to be six years older than me [laughs] came along to me and he said, ‘You’re Sergeant Martin.’ ‘Yes.’ He was only a sergeant, so I didn’t have to say sir. ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You’re from Shropshire.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘So am I, would you like to fly with me?’ I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And that in effect, I say to this day saved my life because he was a superb pilot, and he got the crew together and instead of us being half a dozen individuals we became a crew. Right. So we then flew Wellingtons as a crew in training from a place called Seighford, which was a depot of Hixon’s’ and we were, I was there from November ’43 to January ’44. I think it was possibly at that time that we flew our first not exactly operation but our first trip over a foreign country [pages turning] Yeah. It was on the 30th of the December during that period that we were sent to do a leaflet raid over Belgium. This was one of the Royal Air Force’s ideas that every crew should taste flying over the sea and flying over what was still dangerous territory, and so that we got back and we hadn’t lost our nerve and we didn’t report anything silly. You know what I mean, and so that was the important thing and that was in a Wellington on the 30th of December. Having [pause] passed that, we then immediately got transferred to a four engine Conversion Unit. Immediately after that. We were not going to fly in Wellingtons in operations. We were going to fly in the new four engine bombers that were coming on line. And the first thing we did when we got there was pick up a mid-upper gunner. The mid-upper gunners had been trained ready, but had been sent straight to Conversion Units as they’re called because it was there that the, the skipper would pick one up and so that’s where we got hold of Jock. And now we were a crew of seven which you need. And so we did Conversion Unit at Sandtoft, and during that time had a crash. We crashed a Halifax [pages turning] We crashed a Halifax on the 6th of April 1944. We had a 5 o’clock take off. Evening take-off. It was only what we called circuits and bumps learning, for the skipper to learn how to take off and land and he had an engine failure on take-off. And because we hadn’t really got any height the skipper, the skipper decided to crash land. The decision he made we just accepted it, and in the subsequent report which I’ve got a copy of it says, “No pilot error. No disciplinary action to be taken.” But we were a bit, we were sent straight to the medical to be checked over, and we were a bit cheeky so in their wisdom they sent us straight up again. Well, in a few hours, 9.15 that night we went up again but this time we were also accompanied by a senior pilot as well as our own to see that there was nothing wrong, and that went on all right. And the amazing thing is we saw that Halifax the other, the next day or the following day and it was, it was a ruin. We’d hit a tree in a forest or in a field, and it had torn the wing off. But how we all got out alive I don’t know but we did. The aircraft was a write off. So, we —
DH: Can I ask what plane that was—
FM: That was a Halifax.
DH: A Halifax, yeah.
FM: An old Halifax. They only sent the old ones to training places. So we had a couple of little trips before we, whilst we were there when we had to go to learn what they called ditching practice and this was up in Lincolnshire. Just a day out. You had to go. They had a big pool with a half a Lancaster in the middle and you were taken out but you had to get the dinghy out and on and get yourself home. You see what I mean.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Right. We were posted from Sandtoft to Hemswell for the month of April to transfer from Halifaxes to Lancasters. A small transfer. Just the difference for the pilot really and on the 1st of May 1944 we were posted to Wickenby.
DH: So can I ask with your job as a wireless operator what was different going from the Halifax in to the Lancaster for you? Was there any difference?
FM: Nothing on those two. Different coming from the Wellington because it was a different radio. But no my job was basically the same. Very little radio, and mainly standing in the astrodome as an extra set of eyes but I’ll come to that when it comes to operational flying. Right. On the 10th of May, on the 11th of May we were on just Lancasters locally. Further training. But on the 19th of May we had our first operation but to the marshalling yards at Orleans. Orleans south of Paris. Total time there and back five hours and fifteen minutes. Right. We then had to prepare for the next one by an air test. The next operation which was on the 24th of May which was the marshalling yards at Aachen right on the border. Five hours and five minutes. Now, I don’t want to go through these individually. I shall want to just pick out those that matter. We went to Aachen again. We went to marshalling yards. These marshalling yards were so important because it was coming up to D-Day. We didn’t know that. But the Germans were, their marshalling yards were bombed ruthlessly. The next one is a marshalling yard as well.
DH: Can you explain what a marshalling yard is please?
FM: Well [laughs] I thought you’d know that.
DH: No. No.
FM: A railway. Well, they’ve got a big railway. When you marshall all your equipment it’s a marshalling yard.
DH: Right.
FM: You know. It’s the same in this country. We got in to early June and we were on such things as heavy gun batteries on the coast. Railway junction again, and marshalling yards again. You can see the picture. We’re averaging the 5th of June, 7th of June, 10th of June, 12th of June. We were averaging one almost every other day and then [pause] that’s right. I’d passed it over without thinking how I got the Legion of Honour because on the 5th of June and the 6th of June was D-Day and in those twenty four hours we did two operations which was a thing unknown. To do two in twenty four hours. One was to the north of the coast, and one was to the south. And I’m talking about the German coastal batteries and we bombed them north and south. The south one we did first. You’ve heard a lot lately of these emigrant towns called, one was called Sangatte. Well, that’s where we, that was a bombing because Sangatte then was a big German coastal battery. So we did Sangatte and within a matter of no time at all we were off again, and this time we did the bottom ones near [pause] near, well I can’t think what the big town is on the corner. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. It was one of the southern ones, and doing those two on D-Day was the reason for the French had fixed that anybody operating on D-Day would get this medal. So, came to the last trip that I did was on the 12th of June. Again, marshalling yards and then I was transferred to the Polish squadron with a week’s leave in between. Got back. Got to the Polish squadron 17th of June. We, they didn’t waste any time. We air tested on the 17th of June morning and went on operations in the evening on the 17th of June. So we then go to several operations with 300 Squadron in June. I’ve got 24th, 25th, 29th and 30th. On the 30th, the last one was a daylight. Marshalling yards in the daylight God knows why. I can’t think of why but in fact the next one, the 12th of July, by now I must have gone on leave then. You had a leave generally every so many months because I have a blank space between the 30th of June and the 12th of July. On the 12th of July we started operations. Now were on longer distance ones. This one is nine hours and eight months. This one which I just wanted to describe is the most dangerous one we did. It was to a marshalling yard in the south of France, almost on the Swiss border at a place called Revigny, and when we got there it was ten tenths cloud. You were flying at about ten thousand feet in beautiful sunshine with a blanket of cloud right over the target. Couldn’t see anything. The Master Bomber, I don’t know whether you understand Master Bombers, the person who is there controlling. The master bomber said, ‘I can’t mark the target.’ And he recommends go home. You know, abandon. Abandon the exercise. And I can remember my skipper saying, only to us, ‘Look lads. We didn’t fly all this way to take our bombs home.’ He said, ‘I’m going to try to go through the clouds and see what happens.’ So then came the most scary time of slowly, slowly descending through cloud, and could see nothing. The navigator had taken the distance. No. Yeah. No, the direction that we were travelling so that we could reverse and go back and kept on going through this cloud to Revigny. Anyway, we came out into sunshine. Or night. It wasn’t sunshine. It was moonlight really. At four thousand feet. The skipper said, ‘Right lads. Now, we can reverse along so that we go back the way we come until we find these marshalling yards.’ And so the bomb aimer was the important one because he was lying in his turret in the bottom and he could see, and he right up, ‘Coming up marshalling yards.’ Right. So skipper said, ‘Right. Prepare for bombing run.’ And we had a very quick bombing run. Not the usual four minutes because he wanted to get the bombs away whilst we were over the marshalling yards, and so we bombed. We luckily we had time to close the bomb doors when a four engined plane which we could only describe as a four engine plane, couldn’t say it was a Lancaster or a Halifax came right underneath the clouds straight down underneath us, all four engines ablaze. An absolute, you know, a roman candle and either it exploded or it crash landed and exploded but it blew us up on our backsides. And I can remember skipper who never swore saying, ‘Oh Christ.’ And we seemed to be all over the place, and he was desperately trying to correct. Anyway, at two thousand feet he corrected, and we were back on an even keel so he said, ‘Lads, I’m going to stick these throttles right through, and we’re going to get home quickly.’ Now, when we got home we had to report to the intelligence. Why? Two things. A — the skipper had disobeyed an order to abandon to go home. B — he pressed on and bombed the target. A — he was going to be court martialled. B — he was going to get a medal. He got the medal. So he got the DFC, quite rightly. Then we carried on several quite long trips. Stuttgart. We went twice to Stuttgart and that wasn’t very nice.
DH: Can you explain why it wasn’t very nice? What mainly —
FM: Because you’re going to go through the Ruhr first of all. You’re on the chance of night fighters for such a long distance before you even get to the target because it’s an eight hour trip. Four hours each way. Do you see what I mean? You’re under, you’re in a, their well armed area, and to do it twice in oh hell, twice in four days. Yes. 24th and 28th. I can remember one little thing. On the way home on the second trip I said to the, through the, ‘Skipper, permission to speak.’ You weren’t allowed to talk, you know. ‘Permission to speak.’ ‘Yes, wireless operator.’ ‘Will you all wish me a happy birthday? It’s my birthday today.’ Because it was now, we took off on the 28th of July and on the way home it was the 29th of July.
DH: And did they?
FM: We did that night. Then there were several trips, and then came the period at the end of August. We had already now done [pause] we’d now done twenty six. And the skipper, and now the bomb aimer had also been made a [pause] a what do you call it? You know, we were still sergeants and he, yeah. You know what I mean. Anyway, the skipper called us together and he said, ‘I’ve had,’ because he said, ‘I’m a senior crew,’ he said, ‘I’ve got the ears of Bill Misselbrook — ’ our squadron commander that at the end of August the wing is being disbanded because the Poles have now got sufficient trained people to take over the wing completely. Now — ’ he said, ‘We’ve got four trips to do.’ And he said, ‘I would like to think that we could get them done without us being posted again to some other squadron, you know and have to start all over again.’ So, he said, ‘I’ve got to get your agreement that if you agree I’ll see Bill Misselbrook and say, ‘We volunteer for every trip that’s going.’ And he said, he must have agreed and from the 25th of August to the 31st of August we did four operations, and one of those was the biggest we’d ever done and it was at, it was up to a place in the Baltic called Stettin. Or it was called Stettin then and there was a Nazi naval base there and somehow Stalin had asked for us to bomb it. I don’t know how. You can get these funny things that go on. So we did Stettin as our twenty ninth trip and again on the way home he said, break the rules, he said, ‘I’m not going to stooge back under the rules of the speed that you can do safeguarding the engines,’ he said. ‘They can only shoot me.’ So it was boof, and we came home and the funny words, we landed and I can remember the words coming over the, over from the ground radio lady. She said, ‘U-Uncle. U-Uncle have you completed your mission?’ Because we were fifteen minutes before time getting home. Whereas the others took fifteen minutes longer obeying we’d, anyway that was another story. And then we did a daylight raid on the 31st of August and at the end of that I have a note signed by the station commander, and the squadron commander, “You’re tour is completed.” And so that in affect ends the chapter of my time doing bombing raids. Can you —
DH: Do you want to pause?
FM: Well, do you want any further more?
DH: I’ve got some questions if that’s ok.
FM: Because I mean going on, you can go on forever. I’ve got —
DH: Yeah, no, I’ve got some questions if that’s ok.
FM: Otherwise, I can go on so long with —
DH: No. That’s fine. On an op what would your job entail because it took you five hours, eight hours? So what would you do during your time?
FM: Your main job that you are trained to do for the, for the crew is that you take a message in code from Bomber Command Headquarters at oh, they’re active then. Not the headquarters now. They’re active headquarters every fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes they send out a message. It may be status quo. It may be they’d got a change of wind direction, change of wind speed, a change of anything, but every fifteen minutes the wireless operator takes a message and passes it on to the navigator.
DH: Right.
FM: In between, each skipper may want to use him in a different way but most want to use him as a lookout, standing up under the astrodome and helping to spy night fighters.
DH: Right.
FM: And the bit, the important thing he does on a bombing run, when you can imagine there’s a mass of aircraft coming through to bomb on the same you suddenly see one appearing above you and immediately you tell the skipper. Because what you don’t want to do is be bombed by one above. So you’re first of all a wireless operator and second of all you’re a lookout.
DH: So you kept busy.
FM: Yes.
DH: You mentioned before we started the interview, you talked about the Polish squadron. You talked about the make up of the Commonwealth crew.
FM: Yes.
DH: Can you explain that please?
FM: No, when a Commonwealth was pure luck and they had to use the name Commonwealth because they didn’t want to insult like for instance our navigator was a Canadian. My friend that I had there who’d trained could still be alive. The last time I heard of him he was in a wheelchair but his navigator was the most unusual thing. He was a Yank. But he was a Yank who had wanted to get into the war, and so he volunteered from America to join the Canadian Air Force, and from the Canadian Air Force he got, so there’s another one. So if you said it’s an English crew, or a British crew you could be offending, so it was called a Commonwealth.
DH: Right near the start of the interview you talked about your training and everything and you were saying that you got married.
FM: Yeah.
DH: Before we started the interview you said briefly about your feelings about getting married and did you do the right thing at the right age and that. Can you, can you talk about that again please?
FM: That came after though, dear. I don’t know whether it’s worth talking about. I mean, I didn’t [pause] how, how can you say that in effect during your period of the war until, until the later time that when she was allowed to come and live close to because I was no longer on operations but in those early days every leave was like a honeymoon. You got, you know you and to be honest with you we, we reached demob without ever realising what married life was, and then by then we got a baby on the way, very difficult to put it in to words. I just felt that she was too young. She never complained, but at eighteen.
DH: Yeah.
FM: But as I said marriage went on for sixty one years and we got a letter from the Queen here so that couldn’t have been too bad.
DH: Oh no.
FM: It was only in my own mind that. Yeah. Yes.
DH: Right at the start you were saying that you got the call up papers but you were in a Reserved Occupation.
FM: That’s right.
DH: So were you allowed to ignore those call up papers if you were in a Reserved Occupation?
FM: Oh yeah. Only, only as a volunteer.
DH: Right.
FM: Only, and if you were accepted you could have been a volunteer in a far more important Reserved Occupation for some reason and be turned down. You could have been in a, some kind of laboratory somewhere and what have you. But the rule was you, if you, if you, you had to volunteer and you had to be accepted.
DH: Right.
FM: And my Reserved Occupation was really only agricultural machinery. I know it was helping to keep the farmers going but it wasn’t of grade one importance.
DH: You said at the, near the start again that you went for your initial training. You said you went for training and the indoctrination. What did you mean by indoctrination?
FM: I think I can explain that. A big word for a little thing.
DH: Yeah.
FM: 16th of June 1943 [pause] That’s right. I hadn’t started. I hadn’t got to the [pause] Yeah. The first introduction to an aeroplane we [pause] now, can you edit this if you —
DH: Yes. Yes. It can be edited.
FM: The important thing was to try and make you sick on the basis that once you’d been sick you were never likely to be sick again. But if you persisted in being sick you would get discharged from aircrew because you couldn’t be sick.
DH: Right.
FM: You just couldn’t be. Now, that was the indoctrination that I, and it, on the 16th of June ’43, I went twice in one hour on a Dominie with seven, six others and we marched to the aircraft and as we marched they gave us each a bucket. Now, that was before we got to the aircraft they gave us a bucket. When we got inside they had purposely not cleaned it up and I think half of them were sick before we got off the ground. But then he was an experienced pilot and he could hedgehop. You were only up and hour but believe me we were all terribly sick. Is that sufficient indoctrination?
DH: Yeah.
FM: If you see what I mean.
DH: Yeah. Yeah.
FM: If you followed on, and I had four but the first two were only experience. The second two I had to do two message taking. That was my initial contact with the wireless.
DH: So I take it you stopped being sick.
FM: I stopped being, I was only sick once. It’s a terrible feeling and you walk out, stagger out of this aircraft and they say, they march you out, two march. ‘You now go and clean your bucket in the toilets.’ It’s not a nice story, but that was the indoctrination. It had, they could not have people who were going to be sick passed as aircrew. It could not be allowed, and so they had that method to making you sick and giving you four chances really.
DH: Yeah.
FM: I can only, I can’t honestly tell you if they all failed. All four. All I know is I was only sick once [pause] The crew, or most of them.
DH: Which one are you?
FM: None, I took it, I took the photograph as it happened. I didn’t know at the time, you know.
DH: Yeah.
FM: That I was going to take a photograph of the others. The skipper of course is in the middle. The one who looks a little bit elderly.
DH: All so young.
FM: Yes, all so young.
DH: So young. Can you tell me when you were actually on an op did you get a chance to get scared? Were you so busy that you couldn’t get scared?
FM: You were scared all the while. But you were a part of a crew and you got your courage from them, and they in turn got their courage from you. You were a crew. To say you weren’t scared would be a lie. Many’s the time I hung tight to the [pause] especially on, when you get a bad take off and you don’t get off the ground at all due to weather conditions but that’s another story. You can’t. You can’t. Some get all the stories you need to get your memory, you know. But scared, yes. We were scared. We were scared. Especially when you were flying over the Ruhr and the ack ack was almost bouncing off the bottom of your aircraft. You could hear the crackle of it. Yes. Yes. Anything else?
DH: I don’t think so.
FM: I think I’ve been pretty thorough.
DH: You have. You have.
FM: I, as I said I had two further RAF lives after that but I don’t want to go into them all.
DH: No. No. After, so after VJ Day how, how did, what affect did the war have on you do you think?
FM: None at all.
DH: No.
FM: We were still going on targets. The fact that they were targets of a different lot, because the one lot was being prepared for VE day and the second lot afterwards. No. The only thing, you know, how can I put it? When we finished we didn’t know that we weren’t going to be called up for a second tour and would have done if it hadn’t been for the Americans dropping the atom bomb. If that hadn’t have happened after six months or more of it we would have been called back again.
DH: So, after you finished your tour how did the RAF occupy you?
FM: Well, that’s another life. I could go on then about a whole year flying down near here, and then a third tour. A third life when I managed to get appointed to the Test Pilot’s School and that’s where I finished.
DH: Are you able to tell me about the Test Pilot’s School?
FM: Yes. It’s very interesting. We’ll forget the next bit. That was a year literally at South Cerney just outside Gloucester where I was flying with advanced, advanced trainee pilots when they sent, and it was a two engined aircraft, an Oxford when they sent them out to do night trips. They were not allowed to go without a wireless operator because the wireless operator could get them home by getting directions. So that was literally a year. And then there was a message on the notice board, “Volunteers wanted for the Number 4 Empire Test Pilot’s School,” which was being transferred from Farnborough to [pause] I can’t think of the name now. Anyway, I’ve got it in here. It begins with a C. Yeah, that appears, Neville Duke. I flew with him once. Empire Test Pilot’s School. What am I trying to tell you?
DH: You transferred from Farnborough to —
FM: Right. No. They were transferred. I was still at the Advanced Flying Unit until the end of October ’45.
DH: Right.
FM: So, I’d been there a little over a year and they wanted volunteers. Wireless operators who would go to just a quick training school to teach them how to help a pilot flying on his own on a four engine aircraft. You’ll appreciate that if being able to handle all the throttles, being able to close down one or more engines, jobs like that we were taught and then we were sent off to this school. And when we got there, there was nothing there and the station commander called. He said, ‘Your warrant officer has just come through Martin so you’re going to be in charge.’ So, he said, ‘You set up this unit. There will be five others,’ he said, ‘We tried to get youngsters who haven’t had the — ’ he called it luck, ‘The luck to have a bombing life because they came in too late.’ So he said, ‘They’re raw youngsters most of them but,’ he said, ‘There is one senior man as well as you.’ And so we set up this. They gave us an office. Oh anyway, we set it up and eventually it was got going but it was months. A long, I don’t, I can’t remember why but anyway it was January’46 before we actually flew when they were ready as well. And we flew from this Empire Test Pilots School. From Cranfield. Couldn’t remember it. Cranfield, which is north of, north of Bedford. Anyway, we started flying there in January ’46 and we did very little flying because they didn’t, they weren’t always flying four engines. They only needed you when they were. But, you know you did some interesting small jobs with them. And then came my moment of, there came a time in May ’46 when I think we’d had a couple of these six taken ill with something, flu or something and suddenly we, we had to do a lot more because I got a book here when I’d flew four times on the 6th of May, five times on the 7th May, twice on the 8th of May, five times on the 9th of May. I don’t want to go on but you can see I was doing a lot then and during that time, you’ve never heard of Duke have you?
DH: No.
FM: Neville Duke.
DH: No. I haven’t.
FM: Well, he became, later on he became a test pilot and he became holder of the speed record and I, and I just flew with him once for forty five minutes. N. Fifty minutes. So that’s my fifty minutes of fame, and carried on there still flying and the last trip I did before I was demobbed, 8th of July ’46. Without this I couldn’t remember all those things.
DH: No.
FM: That was the best and the luckiest posting I ever had. Suddenly going from training pilots in night cross countries often being more scared than I ever was bombing, and suddenly getting pilots good enough to be test pilots, you know. It was an entirely different experience. And the fact that I’d became a warrant officer which helped a lot. Financially it helped a great deal.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Right. Any more questions?
DH: So after, after you were demobbed what were you going to do?
FM: Well, I was lucky you see. One of the reasons that I could safely volunteer was the company, and I’ve got a letter from the boss, what would I call him? Anyway, he was the boss, guaranteeing any member of the staff anywhere in all of the branches around the, that volunteered for the Services, whichever Service and came back were guaranteed a job. And I’ve got the letter from Hubert Burgess himself and he thanked me very much for my service, services, and understood my feeling of, of volunteering. And so when I got back I went down to the branch in Shrewsbury, had an appointment with a man named Richards who I worked for. He’d, he’d been too old, you know to go in. Anyway, he’d be too important to have to go in the Services and he said, ‘Yeah. When do you want to start?’ And I said, ‘Well, can you give me a week? I’ve got to find, I’ve got to find lodgings for the wife and, and my daughter.’ And so I think I started work, I think I started work on the 1st of September.
DH: Wow, that’s, that’s quite good, isn’t it? That’s very good.
FM: It was good.
DH: For them to say that.
FM: Because, because this man Richards and I had a very long working relationship and he, he pushed me up until I was eventually, you know in a very good job. So that’s really the story of how lucky we were that we came back. I mean, I can remember one very good high rating head office boy who went, and he went in the Air Force and he came back and he went back to a job and it happened. He kept his promise. Your job was there, and that was a marvellous thing, you know. You didn’t have to worry about your week’s wages did you?
DH: No. That’s quite something.
FM: Another thing he did. This is, this is only for your information because you had to recognise what money was worth. He instructed the wages people to put ten shillings a week in an envelope in the safe in my name.
DH: What? During the war?
FM: All the way, whole time I was through.
DH: No.
FM: For the whole of the time I was through he paid me ten shillings a week for fighting for me country.
DH: Wow.
FM: Believe me when we came out that money set up the furniture for our first place. Now, how many bosses would do that?
DH: Not many.
FM: But that’s actually absolutely true. They say, ‘Oh, ten shillings a week,’ but ten shillings a week then.
DH: Was a lot.
FM: Was a different kettle of fish. And anyway, he didn’t need to give me anything, did he? Guaranteeing me a job was sufficient without paying me ten shillings a week for five years.
DH: Wow, that’s quite —
FM: So you do get good bosses. You do get good bosses. Yes.
DH: Well, can I say thank you. You’ve been absolutely fascinating to listen to.
FM: No. I, I didn’t want to overdo it as I said. There’s the three lives. The second one I told you about flying trainee pilots around the skies over Gloucestershire were not a happy experience and then the Test Pilot’s School which was quite marvellous. Quite marvellous. Although to get in [laughs] this is not for you, I’m just talking to you, you get in, and this test pilot he says, ‘Well, Martin —’ or, yes. Well, yes. Sometimes they know your Christian name but you know there was, you weren’t together long enough. He’d say, ‘Well, I’m doing single engine flying today.’ So he said, ‘You know how to feather.’ That was what I was taught of course. I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Be careful to feather in the order that I tell you because —’ he said, ‘I’ll have to adjust the balance of the aircraft.’ So you get quite happily tootling along and he says, ‘Feather outboard.’ So you press the button for stop the outboard and the engine dies and it’s just running in in the wind and he’s adjusting. And a little later he says, ‘Feather inboard.’ So you press the inboard button and that so he says, ‘We are now flying on two engines.’ That’s alright. And then he said, ‘Feather inboard,’ or whatever. The one he prefers. He may say that he prefers to feather inboard, or feather outboard of the other two and you do it and suddenly you’re flying or trying to fly a four engine bomber on one engine. It has its own moments. It has its moments. Oh yes. But you trusted them you see. They were skilled, and they had to be able to fly this bomber on one engine without losing height. Just keep it and they would, they passed. Anyway, enough about that.
DH: Which aircraft were they?
FM: Lancasters.
DH: They were Lancasters.
FM: Yes. And the latest model too. The latest Rolls twenty two engines I think. They had all the best to train on they did. Yeah. Anyway, thank you for coming. I don’t want to bore you to tears.
DH: You’re not boring me whatsoever.
FM: I mean, I was one of the lucky ones to have lived through it and to some extent to still have an active memory. I do need this because the dates sometimes run into one.
DH: It would be very difficult to remember all those dates.
FM: Oh yeah. Yes.
DH: Very difficult, one last question.
FM: Yeah.
DH: Have you got any you know, lighter moments. Any funny things that you can remember from your time on operations?
FM: You know, it’s hard to remember a funny thing. I think the funniest thing was not what happened on the day but what happened on the day had a remarkable [pause] how can I put it? Resurgence of life many years later. And I’ll tell you this, I can’t remember which daylight raid it was but the Polish squadron, Polish aircraft my pilot had got friendly with their pilot was in, landed in the next bay, and they were getting out and we were getting out and they had, one of the ground crew was a bit snap happy taking pictures and he came along and we grinned at him and he took the picture and that was it. Never thought anything about it. Now, this is one daylight raid towards the end of the, with my life at Faldingworth with the Poles. Now, how many years later? I would be [pause] Phyl had died so it was one of their anniversaries at Faldingworth and I got an invitation and I had a friend, a golfing friend who was very keen on anything to do with, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you. I’d love to.’ He said, ‘I’ll take you willingly.’ I said, ‘Ok.’’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about driving,’ he said. I was still able to drive. I hadn’t reached this stage but it must have been ’87 ’97. Fifteen. It must have been fifteen years ago. An anniversary they had and that we went up and we went first thing and we went in to the village hall which was also now laid out with old photographs and everything to do with the Poles. And the Polish people, or the remnants were there and a lot of them had got tales to tell. And I was walking along here, this lady had got a book and she spoke English. She said, ‘Have a look at my records.’ She said, ‘Do you happen to know my father? He was a Polish pilot in this.’ And I said to her, ‘Apologies,’ I said, ‘We were only there three months. We never got really to know our own lot properly let alone — ’ ‘Oh, I understand.’ She said, ‘Have a look at my pictures.’ And she turned over a page and there was the photograph there that he’d taken what would be the best part of, if he’d taken it in ’44 and this would be in, in ’84. The best part of forty years later. And I squealed. I said, ‘You won’t believe it,’ I said. ‘That’s me.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, reading it. This was the pilot who was a friend. And this ground crew had taken, and it had got to her and she got it and there it was. A photograph of myself and oh, I remember the bomb aimer was there and the rear gunner. Unfortunately, the skipper hadn’t got out of the aircraft because we were only disembarking, you know.
DH: Yeah.
FM: But I can remember squealing. Then I called my friend, ‘Brian. Brian come and have a look at this.’ So he came along and I said, ‘Look at that.’ ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. I said would you believe that you could come to a place and see yourself forty years ago. And that was in effect, you could call that the most happy and unexpected —
DH: Yeah.
FM: Thing to happen. To find that you, your photograph had been taken and been kept in this, her father’s album.
DH: Yeah.
FM: And had got to her. Anyway, yes so that was I think that was a jolly tale. You know what I mean. It was a happy one.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Not a miserable one. A happy one.
DH: Well, thank you so much for talking to me, Keith.
FM: I could tell you one which is dead funny. Unbelievable but still it happened. You wouldn’t know, couldn’t know but during the war only bottled beer was available. There may have been draft beer in small quantities round about Burton on Trent and places like that but I mean normally bottled was the only beer. And the day we finished operations was a daylight raid so like it wasn’t like coming back in the middle of the night and so we all, we were all going to go down to Market Rasen which was only three and a half miles away. The skipper had arranged transport. He’s the boss now. He’s well thought of on the squadron and he arranged transport so we can drink as much as we like. So we go in to this hotel in Market Rasen. I wish I could remember its name but it’s there. We go in to the bar. It’s quite early. Not in to the bar. Went in, oh no we went in to the smoke room. Didn’t mix. We wanted a big room of our own and there’s seven of us sat around this table and the, and the navigator, Frank who came to see me from Canada who, thirty five years later, but he said, ‘The first round’s on me.’ We didn’t argue about a round. But he walked up to the bar and we could hear him. This young girl came and he said, he said, ‘I want fifty six pint bottles of beer please.’ She said [pause], ‘I’m not joking,’ he said, ‘I want fifty six pint bottles of beer.’ And they were all brought around our table. Eight of us, seven of us, supposed to drink eight each. The skipper could drink one. The navigator could manage twelve. I may have managed my eight at a push, but I think that particular order was the biggest individual order for beer I’ve ever heard placed.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Yeah. That was Frank. He was going to buy the first round so he did but there was never a second [laughs] Yes.
DH: Could you tell me the names of the people on that crew?
FM: I can. Very well. Pilot George Davies from Oswestry. Navigator Frank Yate from North Hamilton in, in Ontario. Bomb aimer Freddie [Pittey] from Newbury, trainee, a trainee teacher and went back to become a school teacher. Jock Gilchrist. Jock, obviously mid-upper gunner, Scottish from Ayr. The one, the one we found difficulty keeping in touch with and I don’t know why maybe he got married and moved around was the engineer. I’ll think of his name in a minute. And then the rear gunner was the oldest. Harry [Fay], a cockney from East, East Ham. Harry was the first to die. He had a heart attack and one by one they all dropped off leaving me, yeah. I even kept in touch with the wives. With the widows. The two widows that I mainly, because it was rather amazing when you think of I went to the wedding of the bomb aimer and I went to his silver [pause] Oh, let me think. If he was married in ’46, and I went to his golden wedding, that’s right. That’s right. He was married in ’46. Ninety. Yeah, that’s right. And Phyl was alive of course and at his golden wedding of course we were guests of honour fifty years later. That was one amazing thing. The skipper of course married a New Zealand nurse who then wanted to go home and he didn’t have no interest in his father’s business which was a business that I was in. And when he’d gone and I was living in Oswestry and his mum and dad were still alive in Oswestry, I used to visit them didn’t I? And his dad who used to run this big agricultural, owned it, that George wasn’t interested in because he was a Batchelor of Science in his own right on metallurgy. Anyway, that’s another story. Anyway, his father said to me, ‘Get in touch with your boss and tell him that when I’m ready to retire I want you to buy the business.’ Now, geographically it was perfect. We’d already moved from Oswestry when we bought out a company in Welshpool so one more step to new town was perfect. And it happened. He called me, ‘Come and see me. I want to retire,’ he said, I want to safeguard my staff,’ he said. ‘You get hold of your boss.’ Well I did and of course my boss, the big boss then contacted my boss Ben Richards who’d been with me all the lifetime and we went down and we looked and eventually we bought it. And because of that I was made what you’d call area supervisor, having already taken over Welshpool as well from Oswestry, and the funny thing to think that from that day when George Davis says, ‘You’re from Shropshire.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I’m a Salopian too. Would you fly with me?’ Comes years later his dad. It’s, you know —
DH: It’s amazing, isn’t it?
FM: It is. You can’t really believe these things happen. Yes. Yes. I’m glad I’ve got a pretty active memory because sometimes I can enjoy going back on a given period. I don’t have to go back on the lot. I can remember doing something that I never thought you’d do in the wartime. Have you heard of mayday?
DH: Of?
FM: Mayday. The word mayday.
DH: I know what the word mayday means. Yeah.
FM: What does it mean?
DH: It’s a call for help.
FM: Right. It’s also something you don’t use unless you’re in —
DH: Trouble.
FM: In trouble. And so I called mayday and I had to explain when we got down why, and this was with these trainee pilots. We were out one night in January and we were in a horrendous snowstorm. He quite rightly had lost his way. I could understand that. We got down to, over a big town at about four thousand feet or was it, sorry four hundred feet, and we could recognise it was Cheltenham. I also knew that we were, had a safe flying height over the Cotswolds of fourteen hundred feet, and we were flying at four hundred feet. So I tapped him on the shoulder and I [pause] ‘Oh yes,’ he said. We climbed up, and then we were lost, you know. We were close to home and yet lost so I called, ‘Mayday. Mayday.’ The answer, ‘Your requirements?’ And I just said, ‘Searchlights.’ And within no time the beams came up. We could see them and we came home. Got home. I got away with them. My reasons for mayday. They accepted it. I don’t know whether he got away with having lost, you know. I don’t know. I can’t remember, but I do remember that. Possibly being the most scary night of the, you don’t call mayday once in a lifetime. Yeah. And then have to say, go in front of the intelligence and tell them why you called mayday. A thing unknown. Mayday. Yes. Yes. A bad thunderstorm in an old fashioned aircraft is pretty terrible you know. I mean you can’t see anything. Not like these modern things where you’re, yes, enough of me. You’ll never get home ‘til tomorrow. You get me on my memories and I’ve got so many. So many.
DH: Well —
FM: I don’t know.
DH: If you wanted to chat another time and give me memories that would be wonderful.
FM: [unclear] Right. My legs get, slowly but surely they’re deteriorating. You’ve seen that medal haven’t you? That’s the —
DH: Let’s have a look.
FM: That’s the Legion d’Honneur.
DH: Oh yes. That’s beautiful isn’t it?
FM: It is.
DH: Beautiful.
FM: Put that there.
DH: Yes.
FM: It’s just something. I don’t know if I’ve got it. It won’t take a second to look. I’ll finish my coffee. So many documents that I’ve got which [pause] Different crew members but I don’t want to show you bits and pieces. I thought I’d got a [pause] There’s the skipper. What you can see of him. Only his head.
DH: Oh, inside the plane.
FM: No. I can’t see there’s anything particular. It’s hard to remember [laughs] I told you we were in civvy billets in Blackpool.
DH: Yes [pause] Ah, which one are you?
FM: Right in the middle, at the back.
DH: Oh right. Oh yes, nuisance.
FM: I’ll get it. I’ll get it.
DH: All right, love. I did get a little one of the two gunners. The rear and the mid-upper together.
FM: Yeah.
DH: I’ve got other photographs somewhere dear but I don’t know where they are.
FM: Ok. What I’ll do is, if we finish —
DH: Yes.
FM: If I finish of the interview now.
DH: Yeah.
FM: And then I’ll explain a few things. Ok. So, 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 Frederick Joseph Keith Martin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dawn Hughes
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
2018-03-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMartinFJK180309
Format
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01:41:51 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Keith Martin was working for an agricultural machinery merchants in Shrewsbury when the war started. This was classed as a reserved occupation but when he was nearly 20, he decided to volunteer for the Royal Air Force in April 1942 and was selected to be a wireless operator/air gunner. Initial training took place in Blackpool, followed by further training at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Ternhill, RAF Calveley. Promoted to sergeant he was then posted to 18 Initial Training Wing at RAF Bridgnorth to complete his wireless operator training. Flying training took place at RAF West Freugh and in October 1943 he was posted to an operational training unit at RAF Hixon flying Wellingtons. It was there that Keith was formed in to an aircrew. In December 1943 Keith’s crew flew their first operation, as part of their training, which was leaflet dropping over Belgium. January 1944 saw a posting to a heavy conversion unit at RAF Sandtoft to fly Halifaxes. In April their aircraft had an engine failure on take-off, resulting in a crash landing which wrote it off but injured no-one. He transferred to Lancasters at RAF Hemswell and was then posted to RAF Wickenby. From May he was in an operational squadron. Keith describes the many operations that he carried out, including an operation during which an aircraft below his exploded, and caused his aircraft to go out of control until the pilot recovered control at 2000 feet. In June 1944 he was posted to 300 Squadron. By August his crew had flown 26 operations. On completing his tour, Keith went on to spend a year at the advanced flying unit at RAF South Cerney before volunteering for the Empire Test Pilots’ School at RAF Cranfield. He was finally demobbed in 1946 returning to his pre-war employer, who had kept his job available.
Contributor
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Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cheshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lancashire
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Wiltshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
England--Blackpool
France--Paris
France--Sangatte
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-04-20
1943-05
1943-10
1943-12-30
1944-01
1944-04-06
1944-05-01
1944-06
1944-08-31
1946
1944-07
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
300 Squadron
626 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
crewing up
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
propaganda
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Calveley
RAF Cranfield
RAF Hemswell
RAF Hixon
RAF Sandtoft
RAF South Cerney
RAF Ternhill
RAF West Freugh
RAF Wickenby
RAF Yatesbury
take-off crash
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1222/12028/PSpencerGC1901.2.jpg
8083fea68b27ab2d47336859883af7a0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1222/12028/ASpencerGC190123.2.mp3
836491e6db78df25fa3408cce2d0955e
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
Spencer, Geoffrey Charles
G C Spencer
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Leading aircraftsman Geoffrey Spencer (b.1925, 1735606 Royal Air Force). He served as a flight mechanic and fitter with 49 Squadron at RAF Fiskerton and 189 Squadron at RAF Fulbeck.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-01-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Spencer, GC
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is an interview for International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive between Harry Bartlett and Geoffrey Charles,
GS: Spencer.
HB: Spencer. We’re at Sutton Coldfield. It’s the 23rd of January 2019. Right Geoff, the floor’s yours, so I understand you come from this sort of area anyway, before the war.
GB: Well I were born in Birmingham and I lived in Erdington before I moved to Sutton Coalfield.
HB: Right.
GS: But I joined the RAF from when I lived in Erdington and the first place I went to was Cardington for eight weeks’ square bashing and then they moved me to Cosford, RAF Cosford and I did a flight mechanic’s course.
HB: You know before you joined, did you actually go to school in Erdington?
GS: Oh yeah, when I was in Erdington, from when I was fifteen, I joined the Air Training Corps and I did three years with the Air Training Corp prior to going in to the RAF.
HB: So did you get called up or did you volunteer?
GS: I volunteered.
HB: Why did you volunteer?
GS: I don’t know, because they called me, one day after me eighteenth birthday, which I thought was a bit naughty! But that’s it, they sent me there. But anyway -
HB: Sorry, where was your ATC unit?
GS: At Dunlop, Erdington, Dunlop, the big Dunlop factory there, which is still there, part of it and we did all our Air Training Corp training which was a Sunday parade and whatever we did in the week, taking exams and things to get what they call PNB status which was pilot, bomb aimer and bomb aimer and you had to take various exams to pass that exam and you were given a proficiency badge then, when you’ve acquired that, and then you had to wait around and we went to various squadrons, RAF squadrons, Swinderby was one, you know Swinderby, don’t you.
HB: I do, I do.
GS: And we also, oh where else, oh, Fradley, RAF Fradley.
HB: Don’t know Fradley, no.
GS: Litchfield.
HB: Oh right!
GS: 27 OTU that was. I went to that one.
HB: Ah, right! So when you did the ATC training, did you get to fly?
GS: Yes, we did fly. Actually we flew from, in Wellington Bombers when we were at Fradley, time expired Wellington bombers, the wings flapped, they were terrible things, and we went up without chutes. we used to just go down to the airfield at night and cadge flights. And then after that I flew a lot when I was on the squadron at Fiskerton, and I also flew in York aircraft. When, when we flew out to, to Singapore, we flew out by York aircraft from Lyneham, which is still going apparently, but it took five days.
HB: Yeah, I can imagine. So you did your ATC training, you got called up, what were mum and dad doing at the time?
GS: My father was a toolmaker and I worked for him as an apprentice.
HB: Ah right. Had he got his own business?
GS: He’d got his own business, yeah. Not a very big business, but it was a business, then in 1950 he sold it all and moved down to Cornwall, farming.
HB: So your mum and dad are there, you’ve been called up a day after your eighteenth birthday.
Nicola: He’d volunteered to go. Wasn’t called up.
GS: I volunteered for the RAF, yes. I’ve got a sister but she was in the ATS.
HB: Right. Is she older than you, is she older than you?
GS: Yes, three years older than me.
HB: That would explain it. So you go and report, and they say here’s your travel warrant.
GS: Yep, I volunteered at Dale End in Birmingham, right in the centre, that’s it. Then, I say, went to Cardington, eight weeks square bashing and then I went to Cosford and did a flight mechanics course. I don’t know whether you know, but in the RAF there were five trades starting with Group One which was the expert and Group Two which my lot, flight mechanics. Three, four and five you finished up with the bog cleaners, you know, yeah, that was group five, they didn’t do anything. Well from Cosford I went to Fiskerton, 49 Squadron. And I was put into the hangars there servicing the Lancasters, I did a fifty hour service. And from there I was sent out on the flights, B Flight I was on, servicing the Lancasters before they flew on ops. You’re okay, getting all this down are you?
HB: Yep, it’s, I just have to keep an eye on the batteries, that’s all, Geoff.
GS: At Fiskerton. And I used to fly there, used to fly at night time. You had to sign a form, Form 700, to say that you’d serviced the aircraft and you were satisfied. And the pilots invariably said have you signed the 700, yes I have to, said right go and get a parachute, you’re flying with me, if you’ve serviced the aircraft, I want to make quite sure.
HB: His guarantee then!
GS: That was the guarantee. I used to fly that was it. Anyway I used to watch them go out every night. Count how many came back and there was always a few missing.
HB: How did you feel about that?
GS: Not very happy. And then, from Fiskerton, they had FIDO. Do you remember that? You remember FIDO?
HB: Well, I remember it, but some people don’t, what was FIDO.
GS: FIDO was two pipelines joining along the runway which they set alight, which cleared the fog.
Nicola: With fuel dad, was it? Did it, was it fuel?
GS: Hundred octane fuel they used, I don’t know how many thousand gallons every time. One time we went to nearby Waddington, you know that don’t you, doing engine change on a Lancaster and then the pilot said well I’m on ops tomorrow so I’ll fly you back, and during the time from Waddington to Fiskerton, which was only about ten mile, the fog came down and the pilot said - he phoned down the ops tower - and they said well we’ll light FIDO for you, which they did. But the thing is when the fog clears it creates a heat haze, and the pilot said it’s gonna be a bumpy landing.
HB: Oh no!
GS: So we made the approach and he said the alternative, he said, I shall have to crash land it. And the sergeant that was with me at the time, he said, if you do that, we’ve just done an engine change, he said you’ll have to change the bloody lot! [Laughter] Which was quite true. Anyway, he made a very bumpy landing, the brakes failed, so we turned off the runway at about fifty mile an hour and he says hold on we might not be able to stop, but he stopped right in front of the watch tower. And at that time, back at Fiskerton the squadron split up. 49 Squadron went to Syerston, you know Syerston, and 189 Squadron which I was seconded to went to Fulbeck, which was south of Waddington. That’s where you’ve got that bit mixed up I think. [Sounds of paper rustling]
HB: And that was with 189 Squadron.
GS: Yeah. Who were also at Bardney.
HB: Yeah, that’s sort of, answered that sort of little hiccup there.
GS: Well from there they sent me on a Fitter One course at Henlow, which puts it in the right order.
HB: I’m just interested in that Geoff. When you went to RAF Cosford, they would train you as a flight mechanic on all the various engines, the Merlins, the Hercules, you know, all those engines. So when you actually got posted out, you were working on, what sort of engines were you working on then, with the Lancs?
GS: Merlins.
HB: You were working on the Merlins.
GS: Merlin 20s.
HB: So what was the difference between doing your training as a flight mechanic and your training as a fitter?
GS: I don’t know, it was just more sophisticated, more intricate details on the Merlin engine. For instance, I can remember doing a block change on the Merlin engine, which if you’d been a flight mechanic was unheard of. We were in, one of the aircraft came into the main hangar and we did a, and a V12, and we did a block change, which is quite intricate.
HB: So the block is the bit where the pistons go up and down.
GS: That’s right, that’s it, six on each, which was quite a big job doing that. Which we managed okay and that’s when after Fulbeck they sent me to Henlow on that Fitter One’s course. Where did I go from there?
HB: Did you have, obviously you passed the course.
GS: Yeah, I did, I passed with honours on that actually, I did quite well.
HB: Did you get promoted and more money?
GS: I got promoted; I got my props. I was an LAC, so I was quite chuffed with that. And then I went to Holmsley South, now that’s a place in the New Forest, right down the south. I was only there a month, then I went to Duxford for about a month, which was on Spitfires.
HB: Was this all the while working on the engines?
GS: Yes.
HB: For just like a month.
GS: I was a Group one Tradesman then see, I was more useful to them. And then, now where did I go, oh, I went to a place called Hinton in the Hedges which is in Oxfordshire. And when I go there - no aircraft - and the whole airfield was full of airc – of lorries and all the maintenance stuff and what they were doing, they were, all the airfield’s completely covered in all sorts of lorries and all sorts, aircraft carriers and all this sort of business and they’d bring them round into the main hangar, which was still there, service them and put them out back into the airfield and eventually they were dispersed to the place that they wanted them. But, I was wasting my time there, of course.
HB: I was going to say what were they using you for then Geoff?
GS: Well they were using me for, to going out on my bicycle to any of the lorries that were, various types of lorries, bring them into hangars, spray them, blokes spraying, and going out again.
HB: Group One tradesman doing that.
GS: I was a Group One tradesman.
HB: Just slightly moving that cause it’s just making a bit of a noise.
GS: That’s better. Absolutely fine. Yes.
HB: I’m just. So you’re only there a short time then, I presume.
GS: Yep, and then from there, I went to Lyneham and they posted me out to Singapore.
HB: How much, how much notice did you get of that?
GS: Well I don’t know really, I never took time of notice.
HB: So what year do you think that was about?
GS: That was late ’44, because, or late, that’s right, because at that time I as posted out there, went to Lyneham, they dropped the bomb; the atomic bomb.
HB: So that would be ‘45 then.
GS:’ 45. That’s it, that’s it. They dropped the bomb and I flew out to Singapore.
HB: Just take you back to you know, Cosford, Fiskerton and all them. What sort of leave did you get?
GS: Well the usual leave thirty six hour pass, forty eight hour leave. I think I had exp, expo leave before I flew out to Singapore. I think I had fourteen days.
HB: Expo?
GS: Yeah. What do they call it?
HB: Debark? De, Debarkation?
GS: Embarkation!
HB: Embarkation leave. Oh right. So what did you do with your leave, did you come home?
GS: Oh yeah.
HB: Came home. You go to the local dance hall.
GS: Local dance hall and all that.
HB: In your uniform.
GS: I met my wife there, at the local masonic, you know. I had an incident when I were flying out to Singapore. There were two York aircraft went out and there were twenty blokes in each aircraft and we knew each other, forty odd blokes, and we tossed up which aircraft we’d go in. We went to Malta, Habbaniya, what’s, I forget the one in northern India, and then Calcutta. Dumdum, Dumdum airfield, and I elected to go on the first aircraft, on the York that was going to Singapore and the second aircraft didn’t get there: it flew into the Indian Ocean. So that was why, sheer luck, is why I’m still here. And then I did twelve months in Singapore. I had to remuster again then because they didn’t want aircraft fitters then, so I had to remuster as a Fitter Marine and I was on high speed launches wandering around the East Indies, which was quite a good time.
HB: So you went from Lyneham, you flew down through Malta, Middle East, into,
GS: Singapore.
HB: The northern India one and then Singapore. You’re based at Singapore. So you were in what, were you in tents or in quarters?
GS: In quarters, I’ve got some pictures of them actually. We were initially sent out, when we’d gone from Lyneham they told me I was on what they called Tiger Force, which was going to Okinawa which was the nearest point for bombing Tokyo, but because I was in Singapore I didn’t want that because the war had finished with Japan then.
HB: So they just literally took you off aircraft fitting and said -
GS: Fitter marine!
HB: Fitter marine. That’s, what was the big difference with the engines then?
GS: Phew, terrible. There were three Peregrine engines inside the high speed launches, one either side and one at the back of you and it was a hundred and forty degrees in there, so you could only spend ten minutes at a time. When they were going at full throttle, which was thirty knots, you hadn’t got much chance, so you had to come up after ten minutes. It was horrible.
Nicola: What about it, do you remember when you fell in the water dad.
HB: You went overboard did you?
Nicola: You were on, someone backed in to you. Go on.
GS: Well what happened, I was on the quayside, there was a drop in the water of about thirty foot. Some western oriental gentleman I called them, didn’t call them that, backing a lorry up to me he must have seen me, I was looking out to sea and the next minute [slap sound] it hit me and I was in the sea and fortunately there was an officer standing there and he galloped down into the water and dragged me out. Cause it was only about eighteen inches of water.
HB: You were lucky.
GS: It knocked me out virtually. I came round and he said you had a bit of luck there, didn’t you airman. I said yeah, did, I’m glad you got me out. He said look down there, you see all those snakes, he said, they’re all bloody poisonous. [Chuckle] So, sick quarters, and I was okay.
Nicola: You never saw the guy, did you from the truck.
GS: No, the bloke took off, never saw him again.
Nicola: He knew he was in trouble, didn’t he.
HB: So you’re working round, all round Singapore, so you must have had a few trips out to the islands.
GS: Oh yes. Up into Malaya, Penang and Java, Sumatra of course they’ve all changed their names now, haven’t they. So I had twelve months. When I was demobbed, they, I came back by sea. I had to go to a transit camp in Malaya and then came back by sea and it took a month! [Paper shuffling]
Nicola: A month’s cruise then.
GS: I came back on that!
HB: So that’s the, I’ve done it again, I’ve take them off.
GS: Can you spell that?
HB: The Johan van Barneveld.
GS: That’s it.
HB: Looks like bit like an ocean going cruise ship, doesn’t it!
GS: It was only about sixteen thousand ton!
HB: Oh, small!
Nicola: Dad, didn’t you see one of the little boats that you’d serviced, didn’t you see somewhere recently.
GS: Oh yes, I went to Henlow, you know, to the museum there. As you went in, to go in to the museum, on the front was an air sea rescue and the actual [emphasis] one that I sailed in when I was at Singapore.
HB: The same boat?
GS: The same boat, same number: 2528.
Nicola: You didn’t tell them though did you.
GS: No. I knew.
HB: Wow! That’s, so there was a group of you there, you obviously got on well, you know, and so you’d have had to take your leave while you were in Singapore, if you had leave.
GS: I don’t think we did. I was at Seletar, in Singapore. There’s the -
HB: Of course it’s got the flying boats, hasn’t it.
GS: Oh yes. There was a Sunderland. That’s a high speed launch, those sort of things.
HB: So these, this photograph album, we’re going to need to copy all this.
GS: Are you?
HB: There’s one you’d broken.
GS: Yeah, that’s a spit that crash landed. There I am again.
HB: Yes. We’re going to need to copy these I think, Geoff.
GS: These are the -
HB: They are the quarters.
GS: They are the quarters. The Japs had them before we, after, before we got there, first thing they do took all the doors off the bogs so you had no privacy at all. [Laugh]
HB: Ah, right. So, we’ve got you to Singapore, you’ve been on your high speed launches, I think what we’ll do, we’ll just have two minutes pause, right, in the interview, just while get our breath back and then we’ll come back to them. Right, we’ve switched back on, we’ve had a little bit of a break and Nicola, Geoff’s daughter’s just gone off to work, so we’ll just recommence the interview and so we’ve got to the demob in Singapore and all that business, but can we just take you back, back to your airfields, because at one point you did something a bit.
GS: When I was at Fulbeck, we moved from Fiskerton to Fulbeck and I was on duty crew and we had a Stirling bomber come in to be refuelled, and me, being completely new to Stirling bombers, went up in the cockpit, turned the fuel line which I thought was the one, an elephant’s trunk came down and deposit about a hundred gallon of fuel on to the tarmac. [Sigh] And we had a bomb happy, as we used to call them, flak happy, sergeant flight engineer, saw what I’d done, he came up, he said don’t worry about it, so I shoved this fuel line back up into the aircraft and screwed the cock on. I said what about all the fuel on the deck and he said don’t worry about it, so he started the engine up, which in itself was bad enough, it blew the fuel away cause we were way [emphasis] out on dispersal, miles from anywhere you could say, but when Stirling bombers with Hercules engines start up, flames come out, and if it, that bloody aircraft had gone up in bloody flames, so would I!
HB: Blimey! You’d have still been paying for it! Good grief Geoff!
GS: We were on dispersal which was about as far side of the airfield from the Headquarters from about a mile and a half away, this was near Newark, Fulbeck is quite near Newark, and that’s what happened and that was an incident. I told my daughter about it and she was amazed, and I got away with it.
HB: You must have had a few close shaves though.
GS: Oh yeah, I did. Flying the aircraft, we did land with one Lancaster, when we were, where were we? I think it was at Fiskerton, and the undercart folded up and it broke the Lanc up actually, broke the imagine what it did to the props and that.
HB: Was that landing on the main runway or did you get on the grass?
GS: On the main runway, we were going along the runway and the undercart, hydraulics, it just collapsed, and that was dead dodgy. I remember that., but apart from that.
HB: So where would you have been, when that happened, in the Lanc, where would you have been sat?
GS: Usually on the flight engineer’s place because, usually, the flight engineer nearly always went with the pilot on, what do they call it? Air test or fighter affiliation and [cough] that’s when that happened, the undercart folded up, just the one wheel. It did a lot of damage. Props of course went on the port side and that was it.
HB: You got away with that one as well.
GS: I got away with that one as well. But then, from that one as well. And then from then on I made sure I picked the time I went, flew, went on the air test. [Chuckle]
HB: Why was that?
GS: I was getting scared to be quite honest. Yeah. There was another incident we had, I’ve forgotten what it was now. Something to do with Lancasters, but normally was a wonderful aircraft, you know. We had several crews that did a full tour of ops at Fiskerton.
HB: Yeah. Did you, when you were at Fiskerton, did you always maintain the same aircraft or was it just parade in the morning and get one allocated?
GS: When I was servicing them in the hangar, which was called the maintenance hangar. Different aircraft came in to be serviced. Fifty hour service, hundred hour service, hundred and fifty and then a major, major, but when I was on the flight, when you’re on the B Flight, which I went out on, I had to do the flight and, and sign the Form 700 which was meant that you, they didn’t all [emphasis] say you come, you can come fly with me, that was preservation by the pilot, if I’m going to die you’re going to die with me sort of business!
HB: Good incentive to keep you up to speed.
GS: Up to scratch. Cause I can remember quite well, I serviced one Lancaster, I remember it even now, I was on the port engine which you had to get a, you had a big service ladder to get up to it, and I had to fill it, the Lancaster engine got an oil at the back, thirty six gallon, and I went up to check the height of it, put the cap on as I thought and came down, thought nothing of it. And then the regular B Flight mechanic, he said, “everything all right?” I said yeah, he said, “I put that filler cap on properly for you.”
HB: Ooh.
GS: And there’s another incident. I thanked him profusely, I obviously hadn’t locked it properly.
HB: Oh wow!
GS: That could have been trouble. If he’d gone up, flight, and the filler cap had come off -
HB: Difficult.
GS: And I didn’t go on flight affiliation as they called it. They’d have a Lanc going up on air test and they’d have a Spitfire or Hurricane doing aerobatics, simulating getting at the rear gunner. Well I went, I only went up once on that because for the only time, I was sick, sick as a dog and I thought bugger flight affiliation from now on!
HB: So fighter affiliation wasn’t one of your favourites!
GS: No it wasn’t!
HB: So this is when they practiced doing, did they call it corkscrew?
GS: That’s right.
HB: And you were in there when they did that.
GS: I was in the back, I was in the rear turret at the time. It was horrible.
HB: Right, so we’ve gone through, we’ve gone through the squadrons and you’ve gone to Singapore and you’re going to be demobbed and they’ve put you on the troop ship, in Malaya, how long did it take you to get home?
GS: One month. I can remember it ever so well. We went from Singapore to Ceylon as it was then, I’ve forgotten the name of the town, and from then on we flew, we sailed from Ceylon up the Red Sea to Port Said and then across the Med and it was four weeks, and of course all the, everybody’s being demobbed on board that ship, so I can’t remember any details.
HB: Was it, so it wasn’t like one big long, month long party then?
GS: Oh no, oh no. I slept on deck, everybody else was, well most of them, slept in hammocks. And I couldn’t get on in a hammock, so I slept on deck and that was it and I went to East Kirkby and was demobbed.
HB: So you landed back in England.
GS: Southampton.
HB: At Southampton, bunged you on a train.
GS: Train. Up to East Kirkby. Demobbed and I was a civilian.
HB: Did you get your suit?
GS: Yes. Got me suit, and a yellow tie. [Laugh] I remember that ever so well.
HB: Were you still a single man at this time, Geoff?
GS: Yes, oh yes. I was twenty one going on twenty two.
HB: But you’d met your wife before you went out to Singapore. Sorry, what was your wife called?
GS: Hazel.
HB: Hazel, right. So you met Hazel when you were in your uniform looking smart in the dance hall. So you’d obviously been writing, in the force.
GS: Yes. I was running two women at the time! [Laugh]
HB: Were you! Were you now!
GS: I got rid of the one.
HB: Ah right. Was that, that was another one back here was it?
GS: Yeah. They were both back here. I remember I had the two photographs on the side of me bed, on the side of me billet in Singapore, and I used to say to the bloke which do you think’s the best out of those two and they always pointed to Hazel, she’s the homely type they used to say.
HB: Oooh!
GS: And that was it, I married her. We were married sixty three years.
HB: That’s good.
GS: Good going isn’t it.
HB: It is, it is. So you came back to East Kirkby, you’ve been demobbed, back home to?
GS: Back with my father in engineering.
HB: Yep. That’s still in Erdington.
GS: Yeah, and then, that’s right, my dad sold his business moved down to Falmouth as a farmer which didn’t work out: you’ve got to be born into farming and he did ten years before he came back north again.
HB: So what did you do. I mean he went down there in 1950 did he, did you say?
GS: Yes.
HB: You’d stayed in till 47, hadn’t you?
GS: Yes.
HB: So, once he went down there what did you do, did you?
GS: I went. We’d got another, one of dad’s younger [emphasis] brothers, he was in the shoe trade, and I had the option then and I went into the shoe trade for three years. It wasn’t very pleasant because he wasn’t a very pleasant man to work for, so I stayed with him for three years then I went back into toolmaking. I worked for Cincinnati, the big American company, making milling machines and all that.
HB: You obviously enjoyed that.
GS: Yeah. Better it was, yeah.
HB: And that was you till, what, through to retirement I suppose.
GS: Yes, I suppose it was. No! I stayed in the tool making trade, I worked for a company just down there on the estate for twenty seven years.
HB: Wow!
GS: Tool making.
HB: So out of your, you know, I mean it was a difficult time, I mean the war had been running for three, nearly four years when you went in, when you actually got called up, and you’re living in Birmingham which was a big target.
GS: Oh, it was!
HB: So what was it, what, before you joined the RAF what it like living under this threat, really?
GS: Before I went into the RAF, well Birmingham was bombed quite badly, like Coventry. If they missed Coventry it was Birmingham, because all the car industry as you know, is in this area and we were a real target because at that time dad worked for Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory, which is just down there, making Spitfires, building Spitfires and he worked in the tool room there before he started on his own. That was quite a job.
HB: So where you were living at Erdington, I mean they had bombing in that area, didn’t they.
GS: Oh yes, quite a bit of bombing yeah. We were actually, there was only bombs locally, but none actually where I lived in Hollandy Road, there wan’t much. You’re going back seventy years now you know.
HB: That’s right.
GS: Trying to remember all these things.
HB: Yeah, I mean mum and dad obviously, you know, you’ve got your sister, yourself, you know, there’d be that worry wouldn’t there. What did you do in the evening? Did you ever do fire watching or anything like that?
GS: Yeah. When I was fourteen, when I left school, I was fire watching in the centre of Birmingham. I’d got a job, just a normal job in the, in tool making, er in the shoe industry and they got me fire watching. They gave me a stirrup pump and a bucket of water and go up on the top floor of this building and if they drop incendiaries: put ‘em out. Fourteen years old.
HB: Good grief!
GS: I remember that quite clearly.
HB: Did you leave school, cause obviously you’re at work then, at fourteen, did you leave school with any certificates?
GS: No, I didn’t get School Certificate. I left, I elected not to go to secondary school, which was from fourteen to sixteen, so I left at fourteen from the ordinary council school. I lived at Yardley then, on the south side of Birmingham.
HB: Right, right. Of all your time in the RAF, in Bomber Command Geoff, what do you think was your best time, what was your best bit of being in the RAF?
GS: Well, the activity when I was at Fiskerton. Oh yes, definitely. The fitter’s courses and flight mechanics courses was a chore. Just hard work it was really, but when I get, when I was at Fiskerton and also Fulbeck, and Waddington, which I was there. Waddington was the place to get to because it was an peace, it was an established squadron none of this nissen hut business or anything of that, and that was the place to go. But I wasn’t there long enough to appreciate it. It’s still there, isn’t it. I noticed that when I went to – yeah.
HB: So what, we’ve said that was something you enjoyed, was being busy, and you’ve got all your mates and whatnot, so what did you do, when you weren’t on leave, what did you do for entertainment when you were on the squadron?
GS: We used to go to the camp cinema and, thing I noticed mostly [emphasis] about the camp cinema, you went in there and you couldn’t see the screen for the smoke, cause everybody smoked at that time and I didn’t smoke and me eyes come out and they were watering permanently after that.
HB: Oh right. So that moves us on. What was, what do you think was the worst bit of your service?
GS: When I was at Holmesly South in the New Forest it was my twenty first birthday and I wanted a forty eight hour pass because me wife, me mother had got a big party organised for me. So I went to the SWO, Station Warrant Officer, and asked for a forty hour pass and he refused it. And I remember then I thought, when I get back into civvie street I’ll have you. [Laugh] Never did of course, but I remember it ever so well. He refused me a forty eight hour pass. He knew what it was for but didn’t show any compassion whatsoever.
HB: And what did you think after the war, when the war ended, what did you think the sort of feeling was about Bomber Command?
GS: [Sigh] Well, they lost so many men, in ’42 onwards to the, till D-Day, fifty five thousand men were killed, weren’t they. I, I thought that was absolutely terrible. All the aircrew, I got to knew them, when I was at Fiskerton, by name and they’d go on ops and didn’t come back. It was a horrible feeling all the while. Because at the time, when I was, now where was I, oh yes, at the end of my fitter’s course, yeah, you fixed for time, at, on the fitter’s course at Hen, Hendon, that’s right, near Bedford it is.
HB: Halford?
GS: Henlow, not Hendon, Henlow, near Bedford. I applied to go on a flight engineer’s course, which was accepted, at St Athan. I was posted and I got there: what have you come for? I said I’ve come to do an FE’s course. They said we don’t want any more, so they sent me back. Which was just as well because if I’d have done a flight engineer’s course, I’d have been there and gone on ops, I wouldn’t be here now, would I? There were so many casualties. I can remember one time we lost ninety eight aircraft one night, on ops. Lancasters, mostly.
HB: Hmm. That’s a lot of men.
GS: Well Lancaster aircraft, they’d only got, they’d got four guns in the rear turret, two on the upper turret and two in the front, but they were pathetic compared with German aircraft which had got canons. Twice the fire power. So that was the thing about Lancasters. But apart from that they had the biggest bombload, they could fly at twenty two thousand feet and none of the others couldn’t. If you had a relative that was on Halifaxes, they weren’t a patch on Lancasters, during the war. And Stirlings, they were a joke they were. The rear gunner in a Stirling his expectation of life was about a fortnight. [Whistle] It was awful, wasn’t it.
HB: Hmm. Yeah. So the, when, did you ever do any sort of like Cook’s Tours when you came back? You did?
GS: Yes, I did the one, over Germany. It was a revelation that was. When you flew at about ten thousand feet, something like that, and the debris, there was nothing left, of any of the towns. We didn’t fly over Berlin, but we did all the other ones.
HB: How did you feel about that?
GS: Terrible. You know, you thought why was this, all this necessary? That’s the way you looked at it, you know, because Nazis were the pigs, but an ordinary German, he was just another bloke to me. And that’s the way I feel about that.
HB: Difficult.
GS: Was difficult wan’t there. Is there anything I’ve missed on this?
HB: I was going to say do you want to have a look at your list Geoff, is there, see if we’ve covered what you want to talk about.
GS: [Pause] Karachi was the place I went to in India, on the west coast and then Calcutta on the east coast. Yes. I enjoyed me time when I was in the Air Training Corps 1940 to ’43. Fradley, Cosford. I did a week at Cosford in the Air Training Corps. Swinderby and Bovington. Bovington were, I’ve forgotten what aircraft they were. Twin engined, and I know that you had to wind the undercart up, ninety eight turns, I remember that because they hadn’t got hydraulic, retracting. Hinton in the Hedges was the place that really was a waste of time, with all those aircraft, all those, all those lorries and things. I can remember once, I had to go out on dispersal to bring, bring a lorry in for servicing and I got in it and started it up. I noticed it was in front wheel drive, so I moved out and it dropped on the deck – there was no back wheels on it! [laughter] I just got out and left it. So that’s another place I’d have, could have been a naughty boy! [cough]
HB: Perhaps you were as well you didn’t stay there that long!
GS: It was. Only there about a month. I got promotion while I was there. I remember ever so well. The sergeant, I was after me props, I’d got me one and I was after me LAC, and he asked a question. He said, “What do you know about errors of articulation?” Tell you, I remember this, and I said yes it was there, the Hercules, aircraft where the con rods were in a different position every stroke of the engine. “Good,” he said,” you’ve got that.” And that got me me props.
HB: Did it?
GS: Yes!
HB: So that made you a Leading Aircraftsman.
GS: Group One Leading Aircraftsman, which was quite good. But I should have got me tapes when I was doing the flight engineer’s course. But that was it.
HB: Well I think, it’s quarter past twelve, and I think we’ve sort of come to bit of a natural conclusion Geoff.
GS: Yes.
HB: So, I’m going to terminate the interview now while we just sort your photographs out and how we’re gonna handle them. I want to thank you, honestly, it’s been a really [emphasis] enjoyable interview. You said to me in the break, oh we’ve been all over the place. It doesn’t matter.
GS: It’s very disjointed.
HB: What you’ve told us is important, and it’s also interesting. And we’ll forget quietly about pushing the wrong button for the fuel for the Stirling! So thank you very much.
GS: Well, I wonder about that flight engineer, he was flak happy as they called it during the war. And the fact that we got away with it, I said to him afterwards, I said, what about if, we’d have had flames out the Hercules, we must have had some, but didn’t see them, well that would have been curtains, I said bloody will and I’ll have been with you!
HB: Oh dear! Right, well thanks ever so much Geoff.
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 Geoffrey Charles Spencer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Bartlett
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-01-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ASpencerGC190123, PSpencerGC1901
Description
An account of the resource
Geoffrey Spencer grew up in Birmingham and worked with his father in tool making, carrying out fire watching as a youngster. He joined the Air Force aged 18 in August 1943. After training he served as a flight mechanic and fitter with 49 Squadron at RAF Fiskerton and 189 Squadron at RAF Fulbeck. He worked in the maintenance hanger and on the flights and describes a crash landing in a Lancaster after an air test and an accident while refuelling a Stirling. He was posted to Singapore in 1945 serviced engines on high speed launches. He was de-mobbed in July 1947 and worked in the tool making industry in the UK until he retired.after the war.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Singapore
England--Bedfordshire
England--Birmingham
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
Format
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00:53:04 audio recording
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
189 Squadron
49 Squadron
bombing
civil defence
Cook’s tour
crash
demobilisation
entertainment
FIDO
fitter engine
flight mechanic
fuelling
ground crew
ground personnel
home front
Lancaster
love and romance
RAF Cardington
RAF Cosford
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Henlow
RAF Swinderby
Spitfire
Stirling
training
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1096/11555/ARichGW180417.1.mp3
1dfb5b93d5b8a4c1cd76f00dfc7569d9
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
Rich, Wilfred
W Rich
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Joe Rich (b. 1941). His father, Wilfred Rich (b. 1905) flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 103 Squadron and became a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-17
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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Rich, WD
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Other: Hang on-
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 17th of April 2018, and I’m in Hove with Gerry Rich, whose father, Wilfred Rich, was a mid-upper gunner in 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds. What were the original- What was the earliest information you have about your father? What his parents did and so on?
GR: That was as a child, I remember my father telling me that his father had been in the army and I seem to remember him telling me that he was a professor of music at the royal military school of music. I know that he was very much into music, my grandfather, because when he, when he finally passed away, he left my father a lot of books on all the great composers, you know, which, which my father was interested in. My grandmother was just an ordinary housewife, and they lived out their retirement years in Belgravia in London. That is, that is as much as I know-
CB: Yeah, yeah.
GR: -you know, about my grandparents.
CB: Ok.
GR: [Coughs] excuse me.
CB: And where was your father born?
GR: My father was born in Southsea in Hampshire, on the 3rd of January 1905.
CB: And what was, what was his father doing then?
GR: His father was in the army.
CB: He was in the army then as well?
GR: He was in the army then, yeah.
CB: Right, ok, and where did he go to school?
GR: Again, I'm not sure, but I’m just assuming that it was in Southsea, although obviously being in the army they travelled around quite a bit and he probably had various schools that he went to.
CB: Yeah.
GR: I mean in one period I know they were over in Ireland during the Irish rebellion in 1917 I think it was. So, he would’ve still been at school then. No- Yes, he would-
CB: No, he won’t, will he. Oh, yeah, he will, yes because he was born in 1905, yes, he’d be ten.
GR: He would’ve been still at school then, he was born in 1905. But again, I don’t, I don’t know.
CB: Ok.
GR: Literally don’t know.
CB: So, school leaving age in those days was fourteen, what did he- Did he leave school then do you think?
GR: Again, that is a complete, complete blank. I don’t know, I’ve got very little knowledge of his early life. I only know about his war years and, you know, various snippets of information.
CB: When did he join the RAF?
GR: He joined the RAF in January 1920, and he went to Cranwell as a boy, entered at fifteen, and he stayed there till around about 1927 when he left, and I believe came out of the air force, went into civilian life but trained as an air frame fitter and a rigger in- While he was at Cranwell I believe. But from 1927 onwards when he came out, again, my knowledge of what he did was, was very, very sketchy. He didn’t, he didn’t divulge a lot, you know.
CB: And when did he re-join?
GR: He re-joined in 1940.
CB: We’ll pause there for a mo.
GR: He went in- He re-joined the air force on the 20th of June 1940 at Cardington and then went to the 7- No 7 reception centre on the 23rd of June and on the 12th, I think it was, of July that year he went to No 9 school of tactical[?] training, stayed there until the- Round about the 22nd of November in 1940 again, where he joined 13th maintenance unit. Then on the 29th of October in 1941, he was posted to Iceland. Then- He was there until- I think it was about the 6th of March 1942 when he joined 56 Squadron, and on the 6th of August 1942 he’d been admitted into hospital at Ealing.
CB: Ely?
GR: Ely, I beg your pardon, Ely, and then discharged on the 17th of August ‘42 [unclear]. When he was discharged from hospital, he went to the AFDU, the air fighting development unit at Abbey Lodge and he went there on the 29th of November 1943 and then from there he went to 151, er 15 initial training wing where, his [chuckles] his love of being up in the air, which started when he was at Cranwell, when he was taken up in an Avro 504K and immediately fell in love with flying. That was rekindled, and then from there, on the 12th of February 1944 he went to No 1 air gunnery school and on the 30th of May ‘44, the operational training unit, and that was No 26 operational training unit. Right, so we started initial training wing.
CB: So, he’s in gunnery?
GR: Gunnery school, No 2 air gunnery school.
CB: So, he went to the operational training unit?
GR: Went to the operational training unit where, he knew he couldn’t be a pilot so- He still desperately wanted to fly so he decided to become a gunner and train for that.
CB: So, the operational training unit is before they go to the squadron.
GR: Right.
CB: We’ll just stop there a mo.
GR: Did I mention that before he went to the OTU?
CB: Yeah. So, we’re on the OTU, so what did he do at the OTU?
GR: At the OTU, he- They were- He was trained on Wellingtons and it’s where they were crewed up and that was carried out by placing all the aircrew’s, all the different roles, in a hanger and they managed to sort themselves out and form a crew. From there they went to the heavy conversion unit where they were trained on Lancasters, and from there they were posted- Or he was posted to 103 Squadron.
CB: When was that?
GR: That was in- On the 3rd of November 1944.
CB: Right, ok. So, what detail do you have about the operations they did?
GR: What, when he was shot down [unclear]?
CB: You’ve got a list of operations, haven’t you?
GR: Ah yes. He flew nineteen operations with 103 Squadron. The first one was on the 18th of November 1944, which is when ICOL[?] and the last one was on the 23rd of February 1945 Pforzheim where he was shot down and taken prisoner. And then he served the last months of the war out in a German prisoner of war camp and he was- He came back to this country in abut May 1945, I think.
CB: Good, and you’ve got a picture there, what’s that picture?
GR: The picture here is of him, taken at the German prisoner of war camp and-
CB: That’s part of his ID card?
GR: No, that’s-
CB: It’s not?
GR: That was taken by the German officials at the prisoner of war camp, with a number at the bottom, 11915, which I should imagine was his, his number which they gave him at the prisoner of war camp and as I say, he stayed there. He- A little story, while he was there, being very clever with his hands [coughs] excuse me- Being very clever with his hands, he made a telescopic toasting fork out of barbed wire which he managed to acquire from the fencing around the prison [chuckles] and, I don’t know what happened to it but it was quite something. A three pronged- Like a trident. Funnily enough, I remember us, after the war, using it to toast bread in front of the fire. But, as I say he was very clever with his hands having originally been an airframe fitter and a rigger and- He carried that, that skill right through his life.
CB: Yeah.
GR: He was always making things.
CB: What did he say about his experiences in the prisoner of war camp?
GR: Very little, if nothing at all. He did mention the fact that there was a separate compound in the prisoner of war camp for Russian prisoners who were treated very badly. There was no love lost between the Germans and the Russians, you know, especially the military personnel and he said they were treated really badly. But, apart from that he didn’t say anything, you know, didn’t say how he was treated whether it was badly or good or- I do remember him telling me that after he was shot down, he, he managed- He landed in Pforzheim, right in the centre while the air raid was going on, and he was caught by the local authorities, the local police or something, and handed over to the military and they made him stand in the town square while they covered him with fire arms from a safe point. I remember him saying that that was a very uncomfortable experience, and then they, they took him to a Luftwaffe base, where he was treated really well and he was interviewed by a German- A Luftwaffe officer who asked the normal questions, where are you based? What aircraft? You know, how many there? And etcetera. But he said, ‘All I can give is my name rank and number’, and he gave him his name, rank and number and the chap who spoke perfect English, and apparently was educated at Oxford said, ‘That’s alright old chap, no problem at all’.
CB: [Chuckles]
GR: And, before he left, because apparently they were marched down to the prison camp and I think he was saying it took about three days to march, and they gave them a slap-up meal at the Luftwaffe base before they went, which quite amazed him actually after what they’d done, you know, and after that obviously forgiven, as they used to say, ‘The war was over’, you know, and then he was repatriated in, in May and that was his war as experienced in the air force and of course he come out into civilian life then.
CB: Was the camp a Luftwaffe, a Stalag Luft camp or was it plain Stalag?
GR: Stalag Luft, it was a Stalag Luft. No, Stalag Luft, I think. Seem to remember him saying that.
CB: Right.
GR: But I couldn’t- I did try and chase it up online and talking to various people but I couldn’t, and the web master and the editor of the magazine up at Elsham, Keith McCray, he said that that’s often the case because as the allies advanced through Germany, when they came across, across a prisoner of war camp, the German authorities would destroy all records. So that’s probably how.
CB: Mhmm.
GR: Or the main reason why we don’t know where he was.
CB: How did he get out of the camp?
GR: He was repatriated by the Americans I believe, who were advancing through that part of Germany, and he got out that way and eventually got back to the UK and, as I say, demobbed in May. Although, it wasn’t May actually, he got back in May and I think it was later in the year that he was demobbed and I can’t remember exactly when.
CB: What about the conditions in the camp, any idea?
GR: No, again he didn’t say, he didn’t talk about it, so I’ve no idea what the conditions were like. I should imagine they were pretty uncomfortable, but I just don’t know for sure.
CB: OK, we’ll stop there for a mo. When did you say he was demobbed?
GR: I think it must’ve been-
CB: Does it say there? I imagine they demobbed him quite quickly. Do you know how he got back? Did they fly him back? See where I am, near Aylesbury is Westcott. Now, Westcott and Oakley (the nearby airfield) received between them fifty-four-thousand POW’s, flown in by aircraft. It would be interesting to know whether he came in that way.
GR: Again, that, that- It’s a blank, I don’t know.
CB: Yeah, it doesn't matter.
GR: I don’t know.
CB: But he was demobbed in ‘45 was it?
GR: In ‘45 yeah.
CB: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
CB: They tended to demob there prisoners first because of the conditions they’d been in.
GR: Yeah, it looks as though it might’ve been August 1945 he was demobbed.
CB: Ok. Now, what do you know about what he did when he left the RAF? Did he immediately go into something, or what happened? Did the family- Before, I'm not, I'm not rolling it yet.
GR: I, I was still very young so I don’t really know. I know that he was in the catering industry, hotels and that, and they got an idea, went back into that. But we, we were living in North [coughs] pardon me. We were living in Northampton at the time, and we moved down to London so he could find work.
CB: Yeah.
GR: But he was away quite a bit, so I should imagine he got a job which necessitated him being away from home.
CB: Mhmm, was the whole, the whole of his life after the war, was in catering, was it?
GR: Yeah, he, he, he didn’t have a career as such
CB: Ok, let’s- We might as well get this. So you were born in the war? Where, where-
GR: I was born in [unclear]
CB: In ‘41.
GR: I was born in 1941 in Northampton.
CB: Where were you and your mother living during the war?
GR: Northampton.
CB: Right, why was that? What was the significance of Northampton?
GR: I don’t know, I don’t know [chuckles] quite honestly. We- It’s where we were, I’ve got, I’ve got a recollection of bombers flying over Northampton where, you know, we heard them where we were living and the sirens went off and my mother grabbing me and diving under the kitchen table [laughs], you know, for protection, although that wouldn't've given us much protection but, we did- Before we moved down to London, we went to my mother’s family, in a village called Flitwick in Bedfordshire, near Ampthill, and we stayed there for some time, until my father was demobbed, and then we all moved down to London.
CB: So, when he was demobbed, what job did he do?
GR: He went- He didn’t go back to his old job, so I think he just looked for a new job in catering, you know, somewhere down south, because he did work in the Northampton area before when he was in the hotel catering sort of line but, again, my, my knowledge is very, very sketchy. Simply because he didn’t tell me and I was too young to cotton on, you know, to what was happening.
CB: And what age did he retire?
GR: He retired at sixty-five
CB: Right
GR: But unfortunately, he died at seventy-three in 1978.
CB: Right.
GR: But I think- Looking back, I think the war took a lot out of him and it really knocked him for six, you know, as it did a lot of aircrew that survived, and I was never really close to my father. So, he didn’t confide in people much, he used to play his cards very close to his chest, you know, so- And that, that’s about all I can say, you know.
CB: How much do you think your mother knew about what he’d been doing, in the war?
GR: [Sighs] I don’t know what he told her. I, I should imagine she knew quite a bit. She knew- She must’ve realised what flying a bomber over Germany, you know, was all about and the risks involved.
CB: Well, he was quite an old man as far as- In terms of air force ages ‘cause he was forty when he was shot down.
GR: That’s right.
CB: Next day. So- Do you know what the reaction of the crew was to the difference in age?
GR: Well, I know the pilot- The pilot, Cliff Hart, was Australian, was in Royal Australian Air Force, and so was the- I think the wireless operator Angus- Trying to think of his name now. Angus McGrath, he was Australian, and they unfortunately both died when the aircraft was shot down.
CB: How many survivors were there in the-
GR: Pardon?
CB: How many survivors were there from-
GR: Five, there were five survivors.
CB: Right. But they were, they were both killed those two?
GR: They were both killed, they went down with the aircraft, but they never actually found the spot where they went down.
CB: Ok, stop there. The early parts you spoke of then, your father had been on a charge for doing something with his motorbike, what was that?
GR: Ah yeah, he, he was fined a pound for riding a motorcycle without lights on, and also, a short while afterwards he was fined three pounds for riding a motorcycle without a license [chuckles] so, he could be a bit of a bad boy at times.
CB: This is in the early days of him being in the RAF?
GR: That’s right, yeah. That was when he was quite young.
CB: Yeah, where was that?
GR: I believe, I think it was Biggleswade
CB: Right
GR: Mentioned Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, so- And I remember when he was in- He was based in Norfolk in the early part of the war, I think it was a place called Matlaske, Matlaske? But anyway, he was based in Norfolk and he was fined fifteen shillings for riding a bicycle [chuckles] without lights, so- He had his tanner[?] for breaking the road traffic laws.
CB: Yeah
GR: But, apart from that, I know very little about what-
CB: Did your mother ever talk about- To you, about what your father did in the war?
GR: No, never
CB: Did you ever ask her?
GR: No, I was too young at the time, remember I was born in-
CB: I’m thinking later years?
GR: Later years? No, no. No. He kept quiet, so I just didn’t ask, you know, it wasn’t a question of, ‘What did you do in the war Daddy?’, you know, it was, it was accepted that we don’t talk about it.
CB: Yeah
GR: And I think, one offshoot which I didn’t mention before was that my sister, went into the women’s air force for a short while, and I think that’s because my father was, was in the air force himself, I think that had a lot to do with her going in.
CB: You’ve got quite an interesting bunch of pictures there, and cards. What are they?
GR: These are all postcard size pictures which somehow my father had taken when he was a prisoner, or just after and they’re various pictures of the war from a German point of view, actual photographs I think taken, some of the Russian army, others of damage caused by the conflict, a couple of them are hand drawn coloured postcards which are obviously propaganda material but, I've no idea how he came to have them, no idea whatsoever, but they were in his [unclear] when he died, plus there was a Christmas dinner menu from 1941 at the RAF station Reykjavík in Iceland, which has been signed by quite a few people that he obviously knew when they were there, from various parts of the country. Also, another Christmas menu from RAF Bridlington, Christmas Day 1943 and a telegram, which my mother received from Elsham Wolds telling her that, and I quote, informing her that her husband, ‘Wilfred Dudley Rich is reported missing from operation on the night of the 23rd/24th of February 1945, letter follows immediately’, stop, ‘Any other information received will be communicated to you immediately’, stop, ‘Pending receipt of written notification from air ministry, no information should be given to the press’, and that was the telegram she received. Also, I have a ticket here issued by RAF personnel, third class return from Northampton to Stamford and Stamford back to Northampton, and that was dated the 7th of September 1943.
CB: What was the significance of going to Stamford, do you know?
GR: I haven’t the vaguest idea. Lincolnshire-
CB: Yeah
GR: I don’t know what was at Stamford
CB: Yeah
GR: He was stationed at Elsham Wolds and they used to go to Barnaby, Barnaby the Wald which is a station which is no longer there now, and also I have his national registration identity card, which shows his whereabouts, addresses- Various addresses he lived at, and stamps, the first one was issued ’45. This must’ve been after he came out of services. ‘Cause they’re stamped ’45 and ’46.
CB: Ok
GR: And the rest, the rest of his affects are on display in the memorial room at Elsham Wolds
CB: Which is the squadron base?
GR: That- Which is the old squadron base.
CB: 103 Squadron
GR: It’s on the corner of the old aerodrome
CB: Is it, yeah. What have they got? An old Nissen hut? Or, what’s it in?
GR: No, the- Anglian Water treatment works are there and they’ve allocated a room for the association where they can display all their memorabilia and- You know, information about people who served there and [unclear] very interesting.
CB: What sort of stuff does it have in it?
GR: It’s got countless stuff, old stuff from Lancaster bombers, it’s got the instrument panel from a Lancaster in there, got various parts of the mechanics on a Lancaster, various uniforms, records of people that served there, lots of memorabilia, you know, information about people who served there and died, you know, were killed on operations. It is very interesting, and right next door to it they’ve got a memorial guard to 103 Squadron and 576 Squadron who were both based there.
CB: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Gerald Rich
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
2018-04-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ARichGW180417
Format
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00:30:10 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Gerald’s father, Wilfred, joined the Royal Air Force in January 1920 and stayed until about 1927 training as an aircraft fitter. He re-joined in June 1940 at RAF Cardington. In 1944, upon completion of training, he went to No. 1 Air Gunnery School and three months later to No 26 Operational Training Unit working on Wellingtons and crewing up. From there they went to the Heavy Conversion Unit training on Lancasters before joining 103 Squadron on at RAF Elsham Wolds on 3 November 1944. Wilfred flew 19 operations. He was shot down in February 1945, aged 40, being one of the five survivors. He served out the rest of the war in a German prisoner of war camp and was repatriated in about May 1945 and demobbed some months later. Gerald believes his father went back into the catering industry, retiring at the age of 65. He died aged 73 in 1978.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Tilly Foster
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Pforzheim
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1920
1927
1940-06
1941
1942
1943
1944-11-03
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-05
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
103 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
crewing up
Lancaster
prisoner of war
RAF Cardington
RAF Elsham Wolds
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/832/10823/PGardnerHS1701.1.jpg
f02b7da4e2822a666278417321f431bc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/832/10823/AGardnerHS171101.2.mp3
260ed726b523710ad64342a7d84b1015
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
Gardner, Harold Stanley
H S Gardner
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Harold Gardner (1923 - 2022, 1801381, 2606144 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 106 and 189 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-01
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
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Gardner, HS
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is David Meanwell. The interviewee is Hal Gardner. The interview is taking place at Mr Gardner’s home in Saltdean, Sussex on the 1st of May 2017. Hal, could you say a bit about where you were born and your early life?
[recording paused]
DM: I’ll just make a correction to the date we are recording. It’s the 1st of November 2017. Thank you. Ok Hal, so if you could talk a bit about your, where you were born and growing up.
HG: I was born in Brighton. I’m a Brightonian and my father got a house after we’d had a flat initially because my mother, we, I had a sister of course a bit younger than myself and we started living in Brighton at Bevendean. Initially I went to school at St John’s School in Brighton until I was about eleven and then I sat the Eleven Plus Examination. Didn’t quite make the Grammar School but I had to sit again and I was an in between person and they put me in to the Brighton Intermediate School close to St Peter’s Church. That was my starting back to school. A very good school. I learned quite a lot. Good masters, good school and I progressed up to about fourteen when suddenly when I was on holiday, my father was in the Brighton and Hove General Worthing Gas Company in those days said he wanted to get me in to the Gas Company. And I had a few tears. I said, but I was fourteen then I wanted to be in the bank. He said, ‘Well, I think this is going to be what I think for you.’ And he, what he basically, sent me right from Hampshire on a coach on my own to sit this examination in Brighton and which I passed with a lot of other guys and I think there was about twenty at the time. And I was taken as an apprentice on Brighton and Hove And Worthing Gas Company in 1937. I wasn’t happy in the circumstances because I didn’t want to be in the Gas Company. But however, I got on with it and we were taught the trade, suppliers of gas, of how to make pipes fitted. How to make metres fitted. All the things you would know and I progressed from them up ‘til when I was about seventeen going with a skilled fitter to learn the trade. At seventeen I was called suddenly for no reason. I still do not know the reason. I was called by the, Ray Hanson, technical manager and he said, in his office, he said, ‘Gardner,’ he says, ‘We’re going to put you in the showroom.’ Now if you think that was around about 1940 just about the war time I couldn’t understand why they picked me because there was about fifteen all doing the same trade. Why they wanted me to go in the showroom. Never answered that unless they thought perhaps I was smarter I don’t know. Anyway, I was put in this showroom at Church Street which is still there these days although it’s a café now. And I went there first and when I got there I was quite surprised because apart from me in the showroom there were other more senior men and that was for selling gas cookers, selling gas fires. It was a totally different thing than I ever thought about. Anyway, I progressed quite well in there and I liked it. And suddenly of course about that year 1940 which was, that was in, we had the Battle of Britain then if I remember and what happened then was the government abandoned the Air Defence Cadet Corps and brought in the Air Training Corps that year I think. So I knew I was getting that I was seventeen that I probably would want to be called up because I was in Brighton and could see all the Spitfires. And that was with a lot of other guys. We just wanted, we thought this is something we could do. Fly a Spitfire. And so I had two, a couple of months I think in the Air Cadets and then I volunteered for training in the Royal Air Force. Now, to fly in the Royal Air Force in those days you had to volunteer. You could not be called up. So, I mean we were all or the ones that also went along we were all excited. What we were all thinking, so many of the lads of my age then thought yeah, a Spitfire. I mean it’s still a wonderful aircraft. And so we, we, you know we were accepted on the Air Force as air crew on a PNB scheme which is a pilot, navigator, bomb aimer scheme and I think it was, let me see I was eighteen. I think about 1941 I was called up and went to St John’s Wood in London with a lot of other Air Cadets and there we had basic training. One of the first thing I noticed too was in their uniform, in their glengarry hats we had a white flash which denoted that we were aircrew and had volunteered. So, of course it gave us a bit of an uplift of that and we thought we were the cats whiskers you know. Anyway, so I went then and got basic training in London. Sent to ITW, Initial Training Wing in Newquay and learned all the basics of navigation. A bit about flying. A bit about all aspects of the Air Force and as we were going to be aircrew the ones that were going to be pilots or wanted to be pilots were sent to Sywell in Nottingham after we’d passed the exams in Newquay. And we all did about one trip I think in a Tiger Moth and from that very trip they then sent me back to Manchester. Heaton Park where there was hundreds of air crew. All of us waiting to be posted somewhere for flying. Either in Canada or in South Africa. Those were the two main things. I was given the chance and went to Canada. And we were sent to Glasgow and got on a ship there. That was Queen Elizabeth Two. No. When is, that can’t be the Queen Elizabeth. I think the Queen Mary. It was the biggest ship in those times and there was about six of us in the cabin. We thought we were great then because going across to Canada in that escorted by Spitfires I mean we were quite happy. And then we got to Canada just about Christmas. On December the 19th 1942 that would be. December ’42. We got to Canada but we started actually in Canada in to the New Year of ’43 so really started operating as a Cadet about, I think it was January ’43 in a place called Bowden near Calgary. I spent about three months there flying like with the other chaps. I could take off and land with a, with an instructor with me but I just couldn’t get the feel of the aircraft. I mean if you learned to drive you know and you’re on the ground and you want to stop, you want to do something and change you would stop but of course when you’re flying you’ve got to think of exactly what you were doing. It wasn’t me and I had to check with the chief flying instructor who said, ‘Look —’ He said, ‘Well, you’re not doing too bad.’ So I said, ‘What options have I got?’ He said, ‘Well, you got either navigator or bombardier.’ So I said, ‘I think I’ll take a navigator.’ Now, having said this I was still green. I really didn’t know what the syllabus was until I was posted to an Air Observer’s School in Edmonton, Canada. A very nice place run by the Canadians and met another, a lot of Englishmen and we were on a course for flying. Hadn’t been in there long when I fell, we were playing basketball and I fell and broke a wrist and that put me back and I couldn’t get back to that same course. So they put me on to a course of Australians and New Zealanders. I couldn’t have done better. They were a great bunch. I like the Australians and New Zealanders. Anyway, I I worked on that particular course with them until we’d done enough training and enough ground work and enough flying and then we had the exams and I did quite well. I had about eight, I’ve got my logbook, I did eighty percent on ground work and seventy three percent on flying. Now, why I say that is because when all those courses went, were finalised two got commissions in each course. As a parallel course with ours the Australians and the New Zealanders there was a Canadian course and everything, everybody got seventy percent and they got, they got commissioned. And I was upset in a way because I didn’t get it purely because on my course there were two Australian officers who were ground staff and had transferred to flying and their, their marks were below us. Below mine. However, because of the way the situation was I didn’t get one. We already got two commissioned so I was disappointed. Anyway, forget that. I got on with the job and it was a difficult job. One I’d never, I mean I didn’t have the schooling perhaps than a lot of others. I wasn’t Grammar School and I wasn’t university but I worked hard and it was, it was a wonderful position. It was demanding, interesting. And of course, I come back. I graduated as you can see me there. Directly I got to this country I was posted to Dumfries to fly Anson aircraft as a navigator in this country and get used to some of the weather conditions we would, I would expect in flying in this country. I had a week there and then after that I was posted to I think it was initial, I think it was an OTU, no. Not an OTU. Let me see. I can’t quite remember what that was. Anyway, it was a group where we met all other categories. We met pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, air gunners, wireless operators and we were all put in a big hangar style of place and we had to choose our own crews. Now, we were all amazed and I understand it went through for a long time this way. You know, we’re sitting around. We’re all looking and thinking how do we do this as pilots? And people went from one to the other. ‘Have you got a pilot?’ ‘Have you got a navigator?’ ‘Have you got a bomb aimer?’ Have you got this? Anyway, an Australian, strangely enough came to me. Not the one that I’d been training with and he said, ‘Would you, have you got a pilot?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Would you like to come with me?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ Quite happy because I’ve also got, I’ve also got an Australian wireless operator.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s great.’ Anyway, we picked up, we picked up a Scottish bombardier and we picked up a Welsh rear gunner and another man and we became a crew and that’s how it was done. The whole situation, all these dozens of aircrew got their categories, got their brevies etcetera and we had to make our own and it worked marvellous. Very few of the core, the crews that formulated themselves because I’ve spoken to obviously veterans over the years since and nearly everybody was satisfied. Occasionally an odd one had to be changed though for whatever reason. I don’t know. So there we were. We got through and we were then a crew. We were then posted to an Operational Training Unit and I think that was Bruntingthorpe in Leicester as a crew. And there we picked up, we started flying together on Wellingtons which is, which is a twin engine aircraft which was quite famous in those days. A Wellington was a very good aircraft. They were well constructed. We were quite happy and we were sent off from there. I’ve got them in the book how many, any flights we had flying around England in the dark. And let’s be certain of that. England was in the dark. Oh, you saw a few lights here and there but nothing like when you get up in an airport these days when you can’t see the airport for lights and when you get up there you can see the next place you’re going to almost. So that was up to me being a navigator. And of course, the other crew go through their motions and what they had to do. Those early days of course it was really a navigator and pilot had to work very closely. Anyway, after a certain number of trips our pilot was checked and we went on then to a four engine aircraft which was a Stirling because we had to then pick up an engineer. They gave us an engineer. We didn’t pick him ourselves. And he came to us as our skipper had to learn more about the four-engine aircraft and we all did our, I mean I as navigator and the rest of the crew went with him and we did so many hours then until he was proficient and the, and the engineer was proficient. And we were then sent on to what was called then an LFS. A Lanc Finishing School. And I think, I’m trying to think where that was. Lanc Finishing School. It’s probably in my diary. We can look at that later on. And there it was all to do with the pilot learning the Lancaster which of course we had heard about and of course, and as we know from now and we did after a while it was the best aircraft going at the time. But it was just one of those, it was another aircraft and we, we all did our turn in that and whatever we were doing as navigator. The others of course although they appeared to be solitary there was so much for them to do in their jobs when they, when we were on operations. It was a crew effort. So that, we ended Lanc Finishing School and then the first thing we, then when we were all ready we were posted to 106 Squadron, Metheringham. And that’s when I started my operations.
DM: So, can you remember roughly when that was?
HG: Yes.
DM: What year at least?
HG: Shall I get my logbook out?
[recording paused]
HG: 106.
DM: Right so —
HG: At Metheringham.
DM: So you arrived at Metheringham, February ’45.
HG: ’45, yeah.
DM: On 106 Squadron.
HG: That’s it. Yes.
DM: Ok. And what happened then?
HG: Well, it was a question of they were going through all of the things they needed to do before they sent you on operation. What we basically did was, initially was a radar cross country for me specifically I think, as navigator. And then we had formation flying in March. Then we had practice bombing in March. And then we had our first operation on the 5th of March ’45 to Bohlem. B O H L E M. Bohlem Oil Refinery in Germany. On the 6th of March, the next day, ’45 we went to Sassnitz, in the Baltic to attack shipping. On the 7th of March ’45 we were in Harburg. We went to Harburg which was south of Hamburg and that was for an oil refinery. And all those were night trips. All of them were night trips to start with.
DM: Do you have any memories of the first trip? Any impressions of how it felt and what your feelings were?
HG: Well, I think I was, let me start with the Bohlem. I had a problem when we started flying. I’d better go back to [pause] let’s start before we start flying. What happened in all squadrons there was, you were called to a briefing room probably about mid-day when all the crews were assembled in the briefing room. And then you got on the platform there would be a big board and there would be a map and there would be a curtain across it you see. And then the CO or whoever was going to give the briefing, and also the Met officer and the navigator, senior navigation officer would come on and then they’d pull the sheet apart and there would be the lines going to, the tracks going to the places we were going to bomb and either the experienced men would say, ‘Oh, that’s not bad.’ Or, ‘God,’ you know. This sort of action you know. And being new we just had to sit and watch. Now, in those briefing things on 106 Squadron if you’re going from one place to another and altering courses to get to this place in Germany or wherever we’re going it needed the tracks. The tracks between one place or another before you, there was a track here and a track there. Alteration course. Normally in, we understood that the navigator would have to draw it all out and work it all out. However, that’s, that particular squadron the senior officer, navigation officer did all the plot, all the plotting, the initial ones of where we were supposed to go and we all had the same. From my memory we all had the same navigation log to start with. So in other words we always, if we’d have all done it individually we’d have had similar answers but to me it was so obvious that if we got one person who was doing it and that was the senior man we all started on the basis line. So anyway, so we got our logs all ready and they started talking about the Met that was going this, that and the other and what possibly we might meet with. Certain parts of Germany with ack ack or fighters and all the other information that one would get. And then after that we would go back and have breakfast or whatever you would like to call it. Tea. We had something to eat. And then that would start in the afternoon about two and after we’d had something to eat we’d get out to the, and of course it would be dark. As you know it was dark because it was, it was February and March. We would then be taken out by, we’d get our parachute harness, our parachute. We’d take them with us and of course with the navigator he had a green bag and all our stuff was in the green bag. That’s the stuff we had to work the navigation out on. And we’d be taken out to the aircraft, wherever, in the dark and of course everything was dark and we would wait by the aircraft for a certain time and the pilot would say, ‘Let’s get in there.’ We’d get in and everybody would start. I think it was the port engine, directly we got in the port engine because that’s the other equipment in the aircraft especially for the navigator. You would start checking. Now that, we would then have a special time for getting or going ready for going around the runway. Getting around the rest of the aerodrome to the runway we were going to take off with and we’d all be waiting anything up to about fifteen aircraft all loaded with high explosives and other bombs etcetera with us. And we’d get around and I think we were probably something like about six or seven in front of us and what was happening on the runway that’s in use, the one we’re going on there would be a caravan and an officer. A lit up caravan and an officer there to let each aircraft go. He’d flash his green light. So we should go off one at a time. Now if I say we’d go off I’d better explain that when you got ready to take off what would happen is the engineer would open up the throttles against the brakes of the, the pilot would have his foot on the brakes and on the steering columns and then the, when he was given the ok the engineer would push, push the, all the throttles open and the pilot would take command then with, with his [pause] with his [pause] —
DM: Control.
HG: Controls.
DM: The steering wheel. Control.
HG: Controls. Yes.
DM: Yes.
HG: Anyway, what then? Then the navigator helps. We did our laps. We helped the pilot. What I used to do was to read the, on my where I was sitting I had an air speed indicator and I could read the airspeed off for him so he didn’t. He got all his attention on taking off and I’d read the airspeed going from say about sixty, sixty five, seventy, eighty, eighty five and ninety, ninety five and Roy my pilot said, he didn’t say, by the way I was called Stan in the Air Force. I’ll tell you that in a moment and he’d say, ‘Stan, it’s ok now.’ And we’d take off around about a hundred. A hundred miles per hour on the, on the air speed indicator. Now, you take off in the dark and from that time onwards you virtually don’t see anybody. You’re working on your, on your chart and also your log. Everything you’ve got down. You start off with, everybody starts on the same course but of course slightly different times because of taking off. And you’d climb to a certain premeditated height which probably from memory is around about eighteen thousand feet. We didn’t, we didn’t fly any lower than that from memory. I think we had been up to nearly twenty thousand. About eighteen thousand from my memory seems to be the operations that we did anyway. And then you would go through and of course what happens then each navigator is responsible apart from the initial stuff that we all had to start with. You then, you’re hitting winds and things and of course the aircraft gets off the course a bit. And what you, the navigator is doing all the time is checking. Checking the course by, what we had was a Gee box to get fixes. Now, I’ll explain the Gee box. Basically, it was, as far as I remember it was probably it was a round green, a green [pause]
DM: Screen.
HG: Screen. A green screen with two datum lines in white going across this and on the top, I think it was two on the top, or one at the top was a station, two at the bottom, they were British stations broadcasting. No, no figures on that. Nothing. Just the screen. As you know of course I mean we hadn’t seen screens before and there was no televisions or anything and they’re the sort of screens we get now but there were screens and these two datum lines and points were where the British stations were broadcasting. They would send their signals. Now, to get a fix on that quite from memory first of all you had to use a switch and then those, those things would vanish and then you would get two blips, I think from memory on, on the lines away from each other. You’d use another switch. Got the blips together like that. Push the switch and that gave you a fix. Still no numbers. Nothing on it. Just the figures. The movements of these little things on the screen. Then to get the fix you pushed another switch and you’d go on then to another datum point. We had a line going like that and then one there, one there, one there and another big one there, one there and the same on the bottom. But on part of that there would be another small thing marked and that small thing told the navigator because you knew what all those figures were going through there because otherwise the Germans would know them. If they put them through they’d have broadcast the job. So we had to know what these figures were. Well, once we got to the end of this scene we had about four figures and we had then to go to, not the plotting chart but another chart that was all over England and the continent with lines going all like that way and all around this way and that way. And you had to find the figures you’d worked out on this screen on that particular map which gave you then a latitude and longitude which you then transferred on to your plotting chart which gave you a fix. And that fix was relative to the track you were supposed to be making this certain, this try. And you might be lucky and right on it but generally speaking it was a little off that and you checked again five or ten minutes later. You had to keep on checking, working these things out all the time to see that what you’re, that what you’re getting by radio is matching what you’ve already drawn in. And occasionally of course winds change and you’d find suddenly while these fixes you’re given are more or less parallel with your track suddenly you see one go out and you know full well then you’ve got to change your wind. Anyway, so you saw that and then you went back on and got to go back all through to get another fix to see where that is. And from that fix you then had to work out the new wind. A wind direction. And I’m not quite certain now [laughs] I used, we had a Dalton computer and from memory we drew things on this plastic thing and, and moved the slide around. Things like that. I can’t really remember exactly how I did that but anyway we got, we then got another check on that, on that wind and on the course we were, on the course we were flying. We had to alter then to make good that original line which was the track. We had to alter course to that once we worked something else out and we’d give that to the pilot. I can’t remember saying, ‘Navigator to pilot,’ which was always the thing we should do. I think, I think we called each other Christian names basically. You know, it was Roy. I mean we were perfectly happy with that. And so we flew then and very rarely did we see, occasionally you saw if someone went down in flames. You might have have seen something but and you would note it in your log but we didn’t see much I must admit. I don’t think we had initially any air attacks. However, we did go out and get through a lot of flak. There was a lot of flak and when that happened all I could remember was that it used to come up, it used to come up slow and then when going past the aircraft you just can’t believe it. It’s gone like that. And so all the time you’re getting nearer to the target and you may have had, apart from the first track you were doing and keeping log on, your course on that. Then you would get another movement to alter course to get towards the target. Perhaps a short one or another short one just to get into the target. So there was quite a lot of alterations of courses which the navigator has to deal with with the pilot. And so the navigator is busy all the time which I was grateful. I must admit I’d never done navigation before and it was, it was difficult. It was. But it was interesting, it was because when you work these things out and they, and most of them that you worked out were pretty reasonably accurate you realise you’d done a good job. And all the trips I had with the, with my crew touch wood we didn’t get lost and it was all in the dark and we come back that way. When we reached the target my state of operations of course things had changed in the way the some of the bombings were taken. We had what was called a master bomber. Bomb aimer, and he would be a very good crew and he’d be flying lower than us and he’d have to direct the aircraft coming in on to certain flares that may be dropping from other aircraft. ‘Bomb on the green flares,’ or something like that. Or other factors came into that which he’d give instructions to the pilot as to what they should do and what they shouldn’t do. And then sometimes at the end he may have, may say to you, ‘Main stream finish. Stop bombing and return home.’ Or something like this and then you, you’d find all your tracks going and the tracks coming back weren’t the same. You had to go a different way so you couldn’t, well I wouldn’t say you couldn’t, you couldn’t cheat anyway with navigation. You’ve got to do each one as you come. And then you get back after an operation and there again we were lucky, of course. One or two didn’t come back but when we got back to the aerodrome, also when you think that we’re it’s an aerodrome in a field in Lincolnshire and all these others coming back. We get back and find if we were, if we were perhaps about on time we’d give instructions to the pilot. You get the instructions to land. On the other hand if we were perhaps a bit late and perhaps you were a new crew we’d be given instruction from the, the control tower. I think our aircraft was M for Mabel. Mabel. I think we had some other name for it. Anyway, you would fly Angels 9 and so we had to keep up at nine thousand feet going around in circle to there and we were given a number until our number was called so we would go in and land. That’s how they got rid of so many aircraft coming. They couldn’t all come in at one time. And that was the end of an operation and from then onwards obviously we were picked up in the aerodrome and taken to debriefing with intelligence officers. And I can always remember that because we’d get a drink of coffee or whatever it was and cigarettes. Well, of course all the boys go. I didn’t smoke. Someone else. I took them for somebody else. No. I never smoked. I didn’t like smoking. I never did. That was great. And so that was the end of one operation. So we’ll have a breather?
DM: So up ‘til now I think I’m right in saying your operations had been at night but you then started to do some daylight raids. What was the first one of those?
HG: Well, the first one I’ve got in there is the Essen raid which was an extremely big raid. We did, we didn’t really know that until we got there because I’ve got it here marked one thousand. But as we’ve seen from the, there was, there was actually one thousand and seventy nine aircraft which was the biggest one, a thousand bomber raids in the war. But the point was that there had been thousand bomber raids way back in ’62. This was the biggest one.
DM: ’42. Back in ’42.
HG: ’42. Yes. What did I say?
DM: ’62.
HG: Yeah. ’42. There had been thousand but then they weren’t using necessarily bomber squadrons. They were using OTUs, Operational Training Units to make them up. When Bomber Harris decided he’d have a thousand bomber raid he had to, had to scrape the aircraft from all over the country. But these other, this last one of course there were seven hundred and fifty Lancasters, two ninety three Halifaxes and thirty six Mosquitoes of all bomber groups. This was the largest number of aircraft sent to a target so far in the war. Three Lancasters were lost. We lost three on that raid. I remember in particular I think one of our squadron got, he didn’t get shot down, I think that’s when I saw one from there, the gunner, the rear gunner a big cookie which was a tremendous big explosive bomb dropped from above and knocked off. I think knocked off the tail of one of the other squadrons. That’s how one of them was lost that way. It was not, it wasn’t shot down by the Germans. But it does say there was three gone. I don’t know what the other reasons were. Four thousand six hundred and sixty one tonnes of bombs were dropped. The accurate, was accurate and this [grey blue] virtually paralysed Essen until the American troops entered the city sometime later. Essen’s recording system produced no proper reports but eight hundred and ninety seven people were said to have been killed which is not too happy for them but there we are. That was war. I know. So that was the biggest daylight and we did have a daylight again close to that to Dortmund the next day. That was another daylight but I’ve got nothing, I can’t remember anything about that one except it's in the log. Five hours thirty. And then we did go to the, 27th of March, getting to the end of March went to Farge marshalling yards. I can’t remember much. I can’t remember that one at all. So that then I think [pause – pages turning] and then we did have one very last night flight again. Nearly nine hours. Eight forty five and we went to Pilsen in Czechoslovakia. And I did see a note here we were diverted Harwell. I think that one when we came back we got diverted when we come back to England because I remember we were coming back in daylight in the end and I remember standing up and had a look back and all the, all the Lancs were coming all at different [laughs] behind us. Anyway, as far as I can remember then and then we left. Of course, we left, we left Coningsby, well thinking about it we left via [pause] we left Metheringham shortly afterwards.
DM: Were you told why you were leaving?
HG: No.
DM: You were told to go.
HG: And that’s what staggers me. All I can think of quite simply only since not then. Since other things have cropped up through life that at that particular time we did know about there was going to be a Tiger Squadron because they were going to attack Japan and I understand 106 was the squadron I found out afterwards was one squadron they wanted to go to Japan. Now, having said that because we had two Australians and I can’t remember whether they said anything. They may have said well they didn’t want, they didn’t want to go. At least to volunteer. This was going to be volunteer stuff and I think they wanted to get back to Australia and I can only think that was the one reason for to just send us off at the very end to just do one raid with a squadron we knew nothing about. I digress quickly here because only last week a public relations lady that deals with us veterans said an Australian wanted to phone me because I was on 189 Squadron and he wanted to know something about the squadron. And I said, ‘Well, yes. I was on it for one month and I can’t remember. I can only just remember that raid.’ And I mean we were there almost, and I mean one month was nothing. I couldn’t remember much about that.
DM: So you were sent to Bardney, changed a squadron, did one raid.
HG: Oh, yeah one thing, yes. I did one. When we were coming from Bardney I still remember my Australian pilot, he’d been commissioned. He was, he was a flying officer now and I remember him he going on all the courses and he had all our reports with him and he said I’d been recommended for a commission then. So I knew full well really that I should have had it. Personally it was only one of these things, unfortunate things, not because I didn’t deserve it because that’s how the system worked. There was two officers already in the course and they wouldn’t give any more. That’s how, you know that’s, so that was, I wasn’t very happy. And someone else, I saw another chap who was on the course originally said and I met him another somewhere along the line flying somewhere because of course between these sort of bombing raids of course we used to do trips. I’d take a squadron leader to somewhere. To another, you know nothing with my crew. He wanted a navigator and I’d do that for him and take him somewhere where he wanted. And so it’s all sorts of other things you know. Different things happened.
DM: Earlier on you said that you were called Stan.
HG: Yeah.
DM: When you were in the air. Why was that?
HG: Well, I go back to what we talked when I said I didn’t like my name Harold [laughs] I didn’t like it then and so I told the crew, you know, ‘I’m Stan.’ And so that’s how I, that’s right ‘til the end of the war. And so that was that. I don’t know what my mum thought about. I don’t think she worried very much. My father was in the First World War. He got in in 1914 and he got away with that but he died quite young. He had a, he wasn’t, he got shot in his finger I think but he other troubles. He died when he was about fifty nine I think. I’m sorry about that because I’d have liked him to have seen that I got through because he was still alive when I got back and I always remember he never asked me anything much [laughs] I don’t know why. At least I can’t remember if they asked me anything. I wasn’t such a jawbag then. I didn’t say so very much. Anyway, I just remember I came home to my mother and my sister and that was it, you know.
DM: So the war ended.
HG: Yes.
DM: You didn’t go to Japan because —
HG: No.
DM: I don’t think anybody did in the end.
HG: No. They didn’t. No. That was all gone.
DM: You didn’t go to India or anything like that.
HG: No. I didn’t.
DM: No.
HG: No. I —
DM: Did you make any, what did you do in the immediate aftermath of the war before you were demobbed? Can you remember?
HG: I don’t think there was anything in here. Wait a minute.
DM: Pause that a minute.
[recording paused]
DM: As a navigator on a Lancaster you were in your cubicle so you hadn’t got a view of what was going on outside. That’s, that’s right, isn’t it?
That’s right. You wouldn’t call it a cubicle. I’ll show you in a moment.
DM: Yeah.
On the wall I’ve got in the hall.
DM: Right. But anyway you couldn’t see —
HG: No. I couldn’t.
DM: What was going on.
HG: I was, I was, I was facing that way to the port engine with, well I’ve got my legs to here.
DM: Right. So looking out over the left hand side basically.
HG: Yeah. Well, my face was that way because all the stuff was in front of me. I’ll show you. I’ll show it to you in the hall. Yeah. Carry on.
DM: So did you ever get to sort of pop up in to the astrodome or or have a look out through the cockpit and see what was going on?
HG: I didn’t go up on the astrodome. I did go into the cockpit occasionally just to have a look around and got back quick. I think it was, I think it was over Essen when I looked out there because I looked down and we were bombing Essen through cloud. We had what they called Oboe which was I think the markers, I don’t know what, I think it was called Oboe and we had to bomb through cloud. All I could see down in Essen and I can always remember that. Looked down and it well it would have been eighteen thousand twenty thousand feet. Whatever. And it was just one, one mass of smoke. Couldn’t see Essen. I don’t know whether it was covered in anyway tremendous mile of well obviously it was you know we were, bombed in there. It was, that’s all I remember. Other times when we were flying friendly stuff and we had to go for another aerodrome to drop something or take somebody I can often remember going up the front with the pilot you know. We could set them on course and give them the course and know exactly what that was. Well obviously, I could know what we were going to do given the first course and go back and check on the next course if I wanted to stay up there with him and have a look around. We [laughs] I can always remember too the bomb aimer going up to the front there, having an argument, and he was Scottish with Roy. They saw a plane. They was just flying in England and he saw it and they were arguing whether it was above us or below us. Little things like that, you know. Crew stuff like that. And also we come back from, we were flying over England once going from east to west and I registered three hundred miles an hour which was, a Lanc did about a hundred fifty. We did. And in those days three hundred miles an hour was like a, almost like a Spitfire. But it was quite good. I remember that. And also we came back from coming back in the dark somewhere again on an ordinary trip and we had to do in Lancasters it was all part of the training for the pilot and his crew and everything else. You had to do certain things. Fly here. Fly there. And coming back I remembered we lost an engine over England. We lost an engine. We would come back on three engines but really nothing, no problem there because a Lanc could fly on one or two I think. They were quite good. And you see I have to look, I look back because I’ve met so many veterans and I know the sort of number of ops they’ve done and I know full well John Nichol who was after the war an officer used to fly I forget what they [pause] Tornadoes, something like that. When we bombed Iraq, you know. Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein and he called, he called the people who bombed before ’44, that was when D-Day occurred those that bombed after that were, what did he call them now? Tail End Charlies. Now, that was the term, terminology the, I think the fighters used that. The chap that used to have with fighters going into, more or less going into action they’d have a chap flying all into the back of them like this. Connected you know. And he was a Tail End Charlie to just protect their back to see what was coming along. There are so many, so many things you know that that happened and you hear of all sorts of things. And I know full well that that, I mean we came, I mean in that it took me all that time to get on operations and for the rest of the crew and it all really started because of failing as a pilot. I wasted half a dozen months in Canada. Well, not to say wasted like. Canada was a nice place. I wasted six months there trying to be a pilot and never did and so if I’d have got gone straight to a navigator I would much on squadron fire quicker and I might not be here. There’s an, there’s an awful luck I feel about it. Even so, even that’s one at Essen. We still lose. Apparently, I’ve got something even from the times I was flying from from roughly from January whatever it is up to when we ever finished flying we still lost, Bomber Command still lost about seven hundred aircraft. All of the other squadrons and so many other squadrons we were still, still lost a lot of guys. So we, you know, I think all of us at my stage of the game think we are really lucky but the other guys, some of the ones I’ve been we met. I mean they all know full well, I know full well first of all they were good pilots or crews, they were good crews. The training we had was good. There’s no doubt about it. The training we had was good. I mean to teach me navigation which I only went to an ordinary school wasn’t easy but it had to be the fact you wanted to do it. You had to do. And so to that end Bomber Command and ever since then you know I’ve been with veterans who have done a lot more and there’s no question there’s any difference between because I didn’t do as much. It’s not my fault. I had a longer time. No. It would have been more difficult. Put it that way.
DM: So before you came out you did some non-flying things.
HG: Yes.
DM: I think. What did you do?
HG: Well, there were basically, they were filling in time I think. Well, waiting for the Australians to go home and we look at them. Let me see. 18 Squadron, Bardney. That’s the funny thing. Twice I’ve got that for Fulbeck. Each one after the, after the last bombing raid in the war at night time. Six and a half hours. It wasn’t very far to Norway. Fighter affiliation. High level bombing. We used to do high level bombing. There was a place in, somewhere near the east coast where we used to take the aircraft, all of us and used to do practice bombs. And I always remember too one of those practice bombs we, our bomb aimer of course he, and by the way let’s get back. I’ve never mentioned the bomb aimer because he’d got his own particular job. However, in that squadron they did, we did have the bomb aimer sit with the navigator at times because the screen I told you originally because of those things up above the Germans used to put more and more of them. So he’d sit with me and make certain what was happening. If there was any others. And of course, we had also, I haven’t mentioned that, perhaps I should have done its come to me now and I’ll show you on the passage in a minute. Other side there was another screen. We had, underneath the aircraft we’d got a bulge and that was I forget the equipment there but that was giving us a picture in my, where I was operating from showed the contours of the land. In other words when you, if you went over Brighton you’d see the sea line and that sort going around to over to Dover and that sort of thing. It gave a picture and we could, I can’t remember how we did that we could get a fix off that to get a put on our charts. I can’t quite remember exactly that one. That’s another thing you know. And of course, the high level bombing. Well, that’s this. They’re filling up time here. Look at this. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven or eight there and I mean they sent the Australians home. Map reading. I’d done a lot of map reading. I mean we’d been doing high level bombing. Bassingham. That was another one. Only one hour forty. Just trips to waste time I think. Air to sea firing which we, oh yes. I can remember that. And we went over the North Sea and of course all this has to be combined with other, other squadrons who were close by and but of course you were given times of course for this and I always remember air to sea firing. Well, I don’t think my gunners ever had to fire in anger from memory. But when we were in this air to sea firing they were allowed to go. We had to attack something in the North Sea that was floating. I can’t remember. They all had, the rear gunner had a go and the mid-upper had to have a go. It was almost laughable because we killed ourselves laughing because the pilots, from memory I think even he said he offered them, I think even in those days five pound or something and no one missed them laughs] Formation flying. Yeah. Well, one hour five minutes on the 7th of April. January, February, March, April, May. Now, I’ve got something I might just mention about —
DM: So, before you left the Royal Air Force —
HG: Yes.
DM: I think you were sent to Cardington.
HG: That’s right. Yes.
DM: What did you do there?
HG: Well, I was put in charge of, apparently a lot of recruits were put there. Aircrew recruits and all wanted of course to fly and I had roughly about I think twenty or thirty in one, one block of the place there at Cardington and I had to look after them. Its strange there because one of the young men his, he was there and I think my wife knew him strangely enough but he was only just trying to join the Air Force and it was a lost cause really. I don’t think he, because I, well I did know about him. The next time I saw him he was playing for Brighton Football Club. And so I was just, it was what was it really? It was just something for me to do. And that’s like when we, I said my gunner and my bomb aimer went to, I think East Africa to learn to drive. They were giving us all odd jobs. I can’t possibly because they, they couldn’t get all of us demobbed there were so many of us. I mean Army, Navy, Air Force and I think they just pushed us around a bit until they had a chance to, to get us on to some place and get a demob suit and send us off. I wish there was a stalling arrangement by the government because of the number they wanted to get rid of. So, so it was, it was quite simple and I mean I could travel home from there and I quite enjoyed doing a job like that. I think I’d probably got a few raspberries from some of the younger ones. It was just a time waster really. I did, I mean I know it was Air Force and I was, obviously I wanted to get out of it now. I didn’t want to because these young chaps wanted to fly of course. What happened to them I don’t know. It was just a question again of something to pass. Being warrant officer, you know to look after them. See if they behaved themselves, I suppose.
DM: And when did you actually leave the Air Force? What date?
HG: Well —
DM: Effectively. So —
HG: That I don’t know. I would say it was, wait a minute [pause] I would say it was, yeah effectively discharged on the 25th of November 1946.
DM: Right.
HG: That would be it. The other one is, is when I got enlisted in the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1949 or whatever it was.
DM: What did you do after you left the Air Force?
HG: Well, I went straight back to my business. British, no it wasn’t British Gas. It was still Brighton, no. let me see. Let me try and think. I think it was —
DM: I think it was ’48 when it was nationalised.
HG: Yeah. So it would still be at Brighton And Hove General Gas Company and I went back and from memory I went back straight into the showroom. They put me straight back in the showroom. I’m just trying, I’m still trying to remember that. I can’t believe anything else other than show. I certainly, I can’t remember anything else other than the showroom. Yes. Yeah. I’m sure I went straight back into the showroom trying to get used to the equipment and all the things that happened even though I was only a few years away. See how the gas cooking and fires etcetera had progressed and, and shortly after that and I don’t know how many months it was the Gas Company advertised they wanted representatives to go in to meet people. To go around to premises to get gas. And I got out of the showroom then and I applied for that and I got as a representative. At the same time funnily enough there was several others, another two Air Force chaps I think both were ground staff chaps went the same, did the same thing and we became representatives from British Gas and were given an area to introduce gas to people and see builders. See what we could do with them. And I started that and I went on for a long long time as an ordinary representative which I enjoyed. In those early days of course we had to come, I had to come out as far as this place. It wasn’t as built up. Saltdean wasn’t as built up as it is now and in fact myself and one of the senior officers in British Gas, an older man than me we managed, there wasn’t much gas in this area and we managed to get there was supply right over the side and we had to get it right down the middle of Saltdean and once we started that and I was doing a lot with customers, builders to selling gas because what was happening in the world or in Britain was everything was going to be electric. They wanted all everything was going to be electric. They didn’t win. The gas took over and then we had oil coming in which we had to fight them to get and they had these old boilers to start with and we then we managed to get over the oil business because people had this oil in tanks in their gardens and that became problems and they were dirty things and and we were on the up. Gas was on the up. On the up. What was I saying then? It was, it was getting a hold. The representatives and all of us were, we weren’t all aircrew. One or two were and others were one or two Army and that sort of thing and we were doing our best to sell. We did a good job and we got a hold on and the gas built up from them days when we started that and then I used to come out here. And we used to have to go by bus in those days. We had to get by bus all smartly dressed. Smart dress. And if you wanted to get back in the office you had to find a phone box you see and walk to it [laughs] and put your four pence in. But then it was becoming good then. I become a senior in that department and then afterwards I wanted to get on better so I transferred to our commercial department which gave me instead of domestic houses I was dealing with places like hotels and police stations and all the big commercial buildings etcetera and also for restaurants and cafés. All the stuff where we were getting more money in of course. And I had that for some time and of course by that time we were given cars, or at least we bought cars and they’d paid us money for them. And then I wanted to get on further than that. I saw what I was doing as a commercial representative and then I applied with all the other commercial reps, some were Air Force, some were whatever they were. All were similar ages and we all wanted this job. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a management and I applied for management and I become an assistant manager. I always remember the, I had an appointment in London and there was several other guys there. I didn’t know them other than they were Londoners and we had to have an interview and one chap came out. He wanted me to talk about whatever they wanted me to talk about. I can’t remember that. And I said, and he said, ‘I’m giving up.’ I thought, giving up? I’m not giving up. So I went in to this when I had my interview. I can’t remember what it was but I had to talk about something and, and it also reminded me because when I got my commission as a PO, pilot officer and I think that was when after the war I had to address a lot of other officers and I had to stand on the front and talk about something or other. So so I suppose that’s when my talking started. In the business of gas and I did alright. I got the, I was an assistant, assistant industrial commercial sales manager and I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that right to the end and I retired in this place.
DM: Looking back did you enjoy your days in Bomber Command?
HG: Yes. Now, I sometimes mention that often with people I enjoy the navigator. I said, no that’s the wrong thing. Let’s be honest I was bloody frightened at times. I mean, no. Let’s put it this way I liked it because I was involved. I was doing something. I could, I could not have been a gunner but I couldn’t have sat there in my young days just sitting there and it was difficult for them. Especially for nine hours you’re sitting there watching the dark all the time. Very difficult. I had to work. Great. I liked and I still like working. I still, I’m now in my age now that, well I do a lot of work. I do have help but I still, touch wood I can still walk. I press myself. I think I’ve done that right all the time. I’m not wanting to be, I don’t think I’ve ever been lazy. Put it this way. And so to that end I’ve been lucky but yeah navigator, well any aircrew there was a worry you know. The times when everybody was silent because they were worrying about this and that and I mean I was silent because it was my, me doing of course navigating and touch wood I did all right. I was assessed afterwards as average. Now that’s great because one has to think that all there were some great aircrew. I know that some of the flights they were great and some of the navigators were great but of course the pilots were even so and they were extremely good, extremely good individuals of course. I couldn’t match with them. But there were so many of us were average and did average things except and went a lot on bombs and of course lost a lot of lives and all of us it was dangerous. But when you were doing that you hear things but you’ve got you’ve got a mind on what you’re doing here. So it was great to be involved and working. Now, you know it wasn’t enjoyable but it was worthwhile.
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 Harold Stanley Gardner
Creator
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David Meanwell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-01
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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGardnerHS171101, PGardnerHS1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:03:36 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Gardner was a navigator on 106 Squadron based at RAF Metheringham during the final months of World War 2. Known throughout his RAF career as Stan, he was born in Brighton. In 1937 when 14-years-old, his father arranged employment for him with the Brighton Gas Company. Enthralled watching Spitfires flying over the South Coast, Stan volunteered for pilot, navigator, bomb aimer training in 1941 with the RAF. After initial training he was deployed to Canada for pilot training. Although advancing on the course to take-off and landing solo, Stan was uncomfortable in the pilot role and he requested a move to navigator training. After graduating, he returned to the UK and following progression though Operational Training Unit and Lancaster Finishing School, Stan was posted to 106 Squadron in February 1945, with his first operation on the 5th March. He provides a detailed account of the procedure's navigators followed to ensure the aircraft remained on course, including constantly plotting their position and corrections from varying winds. Following the end of hostilities, Stan found himself posted to RAF Cardington in charge of aircrew recruits before being demobilised in 1946, when he returned to his career in the gas industry.
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1942-12-19
1945-03-05
1945-03-07
1945-03-27
1946-11-25
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Alberta--Calgary
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Brighton
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
106 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
demobilisation
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
military service conditions
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Cardington
RAF Metheringham
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/732/10731/ACammishHS180501.1.mp3
335573b368d310af0483cc6bbc3fd591
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
Cammish, Harrison Stanley
H S Cammish
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Harry Cammish (b. 1923, 1624536, Royal Air Force).
He flew operations as a flight engineer with 50 Squadron and evaded after being shot down.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-18
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Cammish, HS
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JB: That should be recording. This interview is being carried out for the International Bomber Command Centre. The date is the 1st of May 2018. The interviewer is Jennifer Barraclough. The interviewee is Mr Harry Cammish. The interview is being carried out at Mr Cammish’s home in Orewa near Auckland. Ok, Mr Cammish. Thank you very much for taking part. Can you tell me a bit about your earlier life? How you came to, and then how you came to join up?
HC: Yeah. Well, my name is Harrison Stanley Cammish. I was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1923. I was the youngest of a family of four. I had three elder sisters. I was the only boy. Two of my sisters actually joined the WAAF during the war. When I was fourteen years of age I was apprenticed as a carpenter and joiner in Scarborough, and was happily learning the trade when war broke out in 1939. I joined the Air Training Corps and I also joined the Home Guard. And the Home Guard gave me a rifle and forty rounds of ammunition and I had to patrol the coastline and keep England safe from the enemy. My mother would never enter my bedroom once I’d got the rifle and forty rounds of ammunition. That was it. She wouldn’t come in to my bedroom anymore. When war broke out in 1939, as I say, I joined the Air Training Corps and the Home Guard. And when I turned eighteen I, I volunteered for aircrew duties and I was sent down to a place in Bedfordshire. Cardington, I think the place was, for a three day course, selection board, and health and testing type of thing and they sent me home with an Air Force number. I was in the Air Force from that, from that day onwards. Sent me home to await call up. I was called up late, in the middle of 1942, and I went to a place called Padgate in Lancashire where we got kitted out with all our Air Force gear. From there we went to Blackpool where we had foot drill, bashing up and down the promenade there, learning how to march in time and one thing and another. And after that I got sent down to St Athan. St Athans in South Wales, where for the first time I learned that I was going to be trained as a flight engineer. The rest of the section that was with me, we’d never heard of flight engineers before but it appears that it was, we took place of the second pilot because there were so many instruments and gauges to watch that they needed another pair of eyes. I didn’t, we all, first of all did a flight mechanics course which lasted quite a few weeks. And at the end of the course, they decided to give us forty eight hours leave which was no good to me. No way could I get up to Yorkshire from St Athans in South Wales in forty eight hours so it was a case of just staying on the camp ‘til the next course started. Some of the boys that I was with didn’t want to go through all this technical training. They wanted to be flying so they volunteered to go as straight air gunners which was only a six weeks course. So, we lost a few of our section over the period of training. On the completion of the flight engineer’s course I was posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit in Lincolnshire where for the first time I met the other members who I were going to crew up with. There was a Canadian, there was two cockneys and a couple of Englishmen and we made up the crew and having done a few circuits and bumps we were posted to the operational station, 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe. The procedure when a new crew arrives at an aerodrome is for the pilot to go with another experienced crew for a little bit of know-how but to my horror I was told that I was going to take the place of an engineer who was sick. So, I was the first of the crew to fly on operations. So, I had one, I had one op above the rest of the crew. On our third operation we were about to take off with a full bomb load and tearing down the runway the pilot lost control and we skidded off the runway and slammed into one of the hangars. Now, from this moment onwards I, I don’t have any recollection of what actually happened, but from what I was told afterwards I got out of the aircraft and took off across the airfield, climbed over the perimeter fence, went down the country lane, and the first cottage I went to I, I knocked on the door and there was an elderly couple lived there. And I told them that I’d just come from a crashed bomber and it was going to explode any minute which must have put panic in to the old couple. Anyhow, they sat me down on the settee and made me a cup of tea while the elderly gentleman went and told the policeman that there was an aircrew member in his house that had just come from a bomber. A crashed bomber. Well, the next minute the ambulance came flying down from the station and picked me up and they’d been looking for the, they’d been looking for the engineer. They’d got all the others in to the military hospital but there was the engineer missing. Then of course when they got the call from this local body, bobby down in the village that was it and I duly arrived at the military hospital after all the other fellas had been. Had been in there. When I sort of regained my full mind I,I was in the same ward as the rear gunner was and unfortunately for the poor chap he’d suffered terrible burns and all I could see was his two eyes and his fingertips peering through the bandages. And with it being a military hospital anybody that was capable of walking and that had to look after the other members in the ward and it was my job to attend to his toiletries and one thing and another. Anyhow, I, I recovered sufficiently to go back to the station and the wing commander said to me, ‘Well, Cammish, I suppose you want leave.’ And I said, ‘Well, sir, I haven’t had any leave for nine months. My mother’s never seen me since I left home.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Before you, before you go,’ he said, ‘We want you to go up for a little flight.’ And I thought oh dear. And he said, ‘There’s a crew about to take off on a night flying test and we want you to go down there and join the crew.’ So, I, I went to the dispersal unit and the crew was waiting for me. I think it was a bit of a put-up job myself. The crew was waiting for me and, and we took off and the pilot said, ‘Come up to the front,’ where the engineers are, ‘Come up to the front. Take up your position.’ And I said, horrors upon horrors we were taking off on the same runway as what we’d crashed and over to the left was this wrecked hammer line with a big hole because it had exploded after we, after we left and left quite a big hole. So anyhow, I went. I went home on leave and here was, here was a mother’s son. I’d put on about another stone. I was a sergeant in uniform. It took her all her time for mum to recognise me. I had a nice leave and reported back to the squadron and I thought I’d be sent back to the training unit to pick up another crew. But the commanding officer thought no I’d stay on the squadron as a substitute engineer for any other engineers that weren’t fit to fly. It wasn’t a very pleasant job because the crews, a crew is like a family. They rely on one another and trust one another and the stranger amongst them isn’t quite accepted by them. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t a very nice job. I had three different crews in a very short time. Anyhow, on the sixteenth operation I, well I wasn’t, I wasn’t posted for this sixteenth operation. I was getting set to have a night out in Lincoln and I got the call, ‘You’re needed to get into your gear. There’s an engineer been taken sick,’ or something. And, ‘Get into your gear.’ And it was such short notice it was, and I went to pick up my flying gear and I had a premonition. I had a funny feeling in my stomach and I had a premonition. I thought I’m not very happy about this but there’s nothing you can do about it so I joined the crew. I didn’t even know the names of the crew. I only knew the pilot’s name because it was such last minute orders. Anyhow, we, we got airborne. Everything seemed to be going all right. We weren’t far short of the target when we got attacked by a night fighter and the first thing we knew was the whole aircraft shuddered and we went out of control in a dive. The pilot’s controls were useless and the port wing was, was burning like fury so it was time to leave the aircraft. The bomb aimer, who was in the nose couldn’t get the hatch open and the pilot was kicking me on the back, ‘Hurry up. Hurry up,’ but I couldn’t do much about it. I had to wait for the bomb aimer to go. The next minute the shaft opened and out went the bomb aimer and out went I after him. And from all the bangs and rattles and crashes and fires and one thing and another it was absolute peace and quiet floating down in the parachute. I did hear the fighter droning around and I saw the bomber explode on the ground. I landed in about two feet of snow because it was winter time and took off the parachute, bundled it all into a heap and took off because our escape lectures always told you to get as far away from your landing as possible. So, I took off and headed in a westerly direction and I came across a railway line and I thought well it’ll be easier walking on the railway lines than, than through the fields and paddocks. But in those days, we had the early type suede flying boots and there’s no way you can walk long distances especially on, on a railway line. And I heard, I heard the toot of a train in the distance and I thought well if this is a goods train, a slow-moving train now’s my chance to get as far as possible from it. But it was an express train and it went past me about ninety miles an hour so there was no chance of getting on that. Anyhow, I kept walking for a several of hours and I eventually came to a small station. I didn’t know whether we were in Germany or in France to be quite honest but I saw the name on the board. Embermenil it was. Embermenil. And I thought well that doesn’t sound German and I peered through the window and there was a fellow in uniform sitting over the desk and he didn’t look German either so I thought well, I’ll risk it. So, I went in to the, opened the door and went in to the office and he looked up at me. You can imagine his surprise seeing an Air Force man in flying gear standing at the doorway and I told him, ‘RAF. RAF.’ And he put his finger up to his mouth and he said, ‘Shhhh Bosch. Bosch.’ So, I gather there was some Germans somewhere in the vicinity. And he, he took me in to the village, knocked on the door of the cottage and the door opened and he said something in French to the fella and they dragged me into the house and he went back to the station. And this was, they looked, there was only two rooms, it was a small cottage and they were obviously a farm labourer of some sort and the wife wanted to know where I’d left my parachute. She was after the silk obviously, and I couldn’t tell her where it was. My French lessons had long, long since vanished but she made, she made the expected, ‘Parachute.’ Anyhow, they took, I took all my flying gear off and I had a nice silk vest underneath and silk pants and the three of us shared the same bed ‘til the next morning [laughs] And I was, I was, the next morning the farm labourer went out and he, he came back and, and he was, I, I got the message that one of the crew was dead. One of the crew was dead. More, more, more. One of you more. And there was also he brought a poster back which the Germans were pinning up all over the place, “Ten thousand franc reward for any information leading to the capture of any airmen.” So, ten thousand francs was a lot of money to a poor hardworking labourer. Well, to anyone in France but nobody, nobody gave me away and I was there for a couple of days and then a fella came riding up on a bike and he came in to the cottage and he spoke good English and he wanted to know, A my full name, B my number, C where I was stationed, D what the target was. He wanted to know everything under the sun and then of course when he came to asking me the names of the crew I said, ‘I don’t know the names of the crew. I only knew the name of the pilot.’ Which was a bit dicey. I mean they were very suspicious. The Germans it appears had a habit of dressing someone up in Air Force uniform and then pretending they’d been shot down and then follow the escape routes right the way through and then turn around and capture the whole escape route. So, so they were, they were very, so the name, rank and number disappeared in the thin air. I told him everything I could. Even where I was born. And they must have been in touch with London because he came back a couple of days later and said, ‘Right. We’ll be escorting you to the next line.’ And he said, what, ‘We’ll send you a guide,’ and he said, ‘The guide will never walk alongside you. He will always be ahead of you and if he gets caught you get away and if you get caught he gets away.’ Which seemed fair enough to me. So, in the main time the railway man give me one of his spare uniforms. A thin railway porter’s uniform and here it was the middle [laughs] the middle of winter. I was never warm from that day onwards. I, anyhow, the guide duly arrived and we, we caught the train to the next, the next place, and it was Lunéville. Lunéville. And I was, I was billeted with a couple of old ladies that had, looked like a millinery shop to me and in this place, I was taken out and photographed and an identification card was given to me and I was, I was supposed to be a painter that’s on war work [laughs] The photograph was good but the rest of it was all foreign to me and from there, from that place I was escorted to Nancy. Nancy. And believe it or not I was, I was living in a policeman’s, a high, he was a high-ranking officer because he was taking me around in his car which had got a gas balloon on top of it in those days. And he which, when you come to think of it from a lowly labourer to a big high-ranking officer in the police force it just goes to show that there was a lot of Frenchmen who were prepared to put their neck out to help. To help us Air Force blokes get away. And from there, from his place I went out on to a farm. Mazerolles. Mazerolles. Named that. I went out on to the farm and the farmer, he was the head of the Resistance movement in that area and his wardrobe was full of guns and hand grenades and everything under the sun. And the Germans used to come daily to collect their meat and milk from him and I’d be sitting behind the curtains watching them and, and, he, he used to say to me, well funnily enough his boy could speak a little bit of English. They were teaching them at school. And, and he said he wouldn’t be taken alive. No way. He’d and he said that funnily enough he said all the Germans in this area are the oldies. The retired ones. They don’t, they don’t want to fight and they’ve told him that when the second front starts they’ll all surrender. They don’t want to be killed. They’ll all surrender because they knew very well he had something to do with the Resistance. And I helped him kill, kill the pig for the black market while I was there. The thing that they fed me most on was potatoes and milk. Potatoes and milk. I’m fed, I was fed up of the sight of potatoes and milk by the time I left the farm. From there, let me see. Oh, that’s right from there we went, went on to Paris and I was stationed in a very nice house overlooking, well, I could see the Eiffel tower out of the bedroom window and I was moving around Paris. One exciting incident, I was moving around Paris and I was on the Underground, Metro and the guide was at the front of the train coach and I was at the back and keeping my eye on him and horror upon horrors four German soldiers got in with rifles slung over the shoulders and I’m standing behind one of them and his rifle butt was hitting me in the stomach. And here’s me trying to do everything possible to not attract attention when this little old lady that was sitting down wanted to know the name of the station that we passed through and I knew she was asking me the name. She was pulling my jacket and [unclear]. And I was doing, that was the first time I’ve ever felt like hitting a little old lady. Luckily enough the guide got out and I jumped, I jumped out with him and, and everything turned out alright. And then the next, the next trip was from Paris to Toulouse in the south of France and I duly, I duly followed the guide. He gave me the tickets and I went and sat in this compartment and he went and sat in one further down. It was, it was a corridor train and right inside the train itself, at the entrance was this German soldier with his automatic machine gun slung across his chest. He was obviously on railway duty and I’m sitting in the compartment when the ticket collector came around. What, what the performance was you got into a corner and you pretended you were asleep. You didn’t look at anybody. You just kept yourself to yourself. And the ticket collector came in and I gave him the ticket and obviously there was some, something not right, I don’t know what it was and he started speaking to me and of course I didn’t know what on earth he was on about. And before I could say boo the guide who was, must have been watching all this he popped his head in to the compartment and he said something like. ‘Anglais aviateur.’ And the ticket collector snapped the ticket, went out, shut the door and all these people, there was about another eight people in the compartment they never said a word from Paris all the way down to Toulouse. They never said a word. They never looked at me. The never did anything and they could have opened that door and called the German in and collected the ten thousand francs reward if they’d wanted. Anyhow, I, we eventually arrived at Toulouse and we, we took, we took a train. Well, there was another guide came along. I’ve got to think about this. There was another guide came along and we went on another train tracking down the foot of the Pyrenees. We stopped at a little small place and he told me to get out and I got out and there was, there was a group oh about twenty or so people hanging around there and I saw these, these guides with their sten guns over their shoulder and they, they ushered us all together and we went for a short walk up the mountains and into a big shed. And they more or less told us that first thing in the morning we’d be off over the mountains and they gave us something to eat which was very rare. I’d had very little to eat and drink. And so we were, we were sitting. I’d taken my shoes off because they were quite uncomfortable and it was dark but I could hear American voices talking and I thought oh there must, it must be a whole group that’s going over the mountains. And I don’t know how long it was but the next minute there was bursting of automatic fire. Bullets flying everywhere and one of the guards came in and said, ‘Bosch. Bosch.’ You know, ‘Get out. Get out.’ So, everybody started running for the door and I’m trying to get my shoes on. I was, I think I was, I think I was the last man out. Out of the shed. I didn’t know where I, which direction I was going. I was just running and there was one or two of them sitting around, you know with their hands up. And I thought, a little voice said, well Harry, you’ve got this far. You might as well go the rest. So, I kept pounding on and I don’t know what happened to them. The rest of them got caught of course but I don’t know why they missed me. They had dogs with them. Anyhow, I was in the mountains for, that was one day, one night. Two days. Two nights. Three days and two nights I think it was before, and course walking up mountain after mountain you could look back and you could see your foot prints in the snow. And I’ve often thought afterwards why on earth didn’t the Germans catch me? You could look back and see your footprints right the way miles back. But somebody was looking after me alright that time. And I’d gone over one mountain and down below I could see the green fields and I thought oh this is it. And it takes as much to get down a steep hill as it does to climb up them and especially if you keep sinking in the snow all the time. In the morning the snow would be quite slippery and you’d take one pace up and two paces backwards and by mid-morning you’d be up to your calves in it and then by late afternoon well you were really trying to struggle to get ahead. Anyhow, I got, I got down the hill and there was a, there was a fella looking after goats by the, I really have to try and think about this. Was it goats or sheep? It doesn’t really matter. He was looking after them and I said, ‘Spain?’ And to this day I remember him saying, ‘Mais oui, monsieur. Spain.’ And I thought I’ve gone around in a circle. I’m still in France. I thought, horror of horrors. Anyhow, on one of the brick walls I saw this big painting of “Viva Franco.” So, I knew very well I’d, I’d made it to Spain and I staggered. He didn’t bother to help me or anything and I staggered down in to the local village there and the policeman with his big black hat came out and took me in to the cells. So, I was inside the jail but obviously the condition I was in my lips were swollen, my fingers were all swollen. I had frostbite in my feet. He, he got somebody in to look after me but I couldn’t drink. I couldn’t do anything. I was stuffing snow in my mouth over the mountains just to keep from getting dry. And anyhow I, I spent about three days in this little village. What was that? Viella. Viella. That was it. Viella, in Spain. I spent three days and it was a village that was snowbound from the rest of the country by all accounts. But someone must have got in touch with the English Consulate because I was, from the jail I went to live in the only, stay in the only hotel in the place and I was told that you know whatever I wanted I could have. They always had plenty of wine to give away so, and I wasn’t a wine drinker in those days but I am [laughs] I soon learned. Diamante and Monopole was the best two wines [laughs] and, and I gradually, oh and there was, in the village was, was a couple of German deserters and they followed me about like sheep because they didn’t have any money and I didn’t want them anywhere near me because a lot of the Spanish were very pro-German. Especially the higher up. The officials. The working class people were like the working class people everywhere. They’d give you help and this, that and the other and I spent I don’t know how many days it’s so long ago now but I spent a few days in [pause] And I remember one incident. I took the bottle of wine down to the, to the river and I dropped off to sleep with siesta time and when I woke up again the wine was still intact, the money I had, pesetas was still intact. Nobody, nobody would touch it and the policeman, he came to me and he said, ‘We’re walking out now. We’re going. The snow has thawed enough for us to get over the top.’ So, I said, I said. ‘Oh righto. Righto.’ So, we’re, I’m trudging behind him still with this porter’s uniform on, still will these patent leather shoes on which [laughs] I’m, I’m coming up over the hill and I wasn’t too happy with him. He didn’t smile or anything like that and I wasn’t very happy and I got the impression he might be going to pop me off in the snow and just forget about it you see. You get all sorts of impressions. So, I kept close behind him because he was smaller than me and I’m sure I could have overpowered him and, and he took off his rifle off his shoulder and I thought get ready, and he offered it to me. He’d seen a rabbit and he wanted me to have a pot shot at the rabbit [laughs] So once that happened I was quite happy then. I knew I was quite safe, and we got over the mountains in to, oh I forget the name. I forget the name of the first place I got to and here was, here was a representative of the British Embassy waiting for me. And of course, he looked at me [laughs] and we went shopping and I had a real nice outfit. Shirt, trousers, sports coat but they had difficulty finding a size nine shoe [laughs] Yeah. Anyhow, there I was dressed up to kill and he took, he took me out for a meal. We went out for this meal and I’m thinking these, these little bits of meat’s lovely. It wasn’t until afterwards I found out I’d been eating snails [laughs] but they were, they tasted very nice. Then I went down to [pause] where was it? I forget the name. It was, it was, it was a sort of a holding place and that’s where I met some Americans that had come over the top and there was a whole group of them in, in this hotel and it was the first time ever that I think that an RAF man had more money in his pocket than the Americans had [laughs] But the pay clerk at the British Embassy said to me, ‘How long is it since you’ve been paid?’ And I said, ‘Thirteen weeks.’ And he said, ‘Oh, and what is your pay?’ And I told him and he said, ‘Well, when, when you’re wanting a bit of cash come in and see me.’ And he was a, he was a man from Hull which is just a few miles down below Scarborough and he was a Yorkshireman and I think he had a bit of a guilty complex that here he was in a nice country because there was lights, there was food, there was fruit. There was everything you could dream of and I think he had a bit of a guilty conscience that he was living like that and here was us in England suffering bombing and such like. So, I used to go regularly and collect my two hundred and fifty peseta and I, I’d go out, go out with the Americans and we would go into a bar and the only thing I can order was, ‘Cerveza. Cerveza.’ ‘Beer. Beer. Beer.’ Anyhow, I thought I’d better take some souvenirs. I’d better take some souvenirs home with me. So, I, I got some cigars for my dad. I got some 4711 for my mother and then I thought well, stockings. Silk stockings is always, is always wanted so I went into this lady’s shop and the two young assistants bustled me out, ‘No. No. No. No.’ Spanish men never went in to women’s shops. In fact, the ambassador said to me, he said, ‘Whatever you do,’ well not the ambassador but his representative, ‘Whatever you do,’ he said, ‘Don’t stare at the women and don’t wink at the women,’ you know. Don’t do any. ‘Don’t attract attention at all. Just keep a low profile because there’s quite a lot of people don’t like the British in here.’ In one case what actually happened Franco I think was coming up by train and they made sure I stayed in the hotel that day. Didn’t go outside the hotel. But getting back to the shop, these two assistants tried to shove me out and I said, ‘No. No. No, Senorita. Stockings,’ and there was a glass female leg on the counter with a stocking on it and I said, ‘This is what I want.’ And, ‘No. No.’ They, they weren’t having anything of it. And then an old assistant, she’d be in her forties I should think she came out and she said, ‘Inglesi?’. And I said, ‘Si Si. Inglesi.’ And she must have said something to the girls about these Englishmen are all mad or something because the girls started giggling and the old lady got me the stockings that I wanted, I wanted out. So, so that then from, from Madrid, I went down right to the south. A place called La Linea and there was the border to crossing to go to Gibraltar and it was just a case of jumping on a bus and going across the crossing and I, on this side there was, there was Spanish soldiers armed to the teeth. They were everywhere. Soldiers. And I got on the bus and crossed over. When I got out of the bus at the other side there was a kilted Scotsman with a rifle and a fixed bayonet and I said, I said, ‘There’s a whole platoon of Spanish soldiers over there.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’m up to that. I’m up to that,’ he said [laughs]. Anyhow, Gibraltar. I got, I got kitted out again in uniform and I had this little kit bag where I had all my, all my loot in there. All the thingamybobs. And I got priority to fly back to England and I’m, I’m in this Dakota with several high-ranking officers and such forth. Probably wondered what is this fella coming on here for? We eventually got to Whitchurch I think it was. Near Bristol, and I’m going through the customs and one of the customs officers said, ‘What are have you, what are you doing amongst this, all this high brass?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I’m an escaped prisoner of war.’ He said, ‘Oh, is that right?’ and he put a big chalk on my bag and I walked through without any inspections at all and the others had to open their bags and be inspected. And I had more loot than all those put together, I think. Anyhow, as I get through the customs there were a couple of nice gentlemen waiting for me and they said, ‘Oh, we’re escorting you back to London.’ I said, ‘Can’t I send a message home telling them — ’ ‘No. No. No. No. You can do all that after you’ve been to London.’ Now, my mother had never heard a word from me from that day until I landed in Gibraltar and she hadn’t a clue if I was alive or not so you must, you can see what she must have been going through. Her and dad. And I got, we got to London. I think it was MI6 or MI5 I forget what they were and they interrogated me. Wanted to know, you know questions like, ‘What’s the name of the cinema in your home town?’ You know, just general intelligence questions. Well, of course I sailed through those questions and I, I had to report to a WAAF officer and she said to me, ‘Alright,’ she said, I’m, I’m the pay. I’ve got to give you the pay for, when were you last paid?’ And I said, ‘Thirteen weeks ago.’ I didn’t tell her I’d been to told the fella in Hull it was thirteen weeks. Thirteen. ‘Oh, you haven’t.’ ‘No. No.’ So, she worked out what thirteen weeks pay was and this, that and the other and then she said to me, ‘And did you lose your wristwatch?’ And I said, ‘No. No. We didn’t carry wristwatches. Only the navigator.’ And she said, ‘Oh, I’m sure you must have had a wristwatch so we’ll put ten pounds down there. And what about shoes?’ I said, ‘No. No. We had flying boots. Didn’t wear shoes.’ And she was quite right in one respect. She said, ‘Weren’t you told to take a pair of shoes with you when you wore suede boots because of the walking?’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah, but I never did.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘We’d better put something down for a pair.’ And she boosted my pay up by another fifteen pounds which I thought was very nice of her. And I went home. I went home for three weeks. Three weeks leave. And when I reported back again there was no counselling in those days but I did have to go and have a talk with, we used to call them trick cyclists but I think it was [laughs] trick cyclists we called them. And I had to go and have a talk with him and I thought it was a bit odd. Anyhow, the next thing I was, I was posted to, back to St Athans on a refresher course. So, I thought well that’s quite good so I went back to St Athans on the refresher course and I’d only been back about three or four weeks when I got posted to a Mosquito training unit of all things. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing there and I reported to the officer I had in the Training Command and he said to me, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We asked for someone to come up. These pilots have all been flying Beaufighters. Radial engines, and we needed someone to tell them about inline. The Merlin 21 engine. So, we’ve asked for an instructor.’ And I said, ‘I’ve never instructed in my life.’ You know. ‘Oh. Well, you know about Merlin engines.’ I said, ‘Well, yeah.’ ‘And we’ve got the charts to hang on the walls so it’s just a case of pointing out.’ And I soon learned that these fellas, they didn’t want to ask any questions. All they wanted to do was get flying so they never asked any awkward questions. Quite the opposite. If they saw me in the local village pub they’d buy me free beer. And, and I was a flight sergeant and some of these blokes were flight lieutenants with decorations. DFM and that. But the officer in the training said, ‘As soon as you put that white jacket on you’re the boss in that classroom.’ So, from me being very hesitant it turned out to be quite a cushy number. But I made the fatal mistake in criticising some of the way things were done which I shouldn’t have done. But in those, I mean I’m an ex-flying man. I’m ex-Bomber Command. These are only training bods, you know. So, I felt a bit superior to them which proved my undoing because it got back to the officer in charge and he said, ‘Well, if you don’t like the way we do things, Cammish,’ He said, ‘We can soon fix that.’ So, from Shropshire I was posted up to Inverness. Right in the north of Scotland and they said [laughs] I got there, it was a Coastal Command station, they didn’t know why I was doing there. What I had come from. They hadn’t flown for several days because of the icy conditions. So here was me stuck up in this Coastal Command station for about two weeks before somebody thought we’d better get rid of him again. So, I went from there down to [pause] from the north of Scotland I went down to South Cerney in Gloucester which was very nice. And then they decided that I really should go on a flying control course. I weren’t doing engineering any more. So, I went from South Cerney to Charmy Down near Bath to train on a, on a flying control course which I did and that’s where I met my dear wife. We were married in Bath Abbey and had a happy fifty five years of married life. But getting back to that, I’m at Charmy Down and we did the flying control course and what we finished up doing was as the Americans were leaving the country we, we were a skeleton crew that had to go and shut down the station. No aircraft were allowed to fly. You know. And that was a very cushy number too. We, there was about sixty of us and we put down rations for about a hundred and sixty so we were fed well. In fact, the last, the last few months in the, in the Royal Air Force was very, very relaxing for me. Very relaxing. I went from flying control to Snaith in South Yorkshire. And that was another funny thing. When I was stationed in Bath, in Charmy Down they asked me where I’d like to be stationed and the old trick is you put the opposite side of the country because that’s where they’ll point you to. But this time they got it right. I asked to go to Yorkshire and I got posted to Yorkshire and here I had to leave the wife in Bath. So that was a big boo boo, but never mind. I was at, I was at Snaith for several, several weeks and then I went to Dishforth and Dishforth was the last port of call. That was the last station I was on before I was demobbed. And at Dishforth the, of course the, your record, my records anyhow never caught up with me on the station. They were always one or two stations behind and at Dishforth you had to wait for your records to catch you up. And some of the fellas that were getting ready for demob were called in to the Pay Accounts and they came back saying, ‘They want another five pounds for mess.’ And this that and the other. Crumbs. You know. And I’m thinking blimey what’s going to happen to me? I’ve been claiming thirteen weeks pay in Spain, thirteen weeks pay in London [laughs] And, and with shifting so quickly as I say they just used to say to you, ‘What’s your rate of pay?’ Well, I was getting fifteen and six pence you know. Which was, which was good money and they’d work it out and say, ‘Well, we owe you this.’ And righto. I thought, blimey. I thought when I go up to Pay Records they’re going to say to me, ‘Mr Cammish,’ Well, I was a warrant officer then, ‘Warrant Officer Cammish, we’ve got three thirteen weeks pay [laughs] pay you owe us.’ And anyhow, I went. I went in to the Pay Section and of course when I went into the Pay Section and of course when I went missing there was a line drawn across my record, you know. And then there was another line when I come back again. And that had them bluffed a little bit and, well he said, ‘You just about, we owe you so much money by all accounts.’ And I said, ‘Oh, is that right?’ Yeah. So here I am, all those three thirteen weeks pay and I don’t owe them any money. So, I thought, well that’s great. So, I sailed down to Wembley and got my [pause] oh no. That’s right, before I left, before I left, one of the stations the commanding officer said, ‘Well, we spent a lot of money training you. You’d, you’d like to stay on the Air Force, wouldn’t you?’ And I said, ‘No. Not really.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll guarantee you’ll only drop two ranks and then you’ll, you’ll — ’ and I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘You’ve made up your mind.’ It was so nice at the start but when I kept saying no his voice definitely turned nasty and he said, ‘Alright then. Clear off.’ And I said, but some, some of the fellas I knew, especially one, he was a warrant officer gunner, air gunner and he fell for this malarky that he wouldn’t drop because he wanted to fly. He loved flying. And I said, and I found out he never flew again. They put him in the Air Force Regiment. That’s like the ground crew, you know and he never flew again and he couldn’t get out of the Air Force quick enough after the war. But I wanted to, I wanted to get back to civvy life. The old bullshit was coming back. Fifty yards before headquarters you marched to attention and fifty yards after and all the rocks around the blinking place was going to be painted white and, and of course the, the regulars which, which put up with us at the start of the war started getting the better of us in the finish so life wasn’t very nice. So, I got out. Got back into Civvy Street. Got back in to the building trade. Didn’t like the way things were in England at the time so I emigrated to New Zealand in ’56 and I’ve been here ever since. I’m ninety four years of age and I’ve never regretted a day coming to New Zealand. That’s it.
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 Harrison Stanley Cammish
Creator
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Jennifer Barraclough
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-01
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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ACammishHS180501
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:50:33 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Harrison Cammish was born in Scarborough in 1923, and when he was fourteen, he became an apprentice carpenter and joiner, and when war broke out, he joined the Air Training Corps, and the Home Guard, who gave him a rifle and forty rounds of ammunition. At the age of eighteen he joined the RAF for aircrew duties and was sent to RAF Cardington for selection and training. He was sent home with his RAF number to await call up. He was sent to RAF St Athan via Padgate and Blackpool to train as a flight engineer. He did his heavy conversion and was posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. On his sixteenth operation he had a premonition that as he was called to do the operation at the last minute that he was not going to be happy with the flight. They were just short of the target and their aircraft was hit by a night fighter. He baled out and landed in occupied France. Heading west along a railway line, he came to a small station where he knocked on the office door from where he was taken to a nearby cottage. After arriving at Toulouse ready to cross into Spain he and his comrades were attacked by the Germans. After a narrow escape over the mountains, he made it into Spain and was put in contact with the British consulate. He was repatriated back to the UK via Gibraltar, and after leave and a refresher course he was posted to a Mosquito training unit to train crews on the Merlin engine. He ended up at RAF Charmy Down near Bath to do a flying control course, where he met his future wife. His last posting was to RAF Dishforth and he was demobbed from there. He decided not to remain in the RAF but to go back into civilian life, eventually emigrating to New Zealand in 1956.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Spain
New Zealand
Gibraltar
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
England--London
France--Toulouse
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
50 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
civil defence
evading
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
home front
Home Guard
Lancaster
Mosquito
RAF Cardington
RAF Dishforth
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Athan
Resistance
shot down
training
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/873/11113/AHodgsonH170723.2.mp3
73a75cae0b9bfeb289bccfd1ce5c10f9
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
Hodgson, Harry
Henry Hodgson
H Hodgson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Harry Hodgson (1925 -2022, 3008108 Royal Air Force). He served as ground crew with 10 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hodgson, H
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SP: This is Suzanne Pescott and I’m interviewing Harry Hodgson today.
HH: Yeah.
SP: For the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive.
HH: Yeah.
SP: We’re at Harry’s home and it’s the 23rd of July 2017. So, thank you Harry first of all for agreeing to talk to me today. I was just thinking do you want to tell me about your time before the RAF, what were you doing before you joined?
HH: Well, I, I was in an apprenticeship. I was in an apprenticeship at the Regal Displays at St Anne’s Road, South Tottenham, training to be a commercial artist, you see. And I did my training and as I say, and then I was called up in 1943 to the RAF, and this was when my experiences started in the RAF as a, I was a flight, a flight engineer mechanic on airframes during the Second World War between 1943 and 1945. And then when the squadron broke, well we didn’t break up actually we went over to Transport Command, in to Dakotas. Then we flew from Melbourne, Yorkshire to an airfield in, in [unclear] in Gloucestershire and that’s where we’d done our training on Dakotas and from there we flew out from St Mawgan’s to India which took us about a week. We, our first flight was to Sardinia, at Calibri in southern Sardinia. And then from there we went to Libya and North Africa. And from there we went to Tel Aviv. From there we did a bit of training, and we went to Wadi Halfa, on the Nile. And then from there we went to Aden. That’s on the southern tip. And about, and we went to from there we flew to Karachi and Mauripur, and did our training there on Dakotas, and from there we went out to India. Well, we was out in India, yeah. And there we, I was posted to a place called Ambala, north of New Delhi on to Spit Mark 14s, a Spitfire squadron. And then I did a bit of training up there, and then I was reposted back to my old squadron number, Number 10 Squadron. And then we went from there to Chakulia, that’s the southern part of Calcutta. And from there we did some more training, and flying Dakotas. Well, I was in a ground crew at this time, so I kept the planes flying. And then from there as I say I was posted to Burma on, on Dakotas where we was supply dropping rice to [unclear] and all the places that were cut off by the floods, and they couldn’t get the food to the local villages, and so we had a stint there for two or three months, about six months. And then we, we flew back for, I was posted back to my old squadron again. So I’d been posted here and posted there, and then I got, reformed with my old squadron, Number 10. And then ever since then as I say, I was with the squadron so I was there until the war finished in 1945, and that’s when I got demobbed in 1947.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
SP: So, Harry, what made you decide on the RAF, did you have a choice which of the forces to go in to?
HH: Well, the point is there were going to put me in to the Army.
SP: Right.
HH: But I never passed their medical.
SP: Right.
HH: So I still kept on with my old squadron.
SP: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: So in a way I was glad because I didn’t want to go in the Army.
SP: Yeah.
HH: No. I was quite happy where I was.
SP: And do you want to tell me a little about, a bit about Melbourne airbase? What was it like being there? What was it like at Melbourne?
HH: Well, of course they did a lot. It was a new airfield and they were still building on the airfield, making more runways because it was quite a big airfield. And we used to take flights in that couldn’t make their own base because we had a FIDO system there which lit up the runways because of the fog we used to get up in Yorkshire. And that cleared the air so the planes could land. So we were quite busy in that period. That’s why we had quite a few dispersal points. So we could carry loads of aircraft from different airfields.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Yeah, that’s it. No. As I say I I had a good, a good life in the, in the RAF because you know, I said to the guy I used to do sign writing and paint these lovely girls on the aircraft which kept all the boys [laughs] happy, yeah. So I’ve had quite a varied life in the RAF you know. Which I was trained to do which came in good stead.
SP: So tell me a bit about the, some of the paintings you did. Can you remember any particular ones that stood out?
HH: Some of these like Dorothy L’amour.
SP: Yeah.
HH: I used to paint her. A nice picture of her on the aircraft and all the different, different stars in those days, you know, yeah, Lana Turner and all those big stars. Oh yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed it but they certainly made use of my, my vast experience anyway.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. That’s one.
SP: So, just looking at the, the planes that you painted who decided what to paint on a plane? Was that you or the crew?
HH: Whatever they asked me to do I used to make a rough sketches, and then I used to do them properly, you know and in time to put them on to the aircraft, you know.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. That’s it. It was quite interesting actually, yeah, oh yeah.
SP: How long did it take to do one of those paintings, do you know?
HH: Well, quite a, well quite a time really because you know I made a start, and of course when they went on operations I had to do them when they came back, so, well some of them when they came back. I know we lost about a hundred and thirty five aircraft.
SP: Right.
HH: On our squadron alone in those, in those, in that war, the years, yeah. So well, our planes were, we used to drop mines and [unclear] we dropped mines on, around Kiel in Germany, all around Le Havre in France. To stop all their ships coming out, you know, so, yeah. We did quite a bit of mining, land mining and sea mining and all that. So, it was, well quite varied we had. But apart from bombing you know Germany and that, no. It was quite an experience it was. Yeah. Well, apart from keeping the planes flying, yeah.
SP: So obviously you looked after your planes. So what would your typical day be like, would there be a typical day for you?
HH: Well —
SP: As a air crew, as ground crew.
HH: Ground staff. Well, yeah we always had planes coming back, you know been hit by flak and anti-aircraft shells and all that kind of thing so, they would be patched up and I used to have to go and suss out some of the controls in the aircraft. That kept me busy. I know we had, we had a flight [pause] I had a flight in the rear gunner’s position, what they called fighter affiliation. That’s when we had a Spitfire on our tail. I said, I said to Peter, who was the pilot at the time, I said, ‘We’ve got a Spitfire on our tail.’ He said, ‘I’ll shake him off.’ He shook him off all right. He turned this Halifax. He rolled us over. He dived [laughs] I said, ‘You don’t want to keep doing that too much. It’s a stress on the main spar.’ [laughs] Anyway, we did shake him off, he was a good pilot, you know, yeah. Oh, we had some near misses too, you know. When we had that Messerschmitt 110 came, came in from, from Norway actually, and he strafed the runway and all the roads but luckily a Spitfire got on his tail and shot him down in the next airfield and we were coming back from Melbourne that trip so we saw it, saw it actually happen, you know. It was quite, quite an horrendous day that was. Yeah. It could have been us but luckily it was, it all happened in front of us, so we could see what was happening. Yeah. As I say you still remember all those days. You had good days and you had bad days you know. Yeah.
SP: What was the atmosphere like when not all the planes came back, because you said —
HH: Very sad actually. Yeah. Well, we could see them coming over from Seaton Ross. We counted them as they was coming in and I said, ahh, we lost a few that night. Yeah. That was a sad moment because like when they all came back all the ground staff and air crew would all used to go to the Melbourne Arms.
SP: All went to where?
HH: The Melbourne Arms.
SP: The Melbourne Arms.
HH: The pub. Yeah.
SP: Yeah. The pub. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. We used to have a good drinking session [laughs] That was, you know, it was quite an experience really when you look back. Lucky, as I say I - one of the people that got through the war. Yeah. I was, it was. Some never made it. Yeah. It was the aircrew that really suffered a lot, because you never know, you know. We would see, see them coming back and counting those that didn’t come back and you knew they had been shot down. Yeah. That’s how [pause]you know, it was quite a life.
SP: So you were talking about the repairs to the plane and that. Could you always manage to repair all the planes or could sometimes —
HH: Well, we patched them up the best we could.
SP: Right. Yeah.
HH: Well, sometimes we never had a spare. We had to keep an aircraft spare, so we could take the parts off to service other aircraft that were flying. Yeah. So it was a bit, a bit dodgy in those days getting spares but, no. As I say I, I made the most of my life being in the RAF. And fortunately I, being artistic I done some of the work you know which kept up the morale.
SP: With your paintings.
HH: Yeah. Yeah, so yeah. Nice was that.
SP: You talked about going to York as well. Did you? Is that where you went you say on your days off to York.
HH: Yeah. We used to go to York.
SP: Yeah. What was that like?
HH: Oh, York. That was a lovely place. York. You know. We used to have a special place to go to drink. Yeah. Oh, I forget the name of it now. Oh dear. This is going back some while now but this pub was special, just for the RAF boys, you know. We more or less, all the aircrew and ground crew were all going to this pub and all the drinks were flowing like water, yeah, in those days, yeah.
SP: And how did —
HH: I couldn’t drink now, eh?
SP: How did you get in and out of York?
HH: Well, we had a, a courtesy bus from the station, used to come in at special times and if we didn’t get on that bus well you’d had it [laughs] You had to stay in York until the next, next bus come out [laughs] And the next one. But we all made it home. Yeah. It was, it was quite funny at times. Yeah.
SP: And can you remember other of the ground crew or did you —
HH: Well, looking back at some of those pictures now. Well, we was all young. Well, when you’re ninety odd you, well you change don’t you? But as I say those, those chaps there, as I say we were all in our eighteens or twenties you see. So I know like, well we talked about things and of course everything classed together so we all knew what we were talking about. Yeah. Good now. Well, we had to make the most of it really, forces. Either you do or you don’t, you know. I know some of the boys couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t keep up with it. That’s, it’s like those chaps who were in office work you know. They couldn’t get used to the being, you know I suppose in the RAF you know. They’d been ground crew, so they roughed it a bit but of course I was used to it you see.
SP: Then you went over to India. You said you went all the way over to India.
HH: Yeah.
SP: What was life like over in India?
HH: India. Well, it was a bit hectic you know, especially on their streets out there. They’d run you over for nothing. You had to be so careful crossing the roads and all that out there because they was as mad as March hares they were. Oh yeah. I can always remember one, one instance, there was a, what they call a garry and it was pulled by horses, and they came around this bloody bend at such a rate that one of the horses collapsed and died. Oh Christ, well what a carry on because their horses are like, like gods you know. Oh, it was pandemonium you know when the horse died or anything like that. Oh dear. They couldn’t do enough. Yeah. Very shocking it was. Yeah. No as I say apart from that you know I have seen seen quite a bit of life out there. The Indians and the way they carried on out there. It was a bit different from our life anyway.
SP: And your job was repairing the planes.
HH: Yeah.
SP: The Dakotas.
HH: That’s it. Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
SP: And the jobs that the Dakotas were doing. Did you say that was dropping food?
HH: Food. Rice. Mainly rice. So, we used to go to these outlying villages in [unclear] and all those places in the north. North of Burma where they was cut off by the floods you see, and they couldn’t get the rice through by road so we had to fly it in and we used to get over the villages, and we used to drop the rice out, you know. And then they used to [pause] kept them alive. Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Otherwise they would have starved. Yeah.
SP: And were you saying that sometimes the food shifted in the plane?
HH: Oh, well. Well, at one time there although all the, all the blokes tied a load together it all snapped, and of course the, all the load shifted to the front and of course they nose dived in to the deck. Yeah.
SP: So, they actually —
HH: Eh?
SP: Crashed whilst they were carrying the —
HH: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Oh, yes. We had our moments or so but well, we got through it anyway. You know, lucky as I say. We were fortunate really being on the ground staff. It was the aircrew that we were more concerned with.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. So —
SP: So, Harry you were saying about you had to go out to the dispersal units sometimes to repair the planes.
HH: Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, like maintenance jobs and all that you see. As I say some of the planes that came back you know were from raids the previous days. They might have been shot up or hit by flak, German anti-aircraft batteries and we just like patched them up and kept them flying. Any main repairs and that had to go in to the hangar for a service you see. Minor jobs were all done in the dispersal point. Yeah. So, yeah as I say, it used to be quite hectic, you know, sometimes when the German bombers came over. We had one scare one night. It was at Pocklington actually, the next airfield. They, they started bombing them and we could see tracer shells flying all over the place you know, and bombs hitting the runway, yeah, oh quite, quite a nightmare. Luckily, we, we escaped most of it. We were lucky really on our squadron. But no, as I say we, we did see some action I’ll tell you, when they started coming over. They used to come over from Norway, you see and well, Norway and from Denmark, up the North Sea. Yeah, because we were near the east coast we were. Most of our squadrons like Pocklington and Elvington, and Driffield were all on the east coast. Those were all Halifax squadrons and all in Lincolnshire were Lancasters, so yeah. But, oh we got through it, made the most of it. As I say we had our good days and had bad days.
SP: You say you got demobbed in ’47.
HH: Yeah.
SP: So what did you do after the war then? What did you —
HH: Before, I was a, I worked for a display firm called Regal Displays. I was an apprentice to being a commercial artist you know, doing signs and painting, photographs, murals and all that kind of thing. So it came in good stead when I was called up and I did a lot of that work in the RAF. They got me, being artistic they got me lined up for jobs [laughs] Yeah. So in a way I didn’t have a bad life really. Yeah.
SP: And then you went back to your artist, your painting.
HH: Well —
SP: After the war.
HH: I did go back for a while but I couldn’t, couldn’t settle down, because open air life. So I, I went to another firm. So I still couldn’t get really settled down. That’s how, I took up cycling. That was what my pastime was, because I liked the open air life. And that as far as that’s why I keep fit today. Yeah. I still got the bike in. Well, not my, the bike I originally had, but I made a design racing frames you see and I used to do a lot of racing you see in those days. But no, when I came out I just took up touring, you know. I got a bike and joined a Cycling Club and went all over the country. Yeah.
SP: Ever back to Melbourne?
HH: Eh?
SP: Ever back to Melbourne?
HH: I went back to Melbourne. Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. I took the wife back there actually. She wanted to see it. Yeah. They’ve got a Memorial outside it now haven’t they? Yeah. Because the farmer, I know the farmer well they’ve still got the perimeter track going around and they use that for drag racing on there.
SP: Yeah.
HH: So, they still keep the airfield going in that way, in that respect. Yeah. That’s, no it was a quite a nice airfield actually. It was, it was a what we called a model airfield because they did a lot of extra work on there, that one because it was quite a big airfield. Well, where we had a lot more dispersal points so we’d take, take any aircraft in when it got misty. We had the FIDO system going either side of the runway and the planes could land you see without, you know crashing. Yeah. It was quite interesting really. Yeah.
SP: Yeah, so that, that’s great Harry. Is there anything else you think you’ve not had had the chance to say or anything that you think —
HH: No.
SP: You want to put down on tape.
HH: I’m just thinking. This is going way back now. When I was called up, yeah, I went to Cardington. That’s where I did all my square bashing there, and we used to go around all the little side roads, you know with full pack. Oh, that was a job and a half, you know, cor. You were just, just glad to get back to take all your packs off your back, used to be quite heavy by the time you got back. Yeah. That’s how well it kept us fit. PT in the morning at 6 o’clock just, we were dressed in a pair of trunks. That’s all we had. Yeah, on a cold morning, oh, getting up was a, quite an effort of it. Yeah.
SP: And how long did you do at Cardington in the training? How long would you be there for?
HH: Oh, about four, about four or five weeks. And we passed out there, and so that’s where we went to, to the different airfields you see. I was posted up to Melbourne, and as I say I went on to ground staff and a lot of them went to different parts of the ground staff like MT section and the, there was packing, the packing up of parachutes and all that kind of thing. Yeah. I know once I picked up this parachute and I’ve picked up the rip cord, and of course I was, had the ‘chute coming out trailing along the bloody, bloody ground. And the sergeant said, ‘Well, you can take it back and you can repack it.’ So I had to take it back, and I saw how they did it, so I did pack, repack it, so I made a single pack. Repacked the ‘chute but no, it takes a lot. A lot of strings came out, you know yeah, and all your silk was all folded over. Yeah. You had to get it so nice and neat so you can fold it back in to the pack. Quite a job but still I managed it alright. I mean I was quite mobile in those days [laughs] Yeah. So I’ve seen a bit of life. Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s why, you know when you’ve been in the Services it does you the world of good. It’s good training for like living, living a longer life, you know. Yeah.
SP: Well, that’s brilliant Harry. So I just want to say thank you very much on behalf of the International Bomber Command for doing the recording for them today.
HH: Aye. Yeah.
SP: We’d just like to thank you for your time.
HH: Yeah. That’s fine love, yeah.
SP: Ok. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harry Hodgson
Creator
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Susanne Pescott
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-23
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHodgsonH170723, PHodgsonH1701
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Pending review
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Format
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00:31:01 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Hodgson was ground crew during the war. He was based with 10 Squadron, working on Halifax Bombers at RAF Melbourne. Harry said it was a very busy time patching up the holes from both anti-aircraft fire and bullets on the Halifax. He remembers having to work in freezing conditions when the planes were on the dispersal points getting them ready to fly again. It was after around 3 operations the aircraft would be taken into the hangar for a more thorough overhaul. Harry was also on the receiving end of German fire when the airfield and local roads were strafed by German fighters that had followed the 10 Squadron Halifax Bombers back to base. Harry was a sign writer before he joined up and due to this was asked by several of the crews to paint the nose art on their aircraft.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Burma
Great Britain
India
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
10 Squadron
C-47
crash
FIDO
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
military service conditions
nose art
RAF Cardington
RAF Melbourne
RAF Pocklington
RAF St Mawgan
Spitfire
strafing
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1039/11411/AMulhallJE160823.1.mp3
673bbe19930c11fe8fca198bcc140a3e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Mulhall, James
James Edward Mulhall
J E Mulhall
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with James Mulhall (b. 1924, 224223 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 75 Squadron before becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Mulhall, JE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM1: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is James Mulhall. The interview is taking place at Mr Mulhall’s home in Heaton Chapel, Stockport on the 25th of August 2016. Jim, could you tell us a little bit about your life before you joined the RAF and what it was that motivated you to enlist?
JM2: The main thing I should imagine, I was born in Gorton, at 151 Hyde Road, which was my grandmother’s house and subsequent schooling was at Catholic schools, the last one being St Roberts in Longsight. I, er, was tending towards mechanical things at a fairly early age but I was apprenticed as a plumber to a man called Frank Butler for some years before the Blitz became something of a nuisance in Manchester. So, it was while I was in — my sister and mother used to nip down to the Anderson shelter in the garden but I was too lazy to do this and used to stay in bed, until a bomb dropped nearby which decapitated a man in the next street and forced me under the bed, and I didn’t like this idea at all, so I decided when the time was ripe I’d join the Air Force and get a little bit of my own back. So, er, this is how it transpired I became an Air Force [slight cough] member. The — I was inaugurated at Dover Street in Manchester, went to Padgate for initial training, was sent to Skegness for the usual square bashing and then on from there to St Athan to train as a mechanic, and from there back to Henlow to assemble hurricanes as a mechanic. They came over from Canada in boxes and we put them together, put the wings on and flew them off to squadrons. From there on I decided — well, I was able to go into aircrew and I went back to St Athan to train as a flight engineer and that began the system that we’re talking about now.
JM1: Thank you and what year was that please?
JM2: 1942. In November I joined up and I left in February 1946.
JM1: Right. From St Athan did you go straight to an Operational Training Unit?
JM2: We went to, er, RAF Stradishall to con on Stirlings because I was trained on Stirlings. Spent thirteen weeks, believe it or not, in learning every nook and cranny of this aircraft which was a horrible, awful airplane from my point of view, all electrical and a real nuisance to get about because of this. It had four radial engines, twin row, fourteen cylinder, sleeve-valve, air-cooled engines which are a nightmare to maintain. However, while, whilst doing Con Unit we got the opportunity or were offered to change to Lancasters which we did to a place called Feltwell. And while everybody else’s job was the same, mine was totally different. I had four liquid cooled, twelve cylinder, in line engines to cope with as well as completely diff— different systems of doughty and pressure volumes for the various systems in the aircraft. I got a fortnight to do this and I didn’t enjoy it at all I must admit so presumably I learnt as I went along in Con Unit more or less and got away with it fortunately.
JM1: When you were operating Lancasters did you work closely with the ground engineers?
JM2: That was my job entirely [emphasis]. The rest of the crew weren’t interested in the aeroplane as a mechanical object. All they were interested in really was in flying in it. But my liaison with the ground crew was uppermost in this system because I had to go to every morning, well at least after every operation, after I had a sleep to go and run the engines and get the aircraft ready for flight either that afternoon or evening and sign the 700, which I might point out was always the pilot’s duty in the years before, but when it came to four-engine aircraft and the flight engineer being trained to look after these systems he [emphasis] had to sign the 700, which for a nineteen-year-old was quite a, a thing to do because it hands the aircraft over to me, away from the ground crew. They then relinquish all [slight cough] responsibility for it so, yes, I had a great deal to do with the ground crew.
JM1: And when you were posted to 75 Squadron — I’ll go back a bit. When you crewed up with your crew how was that done please?
JM2: [laugh] In the most ambiguous way you can imagine. The crew had been working together as a crew, six members, flying Wimpys, Vickers Wellingtons, and so were well acquainted with one another over a period of two or three months I would imagine. Then one evening, when we’d passed out as engineers, they assembled all these crews that they intended to crew up with the engineers into the theatre at St Athan, which was quite a massive affair, and when they were all seated nattering to themselves us crews were ushered in and said, ‘Go and find yourself a crew.’ [laugh] We were flabbergasted there’s no doubt about it. Literally we were faced with all these pancake faces who we didn’t know from Adam and had to sort ourselves out and I finished up by going up to one chap I fancied the look of and I said, ‘Do you fancy me as an engineer?’ And he turned out to be Hugh Rees and he said, ‘Certainly. What’s your name?’ I said, ‘James Mul—’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Oh.’ I said, ‘Jim’. He said, ‘Well, I’m Hugh, this is Westie and this is Rees [?].’ And that’s how we went from there on in and it worked.
JM1: That’s remarkable isn’t it?
JM2: It surprised me I must admit.
JM1: It must have been difficult for you in that, in that atmosphere. It must have been very stressful.
JM2: I was very much the new boy with the cloak of fear, as you might say, surrounding the whole thing, yeah.
JM1: And were you then posted to 75 Squadron?
JM2: No. We had to con from there on in. We went to Stradashall to start flying Stirlings. All of us being strangers to that aeroplane and it was whilst we were there that the offer came. Well, more or less it came nearly as an order to tra— because of the losses in Bomber Command on Lancasters, which had a, a height minimum of five foot six before and I was five foot five and a half and others were small, as small as me, particularly the gunners, and, er, from there on in we transferred to Lancasters at a place called Feltwell and, as I’ve already said, that was the initial inauguration with the aeroplane and we had to come to terms with it from there on in.
JM1: But the posting to the squadron was something that you didn’t have any choice about. You, you were posted to 75?
JM2: No. We didn’t have any choice from that, no. We were posted as a crew to 75 Squadron.
JM1: And of course 75 was unusual because it was a New Zealand Squadron.
JM2: It was but there was a pretty scarcity of New Zealanders on the base, whether from losses or otherwise, I wouldn’t know. We had one New Zealander, New Zealander in our crew, and that was Westie, the bomb aimer. Westie his name was. A pretty ferocious character in his way and he wouldn’t mind me saying this but, er, he was always looking for trouble [laugh]. I never got on with him really because as he was on Stirlings he was second pilot on the Stirling where I was posted way, halfway, down the fuselage with all my gear as the flight engineer, but when we conned on Lancasters I [emphasis] became the second pilot and, unfortunately, Westie was dismissed into the bomb pit and he never got over this, so if he could drop me in the fertiliser he would do [laugh] and on some occasions did.
JM1: In what way?
JM2: Well, we came home one night and it was nearly dark and I was always last out the aeroplane. I had a lot of breakers and stuff to do and gather things up and I was always last out the aeroplane. As everybody else got out as quickly as they could, you know, to breathe the fresh air from the confines of the aeroplane and, er, when I came to get out of the rear door there’s no ladder. There used to be a little short ladder there and it’s about five, six foot to the ground and I said, ‘Where’s the ladder? Well, I don’t know. It must have fell out.’ Colloquial language to that effect and I didn’t get any reply from the darkness and I thought, ‘Somebody’s playing up or what. Come on.’ Anyway, I thought, ‘Oh, never mind.’ And I threw my bag out to one side so I wouldn’t drop on it when I jumped out. Decided to make the jump in the darkness, completely black, and I did so and landed in the largest puddle you’d ever seen in your life, to roars of laughter from everybody roundabout. So that’s one of the instances where Westie set me up and there were others of course along the way.
JM1: Did you get your own back?
JM2: Eventually. Unhappily [laugh] but anyway that’s another story.
JM1: OK. So once you were posted to 75 Squadron. That was at Mepal?
JM2: Meth— Mepal.
JM1: Mepal. Mepal. Could you tell us what it was like serving at Mepal in Cambridgeshire? What sort of a, a base was it?
JM2: It was a bit rough and ready. It’s, er, it was a satellite drome. Witchford was next door and Waterbeach was about ten or fifteen miles away. It was the parent aerodrome at that time. It was a bit uncomfortable in its way. The food was alright but the Nissan huts we were put, billeted in had no heating. We had a little potbellied stove which we used to steal coke to try and get warm and we used to steal it from the cookhouse, which we weren’t very popular with, er, but warmth was always at a premium on the base particularly in the later months, October and November, but the villagers were very good and fortunately I struck up an acquaintance with one of a girls in the village, so that made life a lot more pleasant [laugh] at 75.
JM1: Was it one crew per Nissan hut or more than one crew per Nissan hut?
JM2: We had two and sometimes spare bodies but there was no more than two full crews in a Nissan hut.
JM1: And did you ever have occasions where you had returned but the other crew were lost?
JM2: Unfortunately, yes, on many occasions when they came round, the SPs, Special Police, came round bundling up the kit into bags and emptying the lockers, and we knew then that, er, not only were they missing but they weren’t expected to come back.
JM1: How did you cope with that as a crew and as an individual?
JM2: We were all very young, you see, and you, you tend to adapt. I was only nineteen and I don’t think anybody was older than about twenty-two or twenty-three. In fact, the skipper was a month younger than I was. Fancy being in command of a Lancaster at nineteen years of age. Hugh Rees was his name. In fact, my son-in-law is in contact with his son at this particular time, yeah. So, er, you cope with it. Its empty tables around the mess for, for meals. Empty seats was another thing you learnt to cope with, so — but as I say being young you just adapted. You were thankful to survive.
JM1: Can we turn now to your operations? Could you tell us a bit about your first operation? How you felt and what happened?
JM2: [slight laugh] It was, er, a daylight raid to the U-Boat pens at St Nazaire and as we were under radar, flying at under two thousand feet, and only climbing to the operational height of ten thousand as we approached the target. As we were the third wave in we were startled to see the sky literally black with ak-ak puff smokes and as a green crew this, er, didn’t look very pleasant to us at all but we were to learn of course that these weren’t the things which we were to worry about. It was the ones that we didn’t see that we had to worry about. However, we got through the, the business of dropping the load on the U-Boat pens, notwithstanding seeing a flamer on the left and a flamer on the right, going down both the port and starboard sides, which wasn’t encouraging. However, we got through it and the frightening period [unclear]. We were never ever that frightened again, I don’t think, in targets unless we were coned over search— over on the run in to Rüsselsheim we were coned by searchlights and that was a pretty scary time because we were blinded by the searchlights. We couldn’t see a thing, ducking and weaving and we managed to outfly them with little damage. That was another scary raid but most of them were just enduring the cold and getting through the operation as safely as possible.
JM1: So, when you came back from that first trip to St Nazaire, how long did you have before you had your second operation?
JM2: Oh, I can’t remember that. I think it was about three or four days. The battle order used to be posted up on the, on the mess door, and that was always the thing we looked at first when we got up in the morning before breakfast. Check the battle order, see if you were on it and, er, that’s four or five days I think. Let us settle down before they flung us in again.
JM1: If you, if you were flying that night, if you were on operations, your day would start quite early as the flight engineer presumably, helping getting everything ready?
JM2: Yeah, yeah. Even if I weren’t on battle order I’d still be going up to flights to check the aircraft and see if anything needed rectifying in, in the meantime even if we weren’t. I can only remember two occasions when we weren’t on the battle order, to be quite candid. So, er, we pulled our weight I think.
JM1: I’m sure you did. How many of your operations were daylight operations?
JM2: Oh, I can’t remember that now.
JM1: Roughly.
JM2: I’d say about ten. Nine or ten operations were in daylight, yeah.
JM1: And when you first started to operate at night did that give you as an engineer extra problems in terms of reading the gauges and controlling the engines and the fuel?
JM2: Well, I had to make a log out every twenty minutes and so I had to use a shaded torch to do this. I might have taken my gloves off incidentally which was a dangerous practice. We all had three sets off gloves, silk, cotton and leather and these we kept on all the time until I had to make log out when I had to take the gauntlet and the, er, cotton gloves off so that I could write my log out easily with a pencil and the shaded light. But there was a danger in this, in-as-much-as, the outside temperature of the aircraft round about twenty-two thousand, twenty-four thousand feet was often minus forty degrees, and this meant that the skin of the aircraft and metal things inside it was a similar thing, and if you happened to not use our gloves — and Tee Emm used to report this often enough — and reach for the tank cocks in a rush realising you should have changed cocks before. If you got hold of those with your bare hands that’s where you stayed because the sweat on your hands froze, your fingers, to any metal you touched near the skin of the aircraft. So, I was always careful to keep my gloves on obvious. But some engineers wouldn’t write with cotton gloves on and there were a number of occasions when this happened and was reported in the aircrew magazine of Tee Emm, pointing out the dangers of not doing this.
JM1: So, Tee Emm was an official document or an unofficial?
JM2: It was an official document, a magazine, circulated to aircrew. [laugh] The editor being Pilot Officer Prune who was always subject to these kind of things, yeah.
JM1: And for the record I think it was TEE EMM, wasn’t it? TEE EMM.
JM2: Yes, TEE EMM.
JM1: Thank you. And, in order to do your duties when the aircraft was flying, you wouldn’t be keeping still, you’d be walking up and down the side of the cockpit to the various controls?
JM2: I had a little collapsible seat, which I used I could, but most of the time because I had to reach behind for tank cocks and checking gauges the engineer’s panel was behind the seat on the star— on the starboard side of the aircraft. So it was a nuisance to keep getting up out of the seat. I used to stand most of the time and just lean down with my shaded torch, and flash it slightly, and the luminosity from the gauges would tell me what was going on.
JM1: Did you have any occasions where your aircraft had to return because of mechanical problems so you didn’t complete a sortie?
JM2: No. But we had one occasion I once lost an engine entirely in a Stirling but that’s a different story. The — I once had a CSU go geodetic, which meant that I couldn’t change the pitch, the revs, of the engine concerned, which was the starboard outer, and I reported this. We would take-off roughly at three thousand thousand RPM plus four boost, and we can maintain that for up to nine minutes, but then we have to reduce the revs to take the wear out of the engine, and this was my job to reduce it to climbing power once we’d reached the required height, but I couldn’t shut down the rev counter. I said, ‘This is going to make the engine overtired in its way and become a danger to the aeroplane and I suggest that we return.’ So the pilot said, ‘What can you do about this?’ And I said, ‘Nothing really. I can’t. It’s gone geodetic at the engine end and I can’t pull the lever back so I can’t reduce the revs.’ I said, ‘All I can do is try to keep it cool with a little bit of boost now and then and just hope it doesn’t exceed the limits of heat that it can stand. Because if it does it will cease and the prop will fly off and it will probably come in our direction if this occurs. It might even shake itself out of the bearings. I don’t know. I’ve never had a ceased up engine. I’ve never had a runaway before.’ So he said, ‘Well do the best you can. We’ll press on.’ I thought, ‘This was a rash decision in my opinion but there’s nothing I can do. He’s the captain of the aircraft.’ Fortunately, within half an hour we had an abort. The raid was called off, so we were able to run back to the aerodrome with an emergency and land with the aircraft running at full revs. That engine run for an hour and half at full revs and never missed a beat. Congratulations Rolls Royce. It was changed of course but, er, incredible really for an engine of that size.
JM1: Jim, Jim could I ask you to explain what you mean the word “boost” for those listening?
JM2: Oh, this is a question of pumping more fuel into the cylinders to improve the volume metric efficiency of the engine at that time. Plus four gives us the best we can do. Plus two is what we usually fly at. Our normal air speed is a hundred and eighty, hundred and ninety knots and it depends on height really how much you can boost but plus two is normal at two thousand two hundred revs.
JM1: Your memory, your memory for operating the Lancaster is remarkable.
JM2: Sometimes, in the dark hours [slight laugh], it seems like yesterday.
JM1: Jim, could you tell us a little bit about the atmosphere in the aeroplane when you were operating at night over Germany or enemy occupied Europe. What was it like there?
JM2: Its — you have to remember that there’s literally hundreds of aircraft converging on one target and the risk of collision at night is very, very high and this is one of the things that I think we feared most. In fact, on one occasion, we had on the bomb run, we had six incendiaries from another aeroplane hit our aeroplane because they were above us at a height they shouldn’t have been at, presumably to escape the — most of the flak, which was at operational height, and those incendiaries only failed to ignite because the pins were frozen in. They have a — it’s, about two foot long but hexagonal in shape and the igniter pin sticks out at the side but they’re held in by straps when they’re carried in the canisters that were in the aeroplane, but when they‘re released this little pin springs out so that when they hit the ground the detonator will go off and the magnesium will flare, but because they were frozen in they didn’t ignite when they hit our aircraft. So that was — we, I fished one out from underneath the navigator’s table. One of them knocked my engineer’s pile [?] down on the starboard side and one finished up on the platform of the mid upper gunner’s position. None of them ignited but three others were found by the ground crew piercing each wing and where the tail — the rudder stands up and the tail plane is horizontal — right in that nick there was another incendiary buried in that nick. Why, why the rudder didn’t come off I don’t know [laugh] but that, that was a case of being very close to another aeroplane at night. It was a fear most of us carried I think, collision at night. In fact, er, there’s one instance of we actually saw another plane below us because of the fires on the target. What he was doing down there I don’t know but he was below us. Fortunately he was to one side. But we could see him he was silhouetted against the flare of the fires and we were on the bomb run. What he was doing there I don’t know. I hope he got away with it. Most of it was radio silence because you had to keep intercom clear for emergencies.
JM1: I was just going to ask about that and how did you address one another? Was it pilot to flight engineer or was it first names?
JM2: No, it was always by the designation: pilot, engineer, bomb aimer, mid upper, wireless op, whatever, to make it clear who you were talking to and who was talking to you.
JM1: Yes. Did you have any, um, attacks from night fighters during your operational tour?
JM2: Curiously enough we were flying — when we went to Stettin, we overflew Denmark and Norway and our mid upper who was forty-two years old and well above the age for flying — he should — flying’s limited to people of thirty-five years. How he got away with that I don’t know. He must have been [unclear] somewhere. He had the finest eyesight I ever came across and while we were going over Norway he happened to see a flare path and we what? We were round about ten thousand feet I think. We weren’t too high. And these neutral countries used to fire flak up towards us but always well away from us, never with any no intention of shooting us down, but a token resistance as it were. And he happened to see a flare path at that distance and an aircraft with its nav lights on, going along that flare path, and he warned the skipper of this and he actually, he kept its nav lights on for quite some while, in fact until it was about a thousand feet below us when it switched off. It was obviously being vectored onto us and we watched it rise up along the side of us until our mid upper said to the rear gunner, Charlie, not rear gunner, but Charlie, ‘Let me have the first squirt at it.’ [slight laugh] And it actually rose alongside us about a hundred yards away with the pilot obviously looking upwards to look for our exhaust flames. We’d got eight blue exhaust flames going underneath the aircraft wing which were easily seen at night, particularly from underneath, and he must have been looking for those and not either side of himself. And both gunners had a, what they called, a squirt at it and it fell away but they didn’t, they only claimed a probable. We didn’t know what happen to it but it certainly fell away.
JM1: Had you ever discuss as a crew whether you would [emphasis] open fire because I know some gunners decided not to because they were afraid of drawing attention to themselves?
JM2: Well, funnily enough, we got some tracer coming towards us when we were getting close to the target and we didn’t know what, where it was coming from, but it passed underneath us. But the following day the ground crew dug a 303 bullet out of the tail wheel rims, so it was obviously a friendly aircraft. And the tail wheel had the double rims on it to stop it shimmying and it was that thickness of rubber that caught the, the bullet and they were able to dig it out and prove that it was a 303. So it was a friendly aircraft that had a go at us for some reason.
JM1: How about the weather that you experienced on operations?
JM2: This was always a problem. You’ll get ten tenths cloud over the target. Yeah, tell that to the marines. It was obviously ten tenths all the way, you know. There’s another thing flying in cloud that used to be unnerving to say the least, even in daylight, because you never know — people — we had a direction compass on but you never know when there’s a fault and an aircraft will drift in your path, yeah. In fact, often enough, you would hit the slip stream of an aircraft in front of you and you’d would drop easily four, six hundred feet like a brick because you’ve got no airflow over your wings with the turbulent air that you met in the slip stream, and that used to pin me against the roof of the canopy in no uncertain terms so, er, apart from the cursing [?] we got used to it.
JM1: [slight laugh] Did you ever have to land in very bad conditions?
JM2: Only once. We were diverted by fog to a fighter aerodrome. I forget what — North Weald I think it was — however, the short runway meant that it was a bit of a hairy do to get, to get it down on a short runway which our skipper was pretty good at and made a good job of it. Unfortunately, their ground crew did not know anything about Lancasters, so it fell to me to climb up the following morning, up into the cells. In each cell there’s a little calor gas pump which you have to prime the engine with before you try and start it, and in full flying gear I had to climb up on the main wheel and operate these things, using the bomb aimer as communication between me and the cockpit, and the ground crew with a starter [unclear] and that was a real sweaty job believe me. Up in the confines pumping this calor gas until we got the engines started. I think that was another time when Westie dropped me in it, maybe did it twice. So I had to do that in both the cells and I was sweating like a pig when I got back into the aircraft. But that was the only problem with landing in a different aerodrome, the short runway and having to do the mechanics myself, yeah.
JM1: As, as the tour progressed did, did you feel that you were more or less likely to complete the tour?
JM2: I don’t think we, I don’t think we thought about it really until the last four. When, when we’d done the thirty we thought, what shall I say? We, we were testing fate there a bit. We were pushing the boat out a bit but we were determined to finish as a crew so we, we carried on with the odd four but as I say which turned out to be a fatal decision.
JM1: Because members of the crew had not been able to do all the flights in sequence. One or two were injured or sick?
JM2: That’s right. As I said before our bomb — our, er, wireless operator picked up some shrapnel over the Walcheren Islands and he was in hospital at the time and we had the signals leader with us. It was his one hundredth operation and you can imagine his mind, mind when he had to bail out at that time, [slight cough] notwithstanding the fact we all had to do.
Jm1: Will you tell us about that last operation please?
Jm2: It’s, er — we were due to pick up which was known as a yellow tail, which had special Oboe equipment for, er, target finding, and this was supposed to be done over Lincoln. We were supposed to be number two in a vic of three with any loose aeroplanes fitting the box afterwards. The box formation was for fighter defence [slight cough] primarily but unfortunately we didn’t pick up a yellow tail over Lincoln and we had to settle for going in the box, which was unpleasant place to be really, and we continued to target in this way until on the run in to target we got [slight cough] caught by what was known as predictive flak. This is four guns controlled by radar, which fired a burst of four shells, and if we’d been able to manoeuvre it was fairly easy to avoid but because we weren’t able to manoeuvre — it’s usually about seven to nine seconds between bursts so if the first burst missed you you’ve got this moment in time to change the aircraft latitude, speed or location so that the next burst doesn’t find you where you should be. So, you get used to this system and its fairly easy to devoid, to avoid predictive flak, but we were stuck in the box and not able to move and it slowly crept up, as reported by the rear gunner, getting close and closer, until one shell went through the back of the aircraft, without exploding, fortunately enough, but took away the bunch of controls that lead to the rudders and elevators and part of the tail plane and made the aircraft virtually uncontrollable. At this point they were — it was decided with the damage so obvious that to turn away out of the stream and, er, as the bomb doors were still closed, the bomb aimer did — went through his jettison programme but it doesn’t matter because until the bomb doors are fully open the bomb aimer’s gear will not work for obvious reasons. If he dropped them with the doors closed it would tear the bottom of the aircraft out [slight cough]. So, it was my job to open the bomb doors and jettison the bomb because Westie already gone. He didn’t hang about. He’d gone.
Jm1: Went out through the front hatch?
JM2: Yes. He jettisoned the hatch and went out there and I went behind the pilot’s seat where my parachute was. We had clip-on parachutes. The, the skipper had a sit on parachute. He had a base parachute and he sits on his. So, as I went to get it out of the rack the, er, the navigator and the wireless operator went past me and out through the hatch and I [unclear] harness pin and I went through the hatch as well. And the skipper had apparently had — I met him later on in Dulag Luft, near Frankfurt, in — his fingernails were all torn where he was — the aircraft went into a vicious spin as soon as he let out the ailerons. That was the only control he had, was ailerons, and he went out through the top hatch but he had quite a struggle against the slip stream because it was pinning him to the fuselage with the increased speed. He must have been doing well over two hundred miles an hour, two-fifty miles an hour when he was trying to get out the hatch, which we didn’t have because we went out through the bottom hatch.
JM1: And the gunners went through the rear door didn’t they?
Jm2: Indeed. In fact, I heard them both say, ‘Rear gunner leaving.’ And, ‘Mid upper leaving.’ But funnily enough the mid upper, the, the rear gunner has no memory of leaving and wasn’t completely conscious until about 5 o’clock that night and yet I clearly heard him say, ‘Rear gunner leaving.’
JM1: And what height were you when you bailed out?
Jm2: We were twenty-two thousand [unclear] and I’d say we were between eighteen and twenty thousand or something like. It didn’t take very long.
JM1: No. When you came down tell us what happened when you landed please.
Jm2: I got my rigging lines a little bit crossed and I was trying to untangle the rigging lines and did so, managed to do so, and then I blacked out through lack of oxygen, lack of oxygen. I’d been without the oxygen for quite some time in the manoeuvring inside the aeroplane and I just blacked out through lack of oxygen and I didn’t come to until, oh, about four thousand, three thousand feet or so from the ground and I hit rather hard on a bunch of rubble and the Wehrmacht was waiting for me as a reception committee and I was a bit knocked about a bit and I came too really being frog-marched into a police station in Niebruch [?] and stuffed into an underground cell there.
JM1: Were the other members of your crew there?
JM2: No, on my own. We were widely separated because of the difference in bailing out.
Jm1: Right.
Jm2: [clears throat] I don’t know where the others landed although I must have been told when we met at up Dulag Luft. I can’t remember now.
JM1: How were you treated by the Wehrmacht?
JM2: The, er, the ordinary soldiers I think, I think they were a blessing in disguise because they kept the civilians away from us who were naturally a bit unchuffed about all this business. And, er, but I was put in a cell. They took my flying boots off me and put me in this bare board cell which was underground and, er, I didn’t have anything to eat for, er, quite some while. The following day the, er, sergeant of the police elected to interrogate me, by the simple means of sitting me in front of him at his desk, un-holstering his luger, sliding the [clears throat] breech back, pushing the safety catch off and pointing the barrel at me as he laid it on his desk, which felt a bit uncomfortable because I’ve fired a luger and know how hair trigger they are. So with him speaking German and me speaking English we didn’t get very far I must admit so we gave it up as a bad job and I went back in the cell. But, er, the following night I was moved from there to a Luftwaffe aerodrome on the back of a lorry and in the darkness [laugh] a voice said, ‘Have you got a fag, mate.’ Which I didn’t. The soldiers that picked me up took my wristwatch off me and pinched my cigarettes. I had a pack of cigarettes. They took the cigarettes out and put the cigarette case back in my pocket, surprisingly, but they pinched my cigarettes. I said, ‘No, I haven’t mate, sorry.’ But it turned out to be a Canadian gunner who’d gone down presumably nearby in the same raid. I said, ‘No I haven’t mate. I’m sorry.’ Anyway after a short journey through the all the rubble in the city. [unclear] used to clear a road through cities just to get transport through and they put me in this Luftwaffe transport base in a cell in, er, this ready room and whilst I was in there — I hadn’t had anything to eat for two days by then or drink — and one of the, er, Luftwaffe members, one of the ground crew saw me eyeing up his meal, er, two slices of bread and butter with molasses in. He saw me eyeing this up and he came over and give me [clears throat] half of it and this turned me really. It was the only kindness I ever saw off a German throughout me — in fact, it made me quite emotional, as I am now. He gave half his lunch to an enemy you might say, mm.
JM1: That’s quite something isn’t it?
JM2: It was for me, mm.
JM1: Yes and from there you went to Dulag Luft?
JM2: Yes. Frankfurt am Main for interrogation, er, ten days isolation, solitary confinement, in a ten by eight foot cell, which had a little window barred up, high up, and the only communication was a lever you had inside the inside wall which, when you turned it, dropped a signal out on the outside in the corridor to let the guard know that you wanted to come out for some reason or other. That’s the only communication you had with the outside world for ten days, apart from meals that were brought to you.
JM1: And you were interrogated again at Dulag Luft?
Jm2: Yeah. [slight laugh] The — I think there was a bit of smartness there because the — while I was being interrogated, the usual rank, name and number, and trying invoke information off you which I didn’t have much of any way. I didn’t have much to tell but what there was wasn’t worth telling so I didn’t bother. But during this, imagine I’m quite scruffy and dirty and unshaven and they brought in a young woman, a stenographer of some kind, to jot down the answers, all glammed up to the eyebrows, to make me feel as uncomfortable as possible, which it certainly did. [laugh] I felt a real scruffy object in front of this glamorous female. Yeah, a bit of psychological warfare there.
JM1: I, I’ve read that sometimes the interviewers, the interrogators, knew more about the squadron than you did. Did you get that?
JM2: They did. They told me who my flight was and who my flight commander was. Another psychological trick I would imagine but I was aware enough by then. I’d had a few meals and I didn’t respond to it. There’s no point. If you respond to it they pump you harder. You were told about this. The more you give away, the more they pump you, so you keep your mouth shut.
JM1: And where did you go from Dulag Luft please?
JM2: Stalag Luft VII in Upper Silesia, Poland. Quite chilly and that. It was December by then.
JM1: This was December 1944?
JM2: Yes.
JM1: Yes and what was it like in that camp?
JM2: A bit rough and ready. Food was the real problem. Food was always the main topic t of conversation in captivity because you never got enough of it and what the Germans doled out was pretty rough. Their sauerkraut was — I wouldn’t have give it to a dog but we’d have it. We ate it in most cases. We had what was known as pea soup and we used to separate the peas, and inside each pea there used to be a little tiny beetle, and we used to split the pea open and open the people [?] and get a little row of tiny beetles and we would save them while we scoffed the peas. Believe me this is quite true.
JM1: I believe you.
JM2: It’s hardly credible from a civilian point of view but beetle soup it became known as, yeah. Hunger was always the problem.
JM1: And Red Cross parcels?
JM2: Infrequent and, er, often we had to share one parcel between four or two and not, not, not — very few of them. In fact, there’s a record of them in here that, er, of the people who kept diaries. David’s done a log of the times that we’d done but it’s hardly worth bothering with now.
JM1: David is your son-in-law?
JM2: Yes. He is indeed. He’s the instigator of all this stuff except for the models. I brought the models in.
JM1: Were you concerned that your family should know that you were still alive?
JM2: That was another thing. They were allowed to write one letter, for the Red Cross gave us one air mail letter to write to our families, which I understand my mother never got for some reason or other, and from the telegram she got when I was posted missing she heard nothing from, for six months, almost the entire captivity period, except for a couple in Scotland, who had a, a fairly powerful short wave radio and they used to listen to the prisoners recorded by the Red Cross as being prisoners of war and my name was mentioned on one of these broadcasts, and they took the trouble to find out from the Air Force where my mother lived and informed her I was alive and well at that time, but for all that period she didn’t know whether I was alive or dead.
JM1: And what about camp entertainment? How did you spend your time?
JM2: [Laugh] Oh, er, we rigged up what was known as a, a pantomime for Christmas and called it “Pantomania” because we were all blokes in it and one amusing incident came out of that. We had a pirate scene and we organised a cannon, er, that was all papier-mâché and tubes of all sorts of things and at the back an elastic flap, which would propel a, a black ball of paper out the muzzle and this was coordinated with a flash of, um, magnesium. I don’t know where the hell they got the magnesium from. I’ve no idea. But they had it anyway. We used to get people working out. They used to pinch things all over the place. However, during the pantomime we turned this, the — they allowed us to run this pantomime provided a number of German officers could watch what was going on and, er, not allow anything what they didn’t like. [slight cough] However, we managed to turn this cannon in this scene, fire the ball of — black ball towards the audience with the flash, and this made the German officers jump up and quickly snatch their lugers out and start waving them about, wondering what the heck was going on. And it was only a black ball of paper but they stopped the show and it as quite some time until we persuaded them to let us get on with it. So that was an amusing incident that came out of it [slight laugh].
JM1: Was there any talk of escape at this stage in the war?
JM2: Well, they found a tunnel under the, er, under the stage where we were. It wasn’t much of a tunnel but they found it under the stage and there was a number of organisations in the camp, which I was never part of, that leant themselves towards this idea but nobody — it was too near the end of the war to chance anything particularly dangerous. I admired one chap, one particular at Colditz. They used to — they organised a playing field away from the castle, down below the castle heights. They managed to persuade the Germans to let them have a game of football because the quadrangle was too small at Colditz and they did this a number of times until somebody had the bright idea of pole vaulting over the wire fence that they surrounded this playing field with. And he took the sections of the pole vault down his trousers, assembled it on the playing field, and pole vaulted over the wire and made a home run home from that daring escape so late in the war, yeah. Incredible that, weren’t it? That was a record by the way.
JM1: Incredible. I get the impression the morale of RAF personnel was quite high in the camp?
Jm2: Yes, yes it was pretty good, yeah, I would, I would say so. The [laugh] one amusing incident came when we first went there, at Stalag Luft VII, we were on the same level as the sentries patrolling outside the wire but the various tunnels or starting tunnels that they did, we used to have to drop the soil out through our trouser legs on the walk around the edge of the camp, the periphery we had to, used to, walk round for exercise. They used to allow us so far away from the goon boxes, about fifty yards or so away, and the number — they, they took so much earth and we dropped so much earth through the bags in our trousers, walking round, that we found ourselves above the level of the sentries outside the wire. [laugh] Would you believe? [slight laugh]
JM1: Incredible.
JM2: Incredible. We didn’t realise this at first until we found ourselves looking down on the sentries walking round the wire.
JM1: Just before we move on, you’ve, you’ve mention a couple of phrases I think need clarifying. Goon boxes?
JM2: Ah, these were stationed every, I would say hundred yards or so, round the perimeter wire of the yard [?] and they stood up on stilts, about roughly fifteen feet or so above ground level, on a, on a narrowing tower. Each contained a searchlight and a machine gun and two serving officers, Wehrmacht officers, er, Wehrmacht personnel. So that, er, if you — there was a, a trip wire about fifty yards inside the main wire which you must not [emphasis] step over on fear of being shot at, night or day, and this searchlight was used at night to patrol this area at night, and you certainly would be shot at. In fact one person was shot at while I was there and he was killed. I think he went a bit mental and went scrambling up the wire and they shot him.
JM1: Now that’s different from the box that you were describing when you flew to the target. That’s a formation? An aircraft formation?
JM2: Yes. A vic, a three vic, an aircraft of three in a vic and the box at the back that we were in for the fighter protection.
JM1: So it’s an aircraft formation?
JM2: Yes.
JM1: And the yellow tail I think. Can you just explain that for the record please?
JM2: It was known as G-H bars [?]. Why? I have no idea. I don’t know what the latter stands for but the aircraft that carried yellow stripes on the rudder had this Oboe equipment which guided them to the target more accurately than anything up to that day.
JM1: So we’re dealing with navigation and target finding electronic equipment?
JM2: Yes.
JM1: So, can we turn now to the fact that you were one of those who was released and were on the Long March?
JM2: Yes. That was — we warned about this for some while, er, when we were doing the pantomime which was just before Christmas, but the Russians were, er, getting fairly close to the camp at this stage. By close I mean about fifty miles or so and the Germans were getting a bit edgy and it came out later that Hitler was pulling all POWs back towards Berlin, presumably to use them as some kind of hostages. But however, we were turned out once and then sent back into the billets, er, in January but then on, I think it was the 19th of January, at half past three in the morning, to start the march which was, turned out to be two hundred and ninety-seven kilometres in a snow bound country in Upper Silesia in Poland when Poland was experiencing the worst winter it had ever known. It was just a wasteland wherever you looked. The only indication of road that we were on was the telegraph wires that were on poles alongside the road to indicate where the road was that we were supposed to be on, often trudging through quite deep snow, which was trodden down by — I think there was about two thousand-odd of us on the march — but two thousand, two hundred and ninety-seven kilometres in twenty-one days, a hundred and eighty miles, which was quite a feat by people who were half-starved. In fact a lot of men died on that particular march.
Jm1: And where did you end up at?
Jm2: A place called Luckenwalde about fifteen kilometres south of Berlin and, er, we, we became in the middle of a shell swap between the Germans and the Russians at one time. In fact one, one Russian shell, presumably it was Russian, landed in our compound and exploded harmlessly, as it happened, but by this time the German guards had gone away from the camp and left the camp to us. They had retreated to their own lines, or whatever, and we were running the camp ourselves at that particular time. And, er, eventually these Russians came and mowed down the wire and said, ‘You’re free now.’ And liberated us and the following day put the wire up again and contained us, which was a bit of a [unclear] at the time as we had no contract, transport and we had nowhere to go so we just had to stay in camp until eventually the Americans stopped the Russians from crossing the Elbe back into their territory until the Russians allowed us [emphasis] to cross the Elbe back into American territory. Then the Americans sent lorries and picked us up and took us back to their territory.
JM1: And how did you get home from Germany?
JM2: We were flown from, er, Leipzig. They took us by lorry to Leipzig, to a German wireless school at the time, and then they flew us to Brussels in the courses [?] and then from there flew us home in Lancasters, eight at a time, back to England.
JM1: And that was your last flight in a Lancaster was it?
JM2: It was indeed, yes [slight laugh]. Not a very comfortable one on my side because I knew there was a little — we were strung along the aircraft, nose to tail, eight of us, to try a keep the centre of gravity in the aircraft, and I got myself near the wireless ops’ window because I knew there was a little window there I could look out. I was a crafty arse. And I was looking through this, timing the crossing and more or less from anybody who had a watch and I thought we should be seeing — and I saw the Seven Sisters in the distance and I said, a pal [?] said, ‘Pass it along. We can see Seven Sisters. We’re almost there.’ With that everyone had to have a look [slight laugh] and then about five minutes later the pilot sent the wireless operator back and said, ‘Tell the lads we can see Seven Sisters.’ [laugh] Oh, dear. This isn’t the end of the tale. When we came to Cosford we realised from the engine, well, all of us realised from the engine notes that we were in finals and the silence from the engine cooked, not knowing we were near touchdown, and we bounced along the runway like a ping pong ball. Oh lordie me, I forgot what — g-doing, g-doing, g-doing. I thought, ‘When are we going to finish this lot.’ You know. I don’t know how long but it seemed forever to me and finally we were rolling along comfortably [laugh] and the wireless op said, ‘I’ve come to tell you we’ve landed lads.’ Dear, oh dear. I don’t know who the pilot was, bless him.
Jm1: [laugh] So, once you got back you had some survivor’s leave?
JM2: Yes. Well, we had to go through all the uniform delousing and stuff like this that was going on and, er, what were we doing? We got a fortnights’ leave, yeah, and sent home. [laugh] I remember coming home with the kit on my back, a kit bag full of gear, all brand new gear, and it was night and I got home, knocked on my front door and my sister, pardon the — my sister came to the door and it was completely dark. It was still black at that time. It was about 9 o’clock at night. I said, ‘Have you got anything for the Red Cross?’ And she shouted back to my mother, ‘Have you anything?’ And my mother rushed out, pushed her to one side and grabbed hold of me [laugh]. She’d heard my voice. That was enough.
JM1: Did you stay in the RAF?
JM2: I was in till the following February. I was posted to the Isle of Man because I got married whilst I was in the Air Force and it was a compassionate posting, to, to Calvary at first and then finally to Jurby on the Isle of Man.
JM1: And did, did you maintain contact with your crew members in peacetime?
JM2: No. The only one I — well, two actually I saw. I was — we went from Calvary to Newcastle. They were changing the, er, position of the squadron, turning it into a teaching squadron, up at on the other side Newcastle and whilst we were up there they said to, to complete the complement they needed a fire engine for the aerodrome up at Newcastle and it was to be collected from a place called Witchord, Witchford. ‘Does anyone know where Witchford was?’ I said, ‘I know it. It was the next aerodrome to me in Mepal when I was operating there.’ And the flight said, ‘It would be you. Clever arse again.’ He said, ‘Well you’d better collect it.’ So I got the job of collecting it and it was a six wheel Fordson, painted in drab colours, and a water tank on the back and various things. Not a red fire engine but a Fordson and I went down and collected this thing and stayed with the family of the girl in Mepal overnight and ferried it up to Newcastle. But while I was on the way I somehow remembered the address of the navigator and I said —while I was on the way I stopped in Darlington and asked directions to this address. Unfortunately I didn’t know the number. I knew the road but I didn’t know the number and I knocked on a house and asked if anybody knew the Air Force officer and they did and gave me the number. I knocked at the door and Ray came to the door [laugh]. Oh, that was a good reunion, yeah. That was the first I’d seen him since Dulag Luft in Frankfurt and we had a good natter there and I carried on up to Newcastle. The other time was when I was working for Cravens in Civvy Street and I went back to Mepal. I hired a car and I wanted to, er, see if the rear gunner still lived in Thatchford, so I went to Thatchford with this hired car and called in the local pub and asked, ‘Does anyone know Charlie Anderton. He was my rear?’ He said, ‘If you’re lucky you might catch him. He’s just left.’ And I saw the back of him disappearing on a bike over a field so that’s all I saw of Charlie Anderton, yeah. I did see him but I didn’t meet him, no.
JM1: When you look back on those times how, how do you feel about what you went through and how Bomber Command was treated politically?
JM2: I think you tend to forget the nasty times. You seem to get a mental block at them. As I say, sometimes during the dark hours it seems like yesterday and then it gets a bit hairy. But, um, you tend to block this out I think during normal life. We were only very young, as I say, and the young are adaptable and, er, it’s over seventy years ago. It’s a long while ago.
JM1: Jim, thank you so much. You’ve given a marvellous interview. Thank you for your detail and clarity and information and emotion.
JM2: Thank you for listening. It’s a very ordinary tale I feel.
JM1: Not at all.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with James Mulhall. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMulhallJE160823
Format
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01:04:05 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
James was born in Gorton, attended Catholic schools, and became an apprentice plumber. In November 1942 he joined the Royal Air Force. He then trained as a mechanic at RAF St Athan before being posted to RAF Henlow to assemble Hurricanes. He then went back to RAF St Athan to re-muster as a flight engineer. His next postings where at RAF Stradishall on Stirlings, which he thought were awful aircraft, and at RAF Feltwell on Lancasters. His crew was posted to 75 Squadron, serving at RAF Mepal where there were sometimes two full crews in a single Nissen hut. The crew’s first operation was a daylight operation to the U-Boat pens at St. Nazaire. On a run to Russelsheim they were coned and blinded by searchlights but managed to escape them with little damage. James said most of the flights were just enduring the cold and getting back as safely as possible. He elaborates on service conditions on board, recollecting instances of incendiaries hitting their aircraft. After completing the thirty operations (among them nine or ten daylight ones) the crew decided to do a final four together which proved to be a fatal decision. Those who bailed out ended up at Dulag Luft for interrogation. James was then moved to Stalag Luft VII in Poland in December 1944. He describes the conditions, food and treatment in the camps. James was in the long march which ended at Luckenwalde when they escaped. Prisoners were taken to Leipzig before being flown to Brussels and then home. James left the RAF in February 1946.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
France
Germany
Poland
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Oberursel
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Poland--Tychowo
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1942-10
1943
1944
1944-12
1945
1946
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
75 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bomb struck
bombing
crewing up
Dulag Luft
entertainment
escaping
fear
flight engineer
Hurricane
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
Oboe
prisoner of war
RAF Feltwell
RAF Henlow
RAF Mepal
RAF St Athan
RAF Stradishall
searchlight
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
Stirling
submarine
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/663/8373/ACarringtonJ170207.2.mp3
501fa00cefda0a59bebe9de4fd707def
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
Carrington, Jane
Jane Waterhouse
J Carrington
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Jane Carrington nee Waterhouse (b. 1924 2043217 Women's Auxiliary Air Force) and four photographs. She served as a cook and as a drummer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jane Carrington and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-07
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
Carrington, J
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 seventh of February two thousand and seventeen, and I'm in Henfield, Hayfield in Derbyshire, and talking to Jane Carrington about her experiences in the RAF during the war. So Jane, what are the first recollections you have of family life?
JC: We just lived, it wasn't a very particularly happy home for a start, but I don't want that broadcast all over the place.
CB: No. What did your father do?
JC: Well, he was a cotton spinner, which was a very special job in the cotton mills, because you had to work your way up to it, and there's only one spinner, you know, to a cotton mill.
CB: Oh.
JC: And of course the mill closed, that was Clough Mill.
NH: How old were you?
JC: How old, when he was working? I don't know.
NH: School?
CB: So, how many children were there in the family? You, and-?
JC: Three brothers and myself.
CB: Okay, and where were you in the, er, range?
JC: I'm the oldest.
CB: You are. Right. And are your brothers still around?
JC: Three of them are, yes.
CB: All three?
JC: One isn't.
CB: No. Right. So, you went to the local school?
JC: I did.
CB: And how long for?
JC: Until I was fourteen.
CB: Then what did you do?
JC: I was told to go out and find a job. And I landed up at the print works at Strines, and then they told me they didn't want me because (laughs) I didn't like doing the work and had no interest in it. And that was the end of that. I just went from pillar to post. I worked as a cleaning, I've done cleaning, where else did I work Nina?
CB: So, lots of different jobs?
JC: Lots of different, but nothing. Nothing.
NH: Did you work with Gladys then?
JC: (Unclear), with Gladys.
CB: So when the war started you were fifteen.
JC: Nineteen twenty four, I was born.
CB: Thirty nine the war started.
JC: I think I was sixteen.
CB: So you were sixteen. Okay.
JC: Sixteen.
CB: And what happened then?
JC: Do you mean where was I working then?
CB: Mm-hmm.
JC: Well, there was a lady, very old lady, Mrs Pearce, do you remember, Parkhall Crescent, I lived in there, I was supposed to be her companion, looking after her house and cooking for her.
CB: Oh right.
JC: And then of course the war was (slight pause) and I went of to join the WAAF. And she came to meet me, she picked me up at Cardington Camp, took to to Wythall to be demobbed, that lady. I couldn't stand her any more (laughs), I'd had a packet of it.
CB: What made you decide to join up?
JC: (Pause) Just unrest, I suppose, looking to, unsettled. In retrospect. You don't know, do you? When you're young you just, you haven't got the education, you haven't got this, you just-
CB: Okay. And when-
JC: When I came out of the WAAF, I'd worked in the catering office for a while, I got a job in accounts department at Ferodo, where I should have been all the time.
CB: Originally.
JC: And then I got transferred to the North London office at Kings Cross.
CB: Right. So when you were sixteen, seventeen, what made you join the RAF rather than join the Army or the Navy?
JC: Because it sounded more exciting.
CB: Mm-hmm. What else.
JC: I can't think of anything else.
NH: The colour.
JC: The colour, oh, the blue, yes, because as I already told you, everybody always said blue suited me.
CB: Mm-hmm. You like the outfit, did you?
JC: I hadn't mixed in very wonderful company as you know, it was just for me to like. Nothing wrong with people. They were nice people for the most part.
CB: So where did you join up?
JC: I went to enlist at Dover Street in Manchester, 'til they called me to (unclear) roster. Is me voice going?
CB: It's good, keep going.
JC: And there, oh, I went on the train from London Road, as I told you. Never having left the village. And the first to happen was they gave us a sack and a pile of straw, and that was our bed for a week, until they could find beds for us, we slept on the floor.
CB: So where was this?
JC: At Innsworth Lane.
CB: At Innsworth, right. Okay.
JC: Nineteen forty two.
CB: Mm-hmm. And as I say, you were eighteen then.
JC: I was. And then I went to the selection. We've only got vacancies for cooks and ACHGDs
CB: ACH?
JC: General Duties.
CB: Right.
JC: Well, what does that entail? Well anything, cleaning the toilets, sweeping the things, doing this that and the other. And I thought, well, I like making fairy cakes, I'll be a cook. There was a rude awakening for Jane! It was damned hard work.
CB: Was it?
JC: Mm. Six of us cooking for three or four thousand men.
CB: And what about the menu?
JC: I've got that for you. (rustle of paper).
CB: Ok, we'll look at that in a minute. But in general terms, what was the menu?
JC: Well, it's in the book, and I don't remember a lot until I read the book.
CB: Well, what I'm saying is, it's not fairy cakes, so what what were you feeding them?
JC: Oh no, well porridge and bacon, brown stew was a favourite, you might know about brown stew. When I read the books they come back to me.
CB: Yeah, ok. But in general terms, it was good nourishing-
JC: There was nothing wrong with it, nothing whatsoever.
CB: And how did the cooking system work? Because there were a lot of people to feed.
JC: Well, we worked on shifts. That's what you want to know, on shifts.
CB: Right.
JC: I could be walking at the front at Skegness with sand blasting in my face at three o' clock in the morning, for doing breakfast shift. And that shift, erm, clean the kitchen. That was awful, doing those floors, with caustic soda. That's – what are you laughing at? With deck brushes, little hard brushes. Then you squeegee'd it, and then you flip-flopped it. That was a load of flags or something to dry it off. The other shift, and I can't remember the time, I think (pause) we did the evening meal and the prep, see, I'm getting mixed up again.
CB: Keep going.
JC: We cooked the, you know, the dinner. That's it, we cleaned the floor, and then we cooked the lunch. No we didn't, we cooked the lunch first and cleaned the floor afterwards. That was the end of that shift.
CB: Right.
JC: Then the next shift would come on and we'd do preparation for the next day, and whatever. I can't remember much more about that. And that would go on until, oh, six, seven o' clock. Then we had to put the passion cocoa out, don't let that go on your thing, will you. That was big bucket fulls of cocoa, and the airmen who didn't want to go out, came in the billy with their mugs and would take the cocoa. At Skegness we had to go and sit on the beach with cocoa for the lifeboatmen, because they were going out to pick the airmen out of the water. That happened very often. There were great big Thermos flasks. Now I might get this all out of context. Chris, but these are the things that happened.
CB: That's alright. That's fine. I'm quite happy with any of the, any of the remarks. In the background we can just follow the sequence.
JC: Yes. Then I was taken out of there and put in the food factory. Where they made the bread.
CB: Where was that?
JC: Skeg.
CB: Still in Skegness? Yes.
JC: I was on so may stations. What did we do in the food factory? We made the bread, we made the stock pots, we rendered down the bones, and fat. All sorts of things.
CB: Did you keep the fat, in order to use it as dripping?
JC: Oh yes, the fat was sent to the soap factories.
CB: Okay.
JC: Outside each kitchen, from the taps and the sinks, were big sumps, grease traps. You had to go out and scoop it off. Horrible. One Christmas day I can remember the bells were ringing out over the base, and the wireless was on all day long. On Christmas day. And there were six of us, cleaning the grease traps. And we were singing. And we called ourselves Corporal Lombardini's Grease Trap Songsters. I can remember that (laughs). That's just one occasion.
CB: So, what was the main producer of grease, in the cooking?
JC: Oh from bones and fat of animals. I did butchering. I did cooking, butchery, field kitchen, (pause) I worked in the catering office, I worked on the ration wagons, I did practically everything. My last job was in the catering office.
CB: And in the catering office, what was your job there?
JC: Oh, that was interesting. Working out that each man got the right calories, you know, and all the rations. Which are all in this book (taps the book cover).
CB: I know, but the idea of this is so that people can hear what you've got to say, and then they can pick out bits from anything else.
JC: We didn't have to do vegetables, the ACHD's did that.
CB: What vegetable options were there?
JC: Oh, everything, that was available in those days.
CB: Was it normally grown locally, or did they-?
JC: Yes, well, in Lincolnshire, of course, the farmers used to bring stuff in. That weren't supplied by the, you know, the industry.
CB: Including turnips?
JC: Oh aye, plenty of turnips. Sacks of new potatoes, all sorts of things, I can't remember.
CB: Going back to Innsworth, when you went there and you had to lie on the beds, and er, what was the main activity there, were you being taught about the RAF, or, what were you doing?
JC: Oh yes, lectures every day.
CB: And what were they about?
JC: Oh, everything. They even told you how to have a bath. Even though I'd been washing in a tin bath in front of the fire for years. You had to learn how to do a bath. Um, all the general things.
CB: Yeah, but people don't know what those are, you see.
JC: Oh well, hygiene, and drill and discipline, venereal diseases, keep away from that sort of thing, um.
CB: Did they show you films on some things?
JC: No. It was only just lectures.
CB: And how long did that go on for?
JC: Just about six weeks. And the drill, of course.
CB: And after that, at the end of the six weeks, what did you do then?
JC: I was posted to the cookery school at Melksham, and I was there for I don't know how long. Some weeks?
CB: I'll stop it for a few- (noises off) (pause) Now, what I'm back on to , if I may, is the sequence of what happened. So you joined in Manchester, then you went to Innsworth, and because they were caught out without all the facilities thy had to give you bedding which was straw, in a bag actually. But what were the facilities like? So what they call ablutions is where you wash and clean, what were they like? What was it?
JC: Well, it was just a hut from the, you know, from our billet, a row of hand basins and a row of toilets with three quarter doors on. Concrete floors and duck boards. If they hadn't been burnt the night before to keep warm.
CB: Right.
JC: Is that what you wanted?
CB: Yeah, yeah. So what were the purpose of the duck boards?
JC: To keep you off the concrete floor. For comfort, if you please.
CB: Okay. And how many toilets and washbasins would there be in this block, roughly? Twenty?
JC: I don't think that many. Perhaps a dozen or so. Ten to twelve.
CB: You were on a barrack block of some kind, were you?
JC: Oh yeah.
CB: Was it wooden, or was it a concrete hut?
JC: Is was wooden huts.
CB: Okay. And how many in your hut, roughly?
JC: About eighteen, I would think. But on all other camps I did sleep in Nissan huts, on bunks.
CB: Yes. Okay, and was there an NCO in charge?
JC: Yes, in the cabin, at the front.
CB: And what rank would that NCO be?
JC: Corporal or Sergeant, on other ranks, you know.
CB: Okay. Right. So here we're talking about the Woman's Auxiliary Air Force, so all your reporting line was women? So the Corporal was a woman?
JC: Oh yes.
CB: And so it was segregated from the men?
JC: The men daren't come into the WAAF lines at all.
CB: So, they're in a separate part of the camp?
JC: Yes.
CB: Okay. And did you eat together?
JC: Well, in the kitchens you ate in the kitchen.
CB: I meant the WAAFs in general.
JC: We would (unclear) when we could. Because we were supplied from headquarters, because we were permanent staff on the camp, but we did better by just staying in the kitchen where we were.
CB: Right. I'm talking about the training, so in the training area, in this first, while you were at Innsworth-
JC: I wasn't trained cook there.
CB: I know, but in that training-
JC: Oh yes, yes, all the recruits ate together.
CB: And they were separated, you were separated from the men.
JC: Don't remember any men there at all.
CB: Right. Okay. And then at the end, you then went, you said, to cookery school at Melksham. So what happened there?
JC: We were taught our drill there, you know.
CB: At Innsworth? Okay. How did you get on with drill?
JC: I think I marched more than any other WAAF in the RAF.
CB: Oh. Why was that?
JC: Shall I show him why? (rustle of paper).
CB: I'll have a look in a minute.
JC: (Loud rustling) I'd rather you saw that.
CB: Okay, we'll stop. (Noise of tape machine being turned off)
CB: So you were saying you did more marching. That was because, what did you do? (Pause) You did more marching at Innsworth because of -.
JC: No I didn't, that was where I was taught to march. But we'll go back to that when you round to it.
CB: Oh, okay. That's fine.
JC: Because I could march, I was chosen to do that.
CB: Do do what? What was that? What was it called.
JC: It was Group Captain Innsworth Personal Band.
CB: Right. So that's really important, because these, some of these organisations had more activities than others. I'll stop it.
JC: Even though I shouldn't have done it.
CB: So the Group Captain at Innsworth, what was he?
JC: No, it wasn't at Innsworth. This is all out of context now, see. I was at Melksham.
CB: OK, at Melksham.
JC: I worked about twelve or eighteen months in the kitchens.
CB: At Melksham, so where's that
JC: No. That was the School of Cookery, Melksham.
CB: Right. Yes, so lets go to the school of cookery. What happened then?
JC: And I was posted from there as an SACW (unclear) Two to Wilmslow. It was a PDC, Personnel Dispatch Centre, where they bought all the boys in who were to be sent overseas. Thousands of them. And they ring in my ears still. We had to give them their dry rations. They were trained there, and lectured, and all the rest of it. And two 'o clock, three 'o clock in the morning you could here them going down to the station (beats on the table simulating marching), off to Liverpool. How many came back? How many thousands did us WRAF cooks kiss goodnight to? Can you imagine?
CB: Well, I imagine this is the bit that we need to build in to this whole thing.
JC: When it comes to Remembrance Sunday I'd rather sit on my own, because I wonder how many of those boys never came back home. Nobody understands that, do they?
CB: No. That's why we're doing this on the tape.
JC: That was very -
CB: Emotional?
JC: Yes. In retrospect, not at the time.
CB: So, that's the interesting point, isn't it? So at the time, how did you handle the strain of that?
JC: Well, as well as we could. We did it. We had to do it, we did it. There was no argument about it. You did it. We just got on well together, and did it.
CB: And these were all Air Force people?
JC: Oh yes. They were all airmen. Eighteen, nineteen.
CB: And what was their attitude to what they were doing?
JC: Oh, they were upset weren't they? Some of them cried, some of them wanted to be big men.
CB: Had they been away from home before, or was it all new?
JC: No, most of them hadn't.
CB: Right. And did they know where they were going?
JC: I don't know. We WAAFs kept our mouths shut, and we weren't told what we didn't have to know.
CB: But they were being sent abroad, is what you are saying?
JC: Oh we knew they were going, and we knew what time they were going, but we were sworn to not tell anybody.
CB: This is important, yes. And do you know why they were moved, went in the night?
JC: Of course, secrecy. Down to Liverpool docks. We knew where they we going, but we only knew through NCOs and people who'd confide in us, of course. We weren't told officially. (Long pause). That was that.
CB: Good. How long where you there at Wilmslow?
JC: I'm just trying to think where I went from – I was moved a time or two to fill vacancies. One was up at Crannidge where some of the grounded crews were on rest, where I worked for a few weeks up there in a field kitchen. And Leslie Greenhouse was there. Do you remember me telling you about that (aside). (Pause) And I also went down to St Athan for a few weeks, where I fell in a boiler of boiling vegetable marrow (laughs). Yes.
CB: What was the effect of that?
JC: Well, the effect, the outcome of it was very amusing, actually. I was bandaged from here to here and put in sick bay, and prior to that hams had been missing. Nobody knew where the hams were going. But Jane's sat up in bed in the sick bay, and where the food was kept one of the civilian men, workers on the camp, was going through with a bucket, pinching the ham that was hung into the bucket. (laughs) So I did a bit of detective work there.
CB: So he caught in the end, did he?
JC: Oh yes. That's funny.
CB: Yes. Absolutely.
JC: Richard Murdoch was on that camp.
CB: Was he?
JC: Then I was sent back to Wilmslow. And I worked in the catering office then, this time at Wilmslow. Next door to the office where Ivor Moreton and Dave Kaye, have you heard of those? And two pianos, do you remember them? Busy Fingers. They were two airmen.
CB: And what were they doing?
JC: They were working for BBC in Air Force Blue. And pinching my fire! On a shovel, and into their stove. We had fun, as well.
CB: So what was their actual job?
JC: I think they must have been AGCs, I couldn't think anything else. But also at two camps, Wilmslow and Skegness, was Stanley Tudor who played the organ at the Gaumont in Manchester. And he was always missing. You could hear him on the radio, and he was sweeping out at the NAAFI.
CB: And he was a well known organist?
JC: Oh yes. You've heard of him?
CB: No. It's just what you said, only what you said. So, you went back -
JC: That's where the Lincolnshire bit comes in.
CB: You went back to Linc-, Wilmslow, then you went to Skegness.
JC: Yes.
CB: And what was happening at Skegness, what was it?
JC: Again, recruiting, technical training, command. You know Skegness was taken over by the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.
CB: Right.
JC: All the infantry were in Skegness, the RAF was at Skegness, and the Navy was up at Butlin's. You know about that?
CB: No.
JC: HMS Royal Arthur. Lord HaHa, what was he called, Lord Haw Haw, he said they'd sunk it. And it was Butlin's camp at Skegness. All this is quite true, you know. And that was where I joined this band.
CB: Yes. Right. So,-
JC: He wanted some WAAFs in it, he thought WAAFs should be in it.
CB: Right, but at Skegness, were you -
JC: I was working at the Imperial.
CB: Yes, but were they Air Force people only?
JC: Oh, no. The Infantry were up at the South.
CB: No. Where you were cooking, were you cooking just for the RAF? Or were you cooking -
JC: Oh yes, only for the RAF. You didn't cook for anybody else.
CB: Right. OK.
JC: The Army cooked for themselves. They were a different thing altogether.
CB: So, where were you in the, what hotel were you in?
JC: The South Parade Hotel. I can remember that. Next door (laughs) dare I tell him this one? Every morning, well not every morning, a WAAF had to go out with one of the SB's to do the early calls, to people on early duty. It was pitch black, you know, very early in the morning. I wouldn't sit on the cross bar of these bikes, because I couldn't do it, but one day, in the dark, I went into the wrong mess, didn't I? I'm going up the stairs shouting, 'come on, wakey, wakey, rise and shine', all the rest of it, opened the doors and there were all brown boots, I was in the Army officer's bedroom (laughs). I went downstairs about two at a time. Shall I tell you what I said to the SB, I said, 'hang on to that cross bar, and peddle like bloody hell', I said, 'get me out of this'. And he never reported it. Now he was a decent man, wasn't he? He realised what had gone wrong. I saw this row of brown boots (chuckles). There were a lot of funny experiences like that.
CB: That's it, What else?
JC: At Skegness, Group Captain Insall came in, he'd had this band with him at Padgate.
CB: So what was his name? Group Captain -
JC: Group Captain Insall. His name's there.
CB: Yes. And he was a VC?
JC: He got a Military Cross in the Army, lost his arm. You've heard about it?
CB: A Military Cross in the Army? Go on.
JC: I don't know how he got the VC, but he was a pilot, of course. And that's how I came to be there. He called me the Yorkshire girl, I'm not a Yorkie, but he always referred to me as the Yorkshire girl. I think he did it to annoy me.
CB: Right, right. He was close. Yes. Ok. So, he was commanding the -
JC: The whole issue.
CB: The whole Air Force issue?
JC: No, not the whole Air Force, just the personnel in Skegness, the (unclear) camps there.
CB: Right. And so what did he want? (Pause) He wanted his own band, yeah? So how did you get in to be a member of his band?
JC: I don't know, think they asked us to go and volunteer. Several of us went along.
CB: But was that because you'd done music before you joined the RAF?
JC: No, I don't know anything about music, not even now.
CB: So what were you playing, in the band?
JC: A drum.
CB: Right. How did you learn how to play the drum?
JC: Oh, little wooden things with rubber, you know? Can you imagine? About that big with a rubber circle.
CB: To learn. Who taught you?
JC: This fellow here.
CB: He was the band master, was he?
JC: No, he was the drum. The Leading Tipper. The Pipe Major was the one stood next to Captain Insall, that's Sergeant Watkinshaw. They were bagpipes, makes it even worse.
CB: So you enjoyed that, did you?
JC: Yes. It got me out the kitchen. Many times. We used to play in Bedford. You know, they had Wings For Victory week and what was the one to get money for warships? There's one in the council offices here (pause) oh, dear.
CB: So they ran fund raise events for the war.
JC: Yes, they used to have the parades in Bedford because the Americans were there. Betty married one.
CB: So how did you meet your American?
JC: How did I? I didn't marry an American. I wouldn't have ought to do with them. (whispers) Don't tell Betty.
CB: Ah, Betty married one.
JC: I just, I was frightened of them, actually.
CB: So he went to a number of these events himself, and took his band with him, is that what it was?
JC: No he didn't. He -
CB: He just sent the band.
JC: Whan he was moved from Skegness, Captain Insall, Group Captain Insall, he was taken to Cardington camp, sent to Cardington camp, and he took every member what's on this picture with him, was posted to Cardington camp.
CB: Right. So when was that? Roughly. You'd been at Skegness for a while.
JC: Yes, quite a long time. (pause) I came out in forty six didn't I, so will be end of forty four.
CB: OK. So you moved to Cardington yourself.
JC: That's right. And I was demobbed from Cardington.
CB: And what did you do at Cardington?
JC: I worked in the catering office, I worked on the bread wagon, I worked on the wet ration wagon, I used to go out every morning with two big trucks, two old civilian drivers, and I had six Italian or German prisoners.
CB: POW's. Yes.
JC: I used to go up to Turvey, to collect the rations, you know, sort them in, sort them out when I got back. And there was a Captain from your lot there. Nichola Woods. Don't know if he's still alive. He maybe.
CB: What's his name?
JC: I can't remember. He had a great big moustache like Jimmy Edwards. And I used to ask for cigarettes for the prisoners. 'If you'll come in the rum store and give me a kiss, I'll give you some cigarettes'. (Laughs) So I went in that rum store, and I gave them some cigarettes. They weren't all bad lads, you know.
CB: So you went out in the trucks to get the local produce.
JC: I went out out, yes, every morning, with two big trucks. Which supplied the whole of the camp. Which had five wings, Cardington.
CB: So what was happening at Cardington?
JC: Technical training. Oh, another interesting thing that happened there, when they liberated Holland, all the Dutch boys came to Cardington to be trained in the RAF. That was quite a, well, it was different. We couldn't understand each other at all. And they planted marigolds all over Cardington camp, it was one mass of orange marigolds. If that's of any interest to anybody, which I don't suppose it is.
CB: Well it is. It is, because it's the significant point about, it's their colour, isn't it, of Holland?
JC: There are two Dutch boys here on this photograph.
CB: It's called, the Royalty, is called the House of Orange, isn't it?
JC: It is, yes. And, oh, I know what. That Queen Willomena, I've got that photograph at home. She came to the camp to decorate two of her pilots. And she spoke to me.
CB: Did she?
JC: Yes. And I couldn't tell what she said, but her interpreter said that she said, 'how do you keep up with these men with your little legs?' (chuckles) That's all I know.
CB: Amazing. Yes. And what else, did you, were you demobbed from Cardington?
JC: I was demobbed from Cardington, at Withall in Birmingham.
CB: Right.(Pause)
JC: I'm sure none of this stuff's of any use to you whatsoever.
CB: It's all vital. Just going back.
JC: I told you I'd never done anything interesting.
CB: Going back to the earlier stages, the reason for having this is because people today have no idea what happened in those days
JC: They don't know who we were.
CB: They don't. They don't even know war. So, when you went to Melksham to train for catering; what happened there? What did they do?
JC: Well, lectures, that's where I did butchery there.
CB: So they taught you butchery. What else did they teach you?
JC: Cookery.
CB: And how did they do that?
JC: It was just like going to school, actually, (unclear), you know
CB: Because the military kitchens catered for lots of people, their equipment was a bit different from being at home.
JC: Ooo, two and three thousand we catered, I have catered up to four thousand at the height of the war.
CB: Right. So what was the equipment like, to be able to do that?
JC: Well, there were big boilers. Have you not seen them, you must have seen them. I took (unclear) of that book with all the pictures in, didn't I? Picture of Lady (unclear) and the WAAF Assoiciation. Massive big boilers.
CB: Right. Big ovens, were there?
JC: Oh yes, big ovens. See, that would be the kitchen, and here was the stoker, and here were steamers, I can see the kitchen, there were six boilers, and there some friers, and there the servers, the NCO servers.
CB: And were they running on gas or coal?
JC: No, they were on coal.
CB: Right. So the stokers were putting coal into them.
JC: Yeah, all night along he was there, it was kept going all the time. Supplied the hot water and the boilers and whatever, the ovens. Hard work.
CB: Yeah. And washing up? How was that handled?
JC: That was done by the SHDD's, and they had washing up machines of a kind, great big, with water coming down, they'd tray them up and put them in thingeys.
CB: So, you did butchering, you did cookery
JC: Field cookery.
CB: Field cookery, so what was the technique for field cookery?
JC: At Skegness I used to go up with them, when it was my turn to do that, to Gibralter Point, where there was a shooting range. And two used to go up there, and you had to build a kitchen with biscuit tins filled with sand, make your own oven (coughs), and cook a meal. For the boys that were up there doing rifle training.
CB: So you filled the tins with sand to make the sides. What did you put on top?
JC: Ee gum, I can't remember that that.
CB: Big slab of steel, was it?
JC: Oh no, nothing sealed it. Oh, you mean for the fire.
CB: For the cooking on the top.
JC: I suppose it was grids, grills. I can't remember every detail, you know.
CB: That's ok.
JC: The highlight of the day was the officer would let you use the rifle, so you could lie at side of him and fire the rifle (laughs).
CB: So you became good at shooting, did you?
JC: Only once. I hurt my shoulder, I didn't do it again. (chuckles) Just once.
CB: What would the menu normally be in the morning?
JC: Porridge. Maybe a fried egg on fried bread, or bacon and tomato. It's all there, in that book.
CB: Good. OK. Then for lunch, what did people have there?
JC: It's all there in that book.
CB: Yeah, but what was it?
JC: A lot of brown stew. We did roast beef, you know, and all the rest of it. And pies, we made pies. They were big pies that were cut up, you know.
CB: And what did the vegetables?
JC: I was just telling Nina, there were big troughs, as big as this.
CB: So maybe three or four feet wide.
JC: Five or six of us, maybe more, up, on our knees, making pastry. Rubbing in the fat into the flour.
CB: And was this on large wooden blocks, that you were making the pastry?
JC: It was concrete floors.
CB: Oh, you made it directly on the concrete floor.
JC: No, they were big troughs, big wooden troughs.
CB: But when you made the pastry?
JC: Oh no. Roll it. To roll it we had tables, and bits. (Aside) Thanks Neil, I'm glad you came.
CB: And then put it into the troughs. Yeah. Ok.
JC: No, you took it out of the troughs into a Hobart mixer where you mix- can you make pastry, by the way?
CB: I'll try later.
JC: You put water in to make it into pastry, and then you rolled it out into these big square tins.
CB: And then te food was in, er, various troughs, but how was it dispensed to the troops? They had to
JC: Oh, sorry, sorry. Yes. Well it went into a servery. Hot plates. You must have seen those, surely. You must have used one of those. With big cupboards.
CB: So there were coal fires underneath?
JC: And then someone, one of the NCO's, would shout 'servery', and everyone had to go and make themselves look respectable. To make sure your hair was tied up in the turban, your hands were clean, and you had to show that your hands were clean. And then we had to, whatever, you know, if you were doing potatoes, you did potatoes. You slid it off with a knife.
CB: Did you give them a choice, or did they have what you gave them?
JC: No, they got what they were given.
CB: And after the main course, they had a pudding?
JC: A sweet, yes.
CB: What did they have for that?
JC: Rice pudding, we made rice puddings, Manchester Tart was a favourite, that was back to pastry. With the jam and the custard. There were various things, don't ask me to remember.
CB: Wholesome things, for people that were energetic?
JC: Pardon.
CB: Wholesome. Food.
JC: There was nothing wrong with it whatsoever.
CB: Exactly. And ten for their evening meal. What did they get for that?
JC: Well, I can't remember that. I know, I know, pease pudding and savaloy, that was one. Another was a herring, they'd get a herring. I can see know, we had a big tub at the side, chopping the heads off the herrings. You get used to it, you know. You can get to it.
CB: At Skegness -
JC: Oh, Spam sandwiches. Spam in a sandwich was one. Beans, baked beans. They all came from America, of course.
CB: And because you were on the coast at Skegness, did you get a lot of fish? Or nothing to do with that?
JC: No. There was no fish at Skegness in those days.
CB: Was there fish normally on the menu?
JC: Well, there was Grimsby, I don't remember fish actually, no. Only herrings, that's all (unclear)
CB: Ok. That's for the airmen, did you do cooking in the Officer's Mess as well?
JC: No. (unclear)
CB: Did they have a different menu there, or was it all the same?
JC: Oh, yes. Of course. Of course.
CB: Did you know what the menu was?
JC: (pause) Oh, it's gone.
CB: That's where they had some cakes, was it?
JC: Oh, The Countess (pause), doesn't matter. She was at our WAAF Association, Diane, Countess of Ilchester, you've heard of her? She was a waitress in the Officer's Mess. She used to say, 'I was in charge of the salt and pepper'. (chuckles) She was nice, Diane. She would only be called Diane, you know. Mustn't refer to her as anything else. She was doing a far more menial job than I was doing.
CB: And proud of it.
JC: She was lovely. You know the story about (unclear) went in to the Observer? He'd come back from doing, what do they call it, well he'd been out on a raid, whatever, and he was having a bath, and the siren went, and this is absolutely true, it was printed in the newspaper at his death, and all the WAAF's were in their own air raid shelter, of course, because the sirens had gone, and he ran in naked, the Earl of Ilchester. And Diane was at the back, and she shouted. 'he's mine!'. And he married her. (Laughs) You ask Betty, she knows that story.
CB: So how did the liaison go with men in the Air Force, then? The relationships.
JC: Oh fine. You got some rough stuff, you know, didn't you. Some were a bit cheeky, went a bit too far. I never experienced anything really bad. One Corporal smacked my bottom one day as he walked past, and I picked up a dipper and smacked him round the face with it, and he said, 'You're on a charge'. (Laughs) That's true.
CB: And what happened?
JC: Nothing. He daren't, dare he? That was Corporal Lombardinerie, the pastry bloke. Hmm. He didn't do it again.
CB: We'll stop there for a mo.
CB: So clearly, in the catering system in London there were people who were fairly sophisticated chefs. Did the Air Force use these people to train you?
JC: They used them to work in the cook-house. They used them as cooks, we were all the same. There was two grades. There was a cook or a cook-butcher. One got a bit more money than the other, perhaps it was coppers.
CB: What did the cook-butcher do? That was different?
JC: They could say to you go on cutting meat up or whatever.
CB: Right. So it's knowing how to cut the meat that's the butchering, is it?
JC: Oh yes. We had to, what I couldn’t do, draw the animal, you know, like you see in the butcher's shops. I know how to buy a piece of meat, don't I?
CB: But the animals came in slaughtered?
JC: Oh yes.
CB: But not cut up?
JC: That's right.
CB: Soi that's why the cook-butcher was there, to convert that into the -
JC: We had a Polish butcher there, too. He was horrible.
CB: So did you, bearing in mind that the animal is whole when it arrives, did you do steaks as a result of that? Or chops?
JC: Well if they did that, I never saw any. I think they may have gone to the Officer's Mess.
CB: So the meat was mixed up was it?
JC: That's what I used to collect from Turvey, the wet rations. The dry rations were supplied by the NAAFI, that was the sugar, the flour, the salt. And all the, all the wet rations came from Royal Army Service Corps.
CB: Right. And they supplied the RAF because they dealt with everybody's catering. And what about the hierarchy? So you were working as a chef, effectively.
JC: Cook. They call them chefs now, they've gone all posh now.
CB: Cook, yes. So you were, what rank were you when you finished?
JC: When I finished? Well, I did two courses at Wilmslow for promotion to NCO, but if I'd gone I couldn't have stayed with the band, and I wanted to stay because I was enjoying my little bit.
CB: So what was your rank?
JC: LACW. But I did have a Good Conduct stripe, so now you know I'm (unclear)
CB: Right. That's really good.
JC: (Rustle of paper) There it is, see.
CB: I can see it on your picture.
JC: (Laughs) So I did behave myself a little bit. There's some they never found out about, or heard about, of course (chuckles).
CB: In the kitchen, what was the hierarchy there? There were Corporals, and/or Sergeants?
JC: Oh yes. There'd be so many ACW 2's, so many 1, LACW Corporal, Sergeant, Flight Sergeant, and Warrant Officer, because they were big kitchens, you know. But the Warn Officer would hv two or three kitchens, it wouldn't be confined to the one.
CB: How many people would be in a kitchen, roughly?
JC: You mean really working? Perhaps seven or eight. In the back, where the ACHG is, mostly men, doing the potatoes and all the wet stuff.
CB: The dangerous stuff with the knives.
JC: They were members of this band.
CB: Were they? Yep.
JC: Shall I tell him the other bit? There was a photographer at headquarters in Skeg, no, in Cardington. And this was the day Queen Willomena came to the camp. You can see all the top brass here. And this photographer thought I was a bit of alright. So he took my photograph, so like an idiot I walked into the potato room and said, 'who is the smartest member of this band? Well, I am.' And do you know what they did? They picked me up and dropped me in the potato thing, full of water and potatoes. (laughs)
CB: Not very nice. How did that effect the flavour?
JC: Haven't a clue. (laughs). But that's what happened.
CB: So you then had to put your uniform to the wash.
JC: That's right.
CB: I'm just going to stop again.
JC: Blimey, Charlie. I met my husband at the Royal Air Force Association in Edgware, at the Station Hotel.
CB: When was that?
NH: Was it after the war finished, Jane?
JB: Gosh, it must be nineteen forty nine, because Peter was born nineteen fifty, wasn't he?
CB: Ok, forty nine. And what were you doing there?
JB: I was working in the office at Ferrodo, Kings Cross. Because I couldn't settle back here. And I had a boyfriend who worked in the bank, the National Provincial, an airman. And I went down to be with him, originally. Went to the club because he'd lost all his training, he was apprentice aircrew (unclear), and that's where I met my first husband. And he was an Italian.
CB: What was his name?
JB: John Branner. And his father was the Managing Director of Gamba shoes, Soho, have you heard of them?
CB: I have. Yes. So he always wore good shoes.
JB: Do you know him?
CB: No.
JB: You don't know him, well I can carry on then. They were Roman Catholics, we did like, you think you've fallen in love, don't you, and you get married, and I wasn't good enough for his family.
CB: Because you weren't a Catholic.
JB: Yes. Straight on the head.
CB: And they wanted you to convert, did they?
JB: Unfortunately there was a child on the way, and he left me six weeks before Peter was born, with no home, and half a crown.
CB: Good god.
JB: And they fought me and fought me, and they never got anywhere. And it was all very sad. And it still is sad, isn't it?
CB: Yes.
JB: Then, when Peter was sixteen, his maintenance from that father, oh, I'll tell you what they did, they said he was only earning eight pounds a week, so they put him on the payroll, at the shop.
CB: This is John Branner?
JB: Yes. So they didn't have to pay maintenance. I had two pounds ten shillings a week. I rented a cottage here in this village for seven and sixpence a week, and I brought him up. When Peter was sixteen his maintenance stopped, but Peter was still at college in Buxton, and I needed money to keep him, fares, 'til he was eighteen years on. Well, it went on and on, they kept saying the case wasn't prepared, so my solicitor said, 'well, the thing to do Jane, is to apply to the National Assistance Board,' he said, 'and they will make you a payment, but you'll have to give it them back, because they've got to pay all the back money that is owing to you, obviously'. And, dare I tell him? (chuckles)
CB: Go on.
JB: The man that came stood on my doorstep, he had a suitcase in his hand, and he walked in and said, 'what a beautiful little home you've got here, I'd give anything to live here.' And that man proposed to me the week after.
CB: And his name was?
JC: John Carrington. And (pause), what was it he said?
NH: He'd been looking for you.
JC: He wanted to take me somewhere, I said, 'no', I said, 'I can't go anywhere, I've got a little job that I can't afford to lose.' There was a dentist in the village, and me and my friend who's deaf, and his wife still is, and I used to babysit their three children, look after them. I said I'd got to go. 'And where's this?' An I explained to him where, and all the rest of it. And at night o' clock that night there was a knock on the door (knocks), I opened the door, and there he was stood on the step. 'And what are you doing here,' I said. He said, 'I've come to tell you I've been looking for you for fifty years, and I'm never going to let you out of my sight again. And he never did.
CB: Fantastic.
JC: He was the most wonderful husband. He bought me the most expensive jewellery, (unclear). And he'd been a bachelor, and he'd also served in Burma. He was an Executive Officer in the Civil Service. He was General Christensen's wireless operator on his aeroplane. Three and a half years, wasn't he, in Burma. And life was sweet all at once. Shall I carry on?
CB: Yes, keep going, I want to hear it.
JC: And do you know, that son of mine has never spoken to me since. (long pause) He would walk past me in the street, wouldn't he. I gave him my all.
CB: Did he ever have any contact with his father?
JC: No, he went down. I took him three times down. The first time I took him Peter was three months old, I still had friends, I lived in Mill Hill, with friends, they were still friends. He walked out of the shop with me, and we had a coffee, and he said, 'I'm going to look for a flat, Jane.' I never heard from him again. So I took him again, but his father made sure he didn't see him. And Peter's been down on his own, and they've turned him away. I bought in iPad, that might amuse you at ninety odd, but I did.
CB: Very impressive.
JC: And I found out on that iPad his mother, who caused the trouble, died when she was sixty. He died in twenty three, been dead a long time, his father. And they must have left a terrific lot of money.
CB: Did John Branner marry again?
JC: And they had a house in St John's Wood, London, on erm, what's it called Barrack? Oh I don't know what it's called, well I do know, it'll come to me in a minute, when my mind, it's delayed action. And I found out on the iPad, it's been rented since his death for four thousand, four hundred and forty one pounds a month, so that house must be worth well over a million pounds, mustn't it? And Peter never got a penny. And I think that's wrong. Whatever they thought about me should not effect Peter.
CB: No. What happened to Peter?
JC: Well, I don't know what's happening, Nina knows more about him than me, she lives next to him, don't you?
CB: But he's local, is he?
NH: He lives in Chapel. He's retired now, he was working at Swizzles, wasn't he? He was a foreman there, at the sweet factory.
CB Very distressing. Extraordinary.
JC: It's not good news.
CB: Did John Branner have any brothers or sisters?
JC: No.
CB: Right. And did he re-marry after divorcing you?
JC: No. But, shall I tell you more? It's nought to do with this thing.
CB: No, but it is because it's part of your life.
JC: It isn't my life, it's his life. I found out from my iPad he's living with a Mary (aside) what was her other name?
NH: I don't know, I can't remember.
JC: Tommy Cooper's mistress, whose husband was a composer. They're all in the theatrical. Mary what? Kay! Mary Kay, K-A-Y, Kay. I found out all this on my computer, I mean the iPad.
CB: Amazing. How old was John Carrington when he died?
JC: He was born in nineteen twenty three, and he died in two thousand and three. Eighty, was he, eighty one, eighty two. He was an airman. And I think they took advantage because his father was reporting to the police station every week.
CB: John Carrington?
JC: John Carr-, John Branner's father. My first father in law. And he goes along, and he couldn't have a commission because his father's, do you get the message? So do you know what job they gave him? Bomb loader. I thought that was very pointed. I don't think he should have been, I don't think he was deserving of that. Because he was British, a British subject. He was born, I think on Wardour Street. There you are, that's nothing to do with the -
CB: Well , it's part of your life isn't it? John Carrington died in two thousand and three?
JC: Yes.
NH: No, you're getting mixed up.
CB: I'm going to stop this.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Jane Carrington
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-07
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00:57:06 audio recording
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Sound
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ACarringtonJ170207
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Pending review
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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
Jane Carrington joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in 1942 at the age of 18. She served as a cook, and volunteered to join the band as a drummer. She discusses her time in the kitchens, the menus and the equipment they used.
Contributor
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Peter Adams
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
entertainment
ground personnel
Military Cross
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Cardington
RAF Melksham
RAF Skegness
sanitation
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/786/9341/PWildesJE180829.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/786/9341/AWildesJE180829.1.mp3
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Title
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Wildes, Jim
James Ernest Wildes
J E Wildes
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with James Wildes (1923 - 2019, Royal Air Force).
He failed aircrew selection due to ear problems and so served as ground personnel.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-08-29
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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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Wildes, JE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MH: That’s great. Well, first of all Jim I’m delighted to come and meet you today and listen to, to your story. I know a little about you. I hope to when I leave at the end to know far more. Ok. There’s a little bit I’ve just got to say at the start so that people listening to this back at the Bomber Command Centre know exactly where we are and what we’re doing. So, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Martyn Hordern. That’s myself. The interviewee is James Wildes. The interview is taking place at the Tri Services and Veteran Support Centre, Hassell Street, Newcastle, Staffordshire. Also present is Peter Batkin who is a friend of Jim. The date is the 29th of August 2018 and the time by my watch is quarter past eleven in the morning. I know from just talking to you Jim that you were born on the 18th of July 1923. Where was that then? Where were you born?
JW: Burton on Trent.
MH: Ok. Tell me a bit about your parents and your family life as, as a lad.
[pause]
JW: We lived with my, my dad and mother and the tribe that, because she had six children and I was the eldest lived in South Oxford Street, Burton on Trent. My dad was out of work for seven or eight years during the recession of that time. My mother was a tailoress and she worked from home reversing coats and that sort of thing because that was the way you lived those days.
MH: Did your, did your dad serve in the First World War?
JW: Yes. He was in the Staffordshires.
MH: How long did he serve during the war?
JW: He served in the, in the First World War and a little bit afterwards in Ireland. I don’t think he’d signed on. It was like it was at the end of —
MH: Yeah.
JW: The Second World War. You could do another year before you got home.
MH: So, so as a young lad what did, I take it you went to school. What age did you leave school?
JW: Fourteen.
MH: Ok.
JW: Because of my birthday coming in July I did the eleven plus twice. The first time I failed. The second time I got enough to pass to secondary school. Not to Grammar School. But my mother couldn’t afford uniform so we got a deal where I went to Union Street one day per week at government expense.
MH: Right. And then when you left school what did you do?
JW: I was training to be an apprentice joiner and carpenter because my grandad, the other Ernie he, he was a master joiner. And I worked with him whenever I could from fourteen on but I had to have another job to support the family because he was a jobbing joiner that had contracted for jobs. We used to do South African Railway carriages and it all came pre-packed. And you always put in Baguleys of Burton on Trent and he would, he would, we would put it together like you do things these days. Cut it all in.
MH: Yeah.
JW: In South African Railways style.
MH: Right. So then the Second World War came along. You were —
JW: Well —
MH: You were just sixteen.
JW: I I’d, around about fourteen I joined the Boy’s Brigade and there was an RAF section in it of about four of us and on Sundays sometimes we went to Burnaston Aerodrome which is now a car factory and we could swing a Tiger Moth. And I got one flight of it because occasionally an RAF retired officer turned up to fly this thing.
MH: And that was the first time you ever went in a plane?
JW: Yes, was. That was my first time.
MH: So, so, the Second World War started. You were, you were just sixteen.
JW: Yes.
MH: What were you doing then?
JW: I I was still doing, well I eventually got, what happened was that, that the restrictions on my grandfather forced both he and I to join another joinery firm because there was no longer small businesses around. We were forced in to wartime things from 1938 so, I became a bound apprentice with Sharp Brother and Knight of Burton on Trent. Around about seventeen the Boy’s Brigade sent me to Cardington for an interview for aircrew which I failed because I’d got bad ears and in those days those aircraft weren’t pressurised. So they, but I did the exam and they recommended and gave me a little notation that I go in to Derby when I was seventeen and half to recruit as a VR. Which I did.
MH: What’s a VR?
[pause]
JW: Volunteer Reserve.
MH: Right.
JW: Yes.
MH: Thank you. So, by that time we were sort of talking about towards the end of 1940 are we then, at that point?
JW: No. We’re talking about 1941.
MH: Right. In to, yeah.
JW: Early in 1941 that happened. At seventeen and a half I had to get my dad’s signature to be able to join the Air force which I did and took to Derby.
MH: What was your parents view of that at the time then? Seeing as you didn’t —
JW: Well, my dad didn’t want me to join but my mother said it’s alright.
MH: What was the reason your dad didn’t want you to join?
JW: Well, he’d been at, I think Mons during the First World War for some time.
MH: So, he’d been at the start.
JW: So, he’d been in that and he was on Gallipoli as well.
MH: So he, do you think he knew a bit more about what you were likely to face than what your mum did?
JW: Yes. Exactly.
MH: So, so you up at sixteen and a half. Where was the first place you —
JW: Well, I didn’t actually get in until June or July. They called me in.
MH: So you were just about eighteen then.
JW: Yes. And they followed the recommendation to send me to Halton for aircraft training, which I did. I went to Halton and joined the RAF. And I passed out second in an entry of about eighty people that were doing a joining course like, it was split in to two halves. A bit for engines and a bit for airframes and I was, I came second and was sent on for on the job training at Abingdon.
MH: Right.
JW: On Hampdens and Whitleys.
MH: Yeah. So where was Halton then? Whereabouts is Halton? I know where Abingdon is.
JW: Halton is Wendover. Very very near. Do you know Wendover?
MH: I’ve heard of it.
JW: Yes. Very near to Chequers.
MH: And Abingdon obviously became a car factory. A car factory wasn’t it?
JW: Yes. This Abingdon was, they trained you on, on real aircraft.
MH: Right. So —
JW: And then they took me back to once I was trained on. So that was my first [pause] Abingdon was 10 OTU and the Whitleys and Hampdens were flying aircraft. So that was Bomber Command.
MH: And what, what were you doing when you were there? You said on the job training. What was your, what was your, what were you trained?
JW: I was trained on, on the Abingdons and the Whitleys and also we strung up a a biplane as well. So I was trained mainly on aircraft rather than engines.
MH: Right. So, so you just, you just said stringing up a plane.
JW: Yeah.
MH: Now that, what’s that then?
JW: A biplane.
MH: Yeah.
JW: Where you, you were setting all the angles etcetera and I learned the fifty seven point three method of, of angles.
MH: And what’s, the fifty seven point three method?
JW: Well, if you, if you, you take [reckoning] of fifty seven point three in a circle, make a circle at that radius for every one unit is one degree all the way around the circle.
MH: Right. So —
JW: So, you could set controls, the rudders all that sort of thing by doing that. A mathematical job.
MH: And was there much difference between a biplane which was obviously getting almost obsolete at that point and then the bigger planes that you were working on?
JW: Well, the bigger planes were really had main spars which also held the undercarriage and that sort of thing. And usually there were [pause] they had bomb doors which worked with elastic. Those days the bomb dropped and opened the door [laughs]
MH: Yeah. Ok. So you’d done that initial training.
JW: Yes. And then Halton called me back to do the fitter course and and to give me the full trade because I came out first as an AC. I joined the RAF at AC2 level. So I, my first entry got me an AC1 at, at aircraft engineering level. But my second training I was fourth in the entry of fifty and that got me an LAC recommendation.
MH: What does LAC stand for?
JW: Leading aircraftsman. It’s like a lance corporal in the Army.
MH: And how long had you been in the RAF at that point?
JW: About, well my first course ended on March ’42. My second course I got posted in February ’43 after the end of the second course to Pershore which was another OTU opening up in Gloucestershire. So, and this was another. I was on Wellingtons so it was another Bomber Command area.
MH: And did, when you moved to a different aircraft were there similarities or were they things that you had to get used to all over again?
JW: Yeah. You had to get used to new things but on the second course at Halton they had embraced various changes that were taking place. And also on that second course they’d also embraced little bits about American aircraft as well as British aircraft and I was interested in American aircraft as well as British ones.
MH: So, you were at Pershore.
JW: So, I went to Pershore.
MH: OTU is operational —
JW: 23 OTU.
MH: Operational Training Unit.
JW: Yes. It was just opening up. We had no aircraft at all. The hangar wasn’t open. The workmen were still working on it. The cookhouse was an open cookhouse because that part wasn’t built but we were in the four huts that were built. One of the four huts that were, were starting the unit off. We had no aircraft at all and one arrived about two weeks after I arrived at Pershore. There was, we put it out on a distant little field, picketed it down for the night and we were bombed that night. But it didn’t get the aircraft. It got little bits near to the hangar.
MH: So you, the plane you basically moved the plane away from the main buildings for that reason.
JW: Yes. That’s right. Picketed it down.
MH: Yeah. What sort of strip was it there? Was it hardstanding or was it grass?
JW: Hardstanding.
MH: So it would be tarmac. Tarmac.
JW: Yes. The strip was there and we picketed on one of the, on one of the ends. There were several different areas and we picketed on one of those.
MH: So how long before you started getting more planes?
JW: We then got the planes at about one a week for a few weeks and then two or three a week and these were delivered direct from the manufacturer and our job was to bring them up to standard. Put the turrets in. The extra seating. All the little bits that went in for radar and various things that was coming in. And we dispersed those to other airfields down Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.
MH: So, so it sounds like there was a lot to do to get those planes ready.
JW: Yes. By that time the hangar was going so we had a corner of the hangar that we would be a team. As the aircraft came from the makers they came completely empty with ballast in place of things. So you were getting the ballast out, putting the turrets in in place of the ballast and the various other things that you had to do like second pilot seats and various things. There was cable cutters to put in to the wings in case the Wimpie was flying and had to cut a cable on a balloon.
MH: So how long did that take to get a plane from from you receiving it from the factory to then being ready to to actually start to fly?
JW: Well, it probably on the team turn out one a week once we were geared up to do so.
MH: And how many were on your team?
JW: And there would probably be an engine fitter, an airframe fitter, an electrician would do two or three teams. Same with an instrument man and the radio people came in when they were needed.
MH: Right. So, so you, over a period of time you’ve all had these planes slowly coming from the factory.
JW: And being dispersed.
MH: Yeah.
JW: In Worcestershire and Gloucestershire and at various aerodromes like.
MH: Right.
JW: There was many. So, there was about eight aerodromes down that, all being built.
MH: Yeah.
JW: And —
MH: So, so was Pershore the hub for all these to come in to, in to —
JW: All these.
MH: And you would get them ready.
JW: Yes.
MH: And then you would move them out.
JW: Yeah.
MH: So, so was that basically all your job entailed? Oh, that sounds a bit disrespectful.
JW: Yes, I —
MH: But was that all just basically like a production line of planes coming in and going out.
JW: And going out. Yes.
MH: So was there, was there any flying at Pershore? Was it a flying airfield as well?
JW: Oh yes. It was an airfield, and flew. It had its own aircraft as well.
MH: Right.
JW: Probably about eight I think that got it in two. It was 23 OTU but they got it in A and B Flights or they might have even had C.
MH: Yeah.
JW: But they got about eight aircraft of their own on dispersals which I didn’t take part in.
MH: No.
JW: Because I was in the teams that were shoving them out.
MH: Yeah. So the A and B flights had their own mechanics.
JW: Yeah. They were mechanics rather than fitters.
MH: So, so what was it like fitting, fitting a turret to, how many turrets did you fit into a Wellington then?
JW: Well, the, we were on Wellington 3s and that was the, the advanced turret for the rear end because Wellington bombers you couldn’t get out of the turret excepting back in to the aircraft. It didn’t have enough angle. But the Wellington 3 did and if you had to eject in the air it could turn round and the man could fall out of the turret.
MH: Right.
JW: And bale out.
MH: So how long did you stay at Pershore doing that sort of work?
JW: September ’43. [pause] September ’43 I got a posting to 206 Squadron. They was at Benbecula flying Hudsons but I didn’t get there because I got part way there, as far as Wick, by Aberdeen and they turned me back to Liverpool. Gave me a new warrant to get to Liverpool and then across the water to the Wirral to an Army unit because 206 Squadron Benbecula were breaking up in flights and I was on what was called 8206 which was a Combined Ops Unit and I joined this Army unit as the RAF and some people had come already from Benbecula. There was about fifty of us altogether in the RAF forming up to go to go to, eventually to the Azores but we weren’t given the information.
MH: But you didn’t know where you were going.
JW: We didn’t know where we were going.
MH: So, what was the, so you were there. How many were there from the RAF then?
JW: There was about, well there was supposed to be a thousand RAF, a thousand Army and a thousand Navy.
MH: Right. So it was a big outfit.
JW: Yes. Because where ever we were going it was a Combined Ops Unit. We were, we were liable to have to be under canvas for a certain length of time.
MH: So how long were you? You say you were on the Wirral? Do you know?
JW: Well, about two weeks. We, we had got certain bits of kit and a sten gun and a little bit of training and square mess tins. We had to hand our round tins in for square mess tins.
MH: Were rounds ones particular to the RAF I take it?
JW: No. The round ones were on issue to everybody at that time.
MH: Right.
JW: But the square mess tin fitted the, the ration packs that were coming in.
MH: Yeah.
JW: At that time. So, we had to have a square mess tin.
MH: And you said you got some training with a sten gun so you were taught to shoot were you then?
JW: We were taught to shoot. We were taught a little bit about self-defence. We were taught to use our mess tins and given a mug which was china and needless to say you soon broke the mug.
MH: So, so what, what did you think when suddenly you’d gone from fitting turrets on to Wellingtons to now you’re on the Wirral in this this other unit of soldiers and other, and sailors and suddenly they’re teaching you to fire guns.
JW: Well, we were there about two weeks kitting out etcetera and then we, we joined, they brought us back to Liverpool dock, the Liver Dock and we joined the Franconia which was a troop ship. And that night we sailed across the water to Bangor Harbour where the rest of the people came in. The rest of the three thousand people came in. I was only on a unit of about fifty which was 8206. There were other RAF people around but we did different units.
MH: Did you know where you were going at that point?
JW: No. That, that same evening we must have left Bangor because when we woke up on, on we were below decks and the weather broke up the next morning.
MH: I’m going to just pause there.
[recording paused]
MH: Right. Just to explain to people listening to this recording we’ve just a very important thing which was sorting out lunch for Jim and Pete. So, we’re just starting again. So, you were just at the point where you’d set sail.
JW: We’d sailed.
MH: You were below decks and you woke up the next morning.
JW: We woke up the next morning and we’d come out of Bangor and we were now heading west. Due west. And this went on for about two days and we thought, everyone thought we’re going to Iceland because we were going in that direction. Suddenly we turned left and started in a southerly direction. This went on for about another day and we joined up with a, with a Navy ship. A Destroyer, and he was hovering around us and about four days later we overtook a flotilla of merchant ships that had other Navy ships around them and an aircraft carrier. And at that time our officers were drawn in to tell us that we were going to land in the Azores.
MH: Which was part of Portugal, wasn’t it?
JW: Which was part of Portugal.
MH: A neutral country.
JW: And this was before Winston Churchill had announced anything about this island.
MH: Right.
JW: This, this island was called Terceira. It was a small volcanic island with [barefoots] so we were all given the necessary jabs up our backsides because they were worried about plagues and that sort of thing. And then we arrived on a Sunday afternoon. The, there was a big Navy ship offloading boats to get us from the, from our ship and from the merchant ships to the shore.
MH: I take it there wasn’t a harbour as such then.
JW: On a little harbour called [pause] [unclear] or something like that. It was a little harbour. Anyway, we, we all assembled with our kit and of course the RAF volunteered [laughs] to go as soon as possible and we jumped in to these boats because the sea was rather rough, running at about ten foot, landing craft and got to shore where, where the other people that was before us were receiving all sorts of things ashore. And there was tea laid on but the rest of it was our own rations. So we went on shift. Four hours on two hours off day and night. And that’s how we spent that first night was working for four hours unloading things on the shore and the Army had put up [tents] and tents loosely to an area outside town on the side of a volcano.
MH: Right. So you spent all night unloading and sorting all your stuff out.
JW: Yeah. Well, the next morning 8206 were called together and we, we were told to put our stuff in to a lorry because we were going roughly twenty five mile across country to where we were going to build an Air Force station. We were going to lay plate runway to form a runway and dispersals. We would be in tents for up to a year and we would be on rations, our own rations but two hot meals a day. Breakfast and dinner. There would be no lights. It would just be an encampment in tents. Eight to a tent.
MH: So you started from scratch really.
JW: Yes. And we went over, that day we went over and we started laying, there was no aircraft around. We started laying a strip because the Army was ahead of us in their knocking walls down and things to make an airstrip and that afternoon the Seafires off the aircraft carrier landed on the strip that we’d already prepared.
MH: So you didn’t hang around then. You got it down quick fairly quickly.
JW: Hmmn?
MH: You got, you got your work —
JW: We got enough.
MH: To do that. Yeah.
JW: To land Seafires —
MH: Yeah.
JW: Down in that same afternoon. Because we’d gone first light in the morning and with, as, as strip runway came in we laid it.
MH: Right. How long did it take you to finish laying the full —
JW: Oh well, we were on that as well as our own aircraft. Two days later our aircraft came in from America and we were now on B17s.
MH: So, there’s no, you hadn’t got any British planes as such it was just —
JW: Pardon?
MH: Had you got any British planes there? Bombers or were they —
JW: No. No. No. We had the Seafires. They used, they were on a dispersal and they flew from their own dispersal and they’d somehow or another got one or two people over to help them out. We refuelled from Jerry cans with, because it was all over the wing refuelling and we had no tankers whatsoever. We refuelled from Jerry cans in to a funnel with a, with a filter at the bottom.
MH: It took a bit longer to fill up then normal then.
JW: Oh, good lord, it was. We had no no tanker. A few weeks later, about a fortnight later I went over, I was given civilian overalls to go to the main island to see if we could find a fuel storage unit because Jerry cans were such a pain to refuel with. You know. A five, you could damage the aircraft let alone anything else.
MH: So, you’d got these B17s. were they piloted by American crews?
JW: They, they were piloted by British crews.
MH: Right.
JW: And they were marionised with a radar unit that came down the fuselage and out at the tail wheel. And this was a Canadian unit and they brought one Canadian with them who taught us to, how to polish the wave guide because it was a five inch wave guide and the magnetron was in like a Smith’s biscuit tin which we had to take the lid off every day and polish up the, the prongs.
MH: So was that a particular piece of kit for what they were doing?
JW: No. They —
MH: Or just a general.
JW: The Canadians. It was apparently used for fishing. To find shoals of fish but they’d adapted it to find submarines.
MH: Right.
JW: And so with sonar buoys at strategic places and the mathematics of it all and we had all sorts of radio aerials along the roof of the, of the B17 they could bring in the Navy or the merchant ship, carry their own depth charges if they had to do and find not fish but submarines.
MH: A clever idea. Do you remember what squadron that was?
JW: We were, it was 206 Squadron. We were, we were still 8206 [coughs] because we were like the maintenance team for the squadron.
MH: So, when —
JW: And then about [coughs] that probably went on until about [pause] well I broke a finger just before Christmas and had to have like a tennis racket where it pulled it all out. It did heal in the end so I was, I was in hospital. A Portuguese hospital run, a ward run by the, by the Army or Navy or RAF over Christmas day. But I was only in for about three days after Christmas and when I got back to the unit which was, which the Army had made us like a servicing bay knocking a lump out of, out of the volcano edging because we were like now probably three or four hundred foot above the sea level. When we, when I got back to them there was now 209 Squadron as well as 206 Squadron there so we were getting we had about nine aircraft, B17s, altogether.
MH: And these were all equipped with the same instrumentation to find submarines.
JW: Yes. They had the same. The same sort of kit on and they’d come with the 209 Squadron crews which we, we only saw them come to the aircraft, fly them and that was it and then they’d be gone to where ever they were billeted.
MH: Right. And did, how successful were they at catching submarines? Did you ever get to hear?
JW: Well, I think that it assisted the Navy. They certainly got one submarine as we were coming. The Navy got one submarine as we were coming to land originally because there was subs in that area and they certainly were feeding the subs on the surface and we, because the, the Canary Islands were supplying fuel for all these subs and things.
MH: Right. Because they were under Spain which was fascist, wasn’t it?
JW: They were in Spain you see and we knew that this was happening so we were always overflying that, those areas.
MH: Right.
JW: So, I think they certainly altered the name of the game for, for the ships that were refuelling submarines.
MH: So, it seems to me that at times you were perhaps only aware of what work you were doing. You didn’t see —
JW: Yes.
MH: The pilots flying the planes.
JW: That’s right. Yes.
MH: You didn’t find out how successful. You just did your job.
JW: I did my job. I was sent once to try to get a fuel tanker from the main island which is St Miguel or something like that of the Azores. And that was the only time I’d been at sea again. There was a sergeant sent with me and I was like a lance corporal.
MH: Right. So how long were you in the Azores for? Did that go on for a while?
JW: In, let me see [pause] can I just have a second to look at it?
MH: Of course, you can.
JW: I’ve had to pick this up from my records. [pause] Well, in about April they told us to, to shift all our inventories to 209 Squadron.
MH: This was 1944 at this point.
JW: So, that was 1944. April 1944, because our aircrew had gone back to Blighty and there was only 209 aircrew left on the island now to run these eight or nine B17s. We were told that we were being moved back to Blighty as a squadron. We didn’t know where to but what we knew was we were going back by Skymaster to [pause] to the western side of Africa and then flying on to Blighty by Skymasters because by now the Americans were bringing Skymasters in quite quickly, several a day and even Mitchells were coming through. They were using the airfield as a staging post and incidentally in January a new flotilla of of ships arrived bringing more stuff to the island because we’d been on our own for six months and used up nearly everything we’d brought. So, they’d brought in 209 Squadron servicing crew by ship. They’d brought in all sorts of materials to make decent Nissen huts for people to live in. We were still under canvas and remained under canvas until we moved.
MH: What was the weather like?
JW: Damp. It was the Azores. It’s good, goodish weather. It’ll grow small bananas and that sort of thing but it’s damp and there’s quite a lot of, quite a lot of rain.
MH: So not necessarily the best conditions to be under canvas.
JW: No. No.
MH: Were you aware that point how the war was going elsewhere? What were you hearing?
JW: Yes. We had a newspaper that came around. I think it was originally once a month and now it was probably a weekly one called, “The Azores Times.” I think. And we, we were kept assured of what was going on in Blighty. Anyway, we eventually got home piecemeal between Casablanca and, and the tip of Cornwall where we landed at, the Skymasters landed at St Mawgan. So I was home about May and the, the officer in charge said, ‘Ah, your squadron is at St Eval.’ So, he got me a garrey to get me to St Eval.
MH: Whats a garrey?
JW: A garrey is a lorry.
MH: Right. Right.
JW: To get me to St Eval. And there I, I was back with the rest of the lads. There was, we were the last two to get away from, from Casablanca because it was all done when we could get a flight.
MH: Yeah.
JW: Because there was mostly flights were for officers.
MH: Did you get a chance to have a walk around? Did you get in to town while you were in Casablanca? Did you get to see the sights?
JW: Oh yes. Yes. And I also did some work for the RAF unit because they were putting together American Lightnings as a twin boom Lightnings.
MH: Yeah P38s.
JW: Yes.
MH: So, so you get back to England.
JW: Yes.
MH: Was this just before D-Day and where —
JW: Yes. Yeah. This was about a week before D-Day and I was put on night shift. We lived at Morganporth in a commandeered hotel and we had dry rations. We didn’t have anything to do with St Eval as, as a unit. We were, we were on a dispersal about the furthermost away. They did bring a hot meal in. If you were on days you got it at lunchtime. If you were on nights you got it about two in the morning. So we were always kept. Had a hot meal on site. But we were permanently on site on twelve hours shifts. Twelve on. Twelve off.
MH: So were you with the squadron at this point in time or just with the, like —
JW: Yes. This was 206 Squadron.
MH: Right. Ok.
JW: We’ve now changed to Liberators by the way. We, the aircrew had adapted to Liberators.
MH: And did you have to do much to catch up in terms of work —
JW: Well, it was a question of a Liberator is another aircraft and you get used to knowing that aircraft are aircraft.
MH: And what were you, what was your job at that time? What were you were working on?
JW: Well, again being an LAC I I ran a little team of people.
MH: Right.
JW: About three mechanics. Three or four. Usually an engine mechanic, an air frame mechanic and one wanderer like an electrician or instruments or both.
MH: And what, what operations were the squadron involved in around about at that time?
JW: We were putting an anti-submarine because the Liberators were also anti- submarine. I don’t know quite what type because they didn’t seem to have the same scanners as a B17 so I didn’t know anything about that side of what they were scanning.
MH: And where were, where were—
JW: It must have been some sort of radar.
MH: Yeah. And what areas were they operating?
JW: They, they were covering Brest to the Irish Sea for anti-submarine block.
MH: And, and we were obviously getting around to D-Day at this point in time. Were you aware that that was, happened or, you know, you just carry on as normal? Or did you —
JW: Well, on I think it was the 5th of, was it June? D-Day.
MH: Yeah. 6th of June was the actual —
JW: The 6th. On the night of the 5th I was on duty that night and about five in the morning just as day was breaking there was a flotilla. A flotilla of B17s, Americans all painted up with the white stripes you know and there must have been a couple of hundred come over us at about 5 in the morning. Came over the top of us and flew on towards France. So that must have been the start of D-Day.
MH: And then how did your, how did 206 Squadron sort of carry on doing duty?
JW: We used, on our tannoy system which was separate to the station system if there was sighting of a U-boat they would send the message over and tell us what was happening by the air crew and two or three evenings we were told they were chasing U-boats and dropping DCs.
MH: Depth charges.
JW: Depth charges.
MH: So, so that was almost like a real time. You were told as it was happening.
JW: Yeah. Happening in real time.
MH: They’d relay. They’d relay the radio messages.
JW: Well, we went on for about a week there and then suddenly they said, ‘Well, go and take what you can of your kit. Bring in your kit. Bring in everything you’ve got. Take what you can of ground equipment because you’re going up to Leuchar, Scotland as a part of a unit of 206. Leaving some people in 206 looking after what they were looking after and you’re going up by train to Leuchar to set up a similar system from Leuchar on the North Sea.’
MH: And that’s what you did. And how long did that go on for?
JW: This went, we, we brought our kit in. The train we’d loaded what we could of ground equipment and tools and all that. Things that we think, thought we’d need. And we were at, we went up by slow train to Leuchar. This took about, there was rations put on so we had rations on the way and I think when we got to Leuchar there was a hot meal laid on and we went straight to the flight and some of our aircraft were now landing at Leuchar. Some of the, some of the Liberators were landing at Leuchar and in the Leuchar base was very near the sea because Leuchar is on a small island, just by the golf course and in on the sea front there was the RAF unit that ran MTBs. Motor torpedo boats. So we communicated with them that what would happen. We’d site where, where U-boats were and they would go out and see if they would surrender or, or get DC’d.
MH: And how long were you at Leuchar for?
JW: Probably a fortnight because in Leuchar they were asking, by then they were asking for people to go to India and, and look at the Far East. And there were people, they were looking for people that were single. Not married.
MH: You were still single at that time.
JW: So I was still single at that time so my CO said, ‘Will you volunteer?’ As usual. So, I was on my way then. I got a couple of days leave and down to, I think I went to Morecambe, I’m not sure. And a couple of days leave at home to Morecambe. Morecambe to Southampton by train and I found myself on the way to India at the [pause] when did I go to India? [pause] August 1944.
MH: Right.
JW: End of August. I landed actually in Calcutta. I landed at Worli. That’s the old, the old what’s it called now? In India.
MH: I’m not sure.
JW: Worli.
MH: I’m not sure about Worli because they’ve gone back to the original names not the anglicised names, haven’t they?
JW: Ceylon. Not.
MH: Oh, Sri Lanka are you on about? Sri Lanka? No.
JW: No. What’s Hollywood in [pause] Bollywood.
MH: Yeah.
JW: What town was that?
MH: I’m not sure to be honest. My Indian knowledge is not that good.
JW: I landed on that side of India.
MH: Yeah. Right.
JW: Caught a train across to Calcutta which wasn’t —
MH: It wasn’t Bombay. You’re not on about Bombay, are you?
JW: Bombay, landed Bombay. Worli. Caught a train the next day. A troop train going to Calcutta and we pushed it half the way.
MH: The train?
JW: It was a troop train so you’d, you’d go about four hours, five hours, something like that, all disembark for a hot cup of tea and your rations for that day. So you were still living on rations. Anyway, when I got to Calcutta I was posted to Dum Dum which was the Calcutta race course at that time. Now, it’s the airport but at that time it was just the racecourse. I was posted to a little unit called [pause] what was it called? Air Salvage and Servicing. It had three Dakotas that were all being modified to carry stuff externally as well as internally. And I was given my corporal tapes whilst I was on that unit because you couldn’t get permanent corporal. You could only be an LAC permanent. So each unit you went to you’d got to qualify to be an acting corporal.
MH: So what was, what was this air salvage —
JW: Air Salvage Unit. I joined a team, or I was in charge of a team as an acting corporal and we, we would be responsible for taking stuff in to the Burma area that was needed by squadrons. For instance on one occasion we, we took a, there was other teams taking things like Spitfires to pieces. We used to split the the Spitfire in to the engine, attach the prop off, the tail off and the empennage and one, one wing upside down with a fairing on the front hung by cables between, underneath the Dakota. The Spitfire we would fit inside the fuselage with the engine in the open doors which we dispersed with so we were now have got half of a Spitfire into a Dakota. We, we would go from Dum Dum to Agartala which was in Assam, north of the river, refuel and then fly on and in this particular instance to an airfield that you couldn’t get to in daytime because of volcanoes and things ad drop in there, offload my part of the gear. The pilot who was a Polish pilot that he had no, no navigational aids whatsoever. We, we used to fly, I used to fly with him and just follow the route that he told me to follow. Followed either a river or a railway line and just watch what was going on or fly a course where I was keeping to a course.
MH: And then, obviously you dropped off this Spitfire. Did you then bring —
JW: He came back for the other half.
MH: Right.
JW: And that would arrive the next morning.
MH: And then you had to put it together.
JW: And my, by that time we’d put as much of the Spitfire together with three of us as we could get together.
MH: Yeah. And was that something you did for quite a while in India?
JW: I did. I did Imphal Valley once. I did a lot of various drops. I worked for 31 Squadron for quite a while.
MH: What sort of squadron were they? Were they —
JW: They were another Dakota squadron.
MH: Right.
JW: That were supplying Chindits —
MH: Right.
JW: And people like the Chindits in, in Burma with mules. We even took mules in one day. I I wasn’t on that aircraft. That was one of our other aircraft.
MH: So how long did you stay in India for?
JW: Well, I, I was, I also did a trip from, starting at Agartala where, where I picked up a train load of Hurricanes because we couldn’t get the Hurricane. The Hurricane’s built differently to the Spitfire. You can’t get it in to a Dakota. You can get a wing on but you can’t get an outer wing. You can put on but you can’t get the centre section so we were taking Hurricanes and various other spares back to India to Kanpur which was the MU that put them together again. And this was a two week journey. Caught the, picked up the train and my rations and a sten gun. A colleague, there was two, always two of us on the train and apart from sten guns we had, we picked up a long range rifle. A Garand rifle for long distance shooting if, if we were being attacked. We would then go Cox’s Bazaar. Pick up some more kit there. Chittagong. Worked our way to the Brahmaputra point where the train would be offloaded and loaded on to barges and go up the Brahmaputra for about seven or eight hours to another port on the right hand side for, for narrow gauge use.
MH: Yes.
JW: And from there we would go, go to, to Kanpur and the whole journey would take about seven days if you were lucky. If you were unlucky it could take up to a fortnight.
MH: And when did you get back to the, get back to England then? How long before —
JW: Well, from that I went, I was on Ramree Island which is an island off Burma with 31 Squadron when the war ended. When the atom bomb, the second atom bomb dropped. And we were told to go to Mingaladon and be on, everybody at Mingaladon which was the bottom of Burma to wait for the Viceroy of India to come in and take the surrender which happened the next morning. We were all lined up. All the squadrons around were lined up along one side and in came the York with, with the Viceroy of India on. He got killed in Ireland, didn’t he?
MH: Lord Mountbatten.
JW: Lord Mountbatten. Yes. He took the salute from the, from the Japanese who gave him all the swords etcetera. And then we moved on. We, we were given the task of looking after 31 Squadron. I was now with 31 Squadron. Still on attachment [laughs] We, we were given Siam, Sumatra, land at Singapore but don’t take the salute there. And then go on to Java and Borneo. So I ended up in Java running, running B Flight aeroplanes. About four. Four aeroplanes and I had a crew of about two fitters and two, two engine men. And that’s when my release came through for Class B demob. So, the next morning I’d got my kit packed and an A Flight aircraft flew me back to Singapore. I I mounted a boat, got a boat from there to Southampton and was demobbed at Hednesford.
MH: And what date was that? Can you remember?
JW: 9th of the 3rd ’46.
MH: Right. Right. I understand, I don’t think your time in the RAF quite finished then, did it? Although you’d been demobbed.
JW: No. No. I I was discharged to complete my apprenticeship as a civvy which I did. I found I was then on a half a crown an hour for a fully fledged joiner. And I enquired of the firm I was working for, ‘What was my promotion? Would I get promotion?’ He said, ‘Well, when —' such and such dies —' he was about fifty at the time, I was about twenty two or four, something like that. ‘When he dies you or Johnny will get the job,’ because there was two of us. An Army lad that had done much the same as I had. So, I’d, I had notice from the Air Force that I could join for five years. Or four years or something of that nature and get my tapes back. So I wrote to the RAF. I’d done this prior to finishing my time. My civilian time. I wrote to the RAF and got a guarantee that I would be promoted to substantive corporal for the jobs that I’d done as an acting corporal and they gave me this. They said yes you will be but you’ll have to do three months on the job to prove that you’re capable.
MH: So, what squadron did you go back in to?
JW: So I went back to Swinderby for a four years, four year enlistment and that gave me a hundred and twenty five quid.
MH: And what, what did you do when you went back then? A similar sort of thing?
JW: Well, they had Wellington 20s by that time. Navigation. They were doing training navigation in Bomber Command. 17 OTU they were so they were Bomber Command again. And I was there until January ’51 in Swinderby. In 17 OTU.
MH: So what, what was your role then? What were you doing there?
JW: Again, I was what they called the piece of wind section which was the air and the, and the hydraulics. I ran a little section of of about three bodies. We did tyres as well. We did hydraulics. I did a little bit of work producing a better ground equipment than, than at that time we had because the RAF was very very short of decent ground equipment. So I’d mounted, because we were, we needed high pressure air on the Wellington 20s.
MH: Yeah. Was it different post-war than during the war? Was there a different atmosphere?
JW: It was gradually getting back to Wednesdays off you know. Wednesday afternoon was sports day and the, it just so happened that I met my wife at that time because the, the old diversion air field for Swinderby was Wigsley. And Wigsley was being used in the huts for people that had been in Germany for —
MH: Displaced persons.
JW: Displaced persons, and my wife was a displaced person.
MH: Right.
JW: That had recently come over and it just so happened I’d, we were doing circuits and bumps on the airfield and I’d sent one of my men over to do backstay checks on, once they’d landed you had to make sure the geometric lock was in the correct place before they could take off again and he said, ‘Hey, there’s a load of women over there.’ So off we went on our motorbikes.
MH: Right. So I understand at some point in time you worked on the Vulcan.
JW: Yes.
MH: Was that towards the end of your time?
JW: Well, [pause] where was I?
MH: You said you were at Swinderby until about 1950, weren’t you? Something like that.
JW: Yes. ’51. I’d done training courses to take Meteor 3s out to, out to Singapore. Unfortunately, the Makarios war took all our aircraft so although the Meteor 3s were on a boat loaded for Singapore we couldn’t get to them. So Singapore did their own lot and put the Meteor 3s in. But we were on posting anyway to Singapore as a unit and in January ’51 I landed in Singapore as a unit but because the Meteor 3s had been put in to service we were given another job in Singapore on Sunderlands which was another aircraft I didn’t know.
MH: No.
JW: And 205 and 220 Squadron were the squadrons but I was put in to the Maintenance Unit to bring up a beached aircraft. And it was at that point I got a wound on my left foot because putting, getting the thing up slip. They’re the last thing. You bring it up back to front and the last thing that happened was that the tow on one side towed before the other side, pulled the aircraft around with the ground equipment over my foot. That caused me problems that I still suffer today. We, we did Singapore, posted back to UK and to Stradishall. And it was from Stradishall that I I got my legs mended from the ‘51 thing in ’53. I I had them mended at, at an RAF hospital that near to Cambridge. I was at Stradishall in ’44 and was called to Melksham to go on to V bombers because my Fitter 1 training way back in my marriage days of ’48 was to Yatesbury to be a Fitter 1. Now, it had taken that time to sort out what the Fitter 1 really should be as an ASC and it was Melksham that we were sent to for coursing. And then on to AV Roes because again I passed out about fourth in the entry so we had the choice of aircraft. There was about fifty on the course but only the first ten went either on to Vulcans or Victors.
MH: So, so a massive —
JW: I chose Vulcans.
MH: Why did you choose Vulcans?
JW: Because it’s a better aircraft.
MH: Better in what way?
JW: Better in, even the Mark 1 which I had was a better aircraft. A much steadier aircraft for bombing.
MH: So you thought it was a better aircraft to maintain was it?
JW: A better aircraft all round. All the way round.
MH: Yeah.
JW: There was one advantage that the other aircraft had, the Victor had, was powered by by 220 volts rather than, rather than a 112 volt battery. That was the only advantage that I saw.
MH: Yeah.
JW: In that, but the Mark 2 Vulcan became a 220 anyway.
MH: So how long did you remain in the RAF for, Jim?
JW: Well, I remained on Vulcan 1s and XH477 was my allocated aircraft. I took that on board and flew with it on many occasions as ASC.
MH: Actually, in the plane.
JW: Oh yes.
MH: Yeah.
JW: Yes. Well, you’d, if the aircraft was on a given operation I could not fly with it. If the aircraft was on what they called a lone ranger or going to do a job like Butterworths which is the other side of Malaya or Australia or, for instance we did the George Ward’s thing in Rio de Janeiro and, and we did [pause] we inaugurated a president in Buenos Aires as well. So on those flight an ASC flew with the aircraft as the sixth seat.
MH: Just in case you needed to do maintenance while it was out there.
JW: Yes. Well, we usually took a servicing crew as well. These were Hermes aircraft for Buenos Aires. We’d take two Hermes with crews on board. Some for training for the actual inauguration because they, our second pilot was an AVM.
MH: Air Vice Marshall.
JW: Hmnn?
MH: Air Vice Marshall. AVM.
JW: Air Vice Marshall. A one-handed man that had lost his hand during the war. In Spitfire presumably. We were very [pause] we did those sorts of operations with ASC on the sixth seat so I I think I flew mostly most of the hours in my aircraft than any other crew. Eventually, I was given the chance of going on Mark 2s but I I sent my PV3 back to Air Ministry saying I was leaving the Air force in less than two years. So they called me to Air Ministry to query why and I explained that I I was really in a position where I had to find a civilian job that suited me. And I had already done twenty two years so wanted to be clear of the Air Force inside another three years. And I didn’t want to go on Mark 2s for that reason. So I was given the opportunity of handing my aircraft to what was my second dickie now which I did and going on SFTT work for [pause] for, for until I left the Air Force. Until I found a suitable job which I did with ICL.
MH: Where was that? In Stoke on Trent?
JW: In Stoke. And I found, I found the job with English Electric Leo Marconi which became a part of ICL. So I was initially at Kidsgrove in the electrical huts on the opposite site.
MH: Using a lot of skills that you learned in the RAF?
JW: Yeah. I was, well when the, when ICL was formed the name of the game was different because I I’d gone in using RAF skills and and various things but I was now offered a management job in ICL to look after the field problems of ICL. Forming and getting rid of various little units that had joined, made up ICL and making bigger units like the Arndale Centre at Manchester where I took eleven top floors in the Arndale Centre. Eleven to twenty two.
MH: Right.
JW: Without lifts initially.
MH: I can imagine. I think that you’ve told me an absolutely fascinating story of a lad from Burton who was going to be a carpenter. Doesn’t seem to ever have been much of a carpenter because he spent most of his time in the RAF but I suppose as you say you got a trade but —
JW: Yeah. Well, my, my trade fitted me up fine for ICL work.
MH: Yeah.
JW: In the field.
MH: So is there anything else from your RAF time you want to tell me about? Have we covered most of —
JW: I left in 1966. October. And I had a good, a good twenty two years with, with ICL.
MH: Afterwards —
JW: And manage with three pensions.
MH: Yeah.
JW: With them as well as an RAF pension.
MH: Right. That, that’s great. I’ve got no questions to ask. I said I’ll be writing some notes down but you did say that you could talk and you’ve just, you’ve told me all I want —
JW: Well, I’ve had to refer to this because I can’t remember it.
MH: No.
JW: I highlighted all the areas that were Bomber Command.
MH: Yeah. Yeah. No that’s great. Jim, can I thank you for giving your time? You’ve talked for about an hour and a half then. That’s brilliant.
JW: Well, I’m afraid that’s twenty two years.
MH: You’ve done very well to keep it —
JW: Of RAF.
MH: Yeah. So, so thank you very much. Thank you for all your service and thank you for your time today. The time is 12.48. I’m going to turn the recorder off in a second. I just need you to sign a form and then you two guys —
JW: Right.
MH: Can go and get dinner because I suppose you’re hungry. So thank you very much for your time and thank you very much for, for letting me speak to you today.
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 Jim Wildes
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Martyn Horndern
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
2018-08-29
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWildesJE180829, PWildesJE1801
Format
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01:33:21 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Jim was born in July 1923 in Burton on Trent and was the eldest of six children. His father served in the First World War. When Jim left school aged 14, he joined the Boys Brigade which had a Royal Air Force section and he had the chance to fly in a Tiger Moth. He trained to be an apprentice joiner and carpenter and worked with his grandfather who was a master joiner. He then joined Sharp Bros & Knight, timber and joinery manufacturers. When he was about 17, the Boys Brigade sent him to RAF Cardington for an air crew interview, which he failed due to ear problems. He then took the exam and was recommended to be a voluntary reserve.
When Jim was about 18, he was called up to go to RAF Halton for aircraft training, after which he was sent for further training at RAF Abingdon Operational Training Unit on Hampden and Witney aircraft. He was then sent back to RAF Halton to do a fitter course and then posted to 23 Operational Training Unit at RAF Pershore working on Wellingtons. After training Jim became a leading aircraftman. In September 1943 Jim was posted to 206 Squadron on the Wirral for about two weeks. The outfit totalled about 1,000 people from the Air Force, Army and Navy. His unit was then sent to the Liverpool docks to join the troop ship Laconia heading for Bangor and then on to Azores where 8206 Maintenance Unit built an Air Force station and runway. They stayed in tents with eight people for up to a year. Over Christmas Jim was in a Portuguese hospital for about three days with a broken finger. The unit went to Casablanca then to Cornwall just before D-Day. He was put on night shift at RAF St Mawgan with 206 Squadron working on Liberators. Following a trip to Scotland they were posted at Dundee with an air salvaging and servicing unit. Here he was made acting corporal and worked with 31 Dakota Squadron. When the war ended, he was flown to Singapore, got a boat to Southampton and was discharged to complete his apprenticeship as a joiner. Jim re-joined the Air Force and went back to RAF Swinderby for four years working on Wellingtons. There he met his future wife. In 1951 the unit went to Singapore to work on Sunderlands before being posted back home. Jim left in 1966 and worked for AV Roe until joining ICL in a management job.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Lincolnshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Wirral
Scotland
Scotland--Dundee
Azores
North Africa
Morocco
Morocco--Casablanca
Singapore
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1943-09
1943-12
1966
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
10 OTU
206 Squadron
23 OTU
31 Squadron
B-17
B-24
C-47
ground personnel
Hampden
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Abingdon
RAF Cardington
RAF Halton
RAF Pershore
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Swinderby
Sunderland
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/773/9293/PWatkinsJ1801.2.jpg
23a737b72e514fe88268be4fdbef9f76
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/773/9293/AWatkinsJ180802.2.mp3
7707459bd57b1cac29e841380e02be32
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
Watkins, Snogger
John Watkins
J Watkins
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with John Watkins (b. 1924, 1624229 Royal Air Force). Initially a ground personnel wireless operator he volunteered and flew operations as a wireless operator with 230, 240 and 205 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-02
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
Watkins, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SP: So, this is Susanne Pescott, and I’m interviewing Warrant Officer John Watkins who was a wireless op and air gunner for Bomber Command and Coastal Command. I’m interviewing today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at John’s home, who was referred to as Jack during the war and it’s today, the 2nd of August 2018. So, first of all, thank you John for agreeing to be interviewed today.
JW: Quite happy to do so.
SP: So, John do you want to tell me about what you did before you joined up? Before the war.
JW: Yes. Well, before I was in retail. Men’s retail in Rotherham. In 1938 or ’9, the Air Training Corps was formed in Rotherham, 218 Squadron with librarian, Chief Librarian Broadhead I think they called him who was made CO. And there was about eighteen of us with a little Air Training Corps badge and so that’s when the 218 Air Training Corps Squadron was formed. Just after that we all got uniforms. Now, that was a very proud moment because we had the Church Parade and I’ve still got a photograph of that where there’s the commanding officer is first and I, being tall was just behind him. We were really proud to be the beginning of 218 Cadet force, RAF Cadet force in Rotherham. From, at that particular time it was 19’, 19’, oh ‘39, ’38, ’38, ’39. It was when the Rotherham and Sheffield Blitz was on. That means when the Germans were really flattening big buildings and well, all that went through in the Blitz and I at that time was only seventeen or eighteen but I was a fire watcher. So, if any of the, any of the fire bombs dropped we had a bucket of sand. We had to put it on it and shovel them away. It was scary to do that. Very, very scary. But I joined this Air Training Corps and that’s where I, because before this I used to be making model aeroplanes and I was very interested in flying right from the beginning. And so, when they said, ‘Do you want to join?’ I thought, ‘Right. I’ll go for interview.’ And that would be 1940, I would think I joined in I had to wait a while after they consider everything but I wanted to be in aircrew and very pleased to learn Morse and arms drill, marching and all the rest of it. So I was quite experienced by the time I did get, joined in in the RAF in 1942. Do you want any more now? So, I’ll cut it from there.
[recording paused]
I suppose I’d better, just a minute I’d better start off with, they called all the aircrew up to Blackpool to do their initial training. Blackpool saw all the, all the boarding houses were filled with trainee aircrew. So that’s where I first did the marching and the learning of, well, I’d already started learning Morse because I knew I wanted to be a wireless operator air gunner. Anyhow, so I first went to Recruitment Centre at Cardington, February 26th 1942. And then from there I went to Padgate at Blackpool. That would be August. We had to wait. They didn’t call me straight away. My father, I used to say, ‘Has my papers come yet? Has my papers?’ But I went to Padgate in August the 14th 1942. Then I went to the Signals School at Yatesbury in Wiltshire. That was in December 1942. That’s where I first started. It was quite easy there because as I say I could read Morse before I went there but then from there this is when I first went to Number 5 Group, Grantham, Lincolnshire which was Bomber Command, and it was the Headquarters of 617. Number 5 Group. This was in June the 24th 1943. That’s when the, that’s when the raid was on and that’s when I first met 617 Squadron and I said, ‘Well, what is, what’s the first job?’ And the first, as near as I can remember the first job was with two senior wireless operators that had been in the Force some time and regarding the raid, the Dambuster raid. And that was April, in May 1943. Now then, I asked what my first job was at number 5 Group, Grantham and they said, well when, on this raid they will be flying with, you know the Dambusters raid. But number 5 Group they don’t want the aircraft to contact 5 Group at Grantham, because if they did, if they were attacked while they were on this raid and they contacted 5 Group they’d send some bomber and just flatten the Headquarters of 5 Group. So, they said we want you to, three of us all together. Two senior ones and me as a junior, and you had to take radio receivers. The crews had been instructed to contact us which was in the middle of a field between, between Scampton and Grantham, and we had this, we had these receivers and if they got into trouble, any of these bombers, they had to contact us. We’d got special, special sign, call sign. Then we would contact Grantham, 5 Group by telephone. So that was one way of preventing them stopping the raid by clearing the head Group at Grantham. That was, as I say I was in Scampton 617, April 26th ’43. Funny thing, I was in, I was actually at Scampton about four or five months and it was the exact time when the raid was on. I’ve got that on my official papers which said I was there but I was a very minor, a very minor helper but I was very proud to be there. Now then, after that we had to go to Number 4 Radio School at Madley near Hereford to complete the flying. The flying part of the signal, of the radio and that was in July and August 1943. So, from, from 617 Squadron I went over to Madley near Hereford and so then after that I’d done all the wireless and flying part. I went to Number 10 Gunnery School at Barrow in Furness in September 25, ‘43 to do the gunnery course. And on January ’44, that’s when I’d done all the gunnery and got my, got my [pause] I think I’d got the gunnery course finished. I went to the Personnel Disposal Centre in January the 16th 1944. And then to Dispersal Unit because we were sent there from, from there to Canada. Now, we went and I’ve got the draught number, draught 867, Royal Mail Ship Andes. And we were sent over to Canada and the USA. Now, this ship was built for the Mediterranean. A flat-bottomed thing which was built for, I think it was six hundred chaps and there was four thousand of us in it going across the Atlantic in January 1944. I think it should be ’43 that. No, it isn’t. It says —
SP: Yeah.
JW: But anyhow, I can’t quite read that. So —
SP: That’s January ‘44 that. Yeah.
JW: Yes. Right. So, from there, when we get over to Canada we went up to, went up to Montreal, just as a transit camp. And then from there they sent us down to New York. From New York by train. New York, Boston, Baltimore, right the way down Maryland. Right to the bottom, to Miami. Miami in Florida. And that was quite an experience because they took ten days to get down and we were dressed in Royal Air Force blue, and we used to, we were stopping at every other station and meeting all the Americans. Anyhow, from there, from, from Miami they sent us over to Number 111 Operational Training Unit at Nassau in the Bahamas. Now, that’s where I went training on Liberator bombers and Mitchell bombers. We did our training there but this was with Coastal Command. I was four months all together training with the depth charges and gunnery and all that in Nassau. That was quite an experience because in those days nobody had been to Nassau. Only the very wealthy people. Now then, that was in? What date have I got down here? I think ’44. Somewhere, near. Anyhow, I was there for four months. Then I came back and went to reception at Harrogate on June, June ’44. So I was four months, I think in, in training in the Bahamas. And from there I went to the Heavy Conversion Unit at Killadeas. That’s, that’s Northern Ireland. This was August the 8th ’44. So, it was on 131 Operational Training Unit. You see VE Day was the 8th of May ’45. Anyhow, this was ’44. August 9th ’44 and when, this was in Ireland on Lough Erne where we were trained on Catalina Flying Boats, and later on to Sunderlands but I had a very lucky experience there. On this Lough Erne the course to convert on to flying boats from, from ground Liberators and Mitchells. It was about eight weeks the course. Now, I went on this course, enjoying it too and then halfway through whether or not it was the good food in America I don’t know but I got boils on my bottom and I couldn’t sit still to send my Morse on the keys. So, I had to come off and go into dock to have these boils treated. Nurses chasing me around with kaolin poultices, red hot to put on your bottom. Didn’t like that bit. Anyhow, I went in to, in to this dock and I was in there for two or three weeks and they cleared them. Came out and looked for my crew, and this was lucky part on my part, very sad on the other part. They set of from Enniskillen, North Ireland, Lough Erne. They set off to India across the Bay of [pause] Is it Gibraltar? Bay of Biscay. Bay of Biscay. Set off from there. Got across the Bay of Biscay. Went to Gibraltar. From Gibraltar they went to Sicily and that’s as far as they got because they crashed in to Mount Etna in Sicily and they all got killed. All my mates got it. So, boils in some respects saved my life. But it was a very sad occasion because I’d just got used to them. Anyhow, I found a new crew. Got a new crew and did what they did by training fully and getting, leaving Northern Ireland across the Bay of Biscay, Gibraltar, and then to Sicily, only we didn’t hit Mount Etna. We went straight on and down. Down to Habbaniya, I think. I can’t remember the names but we ended up at Karachi in Northern India, and that’s where we did a bit of supply business flying from, from there. I was with 240 Squadron this. Well, it would be one of two squadrons 240 and 205, and then 230 Squadron. They’re all, they were all Coastal Command [pause] Have a little finish and then I’ll probably —
[recording paused]
JW: 205 Squadron at Redhills Lake, Madras. From Karachi we went down. This was 1945. We went down. That was from, from Karachi, 205 Squadron at Redhills Lake, Madras comes next. That’s the south of India, and we were stationed there in March ’46, I think it is. Anyhow, then we were doing supply from Koggola. We got sent from Madras which is, that’s interesting too because Madras, there was Redhills Lake there. I had an operation, and I said to a chap, he was an Indian surgeon. I said, ‘I’ve been to Madras. Redhills Lake.’ He said, ‘Oh, they’ve built a big either hospital or something similar at that place near Madras. Oh, I could go in to, I could go in to details about being there in Redhills Lake. We went on leave to the only gold field in India. They called it Kolar Gold Fields, and I even got a chance to handle some of the nuggets. The big chunks of gold. They wouldn’t give me one but I went down there and they said, ‘Do you want to go down here.’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ll risk anything.’ So we, two of three of us said, so but they said, ‘Before you go down, and if you want to get out for a big cave down there you can get out and go around if you want. But we’ve got to warn you as soon as you go out and go into this cave if you don’t get into the middle where the water is coming up in the spring where the oxygen comes you’ll pass out.’ So, we did it anyway. We went and rushed to, rushed to this spring and sped over it just to say we’d been in. That’s why. Little daredevils. So that was, that was from Redhills Lake. Now then, they sent us from Redhills Lake at Madras over to, to Ceylon as it was. That’s Sri Lanka now. Koggola. Now, Koggola was stuck on to, stuck on to, [pause] What’s the capital of Ceylon? Galle. The capital of Ceylon used to be Galle. Well, Koggola Airfield [pause] Lake or whatever it was at Koggala was next to Galle in Ceylon. That was June in 1946. We slipped, we’ve missed a lot out, but anyhow and then that, that is what upset me most of all partly because from Koggala we did a lot of supply taking nurses and supplies over to Singapore. Seletar was the airfield on the station. Seletar. And we used to take these supplies but the thing that upset me terrifically was to see some of the lads that had been prisoners. Terrible to look at and to see them suffering. Some of them didn’t make it. They died before. But we, we took them back to Ceylon. That’s right. And that was the run that I did quite a lot. Between, between [pause] Seletar, which is Singapore back to Koggala in Ceylon. I’m just trying to think when we changed over to Sunderland Flying Boats. I think we did. I can’t remember the exact date but we did because I remember taking, they were a much bigger plane, the Sunderland than the Catalina because we were in a Sunderland Flying Boat when they said, ‘Right. You’ve got to take these supplies to Hong Kong.’ And so, we’d never been to Hong Kong before so we set off with these. I don’t know if we’d got nurses with us or just supplies, but we set off to go to Hong Kong and it was quite, I’ve got all the distances and times that it took us. I’ve got them in another book. But this time was the first time we went to Hong Kong. I shall never forget it because we’d not been there, well we hadn’t been on Sunderlands very long, but we gets going to Hong Kong and I remember the, it was in between mountains. There’s mountains on either side, and the wireless reception was terrible but we managed to get. I didn’t think we’d get there because Bob said, ‘Well, we’ve very little fuel so it looks like I’m going to have to put it down.’ And the thing that I can remember I was in the wireless operator’s unit just next to him, and I looked out of the window at the front and there was a big pier. A big pier stretching out right, as it got near the water. A big pier. I thought well, this is it. We’re going to crash into that. But somehow, he twisted it and missed the pier but we ended up on the beach. All the floats went through the wing, and the propeller got bent and all the rest of it but we were, we didn’t get killed. And I remember that, and thinking, well why did it happen? And I found out why it happened. Firstly, we hadn’t got enough fuel to turn round and land going out to sea because that’s where you were going. You’d got plenty of water to land. But we hadn’t, and that’s why we ended up in the beach. But I had to leave him. I had to leave Bob. We, we went with another aircraft back to Ceylon and Bob stayed there to give an account of why and that’s the last time I saw him. In 1946. And so I was very sorry. But two or three years ago I’m reading the Indian Ocean Flying Boat Association newspaper and it says, “Bob Cole is now living in Clacton on Sea.” So, I thought, marvellous. I’ll ring up. So, I rang him up, I said, ‘Bob, what are you doing?’ He says, ‘Who’s that?’ I said, ‘It’s Jack Watkins, your wireless op.’ He said, ‘Never. After all these years.’ As I say, it was only four or five years ago from now. He said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m coming down to see you.’ So, I went out to see him and we were nice slim young chaps when I left him and now he’s got a big fat paunch and I’ve got a little belly. But anyhow, we had a lovely chat together and oh it was great that and now, even now when I told him that, I rang him up, I said, ‘Bob, guess what I’ve been flying in a little Tiger Moth that you used to train in before you got — ’ ‘Oh, no.’ He says, ‘I’ve not been in one of them for years.’ I said, ‘Well, I met a person that’s got one and he’s took me around, and I went right around with him right, very, very near to Scampton where the Red Arrows were,’ I said. ‘And the chap, the pilot said, ‘I’d better not get too near or the Red Arrows are there and they’ll chase us off. But it was a really good experience, and so I just had that but I thought you’d like to know about that. Anyhow, I’ll be seeing you before long, if I can get my mates to bring me down. I’ll come down and see you again.’ That’s it. So, it was lovely that. So that’s as near as I can go for a minute. Yeah.
[recording paused]
So, it was in August 1946 when I went for home enlistment. A Transit Centre was August. August 1946, and then I went to 10 Personnel Dispersal Centre on September the 12th ’46 and that was where I first started off from. From Blackpool on the, I’ve forgotten the name of the place now. Blackpool. Padgate. Started off at Padgate, ended up at Padgate and glad to get home then. Of course, I was BBC Sheffield, Rony Robinson, he goes on from there, said, ‘Oh, what did you do then?’ Well, I’d, this Rony Robinson started the, I said, ‘Well, when I got home,’ I said, ‘I remember coming to Rotherham Station and I’d got two kit bags. One with my flying kit in and one with my ordinary kit in, and —' I said, ‘I felt a bit miserable because the other pal that I’d been, met in Ceylon came, and he’d got, all his family met him. Well, I’d finished with my girlfriend so there were nobody to meet me but I carried these up to Wortley Road where I used to be living, and so I thought thank goodness I’m home.’ But, one of the first things that I thought of straight away, I’m finishing with marching and I’m going to buy myself a motorbike. So, I thought. So, I bought this little motorbike and I thought I’d never had one before, and I thought let’s see how this darned thing works. So, I sit on it, and it was slightly uphill. Kicks it up, and twist the, and twist the throttle and it started moving. Now, I was on it and it was going and I thought this is marvellous. I’m not pedalling and I’m going uphill. And I’m going on like this and I kept on going, and the chap was walking alongside me and said, ‘Why don’t you change gear?’ I’d never thought about that. But it was good to, to have something different. But then of course Rony went on, ‘So what happened then about your marriage business?’ I said, ‘Oh, that. That fell through. I was married for ten years and then I had to throw in the sponge, and I was ten years on my own then.
SP: So John, that was great to run through your sequence of events.
JW: Yeah.
SP: All the time within the RAF.
JW: Yeah.
SP: So, after you joined up and you’d done all your training —
JW: Yeah.
SP: You talked about sometimes, you were, the time you were at Scampton and it was the time when the Dambusters raid was on.
JW: That’s right.
SP: Did you know something special was happening there? Was it —
JW: Well, I knew it was. I didn’t know exactly what was happening but I was used to bombers having been on Liberator bombers which are very similar to the Lancaster and I knew there was something going off and I knew, but we didn’t know. They kept it very hush hush. I remember seeing Guy Gibson and N***** nearby but, because we were right in the middle of it when they were, before they put the big bombs for the Dambusters they used to be, they used to be loading these big bombs up with chains, and we were in a billet only a few hundred yards from it. And I thought crikey if that’s breaks. But no. As for the raid itself, apart from when they told us they didn’t give a lot of detail. They just gave us the call signs and if you heard from this one pass it on straight to 5 Group at Grantham. And, oh no, it was exciting really but scary for a young man. As I say if anybody said they weren’t scared they must have been tougher than me because you never know what’s going to happen. You’re on edge most of the time. But no. I enjoyed, I can’t say I enjoyed it but I remember little things that’s nothing to do with this. My mother came to see me while I was on there. No. I’m, I’m skipping a bit. This was in Blackpool. She came to see me in Blackpool there and of course there was, it was full of aircrew training and she was a very delicate little woman, my [laughs] So, she said, ‘Right. Are we going for lunch?’ Well, the only place you could go to lunch was Old Mother Riley’s Tuck Shop, and they’d even got the knives and forks chained to the table because the lads used to [waltz ] them. But no. To get back to Scampton. We did it. It was very hush hush. We didn’t know a lot. I knew that I had to do a certain job, and that was listen for messages and pass them on to, they was all in different call signs, but you’d pass them on to 5 Group. And as I say after that I seemed to be taken up with being posted as I say to different places.
[recording paused]
Yes. The hut that they told us to go to was to, was in the middle of a field out in nowhere really between Lincoln and 5 Group, or Scampton and 5 Group. I can’t remember. It’s in a similar, similar area. But instead of, the reason they sent us out there was because they’d been told to contact us in this little hut. They give us different call signs, and then we’d pass the message by telephone to 5 Group in Grantham. What the main thing was, they didn’t want any of the bombers to contact 5 Group because that was headquarters, and if they’d have gone straight away, they’d have sent a bomber and just cleared the lot. So, as I say it was exciting for, for a young chap and baffling and all this, but we got, we got through it all right.
SP: An important part to play during that time.
JW: It really was. It seems, it seems trivial now but at that time it must have been important for them to tell us to go there and send us in between Scampton and, and Grantham. Between them two. We were there so they would be contacting us there. And then if they wanted to bomb where, where they could hear where our call sign, one we, we’d have got it then. Yeah. But no. No, it’s, it’s a long, long time ago.
SP: And what was life like at Scampton air base at that time? So obviously we know —
JW: Well —
SP: The Dambusters. What was life like on the base?
JW: The base was, well, it’s hard to say because everything was in short supply. I mean food and things like that. We got served, I remember queuing up a meal once. K rations they called it. K rations. They were just like these Ryvita biscuits. Two or three of those and that was it. But even in Blackpool before we went to Scampton the food was poor and we used to send it home. We all had a biscuit tin with bits of cake and things like that. There were more mice in them boarding houses. They used to be running on the top of the bed. We used to knock them off. In your greatcoat there would be mice because we used to keep food in the bedroom. But things were a bit tight there. But there are certain things that that I remember that I wish we’d got. Dried egg. It was powdered egg. I loved it. I don’t know if you can get it or not now. We’ve gone off the subject now so you’d better get back to —
SP: That’s fine. It’s the really interesting stuff. It’s all those bits of information.
JW: Well, you see things that, that are, different altogether and especially when I’ve just skipped over the Blitzes of Rotherham and Sheffield there. That was really frightening because I remember being in the Tivoli, Tivoli was a little cinema in Rotherham and this was the night when the Blitz was on too, and I’m sat there with a young lady of course, one of the neighbours, and we were watching this film. All of a sudden boom, boom, and the seats were shaking like mad so I said, ‘Well, we’d better get out of here.’ I said, ‘Because it looks as though it’s getting nearer and nearer.’ So, we gets out, and there was a little passage down the side of the Tivoli cinema so, I said, ‘Come on, let’s get in this passage.’ We just stood in this passage and whoof it shot us right to the other end of the passage. And I said, ‘We’d better get home now.’ And there again when you get home, some had these Anderson shelters which were like corrugated steel in the garden. But otherwise, you could have what they called, I forget what they called them but it was a great big steel plate the size of the dining table, a big dining table with all wire meshes. Meshing underneath and that was your air raid shelter indoors, and you could put blankets and things on and creep in there every time the siren went. You know, you can’t realise that. Kids wouldn’t realise that if the sirens were whoo whoo whoo. You’d know that that’s the time that they were coming. The German bombers were coming. And when they had done with their business and they’d gone you could hear them hmmmm, then the all clear would come. It would be one solitary note [humming] That means you could come out and put the fires out, or see to what wanted doing outside. You don’t realise that. People don’t, don’t realise that can’t remember the Blitz. But there was some, I’ve forgotten most of it but I remember in the middle of Sheffield was a massive big pub come hotel called the Marples and it was filled, the bottom was filled with all spirits, whisky, wine and you mention it and that went up, and that. Oh, it was, it was terrible. All broken down and on fire. I remember my wife worked in, in the Co -op’s stitching sewing business in West Street and she said, ‘Well, we just got ready and went to work from Tinsley,’ where she was living. And when they got to work the policeman said, ‘What are you doing? Get back home.’ You know. So, they sent them back home then. But you forget. It’s a good job you do forget really. But not altogether. Same as this that I’m coming back to when they’re going to close Scampton down. I don’t like it because I think they should, they should leave it open for British heritage because it’s such a, well it was such an important thing. It was just from the Dam raid to, it saved England anyhow, I think. And I mean they asked me before what, what do you think about it? I said, well I don’t know that much about it because, but I do know that if, If I said to the government, to whoever in charge, ‘We’re going to shift Nelson’s Column. We’re going to move it.’ There would be an uproar. Or if we said we’re not going to bother with Flanders Field with all the poppies. It’s only a field with poppies in so why should we worry? So, enough said.
SP: Ok.
JW: Right. Rest now.
SP: Ok John, so we’ve covered about Scampton and, and the air raids.
JW: Yeah.
SP: At Sheffield and Rotherham.
JW: Yeah.
SP: Do you want to tell me a little time about you time when you’d done your training in Canada and you were travelling through America? You said you were in your RAF uniform.
JW: Blue yes. Yeah.
SP: How were you treated by the Americans? What was that journey like?
JW: Well, really from, from New York that was an experience and all because remember we were only eighteen, or, nineteen, year old. You’ve heard about New York but then you come and you have a short period, just a short period in New York. I remember going around Broadway. Well, everybody’s heard of Broadway, and you look up and the buildings are so high that they seemed to join at the top. Of course, you’d nothing like that in England. So, it’s all busy busy. I can’t remember much about it but it wasn’t, there was no black out. No blackout in America. And when I left England there was rationing. You daren’t strike a match in the dark because, ‘Put that light out there.’ Because it was the ruling there. The bread was brown and it was dark. You don’t get white bread, and you couldn’t get sugar and I remember the rationing was butter, sugar, lard, marg, bacon, eggs, cheese. All those were rationed to nearly nothing. But then to get from that to America. I told Rony, I said I’m going to start a book about. “From Hell to Paradise and Back.” And I said, I said, he said, ‘Well, why don’t you write it?’ I said, ‘Because it’s all the past and nobody’s interested.’ And I keep thinking now about Scampton. It’ll be all in the past and will be forgotten like the poppy fields. We don’t want it to be forgotten. Not for the kid’s sake. And anyhow, coming back to America I looked at New York and Broadway. I’d seen that, and quickly just going past and then we set off down and I should have to look at the map to find out which places we stopped at because it was a ten day journey from New York down to Miami in Florida because we kept stopping and he used to say, ‘Right. You’ve got a half day here.’ So, we would go out and we’d meet the people of America and they were marvellous. Lovely. Because they knew what we were suffering in England and oh all the food, The stuff like that. Everything was really like paradise at the time of England. That was why I thought I’ll write a book, “From Hell to Paradise,” and come back. But anyhow, when it gets to the bottom the thing is that you remember about the train there in, in America and you go to the back compartment the first thing I said, ‘I’ll have a tea please.’ So, what did they bring me? An iced tea. I’d never had iced tea in my life. So, I had that but go back to the compartment and look down the line from where you’re coming, and you can’t see the end. It goes, goes on and on and on. Miles and miles. But every time you stopped and went to see, you learned something about the people. In young men. I mean, I got on a bike there once and I said, ‘Where’s are the, there’s no brakes, where are —’ ‘Oh, you just back pedal for the brakes.’ And things like that stick in your mind and they were lovely people, and they really looked after us. And of course, when I got to Miami, I must tell you this, being a shy and bashful RAF aircrew chap, I met a girl down there and she was a WAVE. What’s a WAVE? A WAVE is an American Wren. They call them WAVES there. So, I met this girl called Peggy and I were very gentlemanly, no messing about and she took us all around to nightclubs where all the names like Bing Crosby. I don’t know who they were but they were right up there. Took us round there, took us round a race, a dog racing track. Never been to one of those. Everything was bigger and, and elaborate. Anyhow, she was a nice lass and I’d, I’d split with my girl, because I’d heard that she’d been playing away and confirmed that that was true. So I said, ‘Right. Well, that’s it now. We’re finished.’ I said, ‘You can be my girlfriend.’ ‘Oh, that would be lovely.’ So that’s what I met when I’m was going down to Miami. Then I had to leave them. Had to leave them behind. You get on a little boat to go to Nassau in the Bahamas, and that was a lovely trip because the waters there were pure and clean, and you could see all the little fishes like humbugs, all different colours. I remember I dropped a pair of sunglasses down there. Right down to the bottom. Down and down and down. Oh, ever so far. Oh, that’s that then. That’ll cost me a fiver for some new ones. Anyhow, this young lad says, ‘I’ll get them boss. I’ll get them.’ And he starts swimming down and I looked at him. Well, I could swim a lot having been on Catalinas and, and he got them back for me. ‘Right. Thank you.’ So, I gave him a penny and he was quite happy. Anyhow, we go from there with these flying fish at the side of the boat going from, from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas. Now, Nassau at that time was when the Duke of Windsor, he’d finished with, he didn’t want to be king and he threw in his hand and went with Mrs Simpson and they went to Windsor House in the Bahamas. In Nassau. We didn’t see much of him but he was there at the same time. And anyhow, we got there after seeing, oh I’d better tell you this but it’s, it’s a bit frightening, and it’s a bit rude and it’s a bit all sorts. But I’ll tell it you and I hope you’re, nobody’s offended but it’s true. We gets there and just before we pulls up in to Nassau the MO came out and he said, ‘Now, look here lads, just sit down there and look at this — ’ video. Not a video. A film. And he says, ‘It’s a bit horrible but you’re going, going to watch it because I’m going to force you in to it.’ He says, ‘Now, there’s some beautiful young ladies on this island here. Well, I’m going to tell you now, after you’ve seen this film, if you carry on with what you think you’re going to be doing good luck to you, but don’t come to me complaining later.’ And he showed me this film of VD, and I’m not kidding I thought right that’s me finished with females forever. It was disgusting. They got a little umbrella and stuffed it up your willy and brought, ooh I thought. Well, it put me off, and it put quite a, most of the chaps off but one or two did. They did succumb to these wishes of the, but partly the females because they were asking you, well I’ll not go in to more detail because it’s rude that. But anyhow, that was one other thing but everything was lovely there. That’s why I think when I came home, and I got these boils on my bottom I had such wonderful food there. And that, I think it upset completely but anyhow the other thing I’ll tell you, one little instance because really it would be uninteresting to anybody else but in these big Lanc [pause] in the American —
SP: Liberator.
JW: Liberator bombers, we were. There was all sorts of different, everything different on the radio and the guns. The guns were .5 cannon, and there was blister, blister turrets underneath so when you landed you were in between the two wheels, big wheels and it nearly set on fire. But I remember one instance during training. We used to be, we used to be armed with depth charges and all the rest, because there was some sort of submarines and things in the, in the area. I didn’t know about but we used to go on to training trips and if we didn’t see anything on the way back there was a wreck, and the idea was to, for practice reasons the navigator used to have to drop one depth charge near this wreck and the air gunner, wireless op/air gunner used to have to lift up the Perspex on the back turret, lean over with a big camera and take a film of exactly how near we were to this wreck. And the one that I remember was I had got this turn. ‘It’s your turn to go take the photo.’ So, I gets this dirty great big camera, leans out on the back and says, ‘Right. Ok. I’m ready at the back.’ He goes, ‘Right. We’re taking the run. Right. Bombs gone,’ and I expected to take a film of the, how near to the wreck it was, and all of a sudden the water splashed up. We were only about a hundred foot up but the water came right up and I never got a film because the navigator had pressed the wrong button and instead of pressing it for one, he pressed the whole lot. So there were about six or eight depth charges went and we got splashed. But we just said that it must have been an electrical fault. It couldn’t have been our fault because — but that’s just an instance that sticks in your mind. You see when I’m talking like this, one thing leads to another. We talk about sea planes, Liberators, Catalinas and Sunderlands. Now, you think when you land a Lancaster or you land a Liberator you come down gently and it’s either a good landed, a bumpy one, or straight but you’re down and that’s it. You open up and you get out and go for a coffee or something. When you land a seaplane you land on water which little, few people know that water is as hard as concrete when you land and you can feel it under your foot, because it’s only like the thickness of the hull. But you land there and you look for a buoy floating. It might be rough, but you look for it and there’s always got to be two of you in the front turret to get that buoy because you have to have a big boat hook. And then you see this buoy with a loop on top and you’ve to grab the loop and pull it. The engines are still going. Pull this towards you, and then get a big thick rope and stuff it through this loop on the buoy, bring it back and wrap it around a bollard and hold it tight and then give the thumbs up to the pilot to cut the engines. And it’s quite an ordeal that to do that especially when it’s wobbling about. I nearly lost one of my best mates. We were both in the front doing that, and he was doing the boat hook and I was getting the rope to wrap around this bollard, and all of a sudden he slipped and he went down there. So, he’s hanging on, he’s gone under the water hanging on to this arm and I’m hanging onto the bollard with the rope there and he nearly, he nearly got killed really. But anyhow he gradually pulled himself up there. Anyway, we never spoke. We never spoke either of us just put my thumb up to the pilot to cut the engines. And that was that and we never mentioned it again but in two minutes he could have gone. That’s it.
[recording paused]
SP: So, we talked about the different planes that you flew in, in Coastal Command. The Catalinas and the Sunderlands.
JW: Yeah.
SP: Do you want to tell me a little bit about the role of Coastal Command? What, what you did on a day to day basis?
JW: Well, it depends which squadron you were with and where but generally speaking the, the role of Coastal Command was to escort the convoys that in my opinion from America to England because we depended on America for food and for lots of things, early days. And it was a known fact that the Germans had got terrific patrols and submarines that were just up and down, and just pinching all the trade and sinking all the troops. We were losing a terrific lot of ships and things, but we also saved a lot because we, we managed to depth charge a lot of the submarines. I don’t know how many. I can’t tell. I did know but I’ve forgotten now. And apart from that Coastal Command was on, what’s the name [pause] for any Bomber Command or anybody got brought down in the sea they would land and pick them up which was, we did quite a lot of that. And it was important to know that, that they were there. But my main job was on the South East Asia Command. That’s from Madras at first. Redhills Lake, Madras to Singapore. Seletar at Singapore. And it was supplying, in fact they called the squadron 240 SPUI Supply at first, to supply nurses and equipment, food etcetera to, to Seletar at Singapore. And then we did that for quite a while and then they transferred us to Galle or Koggala which was in Ceylon. We were doing the same, same trips from, from there, from Ceylon over to Seletar, Singapore. Down the Malacca Straits, and searching for Japanese submarines.
I don’t know if we escorted any ships across there but mainly it was supply. And as I say it’s hard to remember now, but from there how it finished up was we got, we went on to Sunderlands from, from Catalinas. They were carrying more things, but there’s also different things to learn about them. We were still, though we were experienced we were still training. Every time you changed from a Catalina to a Sunderland you’ve all the different radios, different guns, and different procedures. Mind you the Sunderland’s a lot bigger because there was a galley there where we could cook. There was a big, big difference altogether. In fact, the Japanese and Germans used to call it a flying porcupine there were that many guns in it. But as I say when you think about different planes you’d to learn about different, the Catalina has got a blister on the side with guns. We’d to learn the different guns and the different radios. Apart from knowing the, there was one, one thing that I do remember. We were coming back from, from Singapore to [pause] I think it might have been Redhills or it might have been Koggala, in there, and the navigator, the navigator had given Bob the course, and somehow, mind you the navigator was mostly always drunk. He liked brandy. And Bob says, ‘Jack, will, will you just check your directional finding aerial.’ It’s like a round aerial that you twist around to find out where the beacons were sending messages from and it’s tells you where to go. Well, the navigator had given us a course to go so far, and if we’d have kept to that, if we’d kept to that course, we should have missed Ceylon and we should have been in the middle of the Indian Ocean. But we used this, this direction finding aerial, put it right and landed. But just a little thing like that could have, we could have ended up in the middle of the Indian Ocean and wondered why. But these are things that’s apart from searching your eyes, it’s no wonder my eyes are bad because you go from, from Ceylon to Singapore you don’t just sit down and listen to the radio you’re searching all the time for submarines and anything that is abnormal that’s going to attack our shipping and —
SP: Would that all be by sight or was there any equipment that would highlight if there were submarines as well?
JW: Well, it was really, it depended on when. I think there was certain, certain equipment there but I can’t remember much about it. Mainly by sight. That’s what I say, my eyes used to, we used to have to had to scan, scan the horizon. Scan the sea. I’ve spent hours and hours looking at that for periscopes and things like that, but that’s a long time ago. I forget about it. But I was pleased when it was all over and they said, ‘Right, you’re going. You’re going to, you’re going back to England.’ You couldn’t believe it at first. Little things come to mind then. The actual week when I was demobbed there was a lot of snakes and things out there, you know and we used to [pause] I remember this time when it was near going home time. We went, we’d been to the mess, we’d been drinking a lot, and we always carried a revolver and always live ammunition, and we get back to the mess and they were all like palm trees, you know. They weren’t wooden things. Palm they used to, the huts and billets were. And I remember going in and seeing this snake on the top and it was only about, it might have been a couple of yards long. Maybe a yard and a half, and it was a silver one and we’d been drinking and we were just happily shooting at it to knock it off like. So, you know, as we shot it down when we did shoot it down I always thought snakes went slow like that but this one was brmmm and it was out of the door. So, the following day I’m going around getting all my things stamped for going home and I came to this office of the hut where they had to stamp my forms and just as I get there, I was on a bike at the time and a dirty great snake, a whacking big thick thing going across the road just as I can see today. I thought crumbs. I nearly fell of the bike. I might have done. I jumped off anyhow. Gets into the hut where I’d gone to have this thing stamped. I said, ‘Crikey, I’ve just had an experience. There was a snake. I think it must have been twenty foot long as that thing.’ ‘Oh, you don’t want to worry about that,’ he says. ‘That’s, that, that were only a rat snake. They only eat rats.’ I said, ‘I don’t care what it was,’ I said, ‘Because just a few days ago we found a little snake on the top and it were all silver coloured. Silver coloured and we were shooting at it. We knocked it down. It shot off like.’ He said, ‘It’s a good job it didn’t come to you. They call them silver krait, and It’s the most poisonous snake in the country, so just these little things that stick in a small mind.
SP: Yeah.
JW: Now then —
SP: Did you have the same crew while you were out there?
JW: I did.
SP: Did you? Yeah.
JW: Until that last time when we crashed the Sunderland in Hong Kong and then we split up. But on odd occasions we used to fly with different, if they were short of a chap we’d —
SP: Yeah.
JW: If there was a wireless op.
SP: Who was your crew then? Who was your main crew?
JW: My main crew was Bob Cole. I’ve got pictures of us here. And —
SP: So —
JW: With the crew who they were.
SP: Yeah.
JW: Well, these were wireless operators.
SP: Just tell me who your crew were.
JW: This is all my crew.
SP: Yeah. What were their names?
JW: Bob [Vinton] there. Frankie [Burke]. Jock, I forget his name. I’ve got it written down somewhere. And he was the skipper. Hawkey, Flight Lieutenant Hawkey. Pete [Dakus] and I forget him now. He was, he was from down south. I’ve got them written down. It might be on the back of these. And I think he was an Aussie and that’s me. I don’t know where —
SP: So that’s your pilot.
JW: That’s Flight Lieutenant Hawkey and, well, I’ve got them written down somewhere. It might be on the back.
SP: So, John, obviously the crew called you Jack but everyone else had nicknames on crews. What was your nickname?
JW: Oh, yes. Well, as I say, well when I was on the crew it was still Jack but when I came home here and joined the RAF Association well that’s when at one of the meetings we’d been on parade and marching for some Armed Forces Day I think it was. But when we came back, we get to outside the Town Hall and the mayor came out and about she said, ‘Now, chaps if you’d like to pop upstairs for a coffee or a brandy.’ Well, you know who was first upstairs. I was up there like a shot and the girl serving the coffee she was really lovely and I looked at her. I said, ‘You are really lovely you are, aren’t you?’ She said, well, she didn’t mind, and I gave her a little kiss on the cheek. Now then, the mayor was just at my side. I didn’t know she was there so I thought I’m on a charge here. I’m going to get in trouble. So, I turned to her and I said, ‘I wonder, is it appropriate that I kiss the mayor?’ And she said, ‘I don’t see why not.’ So, I thought how lovely. So, I got out of that, and I thought that was the end of it but it wasn’t really because the lads, some got on to that and I admitted I might have kissed one or two other ladies that were expecting to be kissed, or well I was liking to be kissing t them but anyhow that was that side. And then we come to a, a service in the local Minster and it was where the armed, there were the Military Wives Choir and brass band, and some other thing., some other group all in church. Full congregation. Also, before the service starts the mayor stands up and said, ‘Jack will you please stand. John will you please stand up and I want to present you with something.’ So, she presented me with this Scotch plaid carrier bag and I thought what’s all this about? So, I opened it and there was a, a lovely tie with a Sunderland Flying Boat printed on it and there was a gold watch that fits in your top pocket with a Sunderland Flying Boat on it, and then there was this mug. A lovely coloured mug with a Sunderland printed on it and they’d put, “To Snogger John Watkins,” just because I’d happened to kiss the mayor. But I thanked them very much for it and since that of course they all put my name on that as Snogger. And at first, I thought well I don’t know if I like this or not. It makes you feel a bit common and the rest of it. But then they printed a “Snogger” number plate for the back of my scooter. I said, ‘I’m not putting that on. You can just go and put my, do another one and put RAF 240 squadron and I’ll put that on.’ So, I filed the “Snogger” one away but since all this talk about different places and where you’ve been and what you’ve done, I’m afraid Snogger’s come to the front again so we’d better keep Snogger in, but I suppose I shall be getting somebody’s fist in my, in my face one of these days and saying, ‘Well, that’s my young lady so keep off.’ I’ll take it anyhow. Will that do?
SP: That is brilliant. So, John, I just want to thank you on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archives for sharing your stories with us today.
JW: Good. Thank you very much. I have enjoyed it.
SP: It really has been a real honour to meet you. Thank you.
JW: Yes. It’s nice to see you darling and you’ll get a kiss before we go so come here. Yes. Thank you. Lovely. Thank you darling.
SP: Ok. Thanks.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John 'Snogger' Watkins
Creator
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Susanne Pescott
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
2018-08-02
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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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWatkinsJ180802, PWatkinsJ1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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01:02:00 audio recording
Spatial Coverage
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Bahamas
Canada
Great Britain
India
Sri Lanka
Singapore
United States
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
Bahamas--Nassau
Bahamas
Italy
Italy--Mount Etna
India--Chennai
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
John Watkins was working in retail in Rotherham and in 1939 he joined 218 Squadron ATC. He joined the RAF in February 1942 at RAF Cardington, and did his initial training at Blackpool. In December 1942 he did his wireless training at RAF Yatesbury. His first role was as a ground personnel wireless operator at RAF Scampton in 1943. He next went to RAF Madeley to complete his aircrew training and then to 10 Gunnery School in Barrow in Furness. In early 1944 he went to the USA, via Canada. He was posted to 111 OTU in Nassau in the Bahamas to train on Liberator and Mitchell aircraft. On his return to the UK he converted to the Catalina and later the Sunderland flying boats. His original crew set off from Northern Ireland to fly to India, but due to a medical issue he didn’t fly with them and his crew were killed enroute. He finished his career flying on operations for Coastal Command in India and the Far East. He was personally upset by the condition of the ex-prisoners of war of the Japanese he and his crew ferried from bases.
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1942-02-26
1943-06-24
1944-01-16
1945
1946
Contributor
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Julie Williams
205 Squadron
5 Group
617 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
B-24
Catalina
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
ground personnel
prisoner of war
RAF Barrow in Furness
RAF Cardington
RAF Madley
RAF Scampton
RAF Yatesbury
Sunderland
training
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/703/10103/ABeechingJB180118.1.mp3
47d4231ede11edc693eeebb6482fe40a
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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Beeching, John Benjamin
J B Beeching
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with John Beeching (b. 1923, 1339821 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 169 and 627 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-01-18
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Beeching, JB
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GT: This is Thursday, 18th January 2018 and I am with Mr John Benjamin Beeching at his place of work, The Cawthron Institute, in Nelson, New Zealand. John was born 19 October 1923 in London, England and joined the RAF in August 1941, his service number 1339821, and as an aircrew pilot to be gained the nickname Curly. John’s flying career was from 1942 to 1946 and he flew more than twelve different aircraft types. John, thank you for inviting me to have a talk about your career today.
JB: I have to say [Indecipherable.]
GT: Great John. So how about you give me a bit of your history about a - where did you grow up and then why did you join the RAF and how, and so on, please.
JB: Well, needless to say I grew up in that time when, at the age of fifteen, sixteen, I was in the Blitz so I received bombing from both ends, [chuckle] not only receiving them but also delivered them! This was in 1939, when the war broke out, and at that stage I was working in an engineering workshop which axiomatically of course went from making arms and we were making bullet dies and things like that. After a year that got pretty boring and a good friend of mine, Billy Campbell said we’ve had enough of this, let’s go and join the Army and do some real war work. So we went to the Recruiting Office in Romford, which is also in Essex, and we had a very brief and cursory medical examination and a very dapper little sergeant said okay son, he said to Bill, we’ll tell you when we need you, and he said to me I’m sorry lad, your feet are flat for the Army, we can’t take you so go back to your engineering job, I’m sure you’ll be doing some useful war work. So, I thought no, rats to this and right across the alleyway there was the, you okay there? So I walked across this alleyway where the Air Force recruiting place was, and I said I’d like to join the RAF, and they said oh yes, what do you do son? I said well at the moment I’m an engineer, he said ah, that’s very good, we need engineers in the Air Force. He says don’t want to fly do you, with a very crafty look on his face. Now don’t forget this was 1941 when aircrew at a premium and we were losing lots, so I said yes I can, I’d love to do that, so he gave us another quick medical, he didn’t look at my feet in this particular case and he said we’ll let you know when we need you. So I think it was about a month later and I was sent to Weston Super Mare where we had a two day medical, a very, very strict medical and I was given my number, 1339821, and they said you are now in the Volunteer Reserve and will be called up in due course, which we were in actual fact, on April the 20th April 1942, which by a great coincidence, happened to be Hitler’s birthday. I was recruited at St Johns Wood where all aircrew were, Aircrew Receiving Centre, otherwise known as ACRC, and billeted in a very palatial hotel which was no longer palatial after we’d been in touch with it and we were there oh, a couple of weeks I suppose, and then sent off to a holding unit at Ludlow in Shropshire under canvas, which was a holiday, because they didn’t know what to do with us so we were building roads which went nowhere and all sorts of stuff. Anyway I think it was, must have been the spring of 1942, late spring, maybe June, I went to my Initial Training Wing at Stratford upon Avon, lovely place, where we did our square bashing at the front of the new Shakespeare Theatre there, which is a lovely place. We used to go punting on the Avon in the evening, it was really nice. And at the end of our ITW we did a ten hour grading course on Tiger Moths and I didn’t know how I’d come out of that one because I didn’t think I’d do too well, but apparently they must have thought it was sufficient to carry me on to, carry on training as a pilot. And from there we were given a couple of weeks’ leave and then from our leave we went to the massive [emphasis] holding camp at Heaton Park in Manchester, where all crew went, I think there were about thirty odd thousand went there, and some went to Southern Rhodesia to train as pilots and navigators and the rest of us went to Canada. And we went to Canada in December 1942, which was a bad year for u-boats, we were in a large liner called the Andes, which has been here to New Zealand a couple of times during the war, and we were way up among the icebergs we went, [swishing sound effect] due north for a couple of days I think, away from submarines or whatever, [cough] and we landed at Halifax, Nova Scotia on Christmas Day 1942. On the way to Monckton in this massive train, in the snow, we hit a car on the level crossing with seven Mounties in it and killed the lot. They was splattered all over, the blood, it was blood and guts all over the place: it was a lovely introduction to Canada. Anyway we went to Monckton, we weren’t there very long and then we were sent to the Prairies. I went to a place called Virden, Manitoba, Number 19 EFTS, and where we did our training on winter-clad Tiger Moths. In other words they were fitted with skis and a canopy and a very rudimentary heater which didn’t work very well, and did sixty hours on those although that was interrupted in my case because I had a punctured ear drum flying with a cold, and spent the whole month in hospital. [Cough] And at the end of that, that would be the spring of 1943 I suppose, I went to my Service Flying Training School at Brandon, Manitoba, which was east of Virden, about eighty miles down the road I suppose, and continued my training on Cessna Bobcats, which the Canadians called Cranes, well they were otherwise AT12a’s and finally wound up getting my wings in August 1943, it must have been. And [telephone] then from Brandon, sporting our pilot’s wings, which made us all as happy as Larry and very proud of course, and promoted to sergeant in my case, some were commissioned but they obviously divined that I wasn’t going to make very good officer material, which was probably quite the case, but I never was anyway, and went back to Monckton. We were there very briefly, and then back across the Atlantic, this time on the Queen Elizabeth! Which wasn’t exactly a luxury cruise because there was twenty one thousand others on board on the same sailing! Which is a lot of people, in fact it was half the population of Nelson, in numbers. And it only took us what, bit under five days to cross the Atlantic. Wound back up at Gourock and then back and then all the aircrew that went back from Canada, they went to Harrogate in Yorkshire, where we went for a selection board and they said John Beeching you are, been selected to be an elementary flying instructor. I thought oh my god, that’s the last thing on this earth I wanted to be, you know! So I had nothing to argue with of course, so we were pushed to Marshalls Flying Field in Cambridge, I forget the number of the Flying School it was, but I think it was number four I think. I hated it, absolutely, I’ve got to tell you, hate Tiger Moths, I still hate the rotten things. They were cold and draughty, I didn’t like aerobatics very much anyway, so. Anyway, short of becoming a real dyed in the wool malingerer, [laugh] I managed to get myself thrown off and they said don’t you tell anybody, you know, that you’ve been scrubbed off of an instructor’s course! Blah, blah, blah. And I got a below average rating for and so this is very close to Christmas 1943 and I got successfully scrubbed off this awful, awful instructor’s course. Back to Harrogate [cough] spent a few weeks there, had nothing to do with us for a while, so they sent us on these strange assault courses and so forth, and they made a mistake of issuing us with thunderflashes, which we all secreted and used to put under people’s beds and things, which was all good fun. Don’t forget we were only what, nineteen, twenty years old, so we were only kids anyway, so it was a small part of it. And another selection board and they said well, we’ve noticed that your night vision is acceptable so you’ll be selected for night fighter pilot training so thought that’s more my thing, [cough] so from there I spent about, oh, a month I think, at the, at Cranwell which in peacetime is an Officers’ Training College, but in the wartime it was just another flying field. And now I was introduced to the Blenheim I, which was a lovely old aeroplane to fly, very safe, very easy, and after an introduction on those I went to Spittalgate at Grantham, which was an advanced flying unit where we flew Blenheim Is and Ansons and Oxfords. Flew Ansons and Oxfords on beam approach training, things like that, so we did quite a few hours there. Following which, we went to Cranfield and did a conversion course from Blenheims via the Bristol Beaufort which is a terrible, terrible aeroplane cause the ones we had were the early ones with Bristol Pegasus engines. Don’t know if they were, but mostly underpowered, terrible aeroplanes, but we only had to do ten hours on those and then they graduated us on to Beaufighters which were lovely aeroplanes, I loved the Beaufighters, you know. They’ve got me sitting in the front with these two enormous great Hercules engines, one on either side with about sixteen hundred horsepower each side, and they were lovely and there I crewed up with my navigator, Fred Herbert, who flew with me for the next few years. He was the only navigator I had [cough] and it got so he refused to fly with anybody else. Whether that’s a recommendation or not, I don’t know, but that’s the way it was. If I went sick he went sick [laugh] and we flew together right through there and then at Cranfield we spent a fair bit of time at the satellite field which was a place called Twinwoods Farm, which received notoriety because it was where Glen Miller took off from and Fred and I were the last people to ever see Glen Miller alive. We saw him climb into that Norseman, in December 1943 and, no ’44, yeah, ’44, yeah, December 1944 and he vanished and was never seen again. He had a civilian pilot and there’s been all kinds of speculation and stories of what might have happened to Glen Miller, but nobody ever really knows about that. So he joins just another one of the thousands that we lost in the North Sea. So from there we went back to Cranfield and then we were given leave and I was going to enjoy leave over Christmas, but we got called to join 169 Squadron at Great Massingham in December and that’s where I started my operational flying, from there, on Bomber Support with 100 Group, which is 100 Group Bomber Command.
GT: And your aircraft type for there was?
JB: Hey?
GT: And your aircraft type, that you moved to, from the Beaufighter to?
JB: Oh to the Mossie, yes. Yes well my transit to the Mosquito was pretty quick, I had thirty five minutes dual on the Mosquito. That was all. I kid you, didn’t even solo the same day because the weather closed in and it was another day and a half before I got my hands on a Mosquito to fly, so, and we, they only had two Mark III dual Mosquitos there at Cranfield, so nobody got much dual anyway. But anyway, they were, after a Beaufighter I found an easier plane to fly and had to watch some of the swinging on take off and landing that’s all, like all tailwheel aircraft are, but okay, and so I flew, like I say, in my log book I’ve got the serial numbers of fifty seven different Mossies and I never scrapped one, so that’s something of a record. [Cough]
GT: It is. You brought them all home, that was the main.
JB: Yes, and anyway, at the end of the war ended up with sixteen operations over Germany and at the end of the war we thought oh well, we’ll have a nice rest now and they said no you’re not, you’re going to Okinawa. And so they transferred us from there to, being Mosquito people, to Woodhall Spa, 627 Squadron, where 617 [emphasis] Squadron was stationed at that time because the old Dambuster Lancasters was still parked there, at Woodhall Spa. Did you ever Woodhall Spa? And the Bell pub, you know and er, you know the old Bell there, lovely place.
GT: So, can we just, go back John, for you, much better about your sorties and your operations you did. What’s the targets, what did they give you as a role to do?
JB: We were very individual, we didn’t take off, all together, we were classified as bomber support, and it was bomber support, we’d normally take off after [emphasis] the bomber stream left, cause we were much, we were a hundred miles an hour faster than Lancasters, and our intention and purpose was to get to the target before them and keep and sweep the sky clear of German nightfighters really, which was very successful. The Germans were absolutely terrified of us because we had the legs on them and we had the radar on them so, and you know, we were really good. But 100 Group, they were loaded up with electronic gear, mainly to jam German transmissions, that’s, you know, German transmissions, which they did and if you read that book, ‘100 Group - the Birth of Electronic Warfare’, you’ll read, it’s really worthwhile, and it takes you through that much more precisely than I could ever do anyway, but the, they had the main, apart from the Mosquitos that were in about five different stations they had Halifaxes, and 100 Group, and B17s. Two of the B17 crew people they lived right here in Nelson, both dead now, bless ‘em, just died of old age. Though Doug was a prisoner of war, he did a whole tour then was shot down on his second tour. He was a gunner, tail gunner and he um, survived the war and lived here until about three years ago, when he died.
GT: So the Mosquitos you were flying and your operational sorties, what armament did you have?
JB: All right, the Mosquitos we had, initially they were converted Mark Vis with Mark IV radar in the nose, like a sort of spearhead, you might have seen pictures of them, and then we graduated to Mark 10s, was British designed, American built and we had a big bulbous nose on the Mosquitos - remember those - with the scanner, about the size of that fan over there I suppose, and they was really good because pick up aircraft twenty miles away, it was really superb radar probably as good as they’ve got today almost, I would say.
GT: So what guns did you have?
JB: We had, well we didn’t have the machine guns because we had the radar in the nose, but we had four 20 millimetre cannon, they could do an awful lot of damage, they would demolish a house you know, [laugh] they were big guns, twenty millimetre.
GT: In the nose or [indecipherable]
JB: Underneath. If you look at a picture of a Mosquito, you’ll see that, you know, they were clear of the propellors so they didn’t have to re-synchronise so when you fired them they all started together, then they’d all sort of break up the noise and swing the nose and plane about, it was quite a thing: but they’re good things.
GT: How many rounds a gun did you have?
JB: I think we carried about, I think we carried about four hundred rounds altogether, about a hundred rounds a gun, I think.
GT: And you knew how long you had, I suppose.
JB: I think the rate of fire was about nine hundred and something rounds a minute, so it wasn’t a very long burst. We never fired on Dutch people, we never had the chance to be quite honest with you, we used to strafe people on bicycles.
GT: So your sorties, you were strafing more than you were trying to shoot down aircraft?
JB: Oh no, we did low levels as well as the high stuff, we’d fly anywhere from thirty thousand feet right down to ground level almost, you know. And of course we also did a lot of spoof raiding which carried target indicators, and we’d drop those at a place where the raid wasn’t going to be, but it was, the idea was to get the Germans to think that’s where the main raid was going to be, so we dropped couple of tons of target indicators to get the Germans going and of course the main stream would turn off and go somewhere else, which was all part and parcel of the deceit, you know.
GT: Did you use Window at all?
JB: We didn’t. 100 Group, thousands of tons, the Liberator would carry about seven ton of the stuff., you know, they’d chuck it out in great bundles which was good , it certainly dumbfounded the Germans much of the time, although towards the end of the war they did sort of overcome it to some extent, [lighter noise] they did overcome it to a great extent, but it worked good and then we had, then they used, ringer operators, you know, to come up cause we were using operators who could speak German giving phoney instructions to German nightfighters. Course but they, the German nightfighters were active right till the end of the war. In March I think it was, ‘45, the Germans did a big night raid on England, in East Anglia, and it was called Operation Gisela and they clobbered quite a few of our blokes, some of our blokes were killed, right on the circuit, you know, so it was quite, so they didn’t give up. As you know, the Germans fought almost to the last day.
GT: So their fighters were a mixture of what, Messerschmitt 210s, 410s, Junkers.
JB: Operation Gisela they had were Me109s and Fw190s, which apparently were a difficult aeroplane to fly, and even harder to fly at night and their accident rate was much, was, better than ours, they killed themselves better than we could, and they had, of course, towards, right near the end they had these wonderful Henschel night fighters and stuff which was really, really good and also Messerschmitt 262s, which they used as night fighters and in fact the Me262s squadrons were shooting down Mosquitos, they shot down about thirty all together, so they were quite active right up to the few last days of the war.
GT: So did you know that when you were flying?
JB: No. Didn’t even know of the existence of an Me262 until after the war.
GT: You never saw one flash by and whatnot?
JB: Oh no, never saw. No, no.
GT: So they never gave you that kind of intel?
JB: Whatever intelligence I’ve been, by and large, we were kept right up with stuff like Me163s and that sort of thing that shot straight up in the air. But no, they never mentioned Me262s, whether they were keeping it from us on purpose, I’ve got no idea, but I don’t recall ever being told about the Me262, or it would certainly have stuck in my memory. I would think, anyway.
GT: So did you have the chance of using your guns in an aerial battle at all?
JB: No, only on ground stuff, factories and so forth on bright moonlight nights.
GT: I’m interested that Mosquito-wise, okay, you had the weaponry, did you actually do any training to do aerial combat as opposed to strafing?
JB: Oh yes. Yes, we did air to air gunnery. We had a range over the Wash, and they had these yellow painted Martinets on the squadron. I remember that because landed one on a foggy morning, he landed and floated into the side of the hangar. He wasn’t killed but the man in the hangar was. So that’s how I remember how we were, how the target was, load carrying [indecipherable]. We didn’t have enough practice on air to air shooting, or the ground shooting really for that matter.
GT: Did you shoot the banner at all? Did you get shots on?
JB: Oh yes, I good quite good at it, but it was, my percentage was very good.
GT: And you had a high percentage, sorry, did you say?
JB: Yeah, I was good at it, quite good. It was good fun. Course you had to turn, you know, deflection was the thing of course, that was the thing with, most of the time everybody wanted to get right behind somebody, up the bum didn’t they, and shoot them, which is what happened at night, because we could get right in, close, with our radar and we could see our prey, quarry, invariably a Lancaster or something, and they could never see us, but they were looking down against the dark ground, we were looking up, we could see the stars and we could see their blur exhaust stumps all glowing in the dark and you think if we’d been Germans. Of course the Germans had the Shräge musik, you know, the upfiring cannons, which we never knew about, and that was very, very bad news, because we lost a lot of Lancasters solely because of Shräge musik. And they, as I say, that, we often, we get so, we used to do what was, I used to like it actually, it was called night fighter affiliation and they’d take a Halifax off from Swanton Morley or somewhere and we’d meet them over Norfolk somewhere and go do runs on them to let the gunners see and often we’d get from here to that cross just about and they still hadn’t seen us. Cause I remember one night we got up close behind this Halifax and he was sitting there waiting, waiting for it to go into a corkscrew and he called up, he says hello Kaolin 26, he said, I think we’ve lost you so I turned on the landing lights from about fifty yards behind him! I bet that gunner still wakes up at night, two million candle power! [Laughter] So that was things we used to do, but it just meant how vulnerable our blokes were, cause we really were close and he knew that we were coming, and he still didn’t see us at all. So there we are.
GT: That’s something. Were your Mosquitos also able to carry bombs at all, and rockets?
JB: Yes.
GT: So you always took off with bombs and rockets?
JB: Not always, but sometimes. Some duty, if we wanted to do a spoof with bombs, we carried two five hundred pound bombs, or target indicators, one or the other. We didn’t carry anything big till we got to Woodhall Spa when we carried, when we had the Mosquito, the Mark IVs [indecipherable] the pregnant tadpole, you know, d’you see pictures of those? They would carry the four thousand pound bombs, but we weren’t allowed to, apparently the Mossies we [emphasis] had weren’t made to carry, although we had the bulging bomb bays, they couldn’t carry the four thousand pound bomb. To me, I don’t know why, we had a notice up in the cockpit: ‘Even PO Prune would not carry a four thousand bomb in this aircraft’. So whatever the reason was I never found out.
GT: I don’t expect the airframe could hold it. So something that’s always been touted was that the use of the Mosquito to bomb Berlin. Now if, for instance, the RAF managed to only produce Mosquitos instead of their four engined bombers, would they have done the business? What’s your position on that?
JB: Oh yes, absolutely. I mean don’t forget the Americans, those piddling little bombs they carried, they were only five hundred pound bombs: they were next to useless. I mean until they carried big bombs, those five hundred pound bombs, they just dug little holes in the ground. Incendiaries were the thing of course. What we carried was a great big blast bomb, blow a lot of buildings down then set fire to ‘em, and that was the point, after all, what we were trying to do was finish the war, you know, and Mosquito carrying two ton bomb, they would make two trips in a night. It was only what, about two hours to Berlin, two hours back, four hours, refuel, another bomb and go away again, you know, another crew and so that was good. There was only two men in a Mosquito, there was ten men in a B17, and they both carried the same bomb load.
GT: So, do you think perhaps that Bomber Command could have changed their philosophy to go to?
JB: I do now [emphasis]. Of course you didn’t know at the time.
GT: May have been better to switch strategies.
JB: We argued about what Bomber Command did and how valuable it was, it’s never going to be resolved. Harris said you could finish the war with bombers, but you couldn’t, without men on the ground, I think that was proved in the war anyway.
GT: Set fire.
JB: We certainly aided towards the quickness of it, with all of the stuff we did to railways and transport and goodness knows what we done. We were allowed, after the war, to fly over Germany and have a look and see what was done; it was awful, it really was, war. I don’t know, the whole thing was pretty bad I suppose, when you think about it. But it was, to me it was pretty distressing to see that, acres, square miles all these houses just the walls standing, you know, all scurrying about like ants, clearing up the mess, you know. Terrible, absolutely terrible. Your whole thinking was in those days, like I say, obviously in London during the Blitz I saw houses demolished then, so getting a bit of own back didn’t seem to be helping a lot. Which it wasn’t.
GT: It was the means of surviving and shortening the thing.
JB: Yes. Anyway come what may, the war’s end, they said you’re going, when we went there, we were going to go to Okinawa, on the Tiger Force. What I didn’t realise that the Americans didn’t really want us there because they had enormous [emphasis] Air Force on Okinawa. It was really [emphasis] enormous. They had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of B29s and Mustangs by the hundreds and they didn’t want the RAF there at all. It was their war and they wanted to keep it. Anyway, they dropped the atomic bomb so we didn’t go. So we thought ah! Finished! We’ve finished our flying! They said no you’re not, you’re going instructing, you’re going now and I was instructing on blind landing approach for the next twelve months almost. On Oxfords, on a mobile flight, 1552 BABS Flight: Beam BABS Beam Approach Beacon System. They evolved a very efficient and cheap beam landing system called BABS which used Eureka Rebecca system, beacon and homing and beacons and they just, yes, instead of killing everybody. Yes. [interference] Well BABS, it was, we had this mobile flight, of four Oxfords, which was very handy, cause they were all over England and we went to, we were teaching Transport Command pilots on how to land, on bad weather landings and as I say, it was a very efficient system, it just involved a little pickup Austin with a kind of shed on the back, and they ran it two little metal grooves at the end of the runway and shot it up and we could pick up the signal. Because, why we were chosen that job, it was the ideal job suited for night fighter crews because the navigator was at the back twiddling his knobs and he could tell you left, left, right, right, whatever, and that worked fine and so we were sort of involved with that for nearly twelve months, and we flew every day apart from bad wind. That’s how good it was. So fog didn’t stop us at all, in fact it took us longer to taxi out to find the runway than it did to fly and it was really that good. It was excellent, I thought, we had no shaky dos there. Like I say I flew nearly a thousand hours and never had an accident. The only thing ever went wrong was on an old Blenheim I, when one wheel wouldn’t come down, had to land on one wheel, but that wasn’t too bad, pretty harmless.
GT: And then you didn’t catch the [indecipherable].
JB: No, no. They said land on the grass, don’t land on the runway, you’ll score it up something, it was on Somerfield Track anyway, and landed on one wheel on two points, so one wheel and the wings slowly dropped down and then I was looking at the propeller with the ends all curled up, the wing had a [indecipherable] great big slow ground loop and just stopped and that was it. Plane was flying two days later, on the flat. That was about the only bad thing ever happened.
GT: So what aircraft were you doing all of this BABS training in?
JB: Oxfords. Which they, they were a good aeroplane for a trainer I think, ideal anyway. But Ansons were probably easier to fly, was Ansons. The queen of the sky as far as I was concerned. You could do no wrong in an Anson. They were just delightful.
GT: You and Fred [indecipherable] were friends with the gentleman who’s created the only Anson I still flying in the world.
JB: Oh, I don’t say I’m a friend, but I’ve spoken to him, in fact I loaned him my Anson pilots’ notes, I’ve still got them at home by the way, my pilots notes for the Anson. But I’ve got pilots notes on most of the aeroplanes I flew, Beaufighters, Mosquitos, even got one for Lancaster. You know, you collect these things and keep them. Seventy years later.
GT: Fair. So once you’d done your instructing piece there for these transport pilots, what happened to you then?
JB: Oh that was, I got out in about August 1946 I think.
GT: Did you want to go? Did you need to go?
JB: Yes, I’d had enough. Yeah, I thought, well, I was a mug in a way, I should have stayed I suppose, you know, the Air Force was no longer like it was during the war, you know. During the week you do what you like [cough], dress how you like, don’t care [indecipherable] the week, but they don’t like that in peacetime and so I wasn’t sorry to get out.
GT: Did you commission?
JB: No.
GT: So what did you retire as, rank-wise?
JB: Warrant Officer. Which was a good rank. Pay was the same as a Flight Lieutenant, without the mess fees, you know. You only paid six shillings a month, they were paying about six pounds a month, so that was good.
GT: So what was the last station you served at? Can you?
JB: Um, Fort Sutton. No, Melbourne, East Yorkshire. Either Melbourne or Fort Sutton – they’re both in East Yorkshire, I’m not sure which one, but I think it must have been Melbourne we went from there to discharge Wembley. They gave us a suit and money.
GT: What was your last Mosquito trips then? When was that?
JB: Well that was, actually the last one the squadron flew on I was on leave, so I didn’t go and that was the last raid of the war full stop. It was on May the 7th it was, and that was on Kiel and two of our blokes were shot down on that one. My mate Doug Waite and his navigator, Doug’s still alive. He lives in Somerset. There’s only him and another chap in Cromer, they were the last two surviving pilots for that squadron, who I know, are still alive, I don’t think there’s any others. And that was my last trip must been, what, March, April, be April 1945 I suppose. Can’t even remember where it was. The longest trip we made was on [indecipherable] which was six hours and ten minutes which is a long time. We carried a lot of fuel. We carried seven hundred and sixteen gallons, which is what, about three thousand litres.
GT: So what’s the total flying time in a Mosquito?
JB: Well, we carried seven hundred and sixteen gallons, and each Merlin burns a gallon a minute, so that goes seven hours and I say, we had six hours and ten minutes and we still didn’t run short of fuel. They were good on fuel, you had to be stupid run out of gas. We carried one hundred gallon drop tanks.
GT: Your concentration for that long in a very cold aircraft?
JB: Oh no! They weren’t, they were never cold. The Mosquito was made of wood and were well insulated cause they were made of wood, and had a nice heater and was quite comfortable. I flew in a battledress, I never flew in a flying suit, nor did Fred, it was really good. No, no there was no problem there, but it was, often you were flying in cloud for four or five hours and that was very taxing because you got this awful effect where you thought you were flying straight and level but in fact you were turning.
GT: So your navigator, where did he sit? Next to you or down below?
JB: Sat in the Beaufighter behind, in the Mosquito, to the side.
GT: And he was doing all of your navigating through the scopes?
JB: No, no, did that on his knee on the back of an envelope [laughter], well he had all this radar gear in front of him which sort of eased out, he had no room, had this great big visor like this, and used to go to sleep in there and stuff, I knew when he was going to sleep, I could hear his breathing getting slower. But I didn’t mind, I could find my way home all right, you know. We had very good navigational aid - Gee, which was excellent, Gee was really good and we had a very good VHS system and they would home you from England, if you were high enough, they would give you a course for home right from the UK, it was a piece of cake. Navigation was never a problem for us. Never.
GT: Thousands of aircraft in the air at once, that’s phenomenal to keep you all on track!
JB: Yes, it was good. You know, when you think the sheer logistics of that was absolutely mind-boggling, you know.
GT: And Fred was saying to you left, right, left, right, or was he giving a heading?
JB: No, no, he was just saying alter course to oh nine two, make three hundred on the way home, you know, and there was no problem, because had a nice big sort of compass thing, you know, electric gyro. No we never had any, the only time we did have a couple of, I remember we, coming back from Germany and we come over this, we come across the land and I said to Fred where’s that, and he said oh, that’ll be the East Anglian coast and all of a sudden we were over the sea again, I said that must be the fastest crossing of England you’ve ever seen. In in actual fact, it was the strong wind, it was the Friesian Islands, in Holland, so it took us another half an hour to get across there, you know. I said we’re lost! He said we’re not lost, he says, I’m just a little uncertain of our whereabouts. [Chuckle] So I said in that case, I said how high is Ben Nevis. He says four thousand four hundred feet, I said then we’ll fly at five thousand four hundred feet. Which I did. Flying into the high ground was not difficult being in the UK. The Mossie was pretty fast, and it would get lost pretty fast too [indecipherable].
GT: That was an achievement getting every one of your Mosquito aircraft back without scratching one. Pretty awesome achievement. So when did you last see Fred, when you?
JB: Ah well Fred, when, after the war, I went back to Canada. I lived there seven years actually. Fred followed me, but he joined the RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and rose to the rank of sergeant, and actually was Pierre Trudeau’s chauffeur for about three years, and we lost track of each other then and in actual fact we, Wendy and I, my wife, we have visited Fred a couple of times, in Canada, but he died about four years ago now. That was the last I saw of dear old Fred. He was from South Shields, he was, up in Newcastle, you know. He was two weeks older than me. His birthday was on October 5th.
GT: It was pretty awesome for you to team up with somebody that you trusted and trusted his life with you too. So once you’d done some work in Canada, how come you’ve ended up in New Zealand after all this time?
JB: Well, I was a keen motorcycle man, I was, incidentally that’s my dad there in that picture, believe it or not, and yeah, I went back to Canada, and there for seven years and I was a very keen motorcyclist and I was the national organiser for the Vincent Owners Club. You’ve heard of the Vincent, motor bike, I was the national organiser for the Vincent Owners Club for the whole of the United States and Canada. Towards the end of that time this chap Oscar van Dogen wrote to me from New Zealand, he said he wanted make a, do a working holiday in Canada, could I give him somebody to write to? I said yeah, write to me, and we corresponded with each other for the next sixty years! And he died about two years ago. [Laugh] So if you want the stories, I’ve got them, man!
GT: And that’s what you did when you come to New Zealand?
JB: Ah, when I came to New Zealand, this was in 1953, I landed the same day as the Queen did, on Christmas 1953. She was on the Gothic, I was on the Wanganella from Australia, and then, there was a dearth of people, of tradesmen particularly in New Zealand, you could do anything you liked and work where you liked, so I got this job in engineering place in Christchurch, A. R. Harris and they made washing machines, the Simplicity washing machines, and I worked there for a couple of years and then I got sick of that and went and got a job with the government. I was a weights and measures inspector, which was another little escapade you see.
GT: Whereabouts was that? In Wellington?
JB: No. In Christchurch. I was transferred to Wellington and then from Wellington I was transferred to Nelson, and from Nelson they was going to transfer me to Auckland and I said I don’t want to go to Auckland and they said you’ve got to go to Auckland and I said no I don’t – I resign! So I did and that was in, what, 1960 something, so I went to an engineering place in, down at Port Nelson, and I was there for sixteen years. So, one thing and another.
GT: Now you’re, there’s been in Nelson, New Zealand there, a very strong on Bomber Command group of people that used to get together.
JB: We had about twenty here when I first started with the local branch of the New Zealand Bomber Command Association, and we’ve got what three or four or something: natural attrition shall we call it.
GT: And only a matter of months ago, your group, you’ve decided just to have your last lunch together, and there’s been a bit of publicity about that.
JB: Yes. [indecipherable]
GT: Which is, I think really across the country, many Brevet Clubs are down to several chaps only.
JB: Yeah, well I fell out, we have no Brevet Club. We did have one and it closed and people joined the Christchurch one, but I fell out with the Brevet Club in Christchurch. Well we, I’m the patron of the local RSA Branch and we, also we have a Trust Fund and we also give the cadets a thousand bucks or two thousand dollars a year each, all the cadet units, and Christchurch are sitting on nearly a million dollars and they didn’t dispense any money to the cadet units at all, so I wrote and said you know, get off your backsides and give them some money and they came back all guns loaded - don’t you tell us how to spend our money blah, blah, blah! So I said stuff that and gave it away.
GT: Yeah, so.
JB: I don’t know, are they active? Did they have a Bomber Command Association in Christchurch? I don’t recall any of them going to the unveiling at Green Park.
GT: It’s the National Bomber Command Centre that’s based, sorry Association based out of Auckland and there is barely five Brevet Bomber Command chaps in Christchurch left, so.
JB: No Association as such.
GT: No, they’re part of the national, New Zealand one. They do have a Brevet Club however, that’s out at Wigram air base.
JB: I know they do. But I don’t belong to it. I resigned.
GT: No. It’s very small now.
JB: Well I hope they doing something useful with their money cause that really got up my snorter that did. Really did. I thought well what they going to do with all that money? Cause they wound up with about half a million and they had about a hundred and seventy members I think, and I thought well, for goodness’ sake, you know, put it to some use, where it’s going to do some good, what better use than the cadet units, you know, I thought. That was my thinking. [indecipherable]
GT: Now, before, recently, well 2012 I guess, where the Bomber Command Memorial in London there was something that for us, the New Zealand Bomber Command Association, were planning on moving everybody over there that could go, but the New Zealand took it away from us and planned their own trip and took their own thirty odd gentlemen that they deemed could go and they looked after them very well and their decision was only New Zealanders could go.
JB: We stayed in the same hotel.
GT: And then I understand that there were several of you RAF chaps that emigrated here that were.
JB: I was the only RAF chap on that particular trip.
GT: So you managed to get over there though.
JB: Oh well, the lovely people of Nelson, they raised twenty two thousand dollars. G J Gardner gave us ten grand, towards it. There were people all over the world sent money, so we said my wife Wendy could go too So Wendy and I went, with Air New Zealand stayed at the Acorn Hotel, at the, in London, in the same hotel as the people there, having said that.
GT: I helped a little bit with the organisation for 75 Squadron sort of thing, the chaps, and I was in the Green Park at the back. So I understand you managed to get a seat at the front!
JB: Wasn’t quite at the front, well was about two rows back. I didn’t quite shake hands with Queenie, but gave her the nod, you know.
GT: Definitely.
JB: Got quite, took a lot of pictures, wonderful pictures of the occasion.
GT: Fascinating day. My RAF colleague and I were at the pub and waited till about seven pm, then we went down to the Memorial after they’d had opening and we had throngs of people, cause we were in uniform, asking.
JB: We went to that pub called The Three Tuns, was just down the road, a really nice pub, people there. Lovely hotel, the breakfasts were marvellous!
GT: I’m pleased you got to go over there to see that because many had not that opportunity from New Zealand.
JB: Definity a must to see, gorgeous place for sure.
GT: For sure, and all credit to those folk who organised and got that there and to look up at the statues of the chaps.
JB: That, well to me it’s a shame that the people who actually cast those never got any credit at all. It should have said where that was, where the foundry was or something, because it’s some of the finest casting I’ve ever seen in my life: everything was perfect. It was really, really good. I thought well, what a shame, they’ve given the name of the bloke who designed it but they didn’t give any credit to the people who actually made it, you know. Anyway.
GT: You, on this recording have now just given them the kudos.
JB: Well I reckon, well they needed, they should get some kudos, because it’s so, there was things on that which people would never pick up. For example, I noticed in the, down the flying boot of one of the gunners was the toggle from the cord for cocking a Browning and I bet very few people would see that, you know, the wooden handle with the loop on the end for pulling back the breech, you know. I thought I wonder how many people will spot that? So whoever did it was very, very good on the design.
GT: I understand that they, each individual airman of that trade, or job, they had veterans model. Marvellous. That’s great to hear. Thank you very much for that.
JB: No, I was absolutely chuffed with that.
GT: Now I also note that you have been in some way been involved, or been able to see at least, the Mosquitos that have been created in here New Zealand for flying.
JB: Yes, I have. I’ve been close to them but unfortunately I thought they might have given me a trip round the circuit or something, but no luck, maybe the next one anyway. I think I’ve earned it, but they didn’t, wouldn’t ended up, wouldn’t say John you can sit in the right hand seat and we’ll give you a turn, no. Least they’d have done, but it wasn’t, they, oh we’ve got insurance problems, we can’t do this and can’t, but I notice that people like um, what’s his name, the 617 bloke who was here, his granddaughter worked the airport before, they gave him a ride in one of those.
GT: Les Munro. That is special.
JB: Yes, Les Munro. He got a ride in one, I didn’t. Anyway. A lot of the blokes, we, there’s a picture over there in my little corner there, all the blokes who’d flown the Mossie and supposedly people who’d flew Mosquitos and a lot of them never did fly Mosquitos: they were Lancaster people. Which a lot of them were 75 Squadron people and 75 Squadron didn’t have any Lancs, have any Mosquitos, so I know that they were sort of just getting in on the action.
GT: However, 75 Squadron RNZAF [emphasis] did fly Mosquitos from 1947 to 53 at Ohakea. That might have come from, I think -
JB: Oh yeah, they were talking about Second World War veterans here, so they couldn’t have done. Anyway.
GT: Well I think they, a lot of them did fly Lancasters World War Two and post war, when New Zealand then was given 75 number plate and then we, they flew seventy five Mosquitos from England to New Zealand, and I think those guys went on to carry on flying those then. So that’s might have been where it was.
JB: Anyway, doesn’t matter now.
GT: It’s a huge thing, only a couple left out of those whole seventy, they cut them up. But look John. Just one last little thing then. Where are we now? You’ve obviously got a morning job, and it’s now roughly approaching 1pm in the afternoon so I’ve intruded on your day, but it’s been fascinating talking to you, but please tell a little about where we are and what this Institute does, because it’s a very important job that New Zealand does.
JB: Well, the reason we’re here is many years ago, when they shipped wood to export to Japan, there was a team of all oldies that we used to do these eight hour shifts because we did a quality test every fifteen minutes when they were loading the ship, and they had to have people who didn’t rely on a full time job, we were called when we were needed, which was very good and when we had a midnight till eight, the morning, or no, I think it was eleven till seven and seven till three I think, and this carried on until the port got smaller cause the ships got bigger and they couldn’t load ships and also the MDF plants opened up in Richmond, so they didn’t need to send it away from Nelson any more, it could all be done from other places and they found out that old JB was still handy with his fingers, so can you fix this John, yes I can and so thirty years ago and I’ve been here ever since, [indecipherable] fixing things and I like them and they like me, you know, and it’s good, it's been lovely and that’s how I came to be with Cawthron Institute. Not because of my scientific knowledge I might tell you!
GT: So what do they specifically look after and look out for here? What is their main role?
JB: Well, they do scientific research of any kind. They test food, they do a lot of marine work here, there’s, you know, if you look at the history of the Cawthron in recent years you’ll see a lot of it’s tied up in marine work: fresh water, salt water, mussels, we do all the salmon testing, king salmon, you know, make sure there’s not too much mercury in the fish and goodness knows what, and all this sort of stuff. They do a lot of pure research as well, as I told [indecipherable] they inspect all the spats for mussels, so by and large I think it’s a good place. They’ve got the most, we’ve got the most diverse number of people you’ve ever seen. We’ve got Germans, we’ve got French, we’ve got Russians, we’ve got Chinese, we’ve got Japanese, we’ve got Lithuanians, we’ve got French, we’ve got Dutchmen, we’ve got Englishmen, everybody [emphasis] here and everybody gets on. It’s a wonderful place, the Cawthron, it really is.
GT: And you’re the go-to fix-it man of the building.
JB: Yes. Mr Fix-it, that’s me!
GT: Mr Fixit. And you are how old now?
JB: Be ninety five in October.
GT: There you go! There’s hope for all of us to know that we can get a great old age and still be working.
JB: I don’t know! I hope you sided going in the lift!
GT: Well John, it’s been such a pleasure to first meet you, but second to talk to you today because the International Bomber Command Centre, I know, is looking for the beautiful stories of you men that made some huge sacrifices for us, some the ultimate, and yourself, obviously, you fought for our freedom and I thank you very much for that and I think that we’ve kind of come to it.
JB: I suppose it’ll be okay. I didn’t tell you too much about my flying career when I think about it, you know.
GT: I hope you’ve written a book. [Laugh]
JB: It’s okay, whatever keeps them happy.
GT: I’ve been in worse. Thank you sir, and I certainly appreciate your time with me today and is there one last word you’d like to give? One last word on the recording you’d like to give me?
JB One last word. Well what do I say? It’s been nice meeting you, and certainly a surprise. I had a similar interview as this about three weeks ago from a man who is doing exactly what you’re doing for 100 Group because they have a reunion every year in England, in Norfolk, and he did exactly what you’re doing now, almost word for word what we’ve just said. If you can’t get that then, and also, I’ve also made a DVD of this same thing, just like you’re doing, about five years ago, which is on a DVD somewhere. if I can find it you can have that too if you want.
GT: See [indecipherable].
JB: Better leave me a card so I can get in touch with you.
GT: Okay John, well, thank you. We’ll end our interview there. That’s fifty three minutes that we’ve had a chat here, so. It’s been a pleasure.
JB: Chop it about, cut bits out you don’t like, or whatever.
GT: I’m sure they’ll like all of it, okay. So, thank you John, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Bye bye.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Benjamin Beeching
Creator
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Glen Turner
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
2018-01-18
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABeechingJB180118
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:53:28 audio recording
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Description
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John Beeching was born in London and joined the RAF in 1941. His initial training was in Canada. After several escapades John joined 169 Squadron as a night fighter pilot and worked in electronic countermeasures as well as training crews in air gunnery. Post-war he saw damage in Germany and moved on to instruct in blind landings. John left the RAF and went to Canada then emigrated to New Zealand, working in a number of engineering based jobs. John came over to the unveiling of the Green Park Memorial and was active in the New Zealand Bomber Command Association. He gives his strongly felt views on these and other matters.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
New Zealand
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Manitoba--Winnipeg
New Brunswick--Moncton
New Zealand--Christchurch
New Brunswick
Manitoba
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
100 Group
169 Squadron
627 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-29
Beaufighter
bombing
Gee
Mosquito
Oxford
P-51
pilot
radar
RAF Twinwood Farm
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46438/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v070002-0002.mp3
5fa6f78c70bdc7d65611eb16871b5784
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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Interviewer: Ken, good afternoon. I’d like first of all could you please give us your full name and your date of birth.
KN: Kenneth Edgar Neve, and that’s N E V E. I was born on the 30th September 1925.
Interviewer: Ok. Thanks very much. And what I’d like to do to start talking about your military career really we’ll go right back to the very beginning and talk about the time that you were involved with the LDV and you were a runner I believe.
KN: I was a runner for my father who was made captain of the Home Guard. He worked with a big factory making aircraft instruments and when war was declared they said well you have, we’ve got four or five hundred people working in the factory and we’re going to give, the LDV will be that unit there. That was the first one in Basingstoke and so he would, because he retired from the, from the Army in 1936 so when was [pause] war was declared 1939. So, war was declared and they said, ‘Well, crikey you’re the guy to do the job ex-colour sergeant major, you know.’ He was retired. So they employed him as captain of the LDV which became the Home Guard of course. And because I was brought up in the Army obviously and he said, ‘Well, look —’ he said, I said, ‘Can I join dad?’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll have to call you the captain’s runner.’ They gave me little khaki things and I used to be in there throwing grenades and all this stuff [laughs] And so anyway after, after a while I decided to join the Cadet Force so they made me a sergeant believe it or not. And then eventually I thought well it’s time now to decide whether I’m going to wait until eighteen to be called up or should I do it on the, on my seventeenth. So I did that and I don’t know how far you want me to go but when I went to Reading to say yes I’m fourteen and the guy says, ‘Well, what service do you want to go?’ Army, Navy, Air Force whatever. I said, ‘Well, I really wanted something with, with ships. I thought, I thought that would be rather nice.’ He said, ‘Well, do you mean the Royal Navy? I said, ‘No. No.’ I said, ‘It’s to do with aircraft as well.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You mean the Fleet Air Arm?’ So I said, ‘Yes, that’s fine.’ So anyway, I went to RAF Henlow for six months and qualified as an engineer and I just came back to my first unit which was, which is now the, which is now the first unit of the Fleet Air Arm was where the Southampton Airport is now and we had Walruses and all sorts of things, you know.
Interviewer: That was at HMS Raven.
KN: That was my first one there look.
Interviewer: Ok. Yeah.
KN: And so anyway, so I suppose I’d only, I was not far from Basingstoke you see and so I used to get home every other weekend. That was fine. So all of a sudden I was just going to breakfast one morning and there was a notice board which said I had to go and report and they said, ‘Oh,’ He said, ‘Yes. Well, they’ve got problems with the RAF. They haven’t got enough people with your qualifications and, —' and he said, ‘We’re going to loan you to them.’ The next thing I know 190 Squadron’s Stirlings. Can you imagine looking at Stirlings after one of those bloody things?
Interviewer: Must have been massive. Was it? Yeah.
KN: I mean the main wheels were over six, six foot six high they were.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: And so because I used to wander around there and nobody said, ‘Who are you and what are you doing?’ You know. I’ve got a Navy uniform by the way you see. So eventually I joined one of the units there and, and of course then I was there until after D-Day. I stayed with them all that time.
Interviewer: So, what did, what were your duties then on the squadron?
KN: Just aeronautical engineer. That’s all.
Interviewer: Ground or air?
KN: Ground. Ground. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you just, so it was general servicing and —
KN: Yeah. Well, because I’d done quite a big study and I was, I used to do the electrics, instruments, oxygen all those sorts of things. So that was my job.
Interviewer: Yeah. Did you find it a good aircraft to work on?
KN: Fantastic aeroplane. Yeah. Whenever I could get a ride in it I did you know. I’d had probably dozens of rides. We were testing after major work in the, you know. I’m not saying the right word.
Interviewer: Servicing.
KN: Yeah. Yeah. When they did ground, the servicing up to a certain degree you ought to have a test flight afterwards and I was always on that you see and so any way one, and I enjoyed it. It was wonderful life and, and then of course we painted all the white lines and three whites on each on the fuselage all ready for and there was all these soldiers coming on the day that we left with all the parachutists and —
Interviewer: This was ready for the D-Day invasion.
KN: Gliders and everything like that. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: On the day it happened and there were people were killing themselves. I don’t know whether you know this but all these Army guys here they couldn’t face it and I think there were two or three committed suicide.
Interviewer: Really?
KN: Waiting to be boarding on to the aircraft which I just couldn’t —
Interviewer: The fear of the unknown.
KN: Couldn’t take it. I was only a young lad really still you know.
Interviewer: Yeah. That’s incredible.
KN: It was.
Interviewer: That’s the first I’ve ever heard of that.
KN: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: That’s amazing. I mean obviously then the Stirling had been employed on bomber duties but obviously when you saw it it was towing the gliders etcetera. Is that –
KN: Well, that was just before D-Day.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: Oh no. We were, we were doing normal bombing runs.
Interviewer: Normal bombing runs.
KN: And all sorts of things you know. Yes.
Interviewer: So did the squadron lose a lot of aircraft? Or –
KN: Well, fortunately not. I had two aircraft to look after and, with 190 and we never had any problems at all. We had the odd person who was shot up, the navigator or gunner you see and we used to have, well I didn’t have to do it but it was horrible inside, you know.
Interviewer: Clearing the mess. Yeah.
KN: And my, my job also was on the bomb release down in the front there you see. So I used to make sure everything when it was all loaded that it was ready for dropping you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: I just loved it.
Interviewer: From what I hear you know I mean you must have had a great affinity with the air crew then. The planes you were on.
KN: Oh yeah. Oh, yes.
Interviewer: Were they a young happy bunch?
KN: Yeah. Well, I was sort of left alone because I was this old man out you know. Who is this guy? You know. He must be something special the job he’s doing here you know. He’s dressed different and, oh yeah.
Interviewer: Did you live in a billet then on the station?
KN: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: How was that then? The after hours. What did you do in the NAAFI etcetera?
KN: Not a lot. Generally just a NAAFI you know and then of course the old wagons used to come around with the coffee and tea and —
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: Various things. Yeah. It was fantastic. And, and of course after that once D-Day took place we carried on. We were dropping people all over left, right and centre. And then eventually the senior, well from Daedalus in Lee on Solent was their headquarters.
Interviewer: Right.
KN: For the Fleet Air Arm. And this guy used to come up every so often. He was a flight lieutenant sort of type you know and he said to me, he said, ‘I think you’ve had enough here haven’t you?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve enjoyed it.’ If you know what I mean. So he said, ‘I want you, we’ve now got a Technical College.’ The Fleet Air Arm. Which we never had before. That’s why I had to do my initial training at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire. Six months was the first one I did. So they wanted me so I did extra, a lot of extra study and don’t forget I left school at fourteen.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: And so I went to the new college and I did ever so well and so when I, it was time for me to go I joined BOAC which was at Aldermaston. What was an aircraft unit. And so I worked for them and then they sent me to America and Canada to study the new aircraft that was going to come over for London Airport when it was made. It wasn’t even made then you see.
Interviewer: Right. What was the name of this aircraft?
KN: Well, there were, there were two or three kinds but they were all American. All American. Nothing English at all. I’m sorry I can’t remember that now.
Interviewer: That’s ok.
KN: I mean, so after, after that I decided, I went to Montreal for a year to study. When I came back we were at Bristol and our aircraft was in in Bristol and they said I’d done such a good job over there and we were going to do this. Well, it never happened because there were seniors coming in from all over the place to Bristol getting ready to go to London Airport. So I didn’t have quite the seniority that they’d got and eventually, so I said well to heck with this because I said, ‘Look, this guy in Montreal said I’m going to send you a good report. You’ve done ever so well.’ He said, ‘Well we can’t because there’s people been in longer than you have and yet you are expecting me to teach them what to do, you know with these new American aircraft.’ So, one thing led, so I happened to go home at the weekend and I went and got “Flight” magazine and there was a firm wanted somebody like me, aeronautical engineer at Blackbushe near Camberley. And I did about four or five years there. They made me, I was in charge of five units there you know. Radio, electrics, this, that, and the other thing and they said, and all of a sudden somebody said to me, ‘The Canadian Air Force are looking for people you know.’ So it was in West London so I wrote to them and I got an interview and all the rest of it. I mean the thing that we, they couldn’t believe was because I did have all these wonderful things. I’d done it. Studied well and I got. So this, what was it? He was quite a senior officer and he sat down. He said, ‘Right, Mr Neve,’ he said, ‘We’re quite amazed at how much you’ve done in the aeronautical world.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve had the opportunities and I’ve enjoyed it.’ So he said, ‘Right, let’s just take some, I’ve got to send all this off to Ottawa before to say yes we’d like to have you and, of course [laughs] I’d like to tell you this story if you don’t mind. He said, he said to me, ‘Ok. Right. Now, let’s talk about education, shall we? University?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘What? Technical College or – ?’ ‘No. No.’ He said, ‘Well, where did you finish up?’ I said, ‘At Fairfield School, Basingstoke. Fourteen.’ He said, ‘You’re having a joke, aren’t you?’ You know. Sort of thing. I said, ‘No. I left 1939 at Basingstoke.’ And so he said, ‘No. I can’t, I can’t send this to Ottawa. It’s ridiculous. They might think oh he’s done ever so well and he left school when he was fourteen.’ That is grade five or something in Canada. You know whatever it was you know. So, he said, so he said to me, he said, ‘Is there any way you can get somebody to write from your school to say that, ‘Yes, you did attend,’ at least, you know. So, Mr Pill, I was in the top grade when I left at fourteen and his name was Mr Pill. He was a Yorkshireman and he was brilliant with bits of chalk. Right between the eyes if you were nodding off you know. So, I wrote a letter to Fairfield School and he’d left there and he’d gone to another big school. But eventually I had a letter to say, “To whom it may concern. Yes, I would like to confirm —” Da da da and all the rest of it. So I sent it off. It went to Ottawa and they accepted it. The next thing I know I’m four years with Sabre aircraft in Germany.
Interviewer: Wow.
KN: Without getting to —
Interviewer: They posted you straight to Germany on a fighter squadron.
KN: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. That must have been marvellous because the Sabre obviously was just for the enemy —
KN: Well, we had more prangs than whatever.
Interviewer: Really? A lot of crashes.
KN: Terrible. Their engines used to suck out you know.
Interviewer: Big problem.
KN: If you went down too low. If you didn’t keep up a certain speed when they, if they went off looking for people or looking for an object or all the rest of it and they used to get and then the engines just used to go, ‘pfft’ like that. And we lost so many.
Interviewer: Really?
KN: Believe me. So after, after four years they sent me to Prince Edward Island, Summerside and had a wonderful time there, you know. I enjoyed every bit. That was my aircraft there.
Interviewer: That’s a, is that some sort of an Electra or [pause] it looks like an Electra.
KN: No. It’s an Argus that one is.
Interviewer: Oh, is it Argus we’re looking at? We’re looking at a photograph now of a Canadian four piston engine —
KN: Yeah.
Interviewer: Obviously, a Maritimes because it’s got a boom tail on it.
KN: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: Well, what, you see this what our job was it was equipped in the front there with looking for submarines which we should have had during the war. We used to fly six foot over the water. I used to go on all the crews because I used to, well there were various reasons I did and because I was crew chief. They made me crew chief you see. So we used to leave, we used to leave Summerside, go right down the east coast of America right down to the bottom then we’d cross over and we were working with the RAF. They had submarines and we had to find them and if the weather was right we were only so many, thirty feet above the water and this was a fantastic machine. Anything within twenty miles it would pick it up. Anything metal. So then we’d go across to South Africa and we would play. We’d do the same thing for other units and we’d go all the way up through Europe and we ended up in Iceland and that sort of thing. It had thirty five flying hours. We had double crews.
Interviewer: Amazing. I mean that, it’s such a story that’s not been told really about what, what fledgling Air Forces after the war did. I mean the Canadian Air Force obviously as you know was quite small at the outbreak of war and was a huge Air Force when they finished.
KN: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Interviewer: And yeah. That’s wonderful to recount those stories. I mean I’d just like to think of you, looking back really just to go back to we talked about you ended up working on world breaking machines really but you started off there working on what was affectionately known as the old Stringbags when you first started.
KN: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you feel working on that aircraft you had a particular affinity for working with such an old aircraft? Was it something special?
KN: If I tell you something it can be taken off of there? So, I’m working on one of the old Swordfish you see and I’m right down and I’m looking at all the instrument panels behind the flying panel alright. There was something wrong with this one. It wasn’t working. So I worked on that and got it right. So I’m there laying down here and I’m doing all this with just a torch you know. And the next thing I [laughs] a pair of legs come in the cockpit and all I’m looking at is a pair of legs and some knickers. [laughs] So, I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’ You know, and she says, ‘Oh, it’s me.’ Because they were having girls then in the Fleet Air Arm, you know learning instruments and various other things. So I thought that was rather different.
Interviewer: Well, that will always stay with you won’t it forever. Yeah. A lovely little story. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ken thank you ever so much for just recounting some of the tales there. I mean, I think you can honestly say that your time in the military was certainly and working with the military was certainly varied. To think that you started off before the war really and finished up as part of a NATO operation in Germany.
KN: I’d like you, when you, when you decide you’ve had enough I’ve got something I’d like to show you up behind you. Let me just —
Interviewer: Ok. Alright. Well, you know that’s that done but thank you ever so much as I say and we look forward to putting this on to our Archive and thank you very much, Ken.
KN: I had a wonderful war and you know I, everything just I never worried. I mean the house next door at Beaconsfield Road in Basingstoke you know all those flare bombs they used to drop there? Well, they burned out next door to me. There was a bomber, a bomb, a bomb had dropped, a German bomb had dropped one three hundred mile, three hundred yards away and that was a sort of a hospital thing for women you know I think it was and all. And I used to I mean at fourteen I used to go out at night with all the lads because all the big [pause] you know when there was a, when the siren went we knew there were aircraft coming over from the coast and that and of course we used to have all the big lights, the searchlights and we used to go up by the church if not the school where I went was not far up the road and I’d go and I would be with all the men all the time. It was just something to do you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: And we’d pick it up. Not we but where they were doing it they’d pick it up and then of course then would drop and they would release sort of bombs going left, right and centre and it didn’t bother me one little bit.
Interviewer: You’ve no fear at that age.
KN: No.
Interviewer: Yeah. It’s amazing.
KN: It was excitement.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: It was lovely.
Interviewer: Well, thank you so much for recounting that.
KN: Well —
Interviewer: And I hope you’ve enjoyed telling the story to us.
KN: Yeah. Ok.
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Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve
1004,1005-Neve, Kenneth Edgar
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v07
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Royal Navy
Royal Air Force
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eng
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00:19:49 audio recording
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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Dave Harrigan
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
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Ken Neve served as a runner with the Home Guard before joining the Fleet Air Arm. He was posted to RAF Henlow as an engineer.
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Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England-Hampshire
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean--Solent Channel
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Julie Williams
ground personnel
Home Guard
Swordfish
Walrus
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1041/11414/AMunroKW160522.2.mp3
b281050359604d4fa350d7a3b662ec59
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Title
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Munro, Kenneth William
K W Munro
Description
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Eight items. An oral history interview with Kenneth Munro (Royal Air Force) and seven photographs. He flew operations as a night fighter navigator with 456 Squadron flying Mosquitos.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-05-23
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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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Munro, KW
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Transcription
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KM: I was not in Bomber Command. You know that of course.
AP: Well, you were, you were Mosquitoes.
KM: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: That’s close enough.
KM: Night fighters, is it? As Bob, he wasn’t, wasn’t the CO. He was next door to him. And the fellow Baz Howard, he came from Queensland and he, we were down at Bradwell Bay. Down Essex. Down there, and he said one day, we were all sitting down in the mess down there [coughs] and he said, I’m going up to see a friend up in Yorkshire.’ And Peter said, ‘Well, I’ll go with you in a Mosquito,’ and he said, ‘No. I’ll do it on my own.’ And he went up there and saw his mate and came back and he got just about back to Bradwell Bay and one of the motors conked out. And so just coming in and just landing it because they were putting all the things that went into the North Sea and taking them home and putting them in there and he, he went down and he said he couldn’t get in in a tight turn because one motor was gone. So he went around again and about just as he got over the, what’s it called, the Black Sea I think it is, and all of a sudden the other one went as well and he just sailed along. We could see him. He hit the water bumped his head on his forehead here and sank in about five feet of water. And we tried to get out because there was probably about sixty of us, probably a hundred guys from the [unclear] walk out to find him. But it was quite a big current was going like that and we couldn’t get out ourselves. Even if we turned the clocks off and walked and went out there but so he drowned in a Mosquito and just sank there. So it was a great shame but he was a very nice fellow too. But it just shows you. If you didn’t have to do the right thing and you didn’t get in the first landing, went around again. He should have just put it down.
AP: Regardless. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ll ask you about accidents and things later on I think. So, we may as well if you’re, we may as well kick off the proper interview.
KM: Yeah.
AP: And it’s recording now. I can see it jumping away there. So what I normally do I start with a little, a little spiel at the beginning. Just to sort of set the time and place.
KM: Yeah.
AP: And then I dive in. Ask a couple of questions. We’ll just have a chat.
KM: Yeah.
AP: For an hour, two hours. However long it takes.
KM: Yeah.
AP: Until you run out of stories.
KM: Yeah.
AP: Or one or the other of us begs for mercy. Right. So this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Ken Munro who was a 456 Squadron Mosquito navigator during the Second World War. The interview is taking place at Ken’s place in Doncaster in Melbourne.
KM: Yeah. Applewood it’s called.
AP: Applewood it is called.
KM: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: That’s right. It is the 22nd of April err I’ll try again it’s the 22nd of May.
KM: Yeah.
AP: 2016. My name’s Adam Purcell. So Don, you’re not Don. You’re Ken. Sorry.
KM: Yeah.
AP: Ken, tell me something of your early life and what you were doing before the war.
KM: I got a job in nineteen, on the 24th of January 1938 in a chartered accountant’s called Wright and Roberts. Mr Wright died and it became MG Roberts. A well-known chartered accountant. And I stayed there until I got half way through the exams. Sort of half of the heart of it done and I was going to join the air force then. And he, Mr Roberts said why don’t you do your intermediate exam and then go? So I said ok. And by that time they didn’t want any more in the air force at that stage up in Russell Street and so I joined the Victorian Scottish. You know, you’ve probably seen my photograph over there. But I’ll show it to you later on but — so I was down there. Mount Martha was a beautiful spot down there in summertime. And after a while when the Yanks came in we had to go down to Back Beach at Ryde Down there. So we packed up. Went down there and we were there until about February I think it was. And then the word came around we were going to Fremantle and join the general who got out of Malaya. You know, when the Japs came. He got back to Australia. They didn’t like him doing that but he got there and we were to join up with him over there in the army at a place called Bushmead just out of Midland Junction there in Perth. They came around and there was a big van said, “Would you like to join the air force?” So I said, ‘Yes. I’d like to join the air force.’ So anyrate had to go, had to stay with the army. Went to Moura which is halfway to Geraldton. And at, finally they got in touch with me at Geraldton and said you can come down now to Busselton which is down near Bunbury. Down there. And so I was in the air force down there. And I was there probably for about probably about four or five weeks. I did a course down there.
AP: So that was your Initial Training School was it?
KM: Yeah. Then —
AP: Yeah.
KM: We went up to Pearce. You know, north of Perth. And we were there on guard you know. Still doing a job there. And there was Ralph White of course. Ralph White was the same thing. He was in the Victorian Scottish and so we got out. I came back to Somers in about [pause] September I think and then I did a course down there. Then Hubert Opperman, you know was our flight commander. He was, he was a teacher really. He was very good and he had another man called Ginger Markham, you know. And he came on top of the exercise we had to do and I was about second I think and he said. ‘We’re going to make you navigators.’ Which we didn’t want to be but [laughs] we sort of did well at arithmetic and that sort of thing. So anyrate, he said ‘Would you like to go to Canada?’ We both looked at one another. He said, ‘Well, if you’re not quite sure go to bed and sleep on it and come and tell me tomorrow.’ So we came back and said we’d like to go. So away we went and I went up to Bradwell, was it Bradwell Bay? Brad Park? Up there.
AP: Bradfield Park in Sydney.
KM: Yeah.
AP: Yeah.
KM: In to Sydney. And we were there. There for probably about three weeks and we were going on the Queen Elizabeth. And then somebody said there’s submarines outside there so they cancelled that and we had to stay back. Went across on the [pause] starting to forget things now. On an American very old steamer. What was it called? I’ve forgotten now. Anyway, we started from Sydney on, in March I think and it took us twenty eight days to get across the Pacific to — we were going to go to Vancouver but halfway across all of a sudden they could hear the throbbing of the motors going. Deathly quiet and the engines wouldn’t go and we were stuck there [laughs] about halfway across there. And anyway, they got them fixed up in about a day and we carried on. It took us twenty eight days to get us across the Pacific and they decided to go to San Francisco which, we had a day there. Bought a lot of chocolate and that sort of thing. People were very good there. The Yanks met us with cars and drove us all around ‘Frisco. And then we were only about a day and a half and then we got a train up to Vancouver which was marvellous. Beautiful scenery. And went to Vancouver and I think we stayed there a day or so and went out to Edmonton. That’s where I did my course there. So that was about all I think.
AP: Alright. Why did you want to be in the air force?
KM: Well, my father was in the barracks at St Kilda Road there and he knew the man who was the civil aviator. Sort of pilot you know. And he got this German three engine one with one there, one in the front sort of thing and he said, ‘Would any of your sons like to have a flight?’ I was about thirteen or fourteen and I said, ‘Yeah. I’d like to have a go at that.’ So a friend of mine who was, who was finally joined, [unclear] actually, he was a very clever bloke so he couldn’t join the forces because he was needed elsewhere. So, anyway we had all around Melbourne and he came back and he said to my father, he offered me to go down to Cerberus down there in the Mornington Peninsula as a cadet. I was about thirteen. I said, ‘No thanks. I don’t want to go to the Navy,’ so, ‘I want to go to the air force.’ So that was about how I got in the air force. And I did a course at Edmonton. I think it was about six months I think. And I was made an officer off course. And we went up to Halifax and got on the Aquitania and went to, to what’s that in the Clyde? What’s the name of it again? In the Clyde. That’s where we landed in there. I forget the name of the place but, and then had a train down to Brighton and that’s where we decided, want me to carry on?
AP: Yeah. Keep going.
KM: Yeah. Well —
AP: Keep going. I’ll come back and fill in the gaps later on.
KM: Yeah. Well. We got there. We got on the train. A little, little kid by the train line as you went to slide out to get out and he said in his Scots, ‘Have you got any gum mister?’ [laughs] And we said, ‘No. We haven’t got anything.’ So, anyway we went down to Brighton which was, we had a very nice hotel there. Just on the corner where the boulevard goes all along. Just around the corner down there. Near the Grand. You know, where Mrs Thatcher and they got — just away to the east from there. But it was very nice. We had a nice room there. And Focke Wulfs used to come across and shoot them up a bit occasionally. And at any raids that came we had to get down in to the, in to the bowels of the, of the hotel. And one day I I couldn’t be bothered. I thought I’d just stay in my room. And this Wing Commander Swan I think his name was, a bit of a nasty sort of fellow he came around, found me and he said, ‘I’ll let you off this time but you’ll be on a charge next time.’ Yeah. Anyway I went in to, in the, in the lounge one day and I sat down at a table like this. A man was reading a paper next door and he said, ‘Have you just arrived?’ and I said, ‘Yes. I just came in yesterday.’ And he said, in another two days he came and said, ‘I don’t know whether you know but I’m the posting officer from Brighton.’ And I said, ‘Oh. I think I’m going to Bomber Command.’ He said, ‘Well, they’ll probably take about three weeks before you can do that. But,’ he said, ‘There’s a new course.’ And I said, ‘Well, what is it?’ And he said, ‘Radar.’ I said, ‘I’ve never heard of it.’ He said, ‘Well, you have to do an exam.’ With another friend who came across so three other fellows came with me and we got, did the exam and got passed and so he said, ‘Well, you’re going up to Ouston which is up near Newcastle on Tyne.’ In there. ‘You’re going to learn all about radar.’ So, so anyway we waited about a week and away we went. And that’s when we, we — it was quite a nice station too. It was about October then I think and there was snow all around up there. And we started flying in Ansons you know. They had all the gubbins in there. And that’s how we learned how to operate radar and later on in [pause] first of all what did they call it? Radial engines. Oh God. Bomber. I’ll think of it later on. But it wasn’t a Mosquito, it was in. It was easier to sit back. The pilot’s up the front and I used to sit back there. Bomber —
AP: Beaufighter perhaps.
KM: Beaufighters. Beaufighters. I liked them. What did they call them? The creeping death, I think. You know.
AP: Whispering. Whispering death.
KM: Whispering death. Yeah.
AP: It took all the [unclear] sort of thing.
KM: They had plenty of power down below. I used to just sit back. There was a swivel chair. I used to face the back like that and then they put the power on and away it goes, and whirr like that. They were a very good aircraft. And down low they were very good indeed. But I did that for a while. And, I can’t remember. We had fellows that was going to do a camera thing, sort of thing and he got in one and went up and I was down the back and he, he did all sorts of things. Turned this and turned this and went over and back again. And I said, ‘How long are you going to be on this?’ And he said, ‘I won’t be that long.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m going to be sick in a moment.’ [laughs] and, which I was. And when I got down a WAAF came out and said, with a bucket and said, ‘You can clean it up yourself.’ [laughs] But so that was my and from then on we did mostly all sorts of things. It came behind an aircraft and it dropped down below them so they looked up and fired a bullet sort of thing. And then, then they had to do one, one coming straight to you and you had to go. You could see them coming. You had to do that left hand turn to come below. And if you could go, catch him again and again shoot him down sort of thing. So we learned all about that there. As a matter of fact Keith Miller was up there.
AP: Ah.
KM: Yeah. He was flying ones you know. Doing what we were. Trying to get behind him sort of thing but [pause] So, I think I was there ‘til about the beginning of February I think. And then we went down to Bedfordshire. At Cranfield. And that’s where I met my wife down there. And we did a lot of more work on, we used to get behind the [pause] I’m forgetting aircraft. Wellington. Yeah. We used to get behind them and do the same thing, sort of thing. And that went on for about in February ‘til late April I think. And then I was going to go to Bomber Command as an escort. And I had packed everything up and I was going to get the train down to London and go out to Coltishall. Out in Norfolk. And the signal came through from the air vice marshall from Australia — all people are going as night fighters. Going to 456 down in, in Arundel. Down south, And Arundel’s just near little, little Hampshire I think it was. Near Worthing. Down there. And so here we had to come back and finally get a train down there and that’s how I arrived at Ford which was a marvellous station.
AP: Sorry. Ford, did you say?
KM: Ford. F O R D.
AP: Yeah.
KM: But from Arundel we used to come down the road and over the railway line and a winding road down into the, into Ford which was a very good ‘drome, you know. And I think I finished up in B flight. B flight I think. There were two in the squadron And, and that was about it I think then. Do you want me to carry on?
AP: Please carry on. A whole story we want.
KM: Well, I met a wing commander. God, I forget things now. Big fellow and of course I think I’ve got, no I lent Bob Cowper book to a friend. Any rate the wing commander said, How do you do,’ and he told me what pilot I was going to be on and everything like that. And he, he was a good pilot but wasn’t very popular because he thought everybody, thought, he thought everybody was not up to his standard you know. So, but any rate I went down in the [unclear] I think it was and we had to do quite a few exercises at night, you know. And, and it was beautiful weather down at Ford down there because the summer was from, from June onwards. Right all the way to Christmas time. It was good weather down there so, so my first thing was to go up and shoot down the buzz bombs you know. And one day we had to go to — there were searchlights. S for Sugar and T for something else. T for Tear or something like that. And the ground control said to the wing commander, he said you need to go to — is it, what’s the name? Tearing or something like that. And he said to the wing commander you’ve got to go to tear west or something. He said, ‘I’m tearing west,’ he said. Which was a great big joke and he got the wrong thing altogether. But we went to S for Sugar and stayed there. And he could, he used to get up about, say about eight thousand feet you know. Angels height you know and look towards the French coast and you could see them coming because the fire out the back of them used to light up. And he said, ‘There’s one coming towards you.’ So up at eight thousand feet he said, ‘When it gets close enough you start to go down behind him.’ Like that. ‘Get right behind him and just press the trigger you know.’ And we were just about to do it on one thing and a Canadian fellow in a, in a single engine aircraft got in front of us and shot it down himself and he was put on a bad books. And the fellow was very cross about that but, but anyrate so we didn’t get any more from then. But, but one fellow in 85 Squadron, they were on Ford with us as well and Cat’s Eyes Cunningham was in 85, and his name was Mellish. And strangely enough I read in the paper one day and it had a thing about things in Great Britain. Quite a size. About that size in the paper and said he finished up a wing commander. He was, I think he was flight lieutenant then but he shot down eight when he was up for three hours. Eight of them. God. But he died probably about, oh about five years ago I think. But —
AP: Sorry. When you were shooting down, when you were chasing the buzz bombs.
KM: Yeah.
AP: You were in a Mosquito at this point?
KM: Yeah. In Mosquitoes. Yeah.
AP: And you were obviously talking to ground control.
KM: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: So they would, they would tell you that they could see one coming on the radar.
KM: Coming. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
AP: And just sort of, did they give you like vectors towards it? Or did they say it’s over —
KM: Yeah. Yeah. We — I think [pause] my memory’s going but yeah it’s one’s coming. Go to vector say to the right hand. Like that usually. So they, they would come down like that behind. Yeah. They go to a vector but it’s just forgotten. It was to the right. Usually to the right so we could do the left hand turn and come down. So we enjoyed all that. It was great so, and then what happened after that? [pause] Oh, we went down to B Flight and we used to get — they had a — what did they call it? On a slate or something. And they would be first say about 8 o’clock at night for three hours. And we’d go into France. Go into Le Touquet. There was a little inlet in there. There’s as I say Beachy Head about there. About here. Le Touquet’s across there. Used to go across and then go up to Lisle. Again, a man on the ground used to tell you what to do sort of thing. But did you know Fred Stevens at all? He, funny he’s got a friend down here I was talking to last night. He was one of the best pilots on 456 and the just natural to fly and, but my pilot was Karl McLennan. He was a very experienced pilot who [pause] he was 3 Course out of Australia and he did a lot of, as a to teach pupils you know. And finally came to, to Cranfield. I remember I was reading the paper one day and he came in. The bar was across there and he said, he looked around and he saw me with an Australian uniform on. He said, ‘Oh g’day. ‘G’day.’ He said, ‘Want to have a beer?’ I said, ‘I don’t drink.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, and after a while I was reading this and I thought I should do something and he said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’ I said, ‘Oh ok. I’ll come over and have one.’ So that was my first beer.
AP: [unclear]
KM: So anyway, he said, ‘Are you going to crew up with anybody?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘What about me?’ and I said, ‘That’ll do me.’ He told me all about 3 Course. And I said, ‘You’re much more experienced then I am,’ you know but at any rate he said, ‘No. We’ll go together.’ So we did and he said, he talked to me, he said, he said, ‘Look, I’m what you’d call a live coward,’ he said, ‘So no fancy stuff. I’ll do exactly what I’m supposed to do,’ you know. Any rate he was a very good pilot you know. So we did, we did some cross countrys’ over as I say, over to Wales and back to High Wycombe. Up to Lincoln. Up there. And then back to, to Cranfield. And then there when we went down to Ford just before D-Day we were — I had, they had to show me as a navigator on Mark 10 radar which was a different sort of thing. So I had to go to Twinwood Farm which was a satellite of Cranfield for a month. So I missed out on Normandy. And [pause] but I learned all on how to work all the gubbins in a Mosquito. The pilot got in first across there. Quite small you know. He was rather chubby because he drank a lot [laughs] Mac. But, and I, I had the set there on a sort of a pulled out sort of thing and he sat there and I sat here. I used to pull it out when he got in. Pulled it out here and have it on the radio sort of thing which is with a dividing line down like that. That’s left or right sort of thing. And one for height sort of thing. Across like that. So it had a range of a hundred miles so if you, say you were coming back to England you just, and every aerodrome had a code you know. Say BA and AB or something like. And you wanted to go to that destination you knew what their code was and he just turned the aircraft around so it was dead in front of you like that. Whatever height you wanted to do. You either go up or down. And just sit there. And when you come to almost there you just knew exactly where you were and, and so when you got to say, Ford it was going beep beep beep and down you go. And that was great you know. Coming from say Germany there you just, just set it for where you want to go and a range a hundred miles so, you know —
AP: So this is Gee?
KM: Eh?
AP: Is this the Gee system?
KM: No. We had the Gee later on.
AP: Oh ok.
KM: Yeah. When we went for longer trips in Germany and you need that to — you had two. Two maps as a matter of fact. You had one that was going to certain distance about there. Then you’d get the other one would go further on. In fact one of our senior navigators he kept on using the first one and he [laughs] his pilot, Smithy said, ‘I don’t think we’re going the right way.’ And he said, ‘I’m in charge. I’ll tell you where you’re going.’ Anyway, he was going to Germany and, Smithy we called him, he was a pilot, he said, ‘I can see lights down there,’ he said, ‘It looks like Switzerland.’ Oh he got a black mark for that [laughs] But but he had to use his second one but they were very good.
AP: So the — sorry the first radar you were telling me about. That’s a navigational radar or an airborne like interception radar?
KM: In the aircraft yeah. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. It’s in the aircraft but —
KM: Yeah.
AP: Sorry. Was that for navigation or for finding fighters or something?
KM: Yes. Yes. Yes, a blip would come up.
AP: Yeah.
KM: A blip. Yeah. We were one, not that far from Berlin. We used to go over there until the petrol. Had to watch out that we had enough petrol to get back again. We used to circle the aerodrome. And it was a bright moonlight night. I remember that. And we were going around like that and I said to Mac, ‘I think we’d better go home in a moment because, you know the petrol is getting down a bit.’ So, you know, I just spoke to him. I just, like that, and I saw an aircraft about a hundred yards away sort of thing. I said, ‘There’s a German right there,’ and I said, I said, ‘Lose height. Left hand turn,’ which we used to do. Lose height. Went down like that. Ok. And then of course all of sudden they had the lights on the fellow. All the lights went out you know. And it came back and we couldn’t see too well then but we could see the runway and that sort of thing and it had all the, you know the, what do they call them? Sort of the pens where the aircraft went into and we went up and down the runway shooting all those things that we could see. We’re not quite sure whether we hit this aircraft. But at any rate the next one to start firing back at us so we did another run too and did all what we could about what we could see on the ground. And then we decided to go home after that because we were getting short on the petrol. So that was a bit of an unfortunate thing but just seeing that bloke but he just appeared. I can see him now just out there. But anyrate we went home again and we used to do that sort of thing, you know. Quite often. Circle the aerodrome and see what’s coming.
AP: So —
KM: They were getting short on their for petrol. The Germans. You know. And, but I’ll tell you about the last thing that we did. Bob Cowper picked us to go with him down to a place call Linz on the Danube. Way down. Almost to Budapest sort of thing. Down there. And the river came down like that and it went down like that down south a bit. About twelve miles down was an aerodrome and we were going to go. And we had a squadron leader from the, the, what are they called? It was all the big wigs down at Ford. And it was going to drop a napalm bomb on the aerodrome down there. Anyrate, he, it was a bright moonlight night and we went all the way. We went to Juvencourt, just out of Paris and we got more petrol and carried on down to, to Linz down there. And we had just arrived and I could see it in the moonlight. We got there right on ETA. I could see them in front of us. And then we had to go to the right hand side, down south and go to the aerodrome. Drop these bombs sort of thing. And anyrate this squadron said, ‘I’ll lead down,’ you know. And he went down then. About half way down he put a flare out and we said, ‘Oh, you’ve put it in the wrong place.’ You know. And all he could see was a farm, cows and everything else. And we said, you’re only halfway down there so he went on down there and he said, he went round an aerodrome and he said, ‘I’ll take the in charge. I’ll do the first run in now.’ And he went down then. He went down because they were ready for him I think. He said, ‘I’ve been hit already,’ he said, ‘I’m going home.’ So that was all he did all night. So, we said we, we were going down so we went down once. Did a left hand turn over the river there and came back again like that. And just as we got around to go down again on the aerodrome some tracer bullets came right past my ear. My hair went up like that. And it just missed us actually. And anyrate we, I mean say that that’s the river down there. We went down like that we came back like that. Came down. Did another run in again and that’s when the tracer bullets came across there. But we did it again and again they were ready for us again because somebody — I don’t know who did it, it must have been on the other side of the river there. It’s quite high up there because I can remember it seemed to be coming down like that you know. But anyrate, we did the same thing again you know, circled. They were ready for us again. But anyway came back and Bob Cowper said, ‘What a mess up that was,’ you know. Bob Cowper was going to do everything and did nothing you know [laughs] But strangely enough Bob Cowper went down to Ford one day and he went down to the intelligence and saw what this fella said. Said it was a great success. Which was [laughs] we were very upset about that but so that was about it and then back to Bradwell Bay and on May the 8th, you know, the Germans decided they’d had enough. And, and then on — Mac had been getting into the liquor all the time and he got, what do you call it? Like jaundice. Sort of thing. Had to go to hospital. And then they asked 456 and another Mosquito squadron to go to the Channel Islands where the Germans were going to fight on. And so they went. Three — two, two lots went down. Went down to quite low and first said if you don’t we’ll give you, we’ll shoot the whole lot of you, you know. So they finally decided. So the war finally finished on the 9th of May. So you know that was about it I think. But so we went, we were supposed to come — the rumours said we were probably going up to Burma, you know, when we get back. But we went back to Brighton again and stayed about a week I think. We had a little car. I’ve got a photograph of it over there as a matter of fact. And we had to drive up to post this out in the east end of London and we had to go across — was it Dartmoor or something? Where there’s a ferry used to go across and you go up the hill like that to this place where they had all, they got a whole new or old cars He came from nowhere. He was a [unclear] actually. We saw it. We went up there and he said well go back to that fella and see what he’ll give us for the car, you know. We bought it for thirty seven pound and went up there. He came around and he went all through it like this looking. And said, he said, ‘Eighty pound.’ So he said ok. We said, ‘Can we have for it about a week because we’re going to Brighton.’ He said ok. We came up here in a week’s time. He came up and John Darling who was a great mate of mine he was, he was driving and he came across this thing. This ferry or something. And as he came up the hill that. It was hard to get. I think I said, ‘Put your foot down.’ He said, ‘I am,’ he said. Going up the hill he said to me, ‘It’s just about gone. The engine.’ So anywhere we got that, this [unclear] came around. He went all over it. He looked up, he said, ‘Well, there’s a mark on the ceiling.’ And he said, ‘No. I won’t give you eighty. I’ll give you seventy five.’ So we said ok. We got our seventy five. Rushed like mad and got on a bus and went back and went to the very posh hotel. I can’t remember the name again. I was trying to remember it this morning. And we had a night there and spent the whole seventy five [laughs] Oh dear. But so that was the end of our story really but —
AP: So, I might go back and fill in a few gaps. You mentioned a few little bits and pieces that I’ve sort of —
KM: Yeah.
AP: I’ve grabbed hold of there.
KM: Yeah.
AP: You said you met your wife at Cranfield. Can you tell me that story?
KM: Well, I went to Cranfield and that’s as I said where I met Margaret. My wife. And well, no we just, we just carried on with that was Cranfield. I’m forgetting things now but [pause] it was, is it the second one that was at Ouston. Number one. It was, what would you call it? The EFTS or something like that. There was a name for it and then you did all that and then you went to the squadron.
AP: Operational Training Unit perhaps.
KM: Yeah.
AP: OTU.
KM: The word. That’s right.
AP: Yeah.
KM: Yeah. But Cranfield was a lovely station. A peacetime station. And, and we had a beautiful cricket ground there and we had married quarters, you know. You used to go out two story ones and that’s how I met Margaret actually.
AP: Did you get married in the UK?
KM: No. No. She was still in the air force down in Benson near Oxford. And she was still in the air force but we’d gone then from Liverpool back home again. And no, she came out in September 1946. Yeah. And we were married on the 15th of, of November. So we’ll be seventy years married in November.
AP: Wow. Wow. So was she, she was in the WAAF?
KM: Yeah.
AP: What was she doing in the WAAF?
KM: She was one of the managers of the, of the officer’s mess.
AP: Ok. Cool.
KM: Margaret. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Margaret. Cool.
KM: Yeah.
AP: Lovely. You also mentioned something about when you, when you were young. When you were thirteen, I think.
KM: Yeah.
AP: That triplane.
KM: Yeah.
AP: Or the tri motor thing.
KM: Yeah.
AP: Tell me about that.
KM: Well, I don’t know why it came out here but this man was a very experienced pilot. He was a civilian sort of chief sort of thing but, no I always sort of wanted to go into the air force but but that flight it was a lovely day. Went all around the bay and that sort of thing, you know. That’ll do me, you know so, but at that stage was in Russell Street they had the air force sort of recruitment place. But they had enough at that stage and couldn’t take any more you know. In fact another thing. When I went on leave in England I think every six weeks you used to get a leave and that Lady Ryder’s Scheme that said do you want to go to the country or a town? Do you want to play golf or, you know. I said, ‘I want to go to Scotland and I want to play golf,’ and everything else. So anyrate I got up to Aberdeen and I got a train out to a place called Stewartville and I think I’ve got a map there. And I got out and we were with another fellow. This one from Somers, you know who was a navigator with me and there was a horse and cart there and where we were going. He took all the bags and he said, ‘I’ll drive you to the general’s place.’ He was the number one general in the UK at the beginning of the war. A very nice old man he was. And, anyrate, he had, I got it in my photographs in my album there. So, we went there and he welcomed us in. His wife and so forth. At about 5 o’clock or about half past five, it was summertime and he said, ‘Come down and we’ll have something to eat.’ So we had some cookies as they do. And we had to get them out of the cupboard sort of thing and I said to [unclear] ‘Is that all we get for dinner?’ You know [laughs] Never had — what do you call it? High tea. That’s right. High tea. I went upstairs and I wrote a letter to my mother, “This is a very nice place and I’ve got to know a leading general but we don’t have much of a dinner here.” [laughs] And all of a sudden there was a gong went and down we went down. We had jugged hare. I can remember it to this day. But he was a very nice bloke and he understood. He said, ‘Look I’m old and you’re young.’ He said, ‘You want to play golf go to Peterhead.’ He said, ‘You can have a game there.’ So we got on our bikes. And the wind we could hardly get past it. It was just blowing like one thing and we got there and then we were allowed most of the golf clubs that people from abroad would be allowed to play you know. So we got there and he came around and he said, ‘Yes. Well, you can go around here. he said this way we can go out here and I said, ‘I’m a left hand.’ ‘We haven’t got any left handed.’ Oh God [laughs] they’re like that, particularly in Scotland. They didn’t like left handers so we went all the way there and did nothing. So [laughs] but no, there was, in fact he had a brother I think it was. Sir Charles Burnett, I think. Down at Crathes Castle just on the way to Ballater out of Aberdeen. You know, along the river there. And a beautiful castle. We had a lot of pleasure whilst we were there. And he was the chief of the Gordon clan, you know. And in fact part of the castle that he had was used as a hospital for people in from the war. And we went down there. We had lunch down there. And he came [laughs] he had a, he bought a great big bulldog in one day and we were fooling around like this, ‘Come on here,’ and doing this. And he could see the dog wasn’t too pleased about it and Bob like, it bit him on his wrist. He wasn’t too pleased about that either but, but it was a lovely place. They had gardens. There was. They had like a purple one. A yellow one. Green one. Red one. One, two, three, four going down the hill sort of thing. It’s a lovely place. We’ve been back there quite a few times. Crathes Castle. I’ll show you where it is. Have you got a minute?
AP: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I’ll give you a hand if you want.
KM: Yeah. [unclear]
AP: Oh where am I going? Ok. I can go and get it if you want.
KM: In the bottom drawer. On the right hand side there. No. No. No. Back here. Over here. Right hand side on the bottom one. There’s a map there.
AP: “Road Atlas of Great Britain.”
KM: It’s, yeah, that’s right. That’s it. That’s it. Yeah [pause] probably need my bloody glasses.
AP: Where are they?
KM: There. Right on [ pause ]
AP: Here. These ones?
KM: No. That’ll do. Yeah.
AP: That’ll do.
KM: I’ve got one. Another one. When I’m here it’s always over there so I’ve got two of them. That story. There’s Aberdeen. We went up here to — I’d better get this one but there’s Peterhead there. That’s about there this. The [unclear] yeah. Going out from there but what’s that? ’83.
[Pause. Pages turning]
KM: It’s been a marvellous book this one. I’ve kept it all those years.
[pause]
KM: There.
AP: Ah yes.
KM: Aberdeen. Went up in a train. Up here I guess. Stewartville. There we are. We went from there in a horse and cart. About there. That’s where he lived. About there. So, and then we got on our bike. Went to Peterhead there but no, there isn’t a station there but no I know quite a bit about Scotland. I’ve been about seven times now.
AP: Lovely.
KM: I’ll show you where Ford is.
[pause]
AP: Oh yeah. There’s Beachy Head there. Yeah.
KM: Yeah. Beachy Head. There’s a marvellous spot there. And living about here I think [pages turning] [unclear] See there’s Brighton and, and you see that’s a lady down there. She was at, she lived at Carshalton which is up towards London and she was, we used to stay with her. She had two hundred and fifty seven colonials. Australian, Canadians and that sort of thing at her house during the war. She was a marvellous lady, and anyrate at Carshalton Beeches two storey place. And the buzz bombs used to come over and she was out putting clothes on the line, and had a big fig tree there near the clothes line and she could hear the buzz bomb brrrrrr like this and didn’t worry to peg the things out. All of a sudden the sound finished. So she went for her life towards her dugout down there with steps on it and just got to the top and bang it landed in the back yard and blew all the leaves off the tree. And blew her down to her dugout down there. And she was bruised and that sort of thing. But it moved the house about a foot you know. So they had to move out of that and went down to Seaford. Down here. But she was a marvellous woman because she took it all in her stride. I would say [pause] Littlehampton. [Pause. Pages turning] Here’s Brighton. Came down to Worthing. Little Hampton. Now there’s Arundel. That’s where the big castle is. Played the first game of cricket there. Inside that thing is a cricket ground in there. And we used to have dances in his dining room once every a month you know. Because he knew, he knew the queen as a matter of fact. He was a cousin or something. But, but we used to ride down here. We used to have a swim down there. And but there were barbed wire along there as well but and our ground station was at Angmering, that’s right Angmering, that’s it. About there. That’s our ground station there and Ford was just, you just crossed the railway line there and just about there. That’s where the aerodrome was. There. That’s it.
AP: Oh yeah. I can see it says Ford there. Yeah.
KM: Yeah. Yeah. But, and then, and then we had [laughs] used to play cricket down at Middleton Sports Club. There’s a cricket ground down there and 456 had a — I’ve got something about that over there. I’ll show you my book later on but we beat them down there. You probably don’t know about Charlie Kunz. A marvellous pianist. He was a Yank who came to Britain before the war and stayed on. He used to have a programme on the BBC. Playing the piano. It was called, “The Hot and the Cold.” He used to play softly and then louder. Softly and louder. Very nice. But he had a son who played in a team against us. He was only about seventeen I think and the fellow that opened the bowling was the captain of the other side. His name was, I’ve got it over there. He played for England actually and a medium fast bowler and I opened up with another fellow and he got three wickets or something straightaway but I stayed on. I made fifty. And I dropped one a bit short note went bang. Was almost six. This young kid stuck his hand out and caught it. He came in after the, after the match. Very nice clubhouse there. Two storey place with two squash courts there. And he said, he came and he said, ‘Would you boys,’ Don Darling and myself, ‘Would you like to go and see my father?’ And I said, ‘Who’s your father?’ He said, ‘He’s a pianist. He’s at the Hippodrome at Brighton.’ So he said, and he gave us the tickets and everything. So we went to see and that’s the first time I heard beautiful piece. Fairly old, you know. It was getting a bit grey. And at any rate the lead at the Hippodrome with Arthur Askey. Do you remember Arthur Askey? He was a comedian, you know. Little fellow. And he had a, he had on a stage. He was in front of it. Behind it I think a ladies toilet like that and he came on and he said, ‘I’ll now play for you, “By the waterfall,” you know [laughs] Oh dear. That was a good night. So anyrate we had we got quite friendly with his son and I went over there one day and I wrote a letter to him and he was back in London by that time. But he got an OBE because he — I think he might be dead now I think because he wasn’t too well the last time I got a card from him, you know. But yeah so that’s about the end of my story I think.
AP: I’m sure there’s more in it. What, what other things did you get up to while you were on leave in England?
KM: Well, it all came back and said, ‘If you want to go to this places. This is a beautiful spot,’ kind of thing. So this fellow by the name Luke. Luke I think. He came from Tasmania. He went, ‘Oh you ought to go. He’s got four cars. He’d got two squash courts, he said he’s got a cricket ground and he’s got a three storey house.’ I said, ‘Well we’ll go to that.’ I got one of my brothers to go there. Mr [unclear] — he had a brewery in the east of London. Mr — God, I’m forgetting names. Old fellow with a moustache, you know. And Mr [pause] he had a younger wife and he had gout and I said to him one day, ‘Do you mind if my brother,’ who was in the navy, ‘Comes up to see me?’ ‘Oh no. that’s ok. He can come up.’ So anyrate he came over and he stayed the night. And he had a butler as well. He used to come and say , ‘Your bath is ready, sir.’ You know [laughs] I forget his name. This was very posh this place. His wife was very nice. And one night we were having dinner one night and he used to sit at the top of the table there, I was here and she was over there and she said, ‘I’ll bring the grandchild in now to say goodnight to him. He came and said goodnight to him and when she went out of the room he went down and he had a whicker sort of thing. Almost to the table. Opened it up and he had a gin or something with like this [ laughs] pushed it back before his wife came in. But it was a lovely place. I stayed there about a week, you know. I don’t know whether you know about Bill Edrich . He was the opening bat for the English Test Team. Came out to Australia in 1946 I think. And he was a flight lieutenant in the air force and his father was the manager of the estate where this Mr what was his name? I can’t think of his name but anyway when he stayed at his estate he he had an aerodrome on one part of his estate. A Yank aerodrome. And across the road was a place called [unclear] I think it was. And the fella in there was, came from Lancashire and he was a sir something. Sir Humphrey. Sir Humphrey his name was and he owned quite a bit of Lancashire up there. I think the, the Yorkshire ground was one, was on his land as a matter of fact and [laughs] we had, we had a pheasant shoot down at the one I was staying at. And they had all the men in the estate going beating to the, to get the pheasant out you know. Going around like that. He had to get in turn. He said, shoot when I, when you want them to fly. Bang. Knock one down. At any rate we both knocked one down and Humphrey, you know, Sir Humphrey [unclear] and this this fella from Tasmania, ‘Come on Humphrey. Come on. Get one,’ you know. Took him about five shots to get one. We didn’t know he was Sir Humphrey. Whatever. And he was the one we stayed with. His wife said, ‘I’d like to introduce Sir Humphrey.’ So we found out he was Sir Humphrey. So, but yeah but that lady, Lady Ryder used to do it for everybody. You could go down to to Devon or, I went down to to Predannack. Right down at the end of England. Right down. Right down there. In fact 456 were going to go down there but they didn’t go. Somebody else took our place I think. So that’s how they came to Ford actually. From there. That’s about all I think.
AP: A couple more questions. A couple more questions. So you, we haven’t spoken that much about your operational side of things. What you actually did as a navigator and a radar operator. Did you have, in the — well first of all what sort of trips were you actually doing in the Mosquitoes?
KM: Intruder trips. We used to go usually quite often on a bright moonlight night you know and yeah, you’d go up and down their, what do you call their roads again. Not the freeways. Anyrate you could see them to go like that. Two or three of our fellas used to see a train, you know. You could see that when they opened it with the coke or something in there. And they were sitting ducks. They used to go down and knock them off. We didn’t see any of those but Ron Lytton who lives, used to live out near Essendon and — how long have you been out there Adam?
AP: Three years now.
KM: Oh no. He’s probably dead about ten. He was a, he was a plumber out there. And his, his and he’s still alive actually Geoff Reeves was his pilot. A very good pilot and he knocked over about two trains I think, you know. But we used to do those things. Anything we could see. And the Arnhem. You know the one bridge too far. We were on that day. It was foul night. God it was blowing like mad, you know. And we got on to there was one in front of us. I could see one and I said to Mac, ‘Turn left,’ you know,’ And drop height,’ and everything like that. And then as he went around and around and we were behind him going there there and there and he, Mac my pilot, he said, ‘I think he must be one of ours,’ he said because we could turn inside a JU88. You know, get in beside him. He said, what about it? He said what was our call sign [pause] oh God I’ve forgotten that but he called out, ‘Is that one of our crowd?’ He said, ‘Yeah B,’ he said [laughs] and he said, ‘I’ve been chasing you,’ he said. ‘No. You’ve got the wrong one.’ So, but, but on Arnhem the [pause] oh yeah. We had a fellow called Woodhouse or we called him Woody as a matter of fact who was a leading ground controller. And they ,they took him over and they were going to parachute him down and then and he had some, a glider or something there put down what he needed to contact us in the air. So anyway he got down there but the Germans were waiting for him. Grabbed him, you know. So, so we never got any call about the Germans at all in the air. But, but we went up to, to Arnhem. Now, what happened there? Oh that’s right. As I say terrible weather. So we were going along and got St Elmo’s Fire. Have you heard about that? All along the wings. What’s going on here? You know. Anyway, we got out of that. But anyroad we got off course and everything else. We didn’t do much about that but after doing that chasing that bloke and this thing I didn’t know exactly where I was. And going home to England Mac said, ‘Well, where are we now?’ I said, ‘Well, about the time we went home now I think.’ I said, ‘Just go to the west. We’ll get to England someway.’ So in fact we got up to The Wash, you know. And we were down at Ford you know. In fact we started our flight at Manston which is down, down in Kent. Down there. It’s a very big aerodrome. Three runways you know. So big aircraft down that one. The middle one was ok. Anyone in trouble be on the right hand one. But we got, when I got back we were at The Wash which was probably about a hundred miles up to the north. And we turned down. I said to Mac, ‘Turn down south again.’ We got down there and then the, the, what was it? He couldn’t get the wheels down or something. The hydraulics didn’t work. So I had to get down and I had to pump it myself. I finally got them out after about half an hour but so we landed back there. So, but that was quite a night actually. But I’ve seen that. We’ve seen that film about one bridge too far.
AP: I haven’t seen it but I am aware of it.
KM: It’s very good.
AP: [unclear] Yeah.
KM: How did I get it? I don’t know where I’ve got it. It was over there. It had all the well-known actors in that one. Sean Connery’s in it and a lot of them. It’s a very good film actually. But I went to see it too as a matter of fact. There’s a bridge over the, where the they stopped the Germans actually there. But I went over to Normandy with a friend of mine. A cousin of Margaret’s actually. And they’ve got a sort of a museum there as well but there’s— have you ever been to Normandy?
AP: I have.
KM: Yeah.
AP: I have yeah. I spent a few years over there so —
KM: We went together and was over. And that was good too.
AP: But you said you missed Normandy because you were in a training programme.
KM: Yeah [unclear] on that but —
AP: What did, what did you think of the Mosquito?
KM: Beautiful. Nothing wrong with it at all, you know. I said that Don McLennan said the Halifax went, loaded up went to the left and then the right, you know. This went straight down. A very good pilot Mac. Once we were going down I used to go, he would drop it down. H would just go [unclear] very good. He was a good pilot Mac. Poor old Mac. He died probably about twenty years ago. He had Parkinsons Disease you know. I think it might have been all the beer he drank.
AP: How did you find adjusting to civilian life after the war?
KM: Eh?
AP: How did you find adjusting to civilian life after the war?
KM: I didn’t mind it. I I went into work. I was still in uniform. I didn’t have a suit. And Malcolm Roberts said to me, ‘Do you want to come back to work?’ And I said, ‘Oh yes,’ you know. And he gave me five pounds worth of salary [laughs] per week. And so I went to a place in, in Flinders Lane. He was one of our clients and I went in there and strangely enough he was the son of the chief there. Wade. You know. Evan Wade. And Terry Wade is over here in Doncaster. He’s still alive as a matter of fact. His wife’s dead unfortunately. But anyway so I did work there and I went back and forth until about 1948. Then I became a chartered accountant then. I went to RMIT to finish my course and so after a while he said to me, ‘Do you want to come over and be the secretary up here?’ So I went home and said to my wife what about — I’m not quite sure about it but anyway decided to give it a go and I was there for twenty one years. So, well worth it. So was that about it?
AP: Any, any final thoughts on your air force service?
KM: Eh?
AP: Any final thoughts on your air force service?
KM: No. No.
AP: What you got out of it.
KM: No. I got the, I got the Legion of Honour over there.
AP: Oh excellent.
KM: Yeah. But that was, that came later on, you know.
AP: Of course.
KM: But it was mostly the intruder trips that are as I say we’ve got the lady up in Canberra and had them all put down where I went to and that sort of thing. And then I was surprised to get it but I’ve got it over there as a matter of fact. You see the one, the blue one there on the [unclear]
AP: This one here.
KM: Pop it on there. My sister did that for me. Take the top one. That one. Yeah.
AP: Oh yeah.
KM: That’s it.
[pause]
KM: Is that? Is that —
AP: Oh this is the presentation is it?
KM: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
KM: That’s [unclear]
AP: Yeah. I see that.
KM: That’s the man who put them on. He gave you a big hug [laughs]
AP: Of course because he’s French. I see Gerald there as well.
KM: Yeah. Yeah. Gerald. Funny. He came in the same day as I. His son came out of Norway for it.
AP: Fantastic.
KM: But yeah. But — yeah.
AP: Alright. Well —
KM: Well —
AP: Well, I think we’re done. Thank you very much.
KM: Thanks Adam. It’s very good of you to come all this way.
AP: Oh it’s alright. I love it.
KM: [unclear]
AP: I really do. I’ll just turn the recording off.
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 Kenneth William Munro
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Purcell
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
2016-05-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMunroKW160522
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:25:28 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Austria
Austria--Linz
Canada
England--Bedfordshire
England--Northumberland
England--Sussex
France
Great Britain
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands
Netherlands
Netherlands--Arnhem
Victoria
Victoria--Mornington Peninsula
Victoria--Mount Martha
Western Australia
Western Australia--Bunbury
Western Australia--Busselton
Western Australia--Geraldton
Western Australia--Moora
Description
An account of the resource
Ken was a 456 Squadron Mosquito navigator. He initially joined the Army’s Victorian Scottish regiment but changed to the Royal Air force. He was selected to be a navigator and sailed to Canada. Ken did a course at Edmonton and was made an officer. He then sailed back to Scotland and went down to Brighton. After undertaking a new course on radar, he went to RAF Ouston to learn how to operate it. He flew in Ansons and Beaufighters before going to Cranfield to fly Wellingtons. Ken met his wife there, a Women's Auxiliary Air Force who managed the officers’ mess. He was due to join Bomber Command but eventually became night fighters aircrew and joined 456 Squadron. Ken was stationed at RAF Ford.
Ken describes how he met his pilot. They initially shot down V-1s flying Mosquitoes. They went to northern France and did cross countries. Ken missed D-Day as he was training on Mark 10 radar at RAF Twinwood Farm. They did intruder raids. He describes going to Linz and Linz and their encounters with fighters. His squadron, along with another Mosquito squadron, were sent to the Channel Islands and was instrumental in the surrender German forces stationed there on 9th May 1945.
Ken was a recipient of Lady Ryder’s Dominion and Allied Services Hospitality Scheme and describes some of the hospitality and leisure pursuits he experienced.
After the war, Ken received the Legion of Honour.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Temporal Coverage
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1945
456 Squadron
85 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Beaufighter
love and romance
Mosquito
navigator
Pippo
radar
RAF Cranfield
RAF Ford
RAF Ouston
RAF Twinwood Farm
training
V-1
V-weapon