1
25
104
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/530/25816/MShawSR3002545-160211-040001.1.jpg
b06b5cbf120138bc7a6cb0efa5c21821
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/530/25816/MShawSR3002545-160211-040002.1.jpg
2c6f4bb89b3e26350f6fabd4ff47b72d
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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Shaw, Stanley R
S R Shaw
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Shaw, SR
Description
An account of the resource
37 items. An oral history interview with Stanley Shaw (3002545 Royal Air Force) Photographs, documents and his log book. He served with a Repair and Salvage Unit and attended many crashes. He later served in North Africa and the Middle East.
The collection also contains two photograph albums; one of his RAF service and one of his time in a cycle club.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Stanley Shaw and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-14
2016-02-11
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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Stan Shaw's Air Training Corps Membership Card
Description
An account of the resource
A membership card issued to Stan Shaw by the Borrowash Flight 1117 Squadron.
Creator
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1117 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-07-02
Format
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One double sided printed card with handwritten annotations
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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MShawSR3002545-160211-040001, MShawSR3002545-160211-040002
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Derby
England--Derbyshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/830/10718/E[Author]WilsonJH440408-0001.jpg
7595b1eb8acfe185b63780dc4645dd2a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/830/10718/E[Author]WilsonJH440408-0002.jpg
429bae6810c9565332e01777fdda8888
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
Fuller, Frank Tilden
F T Fuller
Description
An account of the resource
19 items. Sergeant Frank Fuller was the rear gunner on a 7 Squadron Lancaster captained by Squadron Leader C H Wilson, Distinguished Flying Cross, which was shot down during operations to Nuremberg on 3/31 March 1944. Collection consists of letters to Mrs Wilson, the captain's wife, from the parents of other crew members and official sources after crew reported missing. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Maurice Burl and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /><span>Additional information on Frank Fuller is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/209870">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Fuller, FT
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[crest]
No. 7 Squadron,
R.A.F. Station,
Oakington,
Cambridge.
8th April, 1944.
Dear Mrs. Wilson,
Thank you for your letter of 4th April. I am enclosing a list of your husband’s crew and their next of Kin.
You will be informed immediately any news is received which I sincerely hope will be in the near future.
I should be pleased if you would confirm that correspondence addressed to 2, Kensington Grove, Denton, will find you or whether you have permanently moved to Chapel-en-le-Frith.
Yours sincerely
[signature]
Mrs J. H.Wilson,
Greyfriars,
Chapel-en-le-Frith.
[page break]
NAVIGATOR:- Sgt. J.Stevens 1456987 R.C
Next of Kin:- Father
Mr. D.W.Stevens
Carlton Grange,
Hope Nr.Wrexham- N.W.
AIR BOMBER:- F/O J.S.Ferrier J.23366
Next of Kin:- Father
Doctor Gordon Ferrier
167,Church Street
Mimico- Ontario – Canada
WIRELESS OP. Sgt. K.G.Francis 1387022 C/E
Next of Kin:- Father
Mr. J.Francis
65, Winchelsea Road,
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Mrs J. H. Wilson from 7 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to Mrs J. H. Wilson from 7 Squadron enclosing a list of next of kin for her husband’s crew and requesting confirmation of her address.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
7 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-04-08
Format
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Two photocopied sheets, two page typewritten letter
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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E[Author]WilsonJH440408
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lancashire
England--Manchester
England--Chapel-en-le-Frith
England--Derbyshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-04-08
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
7 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
missing in action
navigator
RAF Oakington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/248/3396/ADownesS160806.1.mp3
ed272f76a7ad055f3dc1f08217bda59c
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
Downes, Steven
Steven Downes
S Downes
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Steven Downes (430647 Royal Australian Air Force).
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Steven Downes 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
2016-08-06
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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Downes, S
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SD: Can I take you back to the word go. I always wanted to join the air force and at sixteen joined the Empire Training Course subsidiary. Air Training Corps it was called, at sixteen. So we stayed going to school, high school until I was eighteen. Then went into the air force and more or less did all the elementary things again back at Bradfield Park when we went there. So that’s my story starts.
AP: That’s where it starts. Alright.
SD: 1943.
AP: So this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Steve Downes who was a wireless operator.
SD: Correct.
AP: In Bomber Command during World War Two. It is the 6th of August 2016. The interview is taking place in Steve’s place, at Steve’s house at Preston Bay.
SD: Thornbury.
AP: Thornbury. I was close. North. It’s all the same.
SD: North Thornbury actually.
AP: My name’s Adam Purcell and we may as well start from the beginning Steve if you don’t mind. Can you tell me something of what you were doing before the war?
SD: I was, I was working as a wages clerk at Raymond’s in Collingwood. Webbs of Abbotsford. And I was just doing the wages clerks there every, every week. [unclear] back in those days. And we had I was set up wages clerk for the whole factory. And this was a good, a pressured job. I had to get it right every every Thursday night to collect the money on the, on the Friday morning and then put it in envelopes. So that was my start as a, before that I’d been, worked in a [pause ] a roustabout boy if you like in a mercers office shop in [indecipherable] Then I went to Raymond’s. I was apprentice devil there. Ordered all the paper for the purchase and finally I got up to be the clerk in the wages department. And eventually when the men there went into the army I moved up as the chief. So that’s briefly how I started off. And from there I went to — in Sydney. I went to Bradfield Park and did a two month course there testing the [pause] the skills of of mass of aircraft reconnaissance [unclear] Drill. Lots of drill. A few games of basketball which I’ve never seen down here. Of course in New South Wales it was rugby as far as they was concerned. That didn’t grab me at all. It wasn’t football. It was running ball. I got through that alright. Went up to — came home. Oh God. No, we didn’t come home. Went to Parkes in the middle of New South Wales. We were there for a few months training as a wireless operator. Well, I had done some Morse code back as a trainee in the Air Training Corps. It was still hard to get but eventually it twigged. I mean twigged. But two fellows I always, they both failed. One was, he’d been a leaving certificate. Me, I was a Melbourne High School boy. Only got as far as year ten. And so those two chaps went to England as air gunners because they didn’t qualify as a radio operator. So being a wireless air gunner here in Australia worth really both jobs up north. They sent me off to England which was where I wanted to go in the first place. So I ended up over there. Again more, more training. And one of the tricks as I’m trying to remember is we were down on the promenade outside the Metropole Hotel or the Grand. I’m not sure which one was now, hotel in Brighton and we were taken out every morning. Morning drill by a guardsman. A former guardsman. Anyway, he gave us the changing step on the march. What a mess it was. Everyone did it differently. We didn’t do any good. Everyone laughed at us. I say most people laughed because I couldn’t help myself for laughing because it was so ridiculous and I was only nineteen. So it was all a game. It was. And from there we went up on leave in Wolverhampton. We were there with some people for three weeks or two weeks. Two weeks. Then back to Brighton. And because D-Day was about to start which we didn’t know but we knew it was coming. Something would be coming up. We were put back to a staging camp not far from Wolverhampton [pause] No, no. Yeah. A staging camp. All of us. So here we were. About a hundred or three hundred of us all stuck there. Nothing’s happening because there were four lots of aircrew there and we, while we were there they sent us off on a course up at North Shields and we did some shooting on a range with a Sten gun and also gave us a [pause] we were in, we were in these, these acquired houses. No. Acquired is the wrong word. Something like that. Acquired houses. And from there we went on a game, or I call it a game because we were all supposed to group as a group supposed to get to the final part by means of various pickups and all that sort of thing. Find, find the [pause] what? Yeah. Just find the place where finalising was happening. I said that before we started, ‘Do you want to win this?’ I said. They said yes. So we commandeered a car, and the lady there took us in a car to the next point and the rest came along in a bus. And I [unclear] the next, cabbed to the next place and we were also going on a bus there and some, some of them were riding on the back of hay carts. Another air group who were on the bus. From there we had to walk over the fields to the final meeting place and we went there. We went there. Which was good because we took this two groups at the second last meeting place. So we took off from there in a group across the fields, bulls not withstanding, went across the fields, over the gates. And we went straight as if going around the quick way. So we went. We got there before the other crowd. So we were the first there.
SD: Was that an escape sort of exercise was it or —
AP: Yes. Or seeing if you could map read. All that sort of thing you see. So we did that. Went back to North Shields by bus or we marched back. I don’t think we did. I can’t remember that now. So yes. And from there we went back to [pause] North Shields. I can’t remember. We went back to where I was. Met a chap there. I’d been dancing and I came back home walking across the street and it was his street. He came up behind me and said, ‘Would you like some supper?’ I said, ‘Yeah. I’d like some supper.’ So it was an experience. All this was at initial training but no sign of the staging. We were just waiting. So I met a girl there. [unclear] he invited me into his home to have bacon and eggs, I know it was something like that which was a big deal back then. It was all rations and everything. So she played the piano because I was invited back for dinner. She played the piano then. She’s since died. She went back to Malaysia. Her boyfriend was in the foreign [pause] foreign what’s the right word. The scope of doing some work in Malaysia. Probably to do with rubber. I can’t remember now because I never met him. Anyway, she took a girlfriend with her when we went to the movies so that was good. So eventually we went from there back to Brighton. And I was in 38 course and I think we were, I ended up with 41 course. I got three courses when I studying for the Morse code but I picked up my pass and passed through and that served me alright. I liked that. Eventually the radio went alright. I eventually acquired a bit of a skill to operate it. Not at any great speed but just operating. And from there we were [pause] oh yes we were sent to a place called Halfpenny Green. And that was where that lady in the hotel charged the duke of [pause] one of the dukes, there was a war going on so she fed all the horses at a halfpenny each. That was the thing. Different to Ireland. They’ve got a bridge there. Halfpenny Bridge. So there we were. It seemed like, to be about four months we were there I think. And we finally, having passed the course we were due to come home at Christmas ’43 and because we would have been on a train overnight I organised a taxi and there was five of us in a taxi. We reached Cootamundra the night before. Caught the train down so I was home for Christmas. There was, all this was all pre-Bomber Command but still. I went from home for three or four days leave or something like that. Then up to Sale to do the gunnery side of it. No dancing there. It was all fields and not many girls. So the dancing had to wait until I got back to, to Melbourne and off to England. So what are we up to? Ok. We were at, we were a long while at Church — no. Church Broughton. Yes it was. Church Broughton where we crewed up. We went to Glenfield Park first which was Lichfield. Lichfield. Where I got another uniform because I’d worn the bottom out of mine. I was at [pause] what do you call it? Where is the nearest to Park? Church Broughton, as a crew and from there we — we were at Lichfield first. Then we transferred to a satellite airfield for Lichfield. We spent a lot of time there skilling up to four engine aircraft. Big ones. Not the, not the Avro Ansons that we’d been flying which the wings flapped as you went. And I spent a lot of time there. And then we went to Bottesford. Bottesford was where we had our first trip was by Lancaster from there out across the North Sea. We had an experienced pilot familiarising our flight. This Scotty. Scotty. Our pilot. Well, Lachie was our pilot and all the others were there except the engineer. So we sort of got a little bit of time on Lancasters there. Not long because the war was going on. They were marching up through into, into, up through France. Up and through Belgium then. So we were pretty free of any danger coming up from the ground like. We were told not to fly over there. It was still risky. And so we were in Church Broughton [pause] That’s my son Adam. Adam. Meet Adam. Two Adams.
[recording paused]
SD: Where am I up to?
AP: Where were we? We were at Church Broughton I think.
SD: Church Broughton. Then we went to Bottesford, and from Bottesford we did a lot more flying from there as a, as a crew. And I was there and then the war finished [laughs] So we were there, fully trained, nowhere to go. So they said everyone goes on leave. We went for a fortnight’s leave and by that time I’d met a girl. I was in their home quite a bit of time. Being a wireless operator I guess you were sitting in a little closed off section. You couldn’t see out. You didn’t see a thing. There was no window. You just sat there and looked at a screen, and what they call listening out for signals coming through. And just going out on these training trips. From there we went out again to various places. Around England mostly. One of the, one of the trips home, so my pilot tells me, he didn’t tell us because he was told not to tell us we were followed in by a German night fighter. And the, the [unclear] the reason about this, it was dangerous, and the base phoned through by telegraph to the, and said, ‘We’re being followed.’ Before he finished the message about we were being followed they said, ‘Ten thousand feet, angels high. Get out of it’ In other words get away. So that was one of those night fighters that were coming over and shooting down planes coming in to land when they were most at a disadvantage because everyone is tired and all that sort of thing. So we got down alright from there. But the war finished. And that was before the war finished. Now, all this time I’d been to lots of dances. A lot of the fellas were going to the pubs. I didn’t like the pubs. I wasn’t a drinker. I was happy with cups of tea at home. Anyway, yeah I went to [unclear] and met another girl. And her father was a policeman. I didn’t know at the time but it didn’t take him long before I knew he was a policeman. And I used to spend some nights there. This is way back at Church Broughton. Some nights there. I got to know the son there and the mum and dad. I was, I was made very welcome there which suited me because I was a home bloke. I wasn’t a fly by night fella. I didn’t go to many dances there. I know I went to a village one before I met this girl. Anyway, when the war finished and had to go on leave I went back there for leave which was alright. Now, as far as experiences now back to the air force days. The main one was that following by the fighter, night fighters. There were various other times when we were lucky as we were training. I was taken out by [pause] we were training in the Morse code. We were training flying so that navigators being acclimatized and we got lost one night. I didn’t know anything about it until the plane went there. We went through a hole in a clouds. We went through the hole and found out where it was. The pilot. We were over Wales and he recognised the big mountain there. I knew they were there, they came back when he came back he wasn’t he couldn’t get the wireless to operate. His wireless as it were. He couldn’t get that to work. So I used the Morse code and got us down from ten thousand, a thousand, that’s right ten thousand, brought us down to a thousand through the cloud to where the field was. So we landed alright there eventually. So again we were out of that. And mostly we were there over Christmas. Over Christmas ’44 that would be. I got on my bike and rode up to people that used to be in Australia at their home for Christmas Day. After Christmas Day I rode my bike about eighteen miles. I got on my bike and rode all the way up there to Flint in North Wales. And from Flint I went to a dance there. Where he was, the son, selling the house sale. Now, other experiences are mostly wrapped around not very big experience in the aircraft. Mostly off, off the aircraft on the ground. And nothing exciting happened except my dancing and keeping fit. Oh we played soccer over there and basketball and down in the field [unclear] and of course they were fields, not paddies. No. I can’t tell you much more than that. Rocky, our — for the formation of the crew for me was most significant. We were, there was about a dozen of us. We were in our training place not far from Wolverhampton. Not far from Stourbridge. And we, yeah [pause] So we did the Morse code to get, to get us back down. What else?
AP: Can you tell me —
SD: Oh Lachie. Yeah. Lachie. That arose when we went to Lichfield as a group. We were in the crew in Lichfield and we did a bit of drill there did a little bit of waiting around and we then paraded for selection of a crew. So there was twelve of us and each one of the pilots picked up a fellow as a, as a, as a navigator, a bomb aimer and I was a wireless air gunner but I didn’t have to fit that because I had two, eventually had two. A mid-upper and a rear gunner in, in the Lichfield and we were meant to be selecting a pilot. The pilot selected us. There was a group of pilots come down along the line and I was the last on the end of this line. So Lachie had never picked anyone and he was, he was left with me [laughs] So that was my luck. I get Lachie. My pilot was Lachie McBean and we spent about [pause] no we didn’t go on any air flights from there. Yes we did. We flew Stirlings. Big aircraft. A big tail. Stirling. From there we went to Church Broughton. There we were on our up to a point. Always had the radio to get us out trouble. And we did some long flights from [pause] no. Lichfield. Which one. From Bottesford. We had some long flights from Bottesford. Overnight. Mostly night flying because we were Bomber Command. Night flying. And from the night flying we had a few scares in as much as we got lost once that I didn’t know about. We were followed in. Because I’m in this little cubicle I didn’t know what was going on. All the others knew because he was on touch with base on his radio telephone and was told he had ten thousand and that was involved with flying Lancasters. The best time was had with Lancasters, at that time was the most beautiful aircraft I’d flown in. It was a lovely four big powerful Rolls Royce engines. I thought it was great. But then I was sitting there nothing to see. Once I was going on a long trip I got up out of the, out of my seat and where the radio equipment was and I got the mid-upper, the mid-upper gunner to swap places in as much as he didn’t have the radio but I did. But as I got up there and had a look outside. Only time I did with the big crew but fired a few shots way over a field. Just so as I’d fired a gun. Once anyway.
AP: Yeah.
SD: And so that was about my experience. We were sent on leave and we were told while we were off the station get a job. Something I could have when I went back to Australia. Well clerical works was still operated by the ladies and women. Fellows like me didn’t get a job that was permanent. So I ended up getting a job working in a brewery there in Derby. A brewery. And what we were doing was rolling barrels around but we had a morning tea of beer. We had an afternoon tea of beer [laughs] had a lunchtime too if you wanted it. So that was an experience. So afterwards the war was finished by then and some of us men were coming back home. Our crew had broken up. Lachie went one way. When we were at a place near Bottesford we had to throw away our flying gear out in a pile. Getting rid of our flying gear. So we went on leave and I was home with this family. At that stage I was going to bring her home, we hadn’t married but I was going to get her out to Australia afterwards. Well when I got back to Australia Australian girls were different to English girls and — but father had said to me before I left, ‘Don’t bring home an English bride.’ I’d forgotten all about that. So there we had leave there. Went back in November to [pause] where? Warrington. That’s where we were. First station camp. I think we were there. From there we went to Brighton in a big group. They wanted to bring us home to Australia on the Orion. The SS Orion. A big ship. Now, we were taken aboard and our quarters were over the top of mess tables. And they said, ‘You can sleep in the mess or you can sleep on the floor.’ We had officers saying, ‘Don’t stay. It’s not good.’ So we didn’t stay. So it was a bit of a rebellion if you like. A passive one because all, everyone was outside. Everyone who wanted to stay was outside on the wharf. And we there two in a group overnight. We slept on the train or played. The die hards played with the dice. Whatever the dice were. I forget now. And they went through this. Ok. Eventually we went to, I was coming home. At one point we went from Australia, this is coming back now in March ’44. We travelled from Brisbane. We got off at Brisbane. They put us on an American Liberty ship and took us very far down the coast of Australia below New Zealand I’m sure and it was cool, and up the coast. Took us a fortnight to get to San Francisco. We arrived there on the, this was 1944, we were on the, on the wharf in San Francisco. They welcomed, the American band welcomed the Australians there with a [unclear] A story I’d never heard myself before, [unclear] and do si do, a simple memory thing. We travelled over America for five days. We had three days in New York and then went on the Queen Elizabeth to England. We travelled across to Glasgow but we must have gone up to Greenland. Some of our fellows went up on the top deck manning the machine guns up on the top. I didn’t know if they I reckoned I couldn’t shoot much, I suppose. I didn’t end up there. Anyway we got to England. We travelled down. We went to, actually we travelled to Gourock in, just out of Glasgow and then come back down to Brighton by train overnight. And that was a long trip. So we ended up in Brighton overnight. That was earlier on, before all this happened. Anyway, having come back we come back to Brighton. We were going, we were on leave again for a fortnight. And we were brought back to Brighton and eventually put on the [pause] do you know I can forget that. The Stirling Castle. One of the Castle liner ships. Other people had been brought back by the Durban Castle about a month before us. We were on the Stirling Castle and the Orion of course came back to England because something happened to the engines in the Bay of Biscay and they came back. So all the fellas were supposed to go on the trip back on the Orion. Well those Stirling Castle ships, some of the ships came around the Cape through Durban, South Africa. We came through the Mediterranean. We picked up a whole swathe of New Zealanders. Army. They were army fellows. And they must have been down in the hold because we were on decks up on the ship to come home. So it was a seven, seven week trip. Or a six week. I can’t remember now. And we dropped off at Perth. And from Perth where we caught the train from Fremantle into Perth for six hours and back again to catch the ship home. All this is peripheral, got on the ship to Melbourne and all the people from South Australia got off there with us at Melbourne. And my mother and father and my big brother who was a big tall guy arrived on the Station Pier. They were late. They’d been walking on the wharf itself. Other people were up in the, high up in the observation part. A lot of people were up there yelling and screaming. Yeah. Waving. And there was my mum and dad and my uncle and they were late which suited us, suited the party, so. They saw me eventually. I threw my hat down to say. Well there used to be as saying if you threw your hat in your, and it wasn’t thrown out, you were welcome. That was an English trait. And then I came home. And going back to Lachie. We sort of broke up from Bottesford. We all disappeared. The crew disappeared. All different ways. We had two English fellas. Two English fellas went back to, to where they play tennis. They went there, another chap went home to Gloucester. The other two were Scots. They went back to Scotland. Oh [unclear] so that’s about me in the air force I think. About all I can remember. I was not, not real big stuff at all.
AP: There’s, there’s plenty in there.
SD: Yeah.
AP: One thing you mentioned a lot were dances.
SD: Yeah. Right.
AP: Can you tell us some more about the dances in England?
SD: Oh yes. Yeah. Well as much the same as here.
AP: Well, I’ve never been to a dance in the 1940s but you have.
SD: Oh yeah. Well back in those days that was, it was the modern waltz, the foxtrot, a faster dance. And then there was an English dance. You could dance with a whole load of people. You had to know where you were going because you had to do the same thing. You were going backwards and forwards. So that was, that was great because you know it suited me. It was just something I could do and I enjoyed. And of course I had the English ones. I can’t remember now. No. I can’t remember. So yeah, so I enjoyed the dances that I went to. And mostly they were a small group of musicians. It was never played over the radio. It was all by three or more. Went to Derby a couple of times, a few times and stayed overnight in one of the places. So I’d go there on a Saturday, down Saturday night go back to the bed and breakfast in a big place. And the next morning go back to, on a Sunday go back to Church Broughton back then. So yeah dancing was something I enjoyed. [door sliding open] Yes thank you. You want coffee? Tea?
AP: Tea would be nice actually.
SD: Yeah. I used to be in the tax office after the war. Eventually the tax office. I was over there because I had cups of tea. No milk. No sugar. I was welcome because I wasn’t using any part of their —
AP: [unclear]
SD: Would you like a bit of [unclear]
AP: Say again?
SD: Would you like a bit of life into it?
AP: Yeah. That’s alright. Give it a moment.
SD: Yeah. Sorry yes. As I said there were girls there. Even though there were a lot of Americans were around they didn’t go to the same dances I went to. So I was fortunate that way so I always had a girl to dance with. Oh yes, one experiences they were the [emphasis] experiences of my trip over there was we’re at Lichfield. And we’d gone in to town to, to the go to the pubs. From the pubs I was going to the dance. I’d had a couple of drinks down in the pubs then went to the dance hall. Or the big hall. As it turned out there were a lot of girls there. I paid my money and walked in. I looked at all these girls all around. They had seats all the way around. I’m the only fella there. So I walked in and they started playing the music. No one got up to dance. Oh this is silly. I came for a dance. So I picked on a girl on the other side of the room and she must have been fifteen. She was there with her mother. She might have been well lower than that. Might be fourteen. So I picked her up and did the dance with her and that sort of, everyone else got up then. The fella had made up his mind so he got up 10 o’clock, and the pubs shut and they were all coming up from the pub then to the dance hall. And of course the girls had plenty of people to dance with then. So that was [pause] now there was always a girl to take home. Always took a girl except the first dance I went to near Church Broughton. I found out, I found out that I’d been there and I didn’t have the girl out there but strangely enough a fellow said to me thanks for not, thanks for not taking his girlfriend out. At the end of the dance I just went off on my bike back to, back to the camp. Because they were small English village dance. I didn’t get back there but when I was going with a girl later on who was a policeman’s daughter her mother had mentioned that their auntie had said he was, he was at the dance way back. So nothing secret. So that was, that’s another experience I guess. But again nothing, nothing demanding as far as — no action at all. The other fellows got in to action. Went over Germany and got shot down and some walked out. A few walked out and weren’t captured. Another went back through, back through, through Spain and there I was over there dancing with the girls.
AP: So —
SD: I was, I was, no. I came home virtually. I was lucky. And Lachie will tell us the same. Even now he says to me he always regarded himself as being lucky. I do myself feel I was lucky to go all that way. All those miles on water and not be troubled by submarines or anything like that. No foreign aircraft flying over us. So, I was safe in England. I was safe coming back because the war was over. Arrived back home two years since I’d left there. Come back in, arrived back in Australia in 1946 so that’s something. I mean on the trip arriving home. Coming up in the ship that goes up at 3 o’clock in the morning , pack, pack, get packed up ready to go ashore. We come through the Heads, down towards Rosebuds and then up the, up the channel, up to Melbourne. And we passed by Marines Pier and then, and then you could see Melbourne and the Luna Park stood out well. And then we, I can’t remember. We had a, we were towed in, and we were lucky. That’s the way I think of it. I was lucky.
AP: Why did you pick the air force?
SD: What?
AP: Why did you choose the air force?
SD: Because I didn’t want to go in the army. My dad was in the army in the First War and he’d given us stories about that. He was a trumpeter. He was also an artillery man later. And it was, it was a tough life in the army. So I reckoned with the air force you were safe. Home to a bed at night and have three meals a day. And relatively safe. But no we weren’t safe when we got to England. They were lucky to get thirty missions up. Very lucky. Those that went through their first, first flights. Some of them died on their first trip. Like my two mates. They’d become gunners and they crewed up and the last letter I got from him he’d written the words, ‘Hurray we’re flying.’ He posted it and I tore it up which I shouldn’t have done because it was his last letter ever. What else is there?
AP: What, what can you tell me about the enlistment process and interview or a medical or something that you had to do to get in to the air force?
SD: Yeah. Again it was easy. I already had a uniform. I got a uniform for twelve months in the Air Training Corps until about the February 23rd, I guess. All my stuff’s in the back there. The 23rd we went into train from Spencer Street to Bradfield Park overnight. So, I wanted to be in the air force because I wanted to be a fighter pilot. We all wanted to be fighter pilots. Young and silly. Anyway, at the end of our time in Bradfield Park I wasn’t sure if we were two months or when. It was a week before a category selection board where they chose people for pilots, navigators and gunners, radio operator. The gunnery came along later. So we went to Parkes and I spent my last two months, three months there before I got the taxi home. that’s about all. Anything else I could help you with?
AP: Yes. Plenty. What about the first time you ever went in an aeroplane? What did you think?
SD: Before that I’d already been on an aircraft at Essendon. A de Havilland aircraft. Room for about four or five passengers. I went for a flight from Essendon down surround around towards St Kilda. South Melbourne. And then I went in the air force. The first trip in an aeroplane in the air force at Parkes. We did our training there on single, single engine Wacketts. I think it was Wacketts and did the basic radio work from there. And eventually at Parkes we all had to get to twenty five words a minute in speed. Like my two friends didn’t make it, although he’d been in the Air Training Corps before, one of them [unclear] from Sydney. And he was a beautiful dancer and he was, he could run like the wind too. We both were going out that night to [unclear] because it was cold. We were going home to people. I wanted to go home with the girls to meet their family, and then go back for a cup of tea or sit by the fire. You see, looking after the young men pretty well. So that happened in Parkes. It didn’t happen in Sale. What else is there? Went, went to Brighton and at Brighton we danced at [pause] the Pavilion I think we called it. It’s where the King George the third built this big palace with towers and everything. Chinese influence. So we’d go to the dances there. I went once, got a girl to take home and that night the German bombers came over the top and we were in the street so we didn’t hear from any, that was the closest [unclear] they didn’t drop any bombs over us but they shot, someone shot down a German fighter because they crash landed. He was shot. He ended up in a cemetery on the top of the tombstones if you like. And the other time I went home. Something else. No. It’s gone out of my head. You won’t bring it back.
AP: What, what were your early impressions of wartime England?
SD: Everyone seemed to be alright. They were fed but only just. They [pause] and as I said with the dances went to most places where there was a tourist sort of thing. I got on my bike. Oh yes, the chap had got, where I went, he was a mate eventually I asked him get me a radio and get me a bike. They were two things I needed. I had twenty five pounds, English pounds then, and so I used to ride my bike to these dances. So I had the means of moving around and a radio of course. I had all the music I wanted. In the hut. No one objected to the radio going.
AP: What sort of radio was it?
SD: The one sitting outside under the house that’s been pulled down since then. It was called a lease lend. Lease lend radio. Wooden. Wooden. Wooden casing around the radio. It’s been it was home for a while. Came to my brother in law up the road and from there back here. Not a very powerful one. Had to break the temperature down. Had to break the voltage down from 240 to 120. So it had a [pause] had a power cord to the plug back this way to the unit at 120 by the time it got across there. And that meant it was Americanised. And they operated at 120 rather than 240. Now luckily I stayed mostly in the country with these people. And they seemed to be managing on what they had. As I said a cup of tea. No milk. No sugar. That was a big plus. And no tea except when it went in the water. That’s about all. So England was doing very well as far as their civilian population was concerned. And this was long before I met Lachie. Because when we crewed up when I go back a bit there when we crewed up from Lichfield and they decided, the crew decided we were going to go to the homes of the other members of the crew. So we went up to Scotland and a place called Burntisland which is just across the bridge from Edinburgh. And from Edinburgh we went across to Glasgow, or near Glasgow. A place called Stepps which is a throwaway. From there we came back. We didn’t go to any more. Oh yes we went down to where they play tennis. Must have gone before. Where they play tennis. Do you remember?
AP: Wimbledon.
SD: Wimbledon. Yeah. Close to Wimbledon, that’s right.
Other: [unclear] country.
SD: Nothing. No. Nothing.
Other: Supplement their diet.
SD: They were lucky to live in the country. Yes. They had all those sort of things. The people I was staying with they were, their great grandmother, grandparents lived in the village further down towards the river. While I was there I did a little bit of work with the son of the household and I helped him with his electricity. I helped him with that. They were always had plenty of eggs. And the rest. I didn’t eat much when I was there. I still don’t eat much. No. There’s not much. Not much there to put in a story. Sounds like a long story but a story about coming back here. I always have read the births and the deaths part in the newspaper and lo and behold there was a McBean. Now that was very foreign to me. McBean. And sure enough it said Lachlan [unclear] and sure enough his name was Lachie as the husband. Lachie. So it rang a bell with me. We organised it through the through the, through the funeral people. And said was he a pilot or anything like that and it turns out he was. So, I wrote. I wrote him a card of sympathy which, it’s not good to lose your wife so young. There you go. She was [unclear] Anything else? Oh yes. We went to Wimbledon and stayed overnight there and then back up to camp again. Went back to Lichfield. So that was an incident in the air force. Nothing dangerous about getting on a train or, train travel was pretty easy really for fellas like myself. We went as a group. Went as a flight or unit. [unclear] we just a group of air force bloke so we could travel anywhere. We didn’t seem to put anyone out or anything like that and the people I stayed with were pretty well organised. But the people in the city they would have suffered. As I say I stayed in a place where they could grow some vegetables themselves.
AP: So you were saying about Lachie. About sending him a card.
SD: Oh right. Yeah. Ok. Yes. That notice was in the births and deaths. My daughter, Suzanne rang the, the funeral people to find out if he was a pilot and he was a pilot so it must have been him. So I wrote him a card of condolence. Condolences because he’s lost his wife. And I knew damned well how he’d be feeling because I’d lost my wife some several years before. She was in a nursing home. Went through dementia stage. [unclear] So went up there. Went on the 26th of April last year. Yeah. 26th April last year after Anzac Day and he was pleased to see me because he thought I was dead. I’d been killed in a motorbike accident or something like that. That’s, that’s how I got to know him because he rang me back then over the phone and we organised we’d go and have a day. We’d meet up there the following Sunday as a reunion. So there we were after seventy years of not knowing where either of us were. And there we were. So that was a gift from a higher higher people upstairs.
AP: A couple, a couple more questions if you’re, if you’re still happy to —
SD: Yeah.
AP: Keep answering them. Just interested, your story of the radio sparked off a bit of a memory for me because —
SD: Oh yeah.
AP: Because another pilot I knew had a radio as well but I was never able to ask him about it. So what sort of music were you listening to?
SD: Oh modern stuff. I was never interested in the classical stuff then. It was all the dance music and all that [coughs] which fitted in with the dances. I used to like to listen to the big bands. To Glenn Miller bands. Tommy Dorsey and his brother’s bands. Who else? Stand. No. I can’t remember [coughs] Yeah. So used to listen to all the big bands and the other music that we played. Mostly American music.
AP: There was a lot of that on, on the radio?
SD: Yeah.
AP: Did you have that to listen to.
SD: Yeah. Much the same as young people here listen to the radio now. Music I don’t like particularly. But then I came home and my parents would have said, ‘Turn that off.’ Because I was dancing. I was listening to dance music rather loudly which [coughs] which suited, which suited me because I was, I enjoyed dancing. I enjoyed that music. And they actually took me to a stage show [pause] and that was where? It must have been His Majesty’s then. I can’t remember now. That was after I came home.
AP: And you continued dancing when you got home as well.
SD: Oh yeah.
AP: OK.
SD: Yeah. I met another girl up in Sale. That was alright. She was a schoolteacher up there. She has since died. At the time we had fairly, got on pretty well together. Then I met my present wife Lola. She’s still here. In ‘46. And from her, meeting her I was then a member of their wedding party at their marriage in ’48. And then we were married in 1949. So here again we had the band with quite a number of this band and that was at Tudor Court. Reception. We were married in All Saint’s Church down in South Yarra.
AP: So just moving back to England just briefly can you tell me about VE day? What if any experiences did you have then?
SD: You got it right. It was the VE day. So [pause] I can’t remember. I don’t think it was at the camp. It must have been sort of celebration at the air force station Bottesford then. So I got on the train and went back to a place where she was at. The family I was living with. I was back there. Do you want some more tissues?
AP: No. No. That’s alright. I’m good.
SD: At Church Broughton so that wasn’t far out of Derby. A place called Hatton. H A T T O N. I spent a fair bit of time there. Hatton. Of course the trip into Derby took a long, travelling around by bus, took a long, fairly long time so it was quite handy having a girlfriend near the station and I stayed there some nights in the, with her mother and father and the son at the time. I was in a double bed with the son. That was before the war. That was before we went to to Bottesford. So that was alright. So the son of the house then went to, up country to do some clerical electrical work up country. So I had the bedroom to myself then. But I was pretty green. Young and not very bright family wise or anything like that but I knew they were looking after me pretty well so I still stuck with it and the dances.
AP: What did you do after the war, Steve?
SD: I came back to Australia. Went back to the old job. Job. Like most people went back to the same. The old job then. If they were lucky. But I was there twelve months and then I put up a shilling a day away for my time in the service. So I I can’t remember how much you got. It was a shilling a day and maybe in twenty days I got a pound back then. I was, I had worked that out. Worked out alright. Now, so I didn’t [pause] I came back to that job. Then I went into a business. A trucking business. With a chap that I met through a fellow at work. And the two of us went into partnership in this big truck. A Studebaker. And we were carting wood from [unclear] back to Melbourne. I know I learned to drive virtually on the truck because my uncle had said to me, ‘You’ve got to learn to drive.’ So he was teaching me. Learning to drive. And it’s amazing that in the air force days we had these guys who had never driven anything before in their lives piloting big heavy aircraft. It’s a bit of a thinking back now they were very brave people. I guess we are too actually. Pardon me. By the fact that we were flying too. Because we lost quite a lot of fellas in aircraft accidents.
AP: Did you ever have anything to do with an accident? Or did you see one?
SD: No.
AP: The aftermath of one or something.
SD: No. Once we, there was half a dozen of us selected to go as pallbearers out of respect of a Polish airman. I can’t remember where. Gloucester I think. Gloucester somewhere. Round about there. And there was a trip down there and drove back. That was all. Took some time to bury him and that was it. It wasn’t really worrying me much because it wasn’t me that was getting buried. So I was rather blasé about it then. I was young and didn’t really know. But it was amazing the number of young people who were all mostly well not more than twenty. My group and then as you got further up the line they were older then. But I was pretty young. Some of the fellas had driven cars and all this sort of thing. Which I hadn’t had the experience. So it was a bit, a bit of an attitude which I didn’t have to to fly or operate machinery. So all I had to do was do the Morse code which eventually of course I got expert at it. And I wouldn’t have been able to pick up messages from ships because they were very fast. Aircraft. At twenty five you were pretty ok. As I say I brought one plane down and through the clouds at ten thousand, nine thousand, eight thousand. Down and we were the last to land. But they were bringing down all the other aircraft down before us. Every Avro Anson and we had an Avro Anson here. I reckoned the wings flapped as it flew. Avro Ansons. And from the Anson we went to Stirlings. From Stirlings we went to the Lancasters.
AP: What was your first impression of a Lancaster?
SD: Beautiful ship. Beautiful. The engine. The engine — I didn’t know much about engines but they sounded great to me. Sounded beautiful. And as far as I was concerned they were invincible. Of course they weren’t.
AP: Yes.
SD: So I enjoyed my time in Lancs. I’m sorry. The tea went down the wrong way before. Have you got any other questions?
AP: How did you live on the, on the station?
SD: Oh. There was a bed. A bed there. Meals there. Lunch as well as morning and evening meals. Yes. When I was there I appreciated that. These fellows that didn’t ever want to stay there very much. I gave up the evening meal. I’d get on my bike and away I went. I didn’t stay around for the groups who were going to the pub anyway. I wanted to go the dances. If there were any dances. On my bike. Other times I would catch the bus in to Stourbridge and go to the dances there. We’d all been warned about the girls that went to the dances in Stourbridge. Keep well clear. Don’t get mixed up with them. You’ll end up with venereal disease. That’s coming from the station commander. So at night there was, there were a few girls there I would take them home after the dance and then back to get my bike and ride back to the camp mostly. Sometimes I went on the bus. Not very often. I rode my bike most of the time. Which was about twelve miles from Halfpenny Green to Stourbridge which was mostly what I did. But went there. I put my bike there on the long grass. A village tree. There used to be long grass everywhere. It wasn’t any danger of getting pinched or anything from there. I knew it was there. Now, I was telling you about the bacon and eggs earlier on when you got on to the bike. I was over there when I first arrived in Warrington which was not far from Flint in Wales. I used to go to Flint by train. I was welcomed there pretty much. We went to a dance there on a Saturday night. I was down at Rhyl which is further along the coast. Always had a group of girls going with the fellas. I lined up with a girl there who was just to kissed them goodnight and away I went because I was living with these people and I didn’t want to be out late or anything like that. So what else was there? That’s about all.
AP: Can you tell me about your bike? Your bike in England.
SD: I wanted a racing bike didn’t I? Didn’t want one of the bikes you see on television there with the handlebars stretching out. Handlebars went down. The fastest bike it was. It was painted black. Earlier it was painted, bikes there were all painted black so there was no glint from the air. Yeah. So I left my bike behind me and I got on a ship to come behind. Come home. And we wrote together for some time and then she realised I was still dancing. She took umbrage about going dancing with other girls. There she was in England at sixteen and a half. She was fifteen when I first met her. And sixteen at a half. Very young. But at the time I didn’t realise. She was four years younger than me. I’m jumping around a bit.
AP: No. That’s fine. That’s the nature of memory. It does tend to jump around and that’s, that’s exactly what we’re after to be honest otherwise you don’t dig in as far as you want.
SD: Well the main thing is I got into the air force. Not the army. And the air force was good to me with three meals a day, training and a bed to sleep in. Which was entirely different than the army. It was great to not be in the army.
AP: What err — yeah go on.
SD: Somewhere on there you’ve got there how I met Lachie. That’s one. The last one of the line. He was the last pilot. I was the last radio operator. He already he had his navigator. He had his bomb aimer. So he was ready. He had three, three members of the crew. And he didn’t get the air gunners until later. In the Stirling. We were flying Stirlings. That was later. At [pause] where was that? I don’t know. I know we flew Stirlings. But I don’t know whether we flew Stirlings or Lancasters at Church Broughton which was close. Fairly close to Derby. I enjoyed my radio. I enjoyed my dancing. And I enjoyed the air force. And I got to a place where I soon woke up to the fact there wasn’t many fellows that made the grade. They, they went out and got killed. Or killed in crashes. Some, some fellas didn’t last. Coming back from Derby this girlfriend when I was getting off the bus and this Australian airman was on the bed in the house. [unclear] he knew before I came along that she told me she when the war had finished and he apparently came back to England. I don’t know whether it was Brighton. Whether he was a prisoner and escaped or was sent home. Anyway she didn’t want anything to do with him so that was a bit of let down for him. Not for me. What else is there? Better stay with your questions.
AP: I’m starting to run out of them actually. [unclear] Alright. What, what for you was the legacy of Bomber Command and how do you want it to be remembered?
SD: The fact we were in the, at Bottesford and heading for, heading for action. Real action. We were this far away from it. We were still flying over Germany. dropping bombs while the ground forces were coming up through France. Up through Belgium and Holland. [pause] So there was no, ok in my way of a young fella thinking I was twenty year old. I was twenty year old then. I think it was from day to day really. So as far as memories are concerned I was just pleased to be in the air force and safer than most days I could get up and I’d be safe. Most days. [pause] One thing I did notice between the two. England where we were living mostly had these ordinary, ordinary people living in houses made of brick. The people I stayed with were in a house in brick. Coming to Australia quite a lot of houses there more so were billboard houses and different to England. They were well built up out Camberwell way. I didn’t know much about that. I was pretty green as far as, in fact I wanted [unclear] we wanted to buy a house when we, when we came home. So yes we did want to buy a house. A lot of people over there wanted to buy a house and of course I didn’t have any money. Well, my mum had been a saviour because I allocated some money for her which she put in her bank and my bank until I came home. Until I wanted the money. And she, she’d actually had this five shillings, five shillings a week for up to two and half. Two, two fifty pounds roughly. So that’s a bit of a plus to come home and you were still getting air force money. We didn’t get flying pay though because when we were in England we got extra money by way of flight pay which was more than the soldiers were getting. All the aircrew. People on the ground floor didn’t get anything. I forget how much it was. So I didn’t want for money ever. There was always some money there. As a matter of fact I lent a chap ten pounds. He came from Sydney. I lent him ten pound. Where? Where? Halfpenny Green. So that was about, about the size of it. I don’t know if you’ve got enough there.
AP: Yeah. I can’t, I can’t think of too much else to ask.
SD: Yeah.
AP: So do you have any final thoughts on Bomber Command in general? How it’s remembered.
SD: As far as I’m concerned Bomber Command — it was, people were getting killed in Bomber Command and it never occurred to me this was the case. I thought it was unending safety at that stage. And as I got closer towards flying on Lancasters I realised it wasn’t a game anymore. It was fair dinkum because I lost two mates. That didn’t, that didn’t mean much to me at the time. They went out on their first flight and didn’t come back. They’re still missing. God knows what happened to them. And I was ok. The air force for me — I was safe. My mother must have worried a fair bit because she, she died in 1948. I was back in 1946 and I was a different bloke living at home to what I was in the air force. Again, I was a bit selfish. I had turned twenty one and I was quite happy about going to dances, playing loud music. Not worrying about mum waiting at home for me because no one had been waiting home for me before. Back to the camp to sleep. So it was a big, big step back to civilian life from air force life. What I’d been doing anyway because my air force life was mostly tied up with working in day time and dancing at night. Obviously at night. But there was never a twenty four hour, a twenty four hour job. It was from 8 o’clock in the morning until about 6 o’clock at night. Then dinner and then back to bed or go dancing. That was all. So all in all because I had this freedom I felt safe whereas in the army you were under threat all the time. And I was told they were fighting the Japanese here and that didn’t grab me one bit. That’s about the size. What else is there? Yeah. I arrived home and I was close to what it was part of must have been part of. 1946 Australia Day holiday which was [unclear] I didn’t know about that. A group of people here wanted me home which I didn’t really want. It was 3 o’clock in the morning. Got out of bed. It’s not my mother got up early to wash my clothes. My grandma got out there and was washing. And my wife, wife my mother went crook because my grandma was doing my washing and my mum was there. That sort of thing went on. Then after that my mother looked after most of my clothes and my mum got the photograph. [unclear] That’s about all. There’s not enough meat there. I went, I went back to the girl’s place. The police sergeant’s home. And Lachie as I found out later went up to Queensland but had been up in Scotland. I didn’t know that. But yeah I found out and after arriving home he went back in Melbourne and then gong to Ballarat. Started two years ago. So that was a bit of an experience. Meeting up with someone who didn’t know what had happened to you in 1946. Here we are in 2006 and it came out of the blue. Seventy years. So that was a big experiences. My daughter wanted to go to further back so she got in touch with Lachie’s girls so the girls fixed up this meeting with going to the Shrine on Anzac Day. After Anzac Day met after Anzac Day up at his new home because he’d given up, he was over seventy like myself, and he stopped farming and passed that on to his son. He lost his wife and he was up there on his own except for the people in the, in the complex. Various small homes. A house but two bedroomed home. A kitchen, dining room and a lounge. And so he come down from his home farm to a home in Ballarat. So that was his thing. It was a big thing after seventy years. Meeting someone right out of the blue like that. Not that we were very close in the air force because he was on the intercom and he’d be speaking to the other members of the crew except me because I wasn’t connected to the system. I was just plugged in to here. Plugged into home base plus I also used to listen to American Forces Network when we were not listening out. So I had modern music as it was then. So yeah. I was lucky. I was lucky to be alive. And there was a lot of fellows came home on the same ship. The Orion. So I was lucky to get through that. So virtually it was 1943 I went into the air force. Late 1943 and was there until April 1946. So what time was that being in the air force. And in that time I got my boat to America. Got to England by boat again. The big ship. So pretty safe. I was lucky enough that my ships weren’t torpedoed or danger of being torpedoed. Which was at the back of your mind when you were travelling by ship. Am I going to be safe? Will I get out of this? No. I never felt that way. I always felt safe in the ships. Whereas when I was flying I always felt safe up there too except [unclear] German fighter followed us home and I didn’t know anything about that. So from, I was lucky from that point of view. I never faced the dangers that I knew about, the bomb aimer and the navigator yes. They did. And we had two gunners by then. The mid-upper gunner he was from, he lived close to Gloucester. And the other fellow was he was an old man of thirty something or other. He lived with his wife in Wimbledon. Wimbledon. So that’s about all. Not too great. Not great. I was lucky to be alive then. I’m lucky to be alive now. So we were going up to Ballarat and then back to the Bomber Command Memorial Service. Yes it was a big experience. And from the point of view of [pause] I was lucky this happened. To have been in Bomber Command. There were fellows there that flew in Bomber Command in England. There’s not many fellows left that had been in Bomber Command. And I was part of Bomber Command but didn’t see any action except a near miss. How about that?
AP: Sounds pretty good to me.
SD: Ok. I don’t know what sort of story you can make out of that.
AP: Thank you very much, Steve.
SD: That’s alright.
AP: It’s been great.
SD: And would you like some tea or some orange?
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ADownesS160806
Title
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Interview with Steven Downes
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
Language
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eng
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01:33:18 audio recording
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-08-06
Description
An account of the resource
Steven Downes grew up in Australia and worked as a wages clerk before he volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force. He arrived in the UK and after spending some time in Brighton, he was posted to Church Broughton and then RAF Bottesford. The war ended before the crew could become operational. He served as a wireless operator. While in the UK Steve loved listening to the big band music on the radio and attended as many dances as he possibly could.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
1946
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Conforms To
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Pending OH summary
aircrew
entertainment
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
RAF Bottesford
RAF Church Broughton
sport
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/252/3436/PJohnsonGL1703.2.jpg
b0e04e09829fa1165d2691d7c4cc044c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/252/3436/AJohnsonG150325.2.mp3
a07acf5f6a792924aa50c3e5fc765f07
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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Johnson, Johnny
George Johnson
G L Johnson
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Squadron Leader George Leonard ‘Johnny’ Johnson MBE (1921 - 2022). Johnny Johnson flew operations as a bomb aimer with 97 Squadron from RAF Woodhall Spa and with 617 Squadron from RAF Scampton. On 16/17 May 1943 he took part in Operation Chastise to attack German dams with bouncing bombs. He served in the RAF until 1962 and then had a career in education. He was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Lincoln in 2017.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-08-01
2015-03-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Johnson, G
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Andrew Panton. The interviewee is George Johnny Johnson. Mr Johnson was the bomb aimer on Lancaster AJ-T that took part in the Sorpe Dam raid on the night of May the 16th 1943. In this recording Mr Johnson recounts his memories of the events leading up to the attack, the attack itself and the events following the attack.
GJJ: As part of our training we used the Derwent Dam in Derbyshire and also the Uppingham Lake in what was then Rutland. But the Derwent had its towers and we could use those for sighting with our home-made bombsight so that our base pins were in line with the towers before we dropped our practice bombs. These were the twenty five pound smoke bombs. We also used Uppingham Lake but Uppingham Lake didn’t have any towers so they put up a couple of flagpoles for us, the authorities, and we used those as sighting devices along with our three pin, three prong bombsight. And it was that that created the similar action that we would have on the night of the operation which we didn’t know at the time of course. On the Uppingham we had to fly down the lake and sixty feet was the maximum. And we were going down there, along until we came to bomb dropping. Up and down and then up and back again. I came down again, again, right along the lake until you had the same dropping point and if you were lucky or, perhaps I should say if you were accurate your bomb dropping point would be good on all occasions. The night before the raid we were summoned into a meeting room and for the majority of the crew it was the first-time meeting Barnes Wallis and he showed us a film of his development of the bouncing bomb. And we saw this being bounced across the water as it was released, initially from Wellington aircraft but ultimately from a Lancaster aircraft. One shot that he did show in the film showed one bomb that went a bit haywire and chose its own route after it had hit the water and came straight back to the beach where they were all taking film and so on. So, that of course meant they had to get out of the way a bit sharpish before it got to them. They were, of course, inert bombs they were dropping but that sort of weight in concrete can do an awful lot of damage if it hits somebody. So, there we are. That was the film that he showed us and that explained how it was going to be necessary to drop this bomb so far away from whatever the target was going to be. We didn’t know what the target was going to be and he didn’t mention dam when he talked about the, hitting the target. He just said when it hits the target it would roll down and then explode. On the Sunday afternoon, about three o’clock, all crews were called into the operations room for briefing and man what a briefing that was. Up to that time we had no idea what the target was going to be. This was the first indication. There was a model there of the Möhne Dam, there was a model of the Sorpe but apparently the model of the Eder hadn’t been completed and so it wasn’t there. A big map on the wall showing two outward bound courses and one homeward bound course. And the people there — the AOC Sir Ralph Cochrane was there, the station commander Group Captain Whitworth. Gibson of course was there. Barnes Wallis was there, and the senior armament and engineering officers and the dear old Met man whose job was made so much easier by knowing it was going to be a brilliant moonlight night and that was going to extend not only from our take off but to our target and to our coming home. So, for once he was able to give us a correct forecast of what we could expect and when we got to the target. And Barnes Wallis explained what the targets were. And how wrong we could be in our estimations. He explained the three dams that we were going to attack. The Sorpe, the Möhne and the Eder. He also explained the difference between them. The Möhne and the Eder were very similar. They had towers and they were accessible for a head- on approach. The Sorpe of course was different. It had no towers and it was so placed in the hills that it was difficult, if not quite impossible, to make a head-on attack and the only one of those three that was defended was the Möhne. Gibson carried on with the briefing and he explained how the take-offs would be arranged and which, how many crews were taking each part. We were part of five that were scheduled to attack the Sorpe Dam. The Sorpe, of course, had to be different. No towers. Different mode of attack. And our attack had to be by flying down once, the hills on one side aiming to have port engines over the dam and flying along the length of the dam. And on that run, estimating to drop the bomb in the centre of the dam. Shortly after ten o’clock we took off from Scampton. We flew low over Lincolnshire, certainly, no more than a hundred feet, out into the moonlit North Sea. A beautiful sight. Lovely moon and a perfect, quite calm sea. And we headed for the Dutch coast. As we crossed the Dutch coast we were aware, or Joe was aware that the gunners there would be well aware that this single aircraft was coming. They’d recognise the noise and had all the other aircraft over it already, the other four, over already they’d be ready for us. And so he went down. He picked up two sand dunes and went down between those two so that we avoided the flak that they would have loved to have thrown at us. At this stage, Bill Ratcliffe, in fact he had been throughout the flight coasting the engines as much as possible so that we could make up speed and make up time having taken off so late. We, in fact, arrived there about nine minutes later than the scheduled time. We carried on across Germany into the Ruhr and eventually arrived at the Sorpe Dam. Mist was beginning to gather outside but over the target it was perfectly clear. Brilliant moonlight. And as we approached we noticed that on the side, on the hills from which we were supposed to be making the attack there was a church steeple and so Joe used this as a marker. From above that he could line the aircraft up as best he could, aiming to get the port outer engine along the dam itself and then go down to height. Because we weren’t spinning the bomb we were carrying, we were going to drop an inert bomb, we were not governed by the conditions on which that bomb had to be dropped. So, the height and speed equally didn’t matter and if I wasn’t satisfied I called dummy run. In which case we went up again and came down again. If Joe wasn’t satisfied he just pulled away and left me to call dummy run and after about the seventh — sixth or seventh of these dummy runs a voice from the rear turret said, ‘Won’t somebody get that bomb out of here?’ And I realised how easy it was to become the most unpopular member of crew in double quick time. However, we pressed on, trying to get the drop exactly right. There was no point in having gone through all that training and flown low level in bright moonlight over Germany and particularly into the Ruhr area in not getting, doing the job that you had gone to do and doing it to the best of your ability. So, we went on trying. And on the tenth run, in the meantime Joe and I hadn’t said anything to each other but I’m sure we both realised that the lower we got the less forward travel that bomb would have before it hit the water and the lower we got the easier it would be to estimate the dropping point. It was pure estimation. There was no bombsighting involved at all. So, on the tenth run we were down to thirty feet. And when I said, ‘bomb gone,’ — ‘Thank Christ,’ came from the rear turret. It was a question of nose up straight away otherwise we would have been into the hills on the other side. And so I didn’t see the explosion but Dave did in the rear turret and he estimated that the tower of water went up to about a thousand feet. Well, as you can imagine sixty five, six and a half thousand pounds explosive being exploded at a depth of twenty five feet is going to displace a hell of a lot of water and it’s going to go upwards as well as outwards. So that was quite understandable. But he also said that as it came down some of the downflow came into the turret so he thought he was going to be drowned as well as knocked about by us so and so’s at the front. But he managed to get back to normal. We circled and we discovered that we had crumbled the top of the dam for a distance of about ten yards. Barnes Wallis had told us at briefing that he estimated it would need at least six bombs to crack that dam because of its construction but if we could crack it the water pressure would do the rest and judging from the amount of water in that dam I’m quite sure he was right. However, that was only the one bomb and what we couldn’t understand was that because we were late nobody else was there when we got there and nobody else appeared whilst we were there. And this, the reason for this we didn’t find out until we got back. We circled, satisfied ourselves and set a course for home and then had perhaps the most satisfying part of the whole trip. Route out took us straight over what had been the Möhne Dam. It was just like an inland sea. There was water everywhere. We knew that it had been breached by radio broadcast but water was still coming out of the dam and this must have been twenty minutes, perhaps half an hour since the breach. We also knew that the Eder had been breached. Again, by broadcast. So we had at least the satisfaction of seeing some real results for the endeavours of that particular raid. After the excitement of seeing the result of the breach of the Möhne things calmed down but not for long. For some peculiar reason and I still have no idea why we found ourselves over a railway. Not only a railway but a marshalling yard and we were, in fact, over the Hamm marshalling yards, yard. And this, of course was the centre for the distribution of all the armaments that were made in the Ruhr to the various war areas throughout Europe. Not the healthiest of places to be in May of 1943. But once again Joe goes down and again a voice from the rear turret, ‘Who needs guns? At this height all they need to do is change the points.’ However, we eventually got out of the yard. After the marshalling yards incident we set course for home. We came back on the route that we came out on and as we were crossing the Zeider Zee, Bill Ratcliffe opened up the taps, paid in the speed so we could get out and away as soon as possible. So perhaps this is what he did and as we crossed the coast one of the gunners on the ground got a sight on us but Dave Rodger in the rear turret replied promptly with his guns and that was the last we heard of the attack. As we crossed the North Sea, eventually we could see the welcoming sight of the Lincolnshire coast and so we were able to head over for our home base at Scampton. I’m not quite sure that we went, that we went via the cathedral. I don’t recall actually having seen it but it wasn’t unusual to head for the cathedral when you crossed the coast so that you knew when you were actually almost home. We could always see the cathedral by the red light on the top and that was a welcoming light and told us we were close to home. And so we got back to Scampton. Now, Scampton was still a grass airfield and so all landings were a bit lumpy but ours was more than a bit lumpy it was really bumpy and we were starboard wing low. And the flight engineer, looking out of the Perspex said, ‘We’ve got a burst tyre skipper.’ And so we were, we taxied around to take off to the dispersal and the aircraft went off for inspection. And when the inspection team came back the leader said, ‘You guys ought to think yourselves very lucky.’ He didn’t use ‘very’ but never mind, that will describe it. He said, ‘That shot that you felt and heard went through the starboard undercarriage nacelle, burst a tyre enroute. It then went through the wing and ultimately landed in the roof just above the navigator’s head.’ How lucky. But once again we’d got away with it. Thank you, Lady Luck. That had been our night. After debriefing we began to realise that there seemed to be an awful lot of people that hadn’t come back. And it came, transpired that of the nineteen that took off, sixteen had taken part in the actual raiding since three had had to come back for various reasons. Of those sixteen, eight did not come back. Three of the crews escaped but were taken prisoner and the rest were killed. Fifty three aircrew of our squadron were killed on that one operation one night and we lost eight aircraft. That was a devastating reaction and we heard that in the operations room, when the final news was known, Barnes Wallis actually cried and said, ‘I have killed all those young men. I’ll never do anything like that again.’ But Wing Commander Gibson managed to say to him, ‘No Barnes. You didn’t kill those young men. Without you that raid could never have taken place anyway.’ He said, ‘But whenever we take off on any of these raids, we know there is a chance that we won’t be coming back and those people probably went off with that thought in mind.’ Of the nineteen aircraft that took off three had to return early, five were lost before the attacks and eleven made attacks on the dam. Of those eleven one was lost during the attack, two were lost after the attacks and eight aircraft returned from making attacks on the dams. In total fifty three aircrew were killed, three were taken prisoner and eight aircraft were lost.
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AJohnsonG150325
PJohnsonGL1703
Title
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Interview with Johnny Johnson. One
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:19:33 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Andrew Panton
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-25
Description
An account of the resource
George ‘Johnny’ Johnson was the bomb aimer in Lancaster AJ-T flown by Joe McCarthy during operation Chastise 16th of May 194. He discusses the attack on the dams and the events before and after the attack. He describes training over the Derwent Dam and Uppingham Lake. He describes the challenges of the Sorpe Dam in contrast to the Möhne and Eder dams. He describes the tensions of getting the bombing run correct and the nervous words of the rear gunner. Flying home they flew over the Möhne dam and they were able to witness the devastation of the aftermath of the attack. They also flew over the Hamm marshalling yards and again Johnny describes the nervous details of that event. Johnny refers to the realisation of the heavy losses of the operation and how Barnes Wallis actually wept when he heard how many crews had been lost.
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.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Sorpe Dam
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-16
1943-05-17
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
bouncing bomb
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Lancaster
operations room
RAF Scampton
training
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/867/17951/EJacksonD[General]450529.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Hedges, Betty
Elizabeth C Hedges
E C Hedges
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Betty Hedges (b. 1926), a song sheet, diary, letters concerning civil defence, photographs and newspaper cutting. She grew up in south London during the war and relates experiences of being bombed and working as a civil defence messenger.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Betty Hedges and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-04-27
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Hedges, EC
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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C.D. MESSENGERS HEAD QUARTERS,
FULL STREET,
DERBY
29th May 1945.
TO:
All members of the Civil Defence Messenger Service.
Dear Sir or Madam,
Now that our Civil Defence duties are finished it is with satisfaction and gratification that I am able to say the Service has fulfilled all that was asked of it, indeed in many instances messenger s have undertaken work which has been outside their duty and have done it willingly and well.
Please accept my sincere thanks for your loyal support to me in what has been a very pleasant duty, and I hope that friendships and contacts made may last a very long time.
The Final Parade of all the Civil Defence Services will take place on Sunday 10th June next. Meet – Parkfield Cedars School, 2.30 p.m.; when I would like evry member of the Service to attend. Further particulars will be given to Group Leaders as soon as possible.
Yours faithfully,
E. JACKSON
OFFICER I/C MESSENGERS.
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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Letter to all members of civil defence messenger service
Description
An account of the resource
Written as civil defence duties finished. Thanks for loyal support. Notes final parade on 10 June 1945.
Creator
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B Jackson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05-29
Format
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One page typewritten document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EJacksonD[General]450529
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Derby
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05-29
1945-06-10
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
civil defence
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1724/28993/SNolanJF150621v10019.1.jpg
7b2b66473ee0ba394ada2f28e9c8518d
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
Nolan, Frank. Work folder
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty eight items. Folder containing work related correspondence and ministry of aircraft manufacture, aeronautical inspection directorate process reports.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-17
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Nolan, JF
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[Letterhead]
[Air Ministry Crest]
MINSTRY OF AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION,
Aeronautical Inspection Department,
North Midland Area,
16, Villa Road,
NOTTINGHAM.
6th. October 1942.
Inspector-in-Charge, A.I.D.,
L.M.S. Railway Co. Ltd.,
DERBY.
[underlined] Mr. J.F. Nolan – 27053. [/underlined]
I am directed to inform you that this officer has been accorded “Household Status” entitlement under W.R.O. R. 68/42 with effect from 7th. Sept. 1942.
Will you please instruct him, therefore, to claim lodging allowance from that date, less leave periods (if any) in accordance with O.M. 127/41, para. 302. As Mr. Nolan is at his normal permanent station, his lunched are his own liability, and his expenditure should be shown minus this charge, i.e.
“Expenditure on Board and Lodgings (less lunches)…”
A certification should be given on all claims in the following terms:-
“I certify that I am still maintaining two establishments
(1) for myself at …
(2) for my family at …
and that my net extra expenses for the period … to … are as entered above.”
CCT Pope
C.C.T. POPE.
S.C.O.
North Midland Area.
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Title
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Letter to Inspector in charge at L.M.S. Derby from the ministry of aircraft production
Description
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Sates that J F Nolan has been accorded household status and asks that he instructs Nolan to claim lodging allowance with effect from 7th September 1942.
Creator
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C C T Pope
Date
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1942-10-06
Format
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One page typewritten letter
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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SNolanJF150621v10019
Coverage
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Civilian
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Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Derby
England--Nottingham
Temporal Coverage
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1942-10-06
1942-10-06
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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Claire Monk
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/885/11124/AHowesJ-J180611.1.mp3
8f71d49d32d673d3890a831cbd281bbb
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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Howes, Jack
J Howes
Howes, Jean
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Jack Howes (b. 1933) and a short memoir. Jack Howes grew up in Lincoln and remembers the city being bombed.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jack Howes 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
2018-06-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Howes, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. The people being interviewed are Jack and Jean Howes. The interviewer is myself, Cathy Brearley. The date is Monday the 11th of June 2018 and the interview is taking place in Jack and Jean’s home in Lincoln. So, I’ll start with you then, Jack.
JH1: Yeah.
CB: How old were you when war broke out and whereabouts were you living?
JH1: Can I give you my date of birth because I’m no good with dates?
CB: Yes.
JH1: Yeah. 25th of April. Now, that were —
JH2: 1933.
JH1: 1933. That’s right.
JH2: You were born.
JH1: 25th of April.
CB: Right.
JH2: And the war started in 1945.
CB: So, you were really quite young then weren’t you?
JH1: I would think I were about ten years old.
JH2: No. Younger than that.
JH1: At a guess. Oh. Younger.
CB: Ten when the war ended.
JH1: Well, it would be. Well, it definitely weren’t ended then.
JH2: 1945 you were —
CB: So, whereabouts were you living? You were in, grew up in Lincoln.
JH1: St Andrews Street, Lincoln.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Which is not far from where it all happened.
CB: Yeah. So, tell me about what you heard and saw.
JH1: Well, the big aircraft coming from our right hand side. We were used to big aircraft. But this one was skimming the tops of the trees and there was a man sat in the front of it holding two guns. And as he went by he looked at us.
CB: And you realised the aircraft was not a British one.
JH1: Well, what we did, like we did every time you know you were out on the Common. That’s where we were. That if a big aeroplane came low you dived on the thing and shouted, ‘It’s a German.’ And when I rolled over [pause] as, as we laid on our, laid on our backs shouting ‘It’s a German,’ it slowly passed by. And then as we rolled over on to our backs to have another look I realised it was a German aircraft.
CB: And then it headed off.
JH1: No. It continued across the Common missing the trees on Canwick Hill by a very small amount and then carried on to where would be Washingborough, Branston. Not Branston. Where? Towards Bardney.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: It would cross. I thought it was following. Retrospectively —
CB: Yeah.
JH1: I thought it was following the Witham.
CB: Very possible.
JH1: You know.
CB: Very possible.
JH1: Heading to the coast. And it was flying so low that it wouldn’t be observed. But what my question retrospectively was what happened to it? What happened to the pilot? Or the bloke with the guns.
CB: And it was the only aircraft in the sky at the time.
JH1: Oh. There was nothing. No. It was about 6 o’clock on a Friday if I remember rightly and, you know it was dead quiet. And it sort of looked, heard the engines coming, we were used to that. And then it got bigger and we thought, well I thought, well it’s flying very, very low. And then as it came parallel with us more or less we dived on our backs shouting, ‘It’s a German. It’s a German.’
CB: And you were used to hearing aircraft.
JH1: Oh yeah.
CB: Because you heard the —
JH1: Well —
CB: Our aircraft going off on operations.
JH1: Well, yes, at night time you were kept awake by the aircraft circling. We thought they were around more or less where the Cathedral was until they all got grouped together and their destinations worked out and then it went quiet.
CB: That must have been quite a noise when there was a lot of them.
JH1: Well, it was a drone. You know, if I see any of those I can, as soon as I hear it, it’s a recording I know what it was.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Because they all had a different sound. Yeah. The bombers of ours that was going backwards and forwards had a sound which you got used to and you knew and recognised but you would sort of lay half asleep and hear droning. Then all of a sudden nothing.
CB: And as a young boy did you become interested in aircraft spotting and identifying?
JH1: Well, we all did.
CB: You did.
JH1: Well, it was part of —
CB: Yeah.
JH1: You could posters from the Ministry of whatnots. I can’t remember it. Beautiful colour photographs of Spitfires to hang in your bedroom.
CB: Oh right. Yeah.
JH1: And they, there’s, well I’ll tell you a little story which is, I got appendicitis.
CB: Okay.
JH1: And mum took me up to the hospital and I was prepared with painting all this orangey stuff all over me and waiting ‘til the surgeon came. The door opened and the surgeon came through and he had a plate in his hand with two slices of toast because there’d been a crash.
[recording paused]
JH1: That was it. And I never had my appendix out. A bit different isn’t it? [laughs]
CB: So obviously it wasn’t appendix trouble after all.
JH1: Well, apparently not but he would have gone ahead if it hadn’t crashed. There was a crash at Waddington I think it was. Came in and said, you know, ‘We’ll postpone it. You’ll have to come back later. Another day.’ And he came in with two slices of toast.
CB: That’s an unusual consequence of war that —
JH1: It is. Weird isn’t it?
CB: And war times.
JH1: Yeah.
CB: It’s something that, it isn’t one that we typically think of at all is it?
JH1: No. No.
CB: No. What about your parents? Did they serve?
JH1: No. No.
CB: Or involved in any war work of any sort?
JH1: No. My dad was a machine engineer and he was whatever it were. He didn’t go. But we moved from Nottingham, we lived. That’s where I was born. Brought into Lincoln so he could be at Rustons Bucyrus or Ruston’s Hornsbys. And as soon as we all got settled in at 82 St Andrews Street he was sent off to Grantham, and he had to live in digs and only came home occasionally on a Sunday.
CB: And what was he doing in Grantham then? The same work for the same company?
JH1: Well, he was a machinist. He was what they called a precision machinist, what turn, very precision parts that went in to instrumentation.
CB: And were they making parts for aircraft? Or –
JH1: Well, they would.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Yeah. Which may, reminds me of something else.
CB: Go on.
JH1: Well, we used to go everywhere by cycle and one day I was down Doddington Road way which was all ballast pits and there were, it was just after the war this was and there was a big RAF lorry tipping a load of instruments into the pits to bury them.
CB: Really.
JH1: Yeah. I know what they were because I was an apprentice electrician and somehow one or two fell off the lorry [laughs] which I sort of took and they were, they were well I know what they were, they were ammeters, because that’s what they would use but they were wrapped in grease and in greaseproof paper in a very strong cardboard box which was full of grease and then dumped into the pit. So somewhere along that length of road there’s either a house built over a huge thing of bomber spares. Well, it’s true. And he saw me. The bloke who, the officer in charge who was stood there like this. He saw me and the next time I went to see if I could get some more because the blokes who I worked with were amateur radio people and you just couldn’t get milliammeters, they were like gold. And I suddenly returned, turned up with two of these in absolutely immaculate condition. They said, ‘Go back and find some more.’ [laughs] But then he’d put barbed wire around it. And that was what I was going to tell you.
CB: So, if somebody gets a metal detector out down there they might have a bit of a shock.
JH1: Well, yeah. I mean a lorry load. How many times the lorry went I don’t know because when he saw me and waved I cleared off sort of thing. But you know you could imagine down there is probably all sorts of instruments that were been ordered but were now redundant.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Which leads me on to something else. Well, at Skellingthorpe, Doddington Road there was an aerodrome down that way and it had loads and loads and loads of these ten tonne bombs.
CB: Really?
JH1: Massive bombs. But my interest or our interest was they had little red propellers on the end and we found out how you could screw them off. You would walk around saying, ‘Yeah. I got four of these propellers or six of these propellers.’
CB: So collecting fragments of, or equipment.
JH1: No. They weren’t fragments. They were complete brand new bombs.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: You know, and you, well you could climb over. Well, we did. We climbed all over the damned things. I mean if any, well obviously they wouldn’t but if anything had gone up I think Skellingthorpe would have disappeared forever. You know, they were longer than this. Well, from that window to that window. That’s how long they were roughly and a huge diameter.
CB: So I suppose any of these parts that were found in any way were interesting to a young boy.
JH1: Well, you invented things, didn’t you?
CB: Yes.
JH1: You know, in the same as [laughs] I shouldn’t say this probably but the girls would collect the foil dropped.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Anti-radar foil. And they’d all come to school with these bracelets. And all made out of the foil. Aluminium foil and they were dropped to stop the radar.
CB: Yes.
JH1: Apparently.
CB: Yes.
JH1: As they came in to land at Waddington or wherever all around that’s what they would drop it. Which the amount of another thing.
CB: Yeah. It confused the radars didn’t it?
JH1: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: But there is, the next, we lived in Washingborough then and next door almost to our house was Mr — an old chap [pause] Anyway, a very old gentleman.
JH2: I’m trying to think of his name.
JH1: And he was the farm manager for Bardney Estates. And the last, well almost before he died I took him down around and he told me how they used to plough the fields with steam engines, but right down from the main road if you go down to the something called something corner apparently he claimed, he’ll tell you, they dropped a bomb you know and it went straight down there and nobody’s ever dug it up. There was a war. You know. It was so obvious. He says, you know and the thing is he had a lot of stories which you would have been interested in but nobody was collecting them.
CB: No. Do you remember any of his other stories?
JH1: Well, only in as far, well, yeah. I could. There’s one or two. I don’t know whether you —
[recording paused]
JH1: There was a night when my sister [pause] and my mum and my aunt, we were in the Liberal Club in Lincoln which was a social place, on a Friday night. And then it was bombed. And I, I could better write this down actually because it starts off when we were fooling around running up and down because it was upstairs. Banging on the floor. We were making noise and we were told to stop it, you know. And it didn’t and it were bombs.
CB: How old was your sister compared to you?
JH1: She was about a year and a half older than me.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Yes. And anyway we were told to go down into the cellar and then my mum got worried because she’d noticed all these pipes in the cellar seeing as they were all hot water pipes, you know. They weren’t but still and decided that we would have to go home and we went home and all the way home —
[recording paused]
JH1: We went home. Oh no. Wait a minute. Missing everything. So my mother decided we should go home and we went up out of the cellar and opened the front doors and across the road was a mass of flames.
[recording paused]
CB: So, I imagine as a child then some of it would have been difficult to understand what was happening. But you had [pause] How about rationing and clothing shortages? Things like that?
JH1: Well, there were no sweets.
CB: No sweets.
JH1: No.
CB: No.
JH1: Well, there was a ration of sweets but it was so small you can’t really remember it. But everything was a shortage. The first pushbike I had I made up off the dumps. Yeah. Built it out of scraps. And when I finished spraying it and painting it, it looked like a brand new one. I was so proud. It might have been a brand new one.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: You know, everything. Well, there was no traffic on the roads because nobody had any petrol presumably. But the first time I went from Lincoln to, not Branston. It’s Washingborough. There was two of us on a three wheel bike. One stood on the other, on the one pedal. Then we swapped over. I went to see one of them’s aunt who couldn’t believe where we’d come from.
CB: Did your parents grow their own vegetables at all?
JH1: Well, no because we didn’t have any gardens. Streets. Oh, well, it was so small my mum, well my mum had a full time job because when I left, when I left school they used to go down to the printing works that was in Lincoln, a small place and wait until she finished what she were doing.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: She was operating machinery. There was no, well it was so small it wasn’t, well it was about half as big as this. This, this thing. And of course we had, my dad was away. Away at the time.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: My mother was working full time. So that, you know there wasn’t real, plus the fact that we lived, at the end of our street in St Andrews Street here is just not far from, but there was a farm. Well, there was a huge bunch of allotments there and there was also a huge bunch of allotments which are still there up at the top of the hill. You know those allotments against the Bomber Command base.
CB: Oh I know. Yes. At the top.
JH1: It was there then.
CB: The top of Canwick Hill. Yes.
JH1: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Well, it was just as busy growing things and I think they purchased, you know for fresh vegetables. In fact, you used to go up to the, underneath the railway arch in Lincoln. We would go and take a can and get the fresh milk out the cow. You know, all those sorts of things were there. Yeah. Yeah. You did. Oh, I’ll tell you what I used to [pause] liquorice wood submarines. We had no sweets but you could get, have you never heard of liquorice wood?
CB: Yes. I’ve heard of it.
JH1: You can chew it.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: And I’ll tell you something else I shouldn’t [laughs] I happened, this was I suppose a different thing. In a factory in China walking around looking at different machinery and stuff and lo and behold there was a big pile of the liquorice wood. And when I started picking it up and eating it the other people said, ‘Don’t do that it might poison you.’ ‘No. It’s good.’ [laughs]
CB: So that was somewhere you went years later.
JH1: Oh yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Yeah. Nothing. It was just —
CB: So —
JH1: Just reminded me. Well, it triggers your mind doesn’t it?
CB: It does.
JH1: Sort of things
CB: You wouldn’t have expected to have found that in a factory in China, would you?
JH1: No. No. It’s, but if I can remember suddenly there was a shop on the High Street where Dixon Street ends. She had a little, she sold food, no. Not food [pause] confectionary and things like that, and it went around. Oh, that’s another one. She, she went around, it went around the schools that she’d got some kali. This was the first kali that we’d ever tasted and immediately she was inundated with all the school kids grabbing the [unclear] because they wanted some kali. That was the first time since the war started you had anything because there was nothing.
CB: And when the war ended obviously there was National Service. Was that still happening when you got to that age or not?
JH1: No. I didn’t.
CB: No. It had ended.
JH1: I was too far back for that before that started. No. Yeah. Interesting
CB: Well, thank you. Yes.
[recording paused]
JH1: We were going on to the Common because we were going to the top of the hill to the allotments. That’s why we were there. And I can tell you the place where it happened within a few feet because I was there the other day because that’s where I walk from. But the, we come up these, there was a passageway comes up from Lincoln up to where the Common starts and there’s a passageway opposite. I think it went over the railway bridge. Over the railway bridge. Then around to the allotments and then under another railway bridge and along the way when we were with my sister and my mum going home we went from shelter to shelter because on the street sides there was huge concrete shelters which my mum thought we should stop in each one. And while we were in there we could hear all the guns flying trying to shoot the aircraft down. You know. But the other thing is I’ve never seen a record of this because where we were originally at the Liberal Club wasn’t far from the cinema and the cinema was packed apparently.
CB: The cinema was — ?
JH1: Packed.
CB: Packed.
JH1: With people.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: And it’s when they, you know when you see the pictures on the news of that time of people bombed and the whole things aflame. That’s what I saw.
[recording paused]
CB: One day I’d gone down with my dog. I won’t give you his name. I just—
CB: No.
JH1: But I went with my dog as I used to in the school holidays and sat there fishing and a Spitfire appeared. Went [whoosh] just above the water.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Of course, I was going —
CB: Yes.
JH1: And then six of them came.
CB: Oh.
JH1: For about ten minutes I had my own private Spitfire.
CB: Spitfire display.
JH1: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: And when, you know.
CB: Well, you were certainly living in the right, right county for seeing the aircraft.
JH1: Well, they were obviously practising but then they see me jumping up and down waving my arms, it was quite.
CB: So they went up and down.
JH1: Up and down.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Come straight down the river upside down.
CB: Wow.
JH1: A few feet above the water.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: But then that’s probably what they were training for.
CB: Well, yes. Obviously there was, there were training units as well as operational.
JH1: Yeah.
CB: Active units. Yeah.
JH1: I mean there was a lot of, a lot of things like that would happen but it was just, you know. Another one. Yeah. But, yeah.
CB: And today we get very excited about the Red Arrows who are practising.
JH1: Yes [laughs] Yeah, because when you think that those lads who were driving them were not a lot older than me.
CB: No. They were very young.
JH1: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: So, but no it lasted for about ten minutes.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: They were doing things with a Spitfire which presumably they shouldn’t have done [laughs]
CB: Training.
JH1: Yeah.
CB: Manoeuvres and —
JH1: Yeah. I mean at the same time the railway was active and there were steam trains going up and down. But you know it just came out the blue and then they disappeared and I’m there, and the only one that ever saw it.
CB: I know sometimes they dip their wings, don’t they? To acknowledge people on the ground who are waving.
JH1: Oh, these were going like that. Sideways.
CB: Sideways.
JH1: And upside down. Well, they were —
CB: Amazing.
JH1: And the more I run up and down waving my keep net. Yeah.
CB: That was a memorable fishing trip.
JH1: Yeah. It was. And nobody ever heard of it.
CB: Well, they have now.
JH1: They have now. Yeah.
CB: They have now.
[recording paused]
JH1: I think we were, we were told at school. We were still at school that a bomber destroyed a house in, I think it was De Wint Avenue. I’m not quite sure but the thing was it got around the school and of course all the kids jumped on their bikes and we’ll go and have a look at it.
CB: Off down to the De Wint Avenue to have a look.
JH1: Yeah. Yeah. But there was another one that comes out of this. Because there was no sweets there was a firm called Barkers and Lee Smiths who crushed peanuts for the oil. They would come down the Witham in barges and then a big hooky thing would go in. But the thing was that it would go around the school there was a barge in and immediately you’d go home, scrounge a brown paper bag off your mum, then go and sit on the railings [laughs]
CB: Wasn’t there —
JH1: Sit on the railings and try and get the men to give, put a shovelful of peanuts out. That’s where you got our sweets from.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: And you know, of course there were all these kids and there, the, the men on the barge would take pity on you and fill your bag up and that was your sweets.
CB: Yeah.
JH1: Anyway, that was it.
CB: Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: So, moving on to you then, Jean. You were a child during the war, weren’t you? What do you remember?
JH2: Well, I was born in 1935 so I was four when the war started. My earliest memories are when I started at the Infant’s School which was just around the corner from where we lived. We used to take our gas masks on our shoulders. And in one of the classes we had like, I think you’d, I don’t know if you’d call it a first aid, an emergency kit. And we had a tin with a lid about eight inches by four. It was an old tobacco tin I remember. And in this tin we had a packet of raisins, some bandages, some safety pins. And that’s all I remember but each child in the class had one of these and it was stored. They were all stored in a cupboard and that was our emergency pack. And when there was an air raid the siren would go obviously and those who lived a long way from the school went to the shelters nearby. I lived nearby so I could walk home and then that’s where we stayed ‘til the all-clear went. And we got —
CB: And this, this was in Derbyshire.
JH2: This was in Derbyshire. Yes.
CB: In Shirebrook.
JH2: In Shirebrook. Yes. in a mining village. We didn’t actually see any action as such but I do remember lying in bed at night and hearing the drone which seemed to go on and on and on of the aeroplanes. And I can remember saying to my mother, ‘What are, what’s all that noise?’ And she would say, ‘Oh, it’s all the aeroplanes going to fight the war and keep us safe.’ So that was my memory of that. We never had any new toys. Everything was second hand. We didn’t have many toys anyway. I had a doll. One Christmas morning, I knew I always wanted a doll and I came downstairs and there in this chair was sat this doll and it had belonged to the daughter of a friend of mine and she’d cut nearly all its hair off. But, but my mother had made a really nice outfit for this doll. I can picture it now. And I thought it was wonderful. It meant so much and I’ve got such a clear recollection of it. That was one thing. We had a three wheeler bike which again was second hand. I had a brother who was eighteen months younger than me so he used to play on this bike. The doll’s pram I had had no hood on it. I don’t know where that came from but we accepted all these things because that’s the way it was and that’s the way the world was in those days. The ration books. I was the one who always spent the sweet ration first and it was, it wasn’t a lot really. But you know it meant a lot to us. I can remember queuing for food. My mother would send us shopping, and we’d go and queue. My dad had a huge allotment and I don’t know how he found time to do it all but everything we had came from the allotment and he worked very hard at it in between doing long hours working in the mine. Have a pause a minute. I’ve got to recollect my thoughts again now.
CB: Well, before we do that may I ask you your father was a miner.
JH2: Yeah.
CB: So I imagine that that was exempt from active service.
JH2: Yes. He was. Yeah. Yes. I can talk about that. And —
CB: So all those men carried on working obviously because we needed the coal for the power.
JH2: Yes. It was protected employment. Yes. And he used to cycle about three miles a day on a bike with no gears to work and then he would probably walk miles again underground and then cycle back home again and that was what he did every day. And sometimes he’d go and do what we called a double shift. He’d get, just get home because there was no communication, it was word of mouth. Somebody would come and say, ‘You’re needed again.’ So he had to do it again with no break in between. But again, that was the way it was.
CB: And did your mum work at all?
JH2: No. She didn’t. No. No. She kept everything going in the house and you know, just looked after us really. Yes. She was a very good housewife, sounds an old fashioned word now. But yes she did all the cooking, baking, made bread and all that kind of thing. It’s not exactly war related I suppose but that’s the way it was.
CB: It’s how life was.
JH2: It’s how life was. Yes. Yeah.
[recording paused]
JH2: My, my grandfather. My, my dad’s father he was a tin smith and he had his own business so obviously he wasn’t a protected occupation so he was sent to work in a munitions factory. And unfortunately, while he was working there he caught pneumonia and died. He was only forty four.
CB: That’s very young. Very young.
JH2: So in a sense that was an indirect result of what happened.
CB: Were they in Derbyshire? Near you.
JH2: Yes. In Derbyshire that was. Yeah.
[recording paused]
JH2: All, all children, well everybody had to have a gas mask and my brother because he was a little bit younger he had a Mickey Mouse gas mask. And we thought it was really funny. And I can remember the smell.
JH1: Oh yeah. I can.
JH2: Oh, it was a rubbery awful smell really, but again we just accepted it. It was just everybody had got one. It was just normal. Just part of how it was in the war.
CB: And the Mickey Mouse gas mask. It was so called because it had something at the sides that looked like ears. The big ears for Mickey Mouse.
JH2: Yes.
CB: Was that an all in one for a baby?
JH2: No. This was just for a smaller child. It was, I remember it was, it was coloured.
CB: What colour was it?
JH2: I can remember yellows and reds vaguely but it was quite different from the, the, what I called the black ones. But it was just the way life was.
CB: I think they had an all in one type of thing for a baby.
JH2: For a baby. Yes.
CB: [unclear]
JH2: I don’t remember those.
CB: No.
JH2: No. But it was just my brother who was that little bit younger and he had one. So that was quite, we thought it was funny really.
CB: And did you have an Anderson shelter?
JH1: Yes.
JH2: In the garden we had, yes an Anderson shelter and my dad actually dug it all out. How on earth he did it I don’t know but he went [pause] well you could stand up in it. So it was, it was deep into the ground and we had a seat in it, and over the top he put, how he did this I don’t know but it was the roof was railway sleepers which are really heavy and on top of that it was grassed. And we never actually used it as a shelter. We didn’t. We didn’t really have need to, but we used to play in it. And I can remember it smelt of dank damp earth and not very nice really but we thought it was fun. You know it was a fun thing to do to go and play in it.
[recording paused]
JH2: When the sirens went, if, very often it was at night so mother and dad would come and scoop us up, wrap us in our eiderdowns, take us downstairs and we had a cupboard under the stairs and we would sit in there until the all clear went. I can remember that really well. But again, we thought nothing of it.
CB: And that was supposed to be one of the safest places in the house.
JH2: Yes. It was. Under the stairs.
CB: Well, thank you both of you. Thank you ever so much for your time and for your stories. And I know you found parts of it distressing, Jack but you were keen to, to tell the stories. But thank you very much both of you. Thank you.
JH1: Thank you.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Jack and Jean Howes
Creator
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Cathy Brearley
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-06-11
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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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AHowesJ-J180611
Format
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00:37:12 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Howes was born in 1933 in Nottingham. His father was a machine engineer and by the start of the war they were living in Lincoln where he worked for Ruston-Bucyrus. His father was then transferred to Grantham and had to live there during the week. His mother also worked full time at a printing works in Lincoln. Jack recites various experiences of what it was like to be a child in wartime Lincoln. On one Friday evening, when he and other boys were going across South Common, an aircraft flew over very low, skimming the treetops. The boys dived to the ground, onto their backs to watch it. They saw a man in the nose manning a set of two guns and they identified it as a German aircraft. It then flew off towards Canwick Hill. On another day, Jack was out fishing when six Spitfires flew over low and proceeded to carry out various aerobatic manoeuvres. At night he could hear the bombers circling overhead as they gathered together to set off on bombing operations. He also talks about rationing, the lack of sweets, chewing liquorice wood, and aircraft spotting posters in his bedroom. Jean Howes was born in in 1935 and lived in Derbyshire at the start of the war. Her part of the interview starts at 26:04. She recalls her school where they had to carry their gas masks, and each child had an emergency kit in an old tobacco tin. If the air raid siren went she had to walk home until the all-clear sounded. Though her father had dug a shelter in the garden, they tended to shelter in a cupboard under the stairs in the house. The family’s food ration was supplemented by produce grown in their large allotment.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
bombing
childhood in wartime
home front
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/PCoultonWA1608.1.jpg
15510534c70ff503e12c0b6afc5bca75
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/ACoultonWA161020.2.mp3
cd9c3d503ae278ab9f2db39c0cf651f9
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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Coulton, William Arthur
William Coulton
W A Coulton
Arthur Coulton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Coulton, WA
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. The collection concerns William Arthur Coulton (b. 1925, 3050209, Royal Air Force). He served as an engine mechanic at RAF Witchford and RAF North Luffenham before being posted overseas to Palestine. Collection includes an oral history interview, some artworks, a wedding photograph and a photograph album.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William Arthur Coulton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2016-10-20
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is 20th October 2016, and we are in Freemantle Court, near Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and we’re with William Arthur Coulton who’s going to tell us about his experiences in the RAF on the ground. So Arthur what are the earliest recollections that you got of life?
AC: The earliest – Twyford, at Twyford, the village of Twyford in south Derbyshire. Yes, I – the fourth, three or four – yes – south Derbyshire.
CB: That’s where you lived?
AC: That’s where we lived, we lived in the the holdall [?] of south Derbyshire Twyford had been put into two two houses. Yeah, two residence. Went to school, the village, the little village school, well a matchbox school I went back some years ago to see the place and I was surprised how small the school was. Yes. And we left, we left Twyford. My father worked, a farm worker and he got a job in Ash— Ashford or near Ashford. We went to live up there and he had the misfortune to get gored by a bull and he, he never worked the bulls for four years, and that that finished his farm working, and then he went to work in the foundry of all places. Yes, yes. [Background noise]
CB: And then where did you go from there?
AC: Where where did, where did the – we went to live at Holbrook in Derbyshire. Yes, ‘cause its two Holbrooks you know? One in Lincolnshire, and my parents stayed there for the rest of their lives. And actually I’ve got a young sister still lives in Holbrook and from there I joined the air force.
CB: When when did you leave school?
AC: 14.
CB: At 14?
AC: Yes.
CB: And what did you do then?
AC: When I left school? I went to work for Derby Co-op. Yes, I went as errand boy at Derby Co-op. and I stayed with Derby Co-op until I was 18, joined the air force. Yes.
CB: Why did you join the RAF and not one of the other services?
AC: To be quite honest, you want the honest there?
CB: Yeah.
AC: I didn’t want to be gun fodder. I didn’t want to join the army. I didn’t want to be in the front line. That’s me being honest about it.
CB: That’s good.
AC: Of course, I was in the ATC, so you automatically you got the preference to go in the air force and I enjoyed the air force. I trained as a flight mechanic. I –
CB: Where did you join up?
AC: In 1943.
CB: Where?
AC: At Birmingham. That’s where I went through the details, at Birmingham, and when I joined up from Birmingham we went to – oh, we went to Cardigan [?] and we got issued with our uniform at mob office yes. And then I got – where’d I go then? I got posted to me square bashing at Skegness. When they told me I was going to Skegness, I asked me Sergeant if I had me bucket and spade. He said, ‘You won’t have a chance to use it.’ [Chuckle].
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that though?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that.
AC: Yes. Yes yes. Yes he did.
CB: You horrible little man.
AC: Yeah I was a horrible little man.
[Shared laughter]
AC: Yes. I I — do you know Skegness?
CB: Yes.
AC: Imperial Hotel? I know that place very well. That was our mess hall and I know what the cellar was like. I got fatigues down there more than once. [Laughter]. Yes. I was a bad lad, I got caught you see. The policy is that do anything you like as long as you don’t get caught. That’s the —
CB: That’s a cardinal rule?
AC: Pardon?
CB: It’s a cardinal rule.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes. I got caught several times.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, I was —
CB: So what did you learn there? When you weren’t misbehaving.
AC: What did I learn? I was trying to find out how I could get away with it. You know to find the loopholes. [Chuckle]. Oh dear. I didn’t do too, too bad. No.
CB: So what did the course, this is a training course, Initial Training Wing, this is the training wing —
AC: Square bashing.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You know, up and down, marching like a lot of silly hooligans. Yes, and what they call the Commando course running around in a woods there with barbed wire, yeah and that, and one of you had to lie on it while the others run over you. That wasn’t very comfortable – you had to take it in turns. Yeah. You lay on barbed wire. Not very nice
CB: No.
AC: Yeah.
CB: What was worse the barbed wire or peoples feet on your back?
AC: I would say people’s feet on ya. Yeah.
CB: Okay, so what else did you do?
AC: Yeah. They put —
CB: They —
AC: They put — and that was at Skegness that was, where we did the training. And then we was what you was going to be, you was sent to them them units. And first of all they sent me to Newcastle-on-Tyne of all places. And I was there on me own, with you know, I didn’t go anyone else. Then I went on my own to Weston Super Mare to Lockheed, you know that?
CB: I do know. But just quickly what did you do at Newcastle-on-Tyne? What was the purpose of that?
AC: Just — just waiting patiently.
CB: A holding unit?
AC: Yes.
CB: Okay.
AC: Yes. Then I went to Lockheed and I did me engineering course there.
CB: How long did that last?
AC Pardon?
CB: How long was the Lockheed course?
AC: Erh. Was it? Was it 16 weeks? I think it was. I’m not certain now and then we went to — was posted and I was posted to to Newmarket. And the engineer — the sergeant said to me, ‘Where you going?’ I said, ‘Romney Marsh [?], Newmarket.’ He said, ‘You’re going to a holiday camp.’ I said, ‘As good as that?’ And it showed me how good it was. [Laughter]. It was it was — You couldn’t beat beat Newmarket. It was lovely.
CB: That was on the racecourse then was it?
AC: On the racecourse, yes.
CB: So, what was so really special about it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: What was really special about it?
AC: Well, you could just say. Freedom. You know you was in the forces but you had a free life like. Yes. And our billet was a Nissan hut in Frank Buttress’[?] paddock, one of his paddocks. There was about 12 Nissan huts in there, and he didn’t mind you going round the stables, looking at the horses. I went round one day and a blinking horse — I — [unclear] all at was it nipped me. I I, well that’s the end of my life with horses. [Chuckle]. Yeah. But I liked Newmarket. That was a good station to be on. I was there 10 months and then they posted me to 115 Squadron at Witchford, Ely and I stayed there right to the end of the war. And I was on A and B aircraft as a flight mechanic.
CB: So you’re a flight mechanic, and A and B were the tasks that you did, so what were those?
AC: A and B was the two aircraft.
CB: Right.
AC: A and B and the number — what you call it — the code number was KO. That was the aircraft, KO. And we went to, when the war ended and I went to North Luffenham. Have you ever been there?
CB: I know, lived there.
AC: Pardon?
CB: I used to live there.
AC: Yes. I went to North Luffenham and I remustered into the MT [?] as a motor motor mechanic. And I stayed there for about four weeks, I think. And I was working on an American claptrap[?] vehicle. And a chap came along out of the distance and waving the papers and said, ‘You’re posted overseas.’ Well I said, ‘If that’s if that’s the case I’m packing up here now then going.’ And I went overseas. I went to Palestine and I was with 32 Squadron Fighter Squadron. Famous 32. Yes, and they had Spitfires but I was in the MT then and I worked in the vehicles, and we went into Jordan on exercises with the army and from there, went back there. Yeah I was demobbed. I got my demob come through while I was at there at Palestine. Was it? No. Sorry no. At North Luffenham that was where I got me notification of demob and I got demobbed. I went to work in the local garage.
CB: Where?
AC: Ely.
CB: In Ely?
AC: Cambridge.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. And then I did five years in there.
CB: How did you come to do that in Ely when you were in from North Luffenham?
AC: What?
CB: Why did you choose Ely when you were stationed —
AC: I got married.
CB: — at North Luffenham?
AC: I got married. She come from Ely.
CB: Oh right. Sounds a pretty compelling reason.
AC: Yeah, I got a photograph of her there.
CB: Yeah, we’ll have a look.
JS: She’s lovely.
AC: Eh?
CB: We’ll look in a minute. Yeah.
AC: Yeah. I I was stationed at Witchford at Ely. You know the aerodrome. Witchford. That’s how I come to meet the wife and, of course, when I got demobbed, I went I lived in Ely, went to work at the local garage.
CB: Hmm.
AC: And I stayed there till one day a coal merchant who I knew quite well, he was only a bit older than me came in and asked me if I’d go and run a dairy business for him he’d bought. I mean all above all things from a mechanic to a dairy. I said, ‘Yeah I’ll go, Joe. I’ll have a go.’ And I stayed with the milk industry for 33 years and then I retired. Yes, I built up a good business. I amalgamated with another dairy. We we had a good business. We had nearly 6000 customers
CB: Hmm.
AC: We had quite a quite a business and, well, we had 14 men work for us.
CB: Hmm.
AC: Yes but I say we — that was hard work. It is hard working in the dairy trade. Yes.
CB: What’s the hardest thing about working in the dairy trade?
AC: Delivering the milk and satisfying the customers. Yeah you get a lot of dissatisfied people if you was a bit late. They never realised that they could have had extra milk and kept always had a bottle in hand. That’s what — there’s a lot of people like that. Yes.
CB: So you met your wife when you was at Witchford?
AC: I met her at Witchford.
CB: What was was she in the RAF?
AC: She was in the NAAFI.
CB: Oh was she, right.
AC: I was a canteen cowboy.
CB: What was her name?
AC: Hilda Elsie.
CB: Hilda and she was a canteen cowboy.
AC: That’s was that they called them you know. They called —
CB: Not cowgirl?
AC: If you was a NAAFI girl, you was a canteen cowboy. [Laughter] Yes.
CB: And was her tea any good?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Was her tea any good?
AC: Ehhhh. Not too bad. I did know one thing about it. I used to get egg and chips.
CB: Oh.
AC: The chaps used to say, ‘Where’d you get your egg from?’ I said, ‘Hilda brought for me.’ They said, ‘Will she get me one?’ They wouldn’t ask her. [Laughter] ‘Cause her parents got poultry.
CB: Oh.
AC: Yes. So I got egg and chips, I did.
CB: Interesting. So you settled down for the five years in Ely, but actually you continued in that area did you with the – with the milk?
AC: Yes. Oh Yes. Oh yes I continued in that area.
CB: Hm.
AC: But — and the dairy ran —we got progress — we got a bit of land and we build a dairy to — the purpose was to vehicles. And we had — eventually we had all electric vehicles. We had one electric vehicle that could 55 miles, around Cambridge doing 55 miles.
CB: Hm.
AC: Didn’t do —it was never more than 88 miles through the premises, but it got the capacity for 55 miles. Yeah.
CB: So what was the area that you were serving? It was Ely and the villages, was it?
AC: The villages, yes and Ely and surrounding villages. Yes.
CB: To what extent did you use your engineering skills —
AC: Kept the vehicles —
CB: — after the war.
AC: Kept the vehicles going.
CB: As well as running the business.
AC: Yes. Well I had a partners and I used to look after the vehicles. Yeah. I got a dab hand at the electric vehicles. Yes.
CB: Now, going back to the RAF when you went to your training at Locking [?], what did they do to train you from scratch to be an aero—engine mechanic?
AC: Yes. We we had in this big hanger, we had sections set off in bays and there was in our gang there was 15 of us. The the instructor, he was a sergeant who instructed us and he instructed us on engineering and I really really liked it there.
CB: So how many bays would they have in the hanger? Was there a different — did they do a different task in each bay?
AC: Of all the things what we had in the hanger, we had Blackburn Botha did you know about them?
CB: — Yeah. Blackburn Botha. Yeah.
AC: They got two of them. Yes. [unclear] Our job was to strip them and put them back again.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You strip the engine down. Rebuild it and put it back again.
CB: What were those engines? Were they radials? Or were they inline?
AC: Inline. Yes. Yes. Inline.
CB: And what other engines did they have as well.
AC: I I can’t think of what — a Sabre engine.
CB: A Napier Sabre?
AC: Yes. Yes. I can’t think what aircraft that was out of.
CB: That was off the Typhoon.
AC: Was it? I know it was a big engine.
CB: Yeah. 27 litres.
AC: Yeah.
CB: And did you have Merlins there or where was your introduction to the Merlin?
AC: Yeah there, but it was the early Merlin. The Merlin Mark I of all the things to teach us on. Yeah the really early — Christopher. Come from the Boar War I think. Yes.
CB: So, if you had — if there were these bays, you stayed in the bays did you, as a group of 15?
AC: Yes.
CB: And learned all the aspects of engine repair and maintenance. Is that right?
AC: Yes. Yes that’s right. We were instructed on it and you had diagrams and you drew diagrams, and — I can’t think how many was on there. But I but I really enjoyed it. I liked the job.
CB: It was a mixture of hands on and classwork was it?
AC: Yes.
CB: So, did you — you had a notebook that you kept?
AC: What?
CB: You had a notebook in which you progressed —
AC: Oh yes.
CB: — your training.
AC: Yes. I I, though I say it myself I think I was a good mechanic, but was I good? When I went into Civvy Street at the local garage at Ely. The first job the foreman said to me, ‘I want you to rebuild that engine there and put it in a car.’ And it was all in bits. And he’d re — it. So I rebuilt it. I’d never seen it before. It was all in tin boxes in bits. Yes. So I built it. I went [unclear], it went when I put it in the car. Yes.
CB: What was his reaction to that?
AC: Oh, he thought I was all right. Thought I was a good bloke.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well, there’s there’s about 12 of us mechanics in the garage. Three of them were ex RAF men. Yeah so — we did all right.
CB: And in your training, you had this group with you, so the 15 in the bay, were they — did some of them move along with you or did everybody go to somewhere quite different?
AC: Yes. Two of them — went, when we finished, two of them went with me to Newmarket. One was named Chris Rudge [?] and I can’t think of the other ones name. But but this Chris Rudge [?] had a bad reputation. He — nobody liked him.
CB: No?
AC: Instead of calling you a ‘B’, he called you a ‘Got blood like Rudge.’ That’s what they used to say. Yes.
CB: Right.
AC:Yes.
CB: So he was the one who was disruptive, was he?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He was disruptive influence in the —
AC: Yes.
CB: — in the bay.
AC: Yeah, nobody liked him. No.
CB: And what was you classified as? You were cadets at that stage, what rank?
AC: No, we weren’t classed as cadets. I was a — I was a LAC. Yes I was LAC then and, of course, the flight mate can’t go any more than a LAC until he remusters [unclear]. That was my biggest mistake. I didn’t remuster. See If I had remustered —
CB: Why didn’t you remuster?
AC: I never thought I was — I was young and silly. See I I was 19 and I hadn’t got a clue what – I was young and silly. Yes. I regret it but never mind I learnt more when I went in the garage job. I had a good experience.
CB: What time of the year were you are Locking [?]
AC: Locking? [Pause] Yeah, autumn. Yes, ‘cause I went down Weston—Super—Mare. Had a girlfriend there and we walked round the Winter Gardens. Yeah, and it was autumn. Yes. That brought back memories that does. Cor she was half —
JS: [Laughter]
AC: Memories, eh?
CB: So she wasn’t in the Air Force?
AC: No, she was civvy girl. Civvy girl. Yeah.
CB: So, she showed you all the excitements of Weston-Super-Mare?
AC: Very. Definitely. Weston-Super-Mare there’s not much there.
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: Eh?
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: No [Laughter]
CB: Particularly, the places that were difficult to find you in?
AC: Yes.
CB: Down the pier?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Along the pier?
AC: How long was I there?
CB No, no the pier.
AC: Oh beer.
CB: Pier pier.
AC: Yes.
CB: And when you travelled, how did you get around from Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare? Did you walk, cycle or bus?
AC: [Mumble] From Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare it’s only two miles.
CB: Oh right.
AC: You walked. Yes. Yeah. Then you crept in — when you crept into camp you went through the hedge, the hawthorn hedge. That was — there was a gap and you crawled through it. You missed — you missed the guardroom then.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Naughty boys. [Chuckle]
CB: What was the accommodation when you were at Locking [?]?
AC: Pretty warm. Wooden purpose — built buildings. They had wood corridors from the rooms. You never went outside to get a wash, you went down these corridors to the ablutions. Showers. Was — as I say it was pretty warm building. Yeah. Locking, I understand the Fleet Arm have got it now.
CB: And when you went to Newmarket, what were you doing there? Was is it an extension of your training or what?
AC: No, I went there as a fully blown mechanic.
CB: Right. So what were you called then? Your title.
AC: [Mumble] I was LAC. Leading aircraftsman.
CB: But did you were an aircraft mechanic or were you a —
AC: Aircraft mechanic.
CB: And what aircraft were you on there? Was there a squadron that you were —
AC: Spitfires.
CB: Spitfires right.
AC: Lovely old Spitfire. We used — used to love to get in them and warm them up in the mornings. Oh that was the best bit about that. Squadron Leader West was the CO. There was only six Spitfires. Was only a little group of u, but we had a good time until he decided to post me and he posted me to Ely, Witchford —
CB: Yeah.
AC: — on Lancasters, and I always remember I went you went into see the CO and he said to me,: ‘What do you know about Merlins?’ That was it. And I said, ‘Well, I was on Spitfires.’ And he didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like it at all.
CB: ‘Cause he was a bomber man?
AC: Well, the Spitfire has got the same engine, ain’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: [Chuckle] He didn’t like it. So,I made an enemy with him first of all.
CB: How well did you adapt to the bomber activity?
AC: Ohh lovely. I had a good crew. I had a good — I was with a good mob. I was with a real good mob. We had a Sergeant [unclear] Wakeman [?] He was a real a real gentleman. He was he was a nice chap [unclear]. We called him [unclear] we didn’t call him Sergeant. So we know how how good he was. But, of course, the Air Force had a better relationship with everybody than they did in the army. Definitely. Yes.
CB: So were you on the flight line or were you in a hanger?
AC: I was on the dispersal ramp side.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah. That was the best place to be to get the ‘flip-up’. Yes.
CB: So what what would get you the trip up in the aircraft? What what was the —
AC: Where’d we’d go in? Lancasters.
CB: No no. How did you manage to get the flights.
AC: Oh, we’d get one easy as pie.
CB: [Cough] For what reason?
AC: Just just as the crew said, as the pilot said, ‘Can I have trip up with ya?’ He’d say, ‘Get in.’ You weren’t supposed to but you get in.
CB: So why would he be flying at that moment?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Would he be flying for air test or cross country or what?
AC: Air test. Air test or — yeah, what’s it? Air gunners practice in the [unclear]. Yes. Oh, went up several times. Well well the — on dispersal when a Squadron Leader an Australian, Robbie, had — what ya got to do is say, ‘Robbie, can I come up?’ And he said, ‘Jump in.’ [Chuckle] You weren’t supposed to but we used to get in. He’d take one of ya. Two of ya. And then you — I got up to the front as a Flight Engineers seat to get a bit of practice. I thought it were quite nice. As I said, I enjoyed my life in the Air Force. I really enjoyed it.
CB: Yeah
AC: I wasn’t one of these that wanted to go home to mother. No. It it was nice. Yeah.
CB: What sort of routine did you have on the squadron?
AC: Maintenance.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Yeah just maintenance.
CB: But but what time would you get up? And were you on a shift or how did it work?
AC: Yeah it it – there was no such thing as shifts. You was all in a crowd. You know, you got —I think there was about seven of us in our mob. We had to look after two aircraft. Yeah, A and B. [unclear] What was that? And eh, what else was there? I was there I was there till the end of the war at Witchford and A carried a big bomb. You know the big 22000lb.
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Yeah, the Grand Slam. That big ‘un. Yes. I carried that —
CB: So that was a modified Lancaster to make it fit?
AC: Oh yes, it it – the bomb bomb doors was differently. They lapped around the bomb.
CB: So who did the modification for that?
AC: [Unclear]
CB: You did it.
AC: No.
CB: On the airfield?
AC: No, I did it — the Air Force did it in the hanger [?]. And that was a pity, I never I never — I should have asked to have gone in the hanger to make it work. I would have learnt more. But, as I say, I was young and silly and having a good time at the dispersals.
CB: So on the dispersal, what were the tasks you had to do in a day?
AC: Main — maintenance on the engine. Yeah, giving a check over and that.
CB: So would you have a ladder for that or a gantry?
AC: A gantry. Yes, yes used to have a gantry. And, course you, you walked over, over the wings and that and you sat [unclear] screwing the tops in. Yeah, wasn’t weren’t supposed to — you were supposed to use the gantry.
CB: But but nobody fell off?
AC: [Chuckle] Well you know [mumble] when you change the engine at the dispersal. They used say ‘Put the fan on and then they’ll think we’re finished.’ That was the propeller.
CB: Yeah
AC: [Chuckle].Yeah.
CB: So, you could do an engine change at dispersal, could you?
AC: Yes, yes. We used to change them there.
CB: What would be the reason for changing an engine?
AC: If it got over heated. Yeah, ‘cause they got over heated and burned the aluminium. The heads, the rocker cover, the nuts be melted — be melted into the aluminium when it got hot.
CB: So what would cause the engine to overheat?
AC: Well, lack of coolant. Yeah.
CB: So, it would be damaged by flak or enemy attack in some way would it.
AC: Oh yes, if it was leaking. Yes.
CB: And what was the coolant on those engines?
AC: Drycol.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. The bloke who used to be in the hanger working on the Glycol tank. He had to take him into the sick bay and pump him out because he was drinking the stuff. You know it tastes like pear drops.
CB: And it made him high?
AC: Pardon.
CB: And it didn’t do him any good?
AC: Didn’t do him any good. No. Didn’t do him no good, but it tasted nice you see. That was the reason.
CB: So on the flight line, you’re — the aircraft you’re prepare it for an operation.
AC: Yes.
CB: What was the procedure for handing it over to the crew? How did they know that it was working?
AC: Well, they’d be notified by phone that — yes. It was when they expected it. It always come up with the kit. Yeah, I mean I changed one day while they were waiting — waiting to take off, I changed the hydraulic pump on the inboard — the starboard inner while the other engines were running. Yeah, yeah I did [unclear].
CB: So had this engine been running earlier?
AC: Yes.
CB: So it was a bit hot was it?
AC: Oh, yes it was well hot. But as I say I liked my job. I enjoyed my life on it. I used to volunteer to do it.
CB: And what was the link between the ground crew and the aircrew?
AC: Very close. Very close. They was very, very close.
CB: And was there one crew member more than the others or any of the crew members?
AC: All the crewmembers were like — I was on A and B, and they was flown by an Australian Squadron Leader, Robbie. We called him Robbie, and he name was Robertson actually.
CB: Right.
AC: We called him Robbie. And he, he was all right with us. You see the ground staff and the aircrew they had — well a close—knit unit, didn’t they? They they relied on you. Yeah, they were very close to ya. There was no ifs or buts about it.
CB: So you talked about clearance for their aircraft mechanically before it flew, when it came back what sort of debriefing did you have with the crew?
AC: Oh, we didn’t have any debriefing with the crew. All they said was if anything was wrong and that was done and the NCO used to ask us what was on the Flight Engineer and then that’s what we got set into. Yes.
CB: Was the main link between the Flight Engineer and the chief, the crew chief or would it be the other member of the —
AC: The Flight Engineer and the ground staff, he NCO and the ground staff was always very close. Yes, they consulted one another.
CB: And how many times did the aircraft come back damaged?
AC: Oh, I couldn’t tell ya. There was a lot of holes in it at times.
CB: And how did you feel about that?
AC: How did I feel? [Emphasis] I had the job of patching ‘em. You see I was on engines but I helped to do the patching. Riveting of a patch. Oh yes, some aircraft got real patchy. Yeah.
CB: When you say real patchy were there a number of — what sort of damage did the aircraft have?
AC: Well it, it would be shrapnel. Shrapnel holes ‘cause they were jagged. We put — just put a panel of aluminium over them. Yes.
CB: And how did you secure the aluminium plate?
AC: Pardon?
CB: How did you secure the —
AC: Rivet them.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, pot rivet them. Yeah the old pot rivets. Yeah. That was that was a regular job that. Yeah.
CB: There was a case in 15 Squadron of a Lancaster coming back without the rear turret because it had been knocked off by a bomb falling from above. Did you see that?
AC: We had the — I dunno whether if you read about the rear gunner what bailed out, well he come from Witchford. He was at Witchford, he was on ‘C’ flight and he bailed out and he shouldn’t have lived. When they got back, they found they got no rear gunner. [Chuckle]. And he was a prisoner of war. [Chuckle]
CB: So what had happened to him then? Why did he get out and how did he do it?
AC: I think he heard the pilot prepare to — you know, to bail out and he only gone to bail out and he didn’t hesitate. He opened the door and went. [Chuckle].
CB: With or without a parachute?
AC: With a parachute, but I’ll you what you looked a little bit sick when you saw the aircraft flying above ya and going home wouldn’t ya? And you was going down into captivity. [Chuckle] Oh dear. It wasn’t very nice.
CB: What other good stories do you remember about being at Witchford and 15 Squadron.
AC: Oh yes. That was one of one of them that — rear gunner bailed out and he shouldn’t have done. We — I was on A and B and they’re good, they do a very good [unclear] and I said Robbie was a pilot on it. Australian. He later went to make a Wing Commander and he was in charge of the Squadron. Yeah Robbie. We called him Robbie, that was something about it weren’t he?
CB: Well you were an ‘Erk’.
AC: Pardon?
CB: You were an ‘Erk’ and he was a —
AC: We called him Robbie —
CB: He was a senior officer.
AC: Yeah. You called Robbie. He didn’t mind. Well that was that the spirit between the aircrew and the ground staff, wasn’t it?. [Background noise]
CB: Absolutely. So that you got A and B aircraft —
AC: Yes.
CB: — the two aircraft, what about the other pilot? What was he like?
AC: Oh well, we had different pilots. It was mostly a Scotsman who used to fly. He was all right, but we did have a South African and he got his South African Air Force uniform. Khaki, and he always flew with his hat over the top of his helmet. Yeah.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Yeah, yeah he did. His name was Martin. He [unclear] was a Flight Lieutenant then. Flight Lieutenant Martin. Yeah. ‘Course we used to say he was dog biscuits, Martin Dog Biscuits, and we used to collar, collar the blokes when the NAAFI van used to come round. The officers were there and the aircrew used to collar them to pay for their tea. [Chuckle].
CB: How did you divide your time between the two aircraft?
AC: Well when we — if the aircraft had gone off you stayed in the the dispersal hut. You played cards. Gambled.
CB: No, but I mean that you had A and B aircraft, so how did you divide the work between them?
AC: Well you got to which either one it was. You went on, no matter which one. Flight Sergeant told you which aircraft you gotta do and you went on it. There was no difference. All, all I could say was B was a dirty aircraft . Oil leaks. You couldn’t stop the oil leaks. She used to leak oil all over the under cart. Yeah.
CB: So that was one of the inner engines?
AC: Engines yeah. Yeah. You naturally changed it.
CB: Right
AC: Yeah took the engine out. ‘Course the engines always went back to Rolls Royce at Derby.
CB: Oh did they?
AC: All the all the engines used to go back for maintenance. If you took one out that went to Rolls Royce. Yes.
CB: So one that you put in would always be new?
AC: Yes. Yes.
CB: And how long did it take to change an engine?
AC: About — I couldn’t truthfully say. Would I should imagine about four hours. Five hours.
CB: Taking one out and putting one in.
AC: Taking one out and putting all the connections in. Pipes and that. Yes.
CB: And was the engine raised by a lift? Or by a crane or how did it —
AC: We lifted them up by crane. We used to get, you know the, the coals —
CB: Coal cranes.
AC: We used to get him to come along and hook it up and hook it up and that’s how we did it. Just there’s only four bolts holding the engine in.
CB: Oh.
AC: That’s all that holds it in. So that the cradle, the engine’s on a cradle actually and they just pushed it in and put the four bolts in. Then you collected all the wires and hosepipes up, the pipes up. Yeah. Yes.
CB: Now in your quieter times and relaxation what did you do?
AC: Well, let’s say that I used to do a little bit of courting.
CB: Just one girl or more?
AC: Well, one or two but I ended up with one.
CB: Right.
AC: I married her.
CB: Fantastic.
AC: Yes. She a good girl to me. We was married for 52 years.
CB: Were you really?
AC: Yes. Yes she was good. She was the only child.
CB: And how many children did you have?
AC: One.
CB: Just David.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: I told them I’d lost the recipe. [Chuckle] [Shared laughter] Yeah. No, we only had the one.
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Pardon?
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Yeah. [Unclear]
CB: What would you say was the most memorable thing about your service in the Royal Air Force?
AC: Well comradeship was one of the best things, wasn’t it? There was something about during the war where you you was in a group of men and there was all youngsters like you. You know most of them was like all about 25 the oldest. That was a mess life, but it was a good life.
CB: And your accommodation at Locking was a pre—war shed, what did you get at Witchford.
AC: Nissan huts. Nissan huts.
CB: How many people in a Nissan hut?
AC: Twelve.
CB: And how was that heated?
AC: Heating was one of those combustion pot stoves in the middle. You know those cast iron things. You got nothing but fumes. I slept by the window at the end and I used to open the window but the lads didn’t like it, but if they come down and shut it, I used to get up and stop them.
CB: So, everybody suffered from the fumes.
AC: Oh yes, the stink of coke on the fire and the fumes was terrible.
CB: And even though you were all technicians you couldn’t stop the fumes?
AC: No, because they were all combustion stoves, you can’t stop it, can ya?
CB: What —
AC: Stinky things.
CB: What, what was it burning? Coke or coal.
AC: Coke. Yes. ‘Cause we’d run out of coke at one period and we managed to get some coke from the aerodrome from outside Bury St Edmunds. And I was in a gang of boys that went to shovel this coke onto the back of the truck to bring it back. Yeah. What a job.
CB: Did they did they notice that you’d nicked it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Did they notice that you had nicked it?
AC: Yeah. Oh yes.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Well we did nick it.
CB: How about the food? How did you feel about that?
AC: Well it just depends what camp you are on. Newmarket was a good, excellent. You couldn’t you couldn’t find fault in Newmarket, but Witchford was cruel. And I think the worse one — the worse one I think was Lockheed. It was — wasn’t anything special. They called themselves cooks but they weren’t anything special. No. Skegness. Oh yes, I forget Skegness. Now that was the worse. Skeggie was the worse food. We was at the Imperial Hotel that was our place and the food there was terrible. Absolutely terrible.
CB: And who were the people doing the cooking there?
AC: They had the people doing it.
CB: Civilians or RAF?
AC: RAF. It was all RAF. Yeah WAAFs cooking it. They’d have a couple of blokes probably and in charge was a Warrant Officer, and yeah that was terrible grub. And when we went to Witchford, we — I ordered — they supplied us, give us kippers for breakfast and they was off. They weren’t right. Everybody was throwing them away, and when the caterer – bloke came round, the officer came round and asked if there were any complaints. We said, ‘These kippers are rotten.’ He said he said, ‘They were in the mess. We complained about them in the officer’s mess.’ [Chuckle]. Oh, they were rotten things. I think the grub at Witchford was the worse one in the Air Force what I had. Yeah, definitely.
CB: So what was it that was so bad about it?
AC: It was the way it was cooked and presented. It was terrible. But the best place at Ouston, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne I was stationed up there. Now that was good. It was a trainer station that’s it and that was that was good there.
CB: So in today’s terms nutrition is very varied. There’s a huge choice. What did you actually have as a staple diet in the war as a ground tradesman?
AC: Well well, there was a potato, cabbage and you didn’t get peas that was a funny thing. See frozen peas came in after the war, didn’t they? So you didn’t get peas. We got cabbage, cauliflower, yes there was parsnips, carrots. I don’t eat parsnips. I think there are horrible things but —
CB: What about meat? What sort of meat did you get?
AC: Meat? I had beef. I reckon while I was in the Middle East we had camel. [Laughter] Yes. That’s what that was. That was stringy like. So, I reckon it was camel. Yeah. I brought back a lot of memories.
CB: Hm. That’s good.
AC: Pardon?
CB: And in your time off on the camp what did you do?
AC: On the camp? Time off?
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well well when you got your time off you didn’t stop off at the camp. You went out. You went out. I mean at Weston-Super-Mare at Lockheed there you’re supposed to book in at. Well we was bad lads you see. We came in late so we came through the hedge. [Chuckle]. Like real lads.
CB: But at Skegness because it was your initial training then you were more disciplined were you?
AC: Oh yes. Oh yes we had to off the street at 9 o’clock at night. Yes. I had the misfortune, I was eating fish and chips in the shop down there at Skeggie and these here two Military RAF police come by, saw me and it’d just gone 9 o’clock. He walked in, he said, ‘You’re not supposed to be out.’ They picked up my fish and chips, they took ‘em and told me to get back to the billet quick. [Chuckle] Rotten devils. I daren’t say nothing, dare I?
CB: It was a pity to waste them wasn’t it?
AC: Yeah, I daren’t say a dickie bird. Well, you see I was a raw recruit at Skeggie.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes.
CB: So they kept you quite busy there?
AC: Oh yes, definitely. Oh yes. Yes. Marching up and down like a lot of hooligans and they took you on what they called an ‘Air Commando Course’. I could tell you, you had to go across these here three logs. Run across these three logs. Like — well like telegraph posts and they had barbed wire in the bottom of the water. So if you fell in it wouldn’t be very comfortable, would it? And you was with full pack and your rifle. I tell you what I didn’t like that. I run — when I got there I run over that. What they used to do, used to say, ‘Who’s the oldest in the mob?’ And I always remember there was a chap of 32. They sent him round, they said, ‘Right. Run round the [unclear] course.’ And they timed him and he told us we got to do it in that time. We — there was no slacking. If you if you didn’t do it in that time you’re sent round again. Yeah. So it wasn’t a holiday camp. Skegness wasn’t. No.
CB: Back onto the flight lines, so you’re working as an air mechanic, how did you link in with other people with skills like parachute packing, air traffic. Did you link in with people like that?
AC: We never come across the parachute packing and that. We never come across that. We we was more or less on the dispersal. I was just the crew there. You didn’t mix with any others. No. Well, you had —you was occupied. You was fully occupied. Then, of course, when the aircraft took off, you went out went out and got something to eat especially if it was night but you had a chitty and you walked into the messing hall, presented your chit and you got something. It was mostly egg and bacon. So we didn’t do too bad. It wasn’t too bad when it was night duty. It was quite good. Yeah.
CB: And when you did your initial training you had to do a lot of PT, how much exercise did they make you have on the airfields when you were serving there in the front line?
AC: We did get none. The only exercise you got your bike — your pushbike. You were given a pushbike and that was your exercise. Backward and forwards on the bike.
CB: So you got to dispersal on bikes.
AC: Yes. I had a Raleigh. My bike was. Yeah.
CB: How about NAAFI? How much did you use the NAAFI and what was it used for?
AC: The NAAFI? It was canteen, as I said I was a canteen cowboy. [Chuckle]
CB: Sometimes there was more attraction than others.
AC: Yeah, well I married her.
CB: Yeah
AC: I married the girl.
CB: Yeah, good move. So when did you marry?
AC: December the 1st 1945. Yes.
CB: And on that topic, before that you were de-mobbed, so what date were you de-mobbed?
AC: Well me de-mob leave went up to July, so I couldn’t tell ya exactly when I left the Air Force, but my de-mob leave ended in July.
CB: 45? [Loud background noise]
AC: Yes. And I got so fed with being at home I went to the local garage for a job and they set me on straight away. So I I was alright. Quite happy. Yeah.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you very much.
AC: Okay, thank you.
JS: What’s that? [Background noise]
CB: Your wife was in the NAAFI but what about the other WAAFs? How much did airmen link with the WAAFs?
JS: Lots [Chuckle]
AC: Oh terrific. Terrific.
CB: Were there dances on the airfield?
AC: Yes yes. Well those at Newmarket there was a WAAF there ‘cause I hadn’t met the wife yet, and there was a WAAF there and she was a CO’s driver and she was, oh dear, she was a — and after I thought I’m gonna click here. So I so I got to know her well, but she was engaged. [Chuckle] She was engaged to a soldier. Yes.
CB: Soldier? Crikey.
AC: So I thought I was going to make hay but I didn’t. She was she was a nice girl. She came from Ilford.
CB: Oh
AC: That where she come from. Yes.
CB: So, these hangers were quite big and so you could get quite a good liaison behind the hanger in the evening could you?
AC: You could get three Lancs in there.
CB: Right [Laughing]
AC: If you if you — the bloke that drove the tractor knew how to manoeuvre them, you can get three Lancs in. That was quite good weren’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: To work on them.
CB: And then in time off, the you’d be behind the hanger.
AC: Yes. No, no I wasn’t one of them. I used to go down, I used to go down to Ely to go down the town. I used to go down with a lad named Maurice and we’d have a look around town and see if there were any girls there that we hadn’t met before. We was hunters. [Chuckle] It was a good laugh, wasn’t it?
CB: Yes, and so clearly, you had some good friendships there. To what extent did you keep in touch with old comrades after the war.
AC: Not, not so much. [Background noise] I had one chap, he came from Northampton I think he was one of the closest but at Ely I had — there there was a chap who’d been in the Air Force at Palestine. He lived at, he lived at Newmarket but he’d come to Ely. Yeah, come to look me up. Yeah, Freddie Claydon. Yes.
CB: So, what were the old times you were thinking about then? Being in Palestine? We haven’t talked about that, so —
AC: Palestine?
CB: What what was the routine there?
AC: Well, I was on the aircrafts. Would it? No. I was in the MT, didn’t I?
CB: Yes.
AC: I was in the MT and we had this here Warrant Officer Smudge Smith. He was — had a mobile office. And it was a metal thing and used to get terrifically hot inside. And Smudge, we used to call him. Warrant Officer. [Chuckle] I’ll tell ya, the Air Force had a good going with the, everybody else. We had an army boy. He he he was a batman to the army liaison officer with the squadron. He couldn’t understand how we got away with so much. He said: ‘I can’t get away like you do with the officers in the army.’ He said, ‘You RAF blokes, you’re not in the forces. You’re having the time of your life.’ We did. After I left square—bashing, I tell you what I never looked back. I didn’t write home to mother and say I wanted to come home. No.
CB: When you remustered what happened to your rank?
AC: Well, well, when I remustered, I was LAC. No, I stayed as a LAC ‘cause I couldn’t get any further until I took another course and I didn’t, that was me mistake. I should have taken took up [unclear] course. That was my mistake. That was the biggest mistake I made.
CB: In the desert in Palestine, were you in the desert or were you in a fairly well cultivated area?
AC: At a RAF station. At an aerodrome.
CB: Yes. Which was that?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Which one?
AC: I was at Ramat David, Ein Shemer, and Kalowinski [?] wasn’t it? Kalowinski. Yeah Ramat David, I rather like that. Ramat David. Yes.
CB: Was that because — why was that? What was special about that?
AC: Well we was on a bit of a hill and the Jews had got a nice vineyard and we used to raid it. We used to go get the grapes [chuckle] at night.
UNKNOWN FEMALE : Hello. Sorry.
CB: Hello. We’ll stop a mo.[Restart] So they’d got all these nice grapes but but the trees —
AC: The bushes.
CB: — the bushes, I mean to say.
AC: Yeah, well you just stand there and pull them off.
CB: So what did they do about that?
AC: Well, they didn’t do nothing ‘cause they couldn’t catch us, could they? We, we took them when they weren’t around. [Chuckle].
CB: What was the airfield, the bases was a well—established airfield, was it?
AC: Ramat David?
CB: Yes.
AC: That was, that was a, that was off the living quarters we weren’t on the living quarters were separate from the airfields. Well they had to be because the Jews used to go down and break glass bottles on the runways at night.
CB: Oh did they? Right.
AC: Right you see, you did your duties, I always got searchlight duty, and I had to maintain this searchlight and you’d whaff the searchlight round and you’d catch them. There they were breaking glass on the runways, yeah.
CB: So what, what —
AC: And we weren’t allowed to shoot them. We had to let them do it and in the morning we had to go and sweep it up. Yeah.
CB: And what was flying from that airfield?
AC: Spitfires and, err what was the American aircraft?
CB: Mustang?
AC: Mustang?
CB: Was it?
AC: Yeah Mustang. Yeah 208 208 Squadron had the Mustangs and 32 Squadron had the Spitfires. Yeah.
CB: So you were dealing with transport, what, what sort of schedule did you operate in a day because it was pretty hot in the middle of the day. So did you start in the —
AC: Yes the middle of the day. 12 o’clock you packed up. You packed up. Then you went back at 6 o’clock at night.
CB: So what time did you start in the morning?
AC: In the morning? 7 o’clock.
CB: And back at six till when?
AC: Yours — 7 o’clock till 12 o’clock but you had about — a break for a meal and then you went back at 6 o’clock at night till 8 o’clock. ‘Cause you didn’t do much — there weren’t much flying at night.
CB: So where — what could you do in you off duty times? Was it quite remote in this place?
AC: In Palestine the off duty time was very very sparse. We used to go down to Jerusalem and Nazareth. Yeah. Nazareth wasn’t too bad. Jerusalem was — Jerusalem was a holiday camp. The Jews used to pop you off when you went up the mountainside. Yeah.
CB: Just shoot you?
AC: Yeah pop at ya. Shoot ya. Shoot at ya. They had they had a crafty idea to go up to Jerusalem, on the bend of the road going up the hill mountain there, they built a pyramid of stones, so you go along the road and you’ve all a sudden you got this pyramid of stones in front of you. Then they they let go at ya. So it — Palestine wasn’t a comfortable place. No.
CB: How many people got hit?
AC: I couldn’t say. But I do — what was it? Was it six? Six airmen got shot at in Nazareth walking walking along the street by the alleyway a burst of gunfire, they got shot at. They got injured. Yeah.
CB: Did any get killed?
AC: No no.
CB: What about the —
AC: I was — pardon?
CB: Go on.
AC: I was there when the Jews blew up the front out of — the what was it called?
CB: The King David Hotel.
AC: King David Hotel. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
AC: I was there then.
CB: Right.
AC: When they blew the front out.
CB: And what about the Arabs? Were they around or not it that area?
AC: Arabs? A funny thing was we got on well with them. We got well with the Arabs. I mean it was only later on that the Arabs turned because they didn’t get what they wanted. Well I couldn’t blame them. You see when the British forces moved out of Palestine like it was at our camp, Ramat David. The Jews was at the main gate when we was coming — gonna come out. They were waiting to go in and at the other side of the aerodrome there was the Arabs waiting to go on. So they had a fight. Well you know won, don’t ya?
CB: Hm.
AC: The Jews won.
CB: Yeah.
AC: The Arabs hadn’t got hadn’t got the ammunition and the guns like the Jews had. Yeah.
CB: So were you happy to leave or would you like to have stayed on in Palestine?
AC: I was really happy to leave. I was happy to leave. I didn’t think much of the place I can tell ya. No.
CB: Did you go on trips to other places in the area or did you stay in the camp?
AC: Oh yes.Yes, I was in the MT then, and we used to drive out to different places I was in I was near Damascus once, just on the outskirts of Damascus and we went all over the place, over the desert. One day we was off duty and the despatch rider said to be Geordie. He came from Newcastle, he said, ‘Arthur, I get— if I give you another motorbike,’ he said: ‘Shall we go out on the motorbike? In the afternoon, you see.’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So he got me an Indian motorbike? American Indian. Have you seen them?
CB: No.
AC: They’re like a Harley Davidson and he had the Harley Davidson, and we went in the desert and we had our revolvers and we were shooting at wild dogs until these wild dogs started to chase us. So we opened up and got out of the way. [Chuckle] It’s an exciting life in the Air Force.
CB: Clearly it was.
AC: I did enjoy it. I wouldn’t have missed it at all. I wouldn’t have missed it.
CB: Just going back to the wartime service at Witchford and Newmarket.
AC: Yes.
CB: Although you weren’t flying, officially, how many hours did you do in total?
AC: What flying?
CB: Hmm.
AC: I never took any recording — any record of it. If they were going up on air test, you say, ‘Can I come?’ and they said, ‘Jump in’ and you just jumped in. You didn’t get no parachute. So —
CB: Oh right.
AC: So you just jumped in. That was it.
CB: So where did you sit on take—off and landing?
AC: I I had the privilege of getting to the front of cockpit ‘cause I wanted to be a Flight Engineer. And I was always to the front with the pilot and the flight engineer all sat at the front there, on a canvas belt what the flight engineer sat on. Yeah.
CB: A number of people became aircrew because they had seen notices on boards in the army quarters and air force stations looking for — requesting people to apply for aircrew, did you never see one of those? What stopped you —
AC: Oh yes, I, I went originally for aircrew. I went originally for it and I passed me medical and I waited but never got called up for it.
CB: Oh. Oh right.
AC: They had too many didn’t they?
CB: They did [pause] ‘cause the losses didn’t continue as high as they thought they would.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The losses — aircrew losses.
AC: Yes.
CB: Diminished. So they didn’t have the demand quite that they had expected.
AC: There was no flying from Lockheed. No, Lockheed was a training camp.
CB: Yes, sure. Right, thank you very much indeed, Arthur.
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 William Arthur Coulton
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-20
Format
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01:14:51 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ACoultonWA161020
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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
William Coulton was born in Derbyshire and worked as an errand boy for the Co-Op until he joined the Royal Air Force in 1943, aged 18. He trained as a flight mechanic and was posted to 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford where he worked on Lancasters. He was later posted to Palestine with 32 Squadron where he worked on Spitfires. He was demobbed in July 1945 and married his girlfriend Hilda Elsie who he had met serving in the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute. After the war he moved to North Luffenham and worked as a motor mechanic.
Contributor
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Gemma Clapton
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Israel
Middle East--Palestine
Israel--ʻEn Shemer
Israel--Ramat Daṿid
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Rutland
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
115 Squadron
208 Squadron
32 Squadron
dispersal
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Newmarket
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Witchford
service vehicle
Spitfire
tractor
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/647/8917/ATinsleyR150604.2.mp3
1eeab019890c4025d5470d7ef66f9a51
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
Tinsley, Dick
Richard Tinsley
R Tinsley
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tinsley, R
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Dick Tinsley (Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 115 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is David Kavanagh the interviewee is Dick Tilsley the interview is taking place in Mr Tilsleys home on the 4th June 2015.
DK: So can you remember which year it was, that you joined the Airforce?
RT: Yeah, it must have been 1944 I suppose.
DK: 1944...so how old would you have been then?
RT: Mmm 20
DK: So what were you doing prior to that? Were you in education?
RT: Education I suppose and Public Schooling so yes i was.
DK: So what school was that?
RT: In Northampton, one of the public schools [pauses] we farmers were often sent to these public schools.
DK: And what was your reasoning for wanting to join the airforce?
RT: Well I knew I was going to mmm I had....errr my family had always been in farming and we lived at Moulton, do you know where Moulton is?
DK: Yes, yeah
RT: Near Holbeach and my Mother came from Northamptonshire as a Farmer's daughter and they got married had three sons, and I was the third. The eldest one had got set into Farming before the war started, and when the second one came in he'd already joined the Territorials
DK: Right
RT: Only assuming only being , mmm what do you call it [?] patriotic I think and of course they were the best people, you know, the go getters, they they wanted to do something like that. We went to Lincoln and they just paraded around a bit once upon a [unclear] that sort of thing. So when war declared they were called up straight away.
DK: Yeah?
RT: I was at home ,still at school I think then I remember the local err army [what do you call it] Anti-aircraft unit?
DK:Yep
RT: Arrived in our park which was was just a field that's all, and they set up shop and searchlight and I thought it was wonderful, good old war, as I was about 16 or something but i think we had all heard so much about the first war and the blood and guts of the trenches anything to get out of that or get into what soppy thing there was going at school, anything was soppier than trenches.
DK; had your Father been in the First World War?
RT: No
DK; No?
RT: I lost an uncle
DK: An uncle ok
RT: In other words his brother-in-law he got in perhaps he was drafted, or...I never knew him and he was sent to the front and they were resting in a barn behind the line as the Germans dropped a shell on them and he was wounded in the back and died.
DK:Oh dear
RT: Yeah that's the second time....and emmm it might have been the other.....
DK: So you've decided to join the airforce then, yeah?
RT: Mmm I was at school it was quite a rough military day bolshing you bossing you , so I had a rifle for the day you had one...you had one err you had one year, day a term which they did sort of military exercises.
DK: Right.
RT: And erm and so and of course when they started the air force thing it was much more lexid to go out to aerodromes and in [unclear] and all that and err when it came to been called up and then we were eventually called up and went to grading [?] station.
DK: Right.
RT : That was in Bedfordshire somewhere and then we were sworn in and all that, then we went to London and Lords cricket ground where they did injections for you and all that sort of thing. After that I decided , [unclear] decided what are they going to do with you, I don't know how well we passed, I don't think we knew but it was good enough.
DK: Yeah, err you went in immediately then for err pilot training, was that …..?
RT: Well everybody was yeah
DK: Everybody together right
RT: Yeah
DK: So….
RT: On the whole the navigator was the second most err posetic and brightest then you get the wireless op ,then the bomb aimer then gunner. They hadn't got me on on to being a pilot yet because then they sent you, if you passed that pilot you went to a grading school just near coventry, it's not too far from here, where you did twelve hours flying, and err they assessed you as to whether you were fit for pilots training.
DK: And that the first time you were at the controls?
RT: Yes.
DK: Flying?
RT: Yes it was a Tiger Moth.
DK: Tiger Moth yeah.
RT: Then they sent you home and waited until they wanted to call you up to go to Canada. So they sent us to the Queen Mary which was docked at the Clyde and we cruised across to Canada, you might say this was a dangerous trip I suppose they were getting away with taking these fast liners and risking getting in the old....errrr caught up in the German submarines.
DK: Mmmm yeah
RT: Which how they got away with it I don't know but they did get away and they filled them full and on the return journey they were full of American troops absolutely jammed full bringing them over for D-day which was quite a lot we did, anyway .....and then what happened?
DK: You've got to Canada...
RT: And err [coughs] forgive me muttering but i've got a very weary brain.....I don't mind the weary brain....but....
DK: That's ok take your time.
RT: It's... errr….
DK: You've arrived in Canada then?
RT: Yeah there was a PDO a personnel reception centre.
DK: Right.
RT: Which was a whole aerodrome full of personnel, err personnel huts where they held you, and kept you amused, held parades, this, that and the other until they got an airfield to send you too, and that you didn't get any decision on that at all you just do when you're told that was about four days out to Regina that's roughly where we were at, dead centre of Canada, in the Prairies.
DK: Right, right.
RT: You got contact with them then ?
DK: No.
RT: Oh... then they had a course on a single engine plane which was a thing called a Cornell.
DK: Cornell yeah.
RT: A Fairchild Cornell yes.
DK: It’s listed in your logbook. Cornell
RT: Yeah....is it there?
DK: It's in there yes...you are doing aerobatics there.
RT: Mmmm...
DK: Did you like the Cornell?
RT: Yes, yes.
DK: Doing acrobatics there.
RT: Yes, then some went down to America.
DK: Right.
RT: The Americans were helping us out you see, then they went over to single engine planes but I never went on that.
DK: So how long were you in Canada for then?
RT: I was there 10 months.
DK: Really [emphasis]?
RT: Yeah well that was because, well that was a good do because I was out of the war for 10 months and things went by and .....[laughs].
DK: Do you remember much about Canada?
RT: Yeah yeah.......didn't matter to me it was as cold as could be in winter [laughter]and er that whole...that whole aerodrome belonged to the British, well it belonged to the the Canadian air force but that where the RCAF came in.
DK: Oh right I see yeah yeah.
RT: Then, then after we finished that we went on to what we called Senior flying training corps which was fast that one,er.... it was err was what do you call it, sometimes I think of these things and sometimes can't, Richard doesn't help as he wasn't there?
DK: There's an aircraft called the Crane here....
RT: Yeah that's it, the Cessna Crane.
DK: It seems like you were flying Ansons and Cranes.
RT: Ansons were British aeroplanes, if we did anything in training, in training Cranes then after 6 months, can't think what would take all that time but it would...
DK: Looking at the log book there are a lot of flights on the Crane right through February 1944.
RT: Yeah that would be.
DK: Nearly everyday.
RT: Yeah that would be, that was a twin engine plane they were sort of the general idea that was for Bombers.
DK Then the Anson from March 1944?
RT: I don't know, I don't remember that, I honestly don't remember the Anson, there wouldn't be many they were British versions...........they come out of date as far as a Bomber came they were our efforts for getting the war to have a good bomber Avro, Avro [emphasis].
DK: Avro Anson yeah?
RT: Yeah.
DK So you've then come back to England?
RT: Yes I came back.
DK: Was that on the Queen Mary again?
RT: No, it wasn't
DK: Arrh another ship?
RT: Yes, I can't remember the name of it, but it will be on there I should think, [pause] it could have been any of those but it will be on there I'm sure.
DK: Yeah, I can't find it at the moment. It says here you went to Derby then?
RT: What for?
DK: Barniston?
RT: Burnaston.
DK: Burnaston, sorry.
RT: Burnaston yes, that was a flying course within UK conditions, Burnaston.
DK: So was it a big difference, flying in Canada than flying in the UK?
RT: Mmmm I remember one of the Australian, Canadian he was in charge of us on the area, he said "yous boys in the old country, say you'll get lost" [laughter].
RT: Then of course at that time we were relying on the Canadians services far more.
DK: Then you come back to Burnaston?
RT: Mmm.
DK: Then you are flying de Havilland 82. Do you remember much about that?
RT: I don't, I'll see if i can recall it.
DK : It's the Dominie I think?
RT: Oh dear, DH yeah....[pause] flying around training again.
DK: It says its number 22 EFTS is that familiar?
RT: It's familiar but....
DK: I've noticed you.....
RT: I rather think it was a twin engine.
DK: A twin engine yeah, and then you got the Dakota here.
RT: Ah that….
DK: RAF Leicester East.
RT: The war had ended.
DK: Arrh ok.
RT: Leicester East was the Transport Command place, and...
DK: Sorry I'm jumping ahead of myself here.
RT: And, they sent us out to Cairo, in these Dakotas but they were going to have to organise what they conquered in the Middle East, so one fine day they flew overnight to the centre of Cairo airport.
DK Really?
RT: And, err...
DK: So just going back a little bit here, February 1945 you’re with the Heavy Conversion Unit.
RT: Yes.
DK: At Langar, 1669 heavy conversion unit, err, was that the first time you saw the Lancaster?
RT: Well it wasn't in my case, but ........ but it was really but from somewhere I just had a day out with them , we just had a trip.
DK: What did you think when you first saw the Lancaster, laid eyes on it first saw it? Did it fill you with confidence?
RT: Yeah i think so, i don’t I can't remember anything about that bit or the bit we did, then until the war ended or rather until the ...err.
DK: Do you remember much about Langar and the Heavy Conversion Unit?
RT: No,no we just arrived and we were got into crews, we were all old soldiers at that time.
DK: I’m just noticing here you have got a mention of an engine fire.
RT: Yes I presume that there was.
DK: You help put out a fire, do you remember that? [ laughter]
RT: No i don't at all.....
DK: Come on.....drive it down....poke him, poke him [laughter].
RT: I do remember it now, but I can't say I'd remember otherwise.
DK: Do you remember much about the incident of the engine fire?
RT: No, not at all it was over Wales.
DK: Over Wales?
RT: It was on a training trip over Wales I'd forgotten all about it.
DK: You landed ok though?
RT: Yes, and that was it no doubt it was only a scare, or something but anyway well whatever it was the fire extinguisher put it out and it wasn’t long till we got back to the airfield.
DK: So following the log book then you then joined 115 Squadron at Witchford.
RT: Yeah.
DK: Do you remember much about Witchford?
RT: Yeah it was 3 miles outside Ely typical wartime airfield built in 19....built just near where I went to school, where I went to school is.
DK: Coincidence [laughter].
RT: Witchford, I gathered from reading books later that there was two squadrons stationed there, so obviously they built airfields, bomber airfields as fast as they could.
DK: So I'm looking at the logbook here it's got March the 18th, would that have been your first operation there? Its Buschstrass?
RT: Bruchstrasse.
DK: Bruchstrasse, sorry.
RT: Apparently it was an oil refinery in the Ruhr, we weren't told very much about about it, except that we missed it.
DK: Oh [laughs].
RT: Apparently the beam was set, they had got it wrong.
DK: Right
RT: But anyway plenty of them missed, yep.
DK: Well, it says here it was a daylight raid, got in brackets there day, so you were flying in the day?
RT: Yeah a bit of both.
DK: Right ok.
RT: They were the...red were night and….
DK: Right.
RT: What does that say?
DK: Thats green.
RT: what does that say?
DK: That's err Heligoland?
RT: Yeah that's an island south of Hamburg somewhere.
DK: So there was two operations to kill on the 9th and 13th April.
RT: Yes i suppose so, yes.
DK: Do you remember much about those?
RT: No i dont, we were just told by the bomb aimer afterward that we didn't hit the target presumably we couldn't see it, we weren't told much, then the war ended.
DK: So then into May then, so there's 1, 2, 3, 4 so that looks like about 5 operations.
RT: Yeah.
DK: Does that sound about right?
RT: Yeah.
DK: So five operations and then three operation Manna operations?
RT: Yeah.
DK: Does that sound about right, so do you remember much about Operation Manna? How did that make you feel knowing you were dropping food rather than bombs?
RT: I’m sure it made you feel very good, we didn't know what we was in for first time, we was going to Germany with bombs at 20,000 feet and the next day we were going ten hundred feet or whatever it was over the Hague or Dane Hauger [?] whatever the Danes call it.
DK: The Hague , so the food drops were at low level then?
RT: Yes well as low as they dare because it mustn't burst they were either in double sacks or whatever they chose.
DK: Do you remember seeing the people on the ground?
RT: Yeah.
DK: And what were they doing?
RT: Waiting for something to happen, to see what they could get.
DK: Were they waving?
RT: Yeah.
DK: So you could see all that?
RT: Oh yes I can clearly remember one plane flying nearly along side us they got a sack a sack of food stuck in his bomb bays when he came back no doubt it got dropped in somewhere.
DK: So at that point then the war in Europe had ended?
RT:yeah just.
DK: Just yes.
RT: I think you will see that's there the.....
DK: What were your feelings at that time then were you.....?
RT: Without a doubt very pleased now that's ...one thing that's quite interesting coz those crew members there about three of them so bored with things presumably they were somewhat aware it wasn't really dangerous anymore, they wanted to see the their names up on the list… I was one if I had a job to do I'd do it, I probably wanted the job but didn't want to be the end bit the end bit of meat.
DK: So how long after the war then did you stay in the air force? Was it another…..
RT: As little as possible.
DK: You wanted to get out did you?
RT: Yes yes, I never wanted to get in and I just was a good boy did as I was told and passed exams as I was supposed to.
DK: So can you remember what year you actually left?
RT: Oh, now that would be, it will be in there somewhere [refers to logbook].
DK: You are still here, 1947.
RT: It would be then, it was the Spring.
DK: So you left in 1947? Thats after a period in the Middle East?
RT: Yeah we were sitting about the helm a lot doing nothing, because they over calculated the amount of aircraft they had to keep in the Middle East to keep things working.
DK: They had to find you something to do.
RT: Yes find us something to do, pity really it was a stage of one's life when you wanted to get on with something.
DK: Just going back to the end of war in Europe, at that period was there any mention to you about perhaps having to go out and fight in the Far East?
RT: No.
DK: You didn't no.
RT: No the others who went back, straight away and they split us all up, no doubt I'd go for a longer leave at home, but they kept very strictly to this, what do you call it? Code of release by time and… when your number came up because you had been in for so long, and you were so old or so I’d got out.
DK: So how old would you have been when you left?
RT: Forty Six [?].
DK: And after that did you go back into farming at that point?
RT: Mmm, yeah all that time sitting in the Middle East for about a year, sitting on my bum really. It was in the desert I got jaundice, nothing apart from a waste of time for everybody, I could see what the plan was, it was just they wanted things to be able to go to North Africa someone to go down to Nairobi and do this or that. [pause] Have you seen any other log book?
DK: I have seen some, yeah quite a few.
RT: They are all pretty similar.
DK: Yeah they are more or less the same yeah, so how do you look back on that period now?
RT: A waste of my youth and pretty boring, I was stationed at Ely, there wasn't much at Ely. It wasn't even far from home that wasn't.
DK: Did you used to pop back home when you could?
RT: Mmmm.
DK: Yeah because it down the road, that was something.
RT: Well there wouldn’t be the transport for it but I got home somehow, if you had a motorbike you'd be home in an hour or so.
DK: You had a motorbike then did you?
RT: I didnt no, there wasn't any petrol for one thing.
DK: That's true, ok well thanks you very much for that I will stop this now.
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 Dick Tinsley
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
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
2015-06-04
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ATinsleyR150604
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
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
00:29:29 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Dick was from a farming background and joined the Royal Air Force in 1944. After going to Bedford, he was sent to Lord’s cricket ground. Those passing as a pilot went to a flying school near Coventry to be assessed for pilot training on a Tiger Moth. Canada followed, where Dick went to a personnel reception centre and then an airfield in Regina. He did a course on a Cornell and then went to a senior flying training corps on a Crane.
After returning to England, Dick did a flying course at RAF Burnaston. In February 1945 he went to 1669 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Langar with Lancasters. He helped to put out an engine fire on a training trip over Wales. Dick then joined 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford. He recalls a daylight operation to an oil refinery in the Ruhr. A target was also missed in Heligoland. There were two operations to Kiel. He was involved in Operation Manna to The Hague. Dick was sent to RAF Leicester East after the war had ended and flew C-47. He was sent to Cairo. Dick left the RAF in Spring 1947.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Coventry
England--Derbyshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Nottinghamshire
Canada
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan--Regina
Germany
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kiel
Great Britain
Netherlands--Hague
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1947
115 Squadron
1668 HCU
bombing
C-47
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Burnaston
RAF Langar
RAF Leicester East
RAF Witchford
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/442/7900/PTwellsE15070110.1.jpg
fa4dfb5d9eb628c3cbd784b5e7e6079f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/442/7900/PTwellsE15070109.1.jpg
c7cdee0e975d10e4b6af90d3e1668f16
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
Twells, Ernie. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A scrapbook containing photographs and documents of Ernie Twells' wartime and post-war service including squadron reunions. The photographs and documents are contained in wallets in a scrapbook. The wallet page has been scanned and then the individual items rescanned. The scans have been grouped together.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-26
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
Twells, E
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DERBY EVENING TELEGRAPH, Monday, November 14, 1977 15
[photograph]
DAMBUSTERS HONOURED
MEMBERS of the 617 Squadron Association – the Dambusters – have had many honours conferred on them over the years, but Saturday as [sic] the first time they had been honoured by an English county when they visited Matlock.
The occasion was the 33rd anniversary of the squadron’s successful attack of the German prize battleship Tirpitz which eliminated a major threat to Russian convoys.
Twenty members of the association and 70 other guests went to the county offices at the invitation of County Council chairman, Councillor Norman Wilson, himself a former jet fighter pilot.
He presented Group Captain Willy Tait, the officer who commanded 617 Squadron and led the three attacks on the Tirpitz, with a solid silver salver, and Mr Tait handed over the 617 Squadron crest and a photograph of a painting of the Tirpitz raid.
Among the guests were Sir Denning Pearson, former Rolls - Royce chairman and in charge of the technical department during the 1939 – 45 war, Mr Eric Dyer, East Midlands Airport director and president of the Derby branch of the RAF Association, and Derbyshire’s Chief Constable, Mr Walter Stansfield.
Among the local members of the association were Mr Ernie Twells (68), of Abbott Street, Long Eaton, and his wife, Doris. Mr Twells took part in all three raids as a flight engineer.
The party had lunch at Matlock before taking up an invitation by the Duke of Devonshire to visit Chatsworth Park.
From left: Group Captain Tait, Mrs Twells, Mr Twells, Councillor Wilson and Mrs Wilson.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Dambusters Honoured
Description
An account of the resource
A newspaper cutting with a photograph of Group Captain Tait, Mrs Twells, Mr Twells, Councillor Wilson and Mrs Wilson. The 617 Squadron Association were presented with a silver salver by Derbyshire County Council.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Derby Evening Telegraph
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1977-11-14
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting from a scrapbook
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PTwellsE15070109, PTwellsE15070110
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Matlock
England--Derbyshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frank Batten
617 Squadron
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
Tirpitz
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/442/7879/PTwellsE15070093.1.jpg
f8582be7f58dd450b1c408721cc61364
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/442/7879/PTwellsE15070092.1.jpg
1319dfd425bd934f1f00d1fcb41b3155
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
Twells, Ernie. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A scrapbook containing photographs and documents of Ernie Twells' wartime and post-war service including squadron reunions. The photographs and documents are contained in wallets in a scrapbook. The wallet page has been scanned and then the individual items rescanned. The scans have been grouped together.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-26
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
Twells, E
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Ernie Twells' Death Certificate
Description
An account of the resource
Ernie Twell's death certificate
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Derbyshire Registrar
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1979-11-30
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One certificate from a scrapbook
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PTwellsE15070092, PTwellsE15070093
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1979-11-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1582/25637/MBowerFG1575473-200123-040001.2.jpg
e29506c0701853562af576baceb9d6d8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1582/25637/MBowerFG1575473-200123-040002.2.jpg
7feac53be88389ca92cd451dced70a1a
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
Bower, Frank Geoffrey
F G Bower
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
2020-01-23
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bower, FG
Description
An account of the resource
39 items. The collection concerns Frank Geoffrey Bower (1575473 Royal Air Force). It contains his log book, photographs and documents as well as a photograph album of his time training in Miami, Florida. He trained as a navigator and was killed when his Wellington crashed 4 April 1943.<br /><br />The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by David Slack and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Frank Bower is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/102362/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
1575473 L.A.C. Bower F.G.
Despatch Wing
No. 3. P.R.C.
Bournemouth
Hants.
1575473 L.A.C. Bower F.G.
Course 43
No. 3. O.A.F.U.
R.A.F.
Bobbington
Worcs
Sgt Ron Burns
92 Wood St.
Barnsley
Yorks
[page break]
1575473 A.C.2 F.G. Bower
B. Flight
No 4 Squadron
No. 3. I.T.W.
R.A.F.
Torquay, Devon.
Mrs. H.J.R. Slack
6 Broad Hill Rd
Kegworth Derby.
1575473 L.A.C. Bower F.G.
No 1 Flight
‘A’ Squadron
No 1 E.A.O.S.
R.A.F.
Eastbourne
1575473 L.A.C. Bower F.G.
No 31 R.A.F. P.D.
Monkton
New Brunswick
Canada
Mrs H.J.R. Slack
Windyridge
Ashby Rd
Kegworth Derby
1575473 F.G. Bower
British Cadet
Room 302
Hotel San Sebastian
348 Santander Avenue
Coral Gables
Miami
Florida
U.S.A.
[underlined] Phone Numbers [/underlined]
Trent M.T Co Ltd Hucknall 329
Slack & Parr Kegworth 14
T.M.T. Co Ltd Loughboro 2110
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
F G Bower's Address List
Description
An account of the resource
A list of addresses where F G Bower stayed interspersed with names and addresses of colleagues.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
FG Bower
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MBowerFG1575473-200123-040001,
MBowerFG1575473-200123-040002
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bournemouth
England--Torquay
England--Derby
Canada
New Brunswick--Moncton
United States
Florida--Miami
England--Eastbourne (East Sussex)
Florida
New Brunswick
England--Derbyshire
England--Devon
England--Hampshire
England--Sussex
England--Yorkshire
England--Barnsley (South Yorkshire)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
RAF Halfpenny Green
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1252/16970/SCheshireGL72021v10048.2.jpg
07e00b2b35fc382d17ea09cc74375f44
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Cheshire, Leonard
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard
Baron Cheshire
Description
An account of the resource
374 items concerning Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, OM, DSO & Two Bars, DFC. Collection consists of photographs of people, vehicles, places, aircraft, weapons and targets; documents including, private and service letters, signals, telegrams, intelligence reports, crew lists and official documents. Cheshire served on 102 and 35 Squadrons and commanded 76 and 617 Squadrons. The collection includes details of 617 Squadron's precision bombing operations. Also included are two sub-collections: one containing 21 photographs of Tinian and Saipan, the other consisting of 37 audio tapes of speeches given by Cheshire after the war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by The Leonard Cheshire Archive and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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 property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
No.617 Squadron,
RAF. Station,
Woodhall Spa, Lincs.
13th. March, 1944.
Dear Sir,
If it is at all within your power, I should be greatly obliged if you could supply me with two dozen of your Merlin 20, 22, 28 and 38 fuel computers for us by the Flight Engineers of this Squadron. I fully realise that the supply of theses is very limited, and replacement therefore very difficult, but the present work of this Squadron entails strict watch on fuel consumption, which cannot be done by using the present cardboard computers or fuel gauges, as their accuracy to a small degree is very poor.
If it is all possible to obtain theses, I shall be very grateful indeed.
Yours GLC
Wing Commander,
[underlined] Commanding, 617 Squadron. [/underlined]
The Manager,
Instructional Dept.,
Messers. Rolls-Royce Ltd.,
Derby
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Leonard Cheshire to Rolls Royce
Description
An account of the resource
Requests supply of two dozen Merlin 20, 22, and 38 fuel computers. Recognises that supply is limited but current squadron operations require strict watch on fuel consumption not possible with current equipment.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-13
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SCheshireGL72021v10048
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Derby
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03-13
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Cheshire, Leonard. Correspondence
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
License
A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.
Royalty-free permission to publish
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One-page typewritten letter
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
617 Squadron
aircrew
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
flight engineer
fuelling
RAF Woodhall Spa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1252/16975/SCheshireGL72021v10053.1.jpg
e431478246518296e331ff4070dc31d2
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
Cheshire, Leonard
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard
Baron Cheshire
Description
An account of the resource
374 items concerning Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, OM, DSO & Two Bars, DFC. Collection consists of photographs of people, vehicles, places, aircraft, weapons and targets; documents including, private and service letters, signals, telegrams, intelligence reports, crew lists and official documents. Cheshire served on 102 and 35 Squadrons and commanded 76 and 617 Squadrons. The collection includes details of 617 Squadron's precision bombing operations. Also included are two sub-collections: one containing 21 photographs of Tinian and Saipan, the other consisting of 37 audio tapes of speeches given by Cheshire after the war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by The Leonard Cheshire Archive and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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 property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GLC/DO.
No.617 Squadron,
RAF, Station, Woodhall.
3rd. April, 1944.
Dear
Thank you very much for your letter. I am very pleased to hear that you are making such excellent progress, and can assure you that we are all looking forward to seeing you back here again soon.
I am sorry that my reply has been so delayed.
With my best wishes,
Yours
LC
[underlined]Wing Commander. [/underlined]
P/O. A.J. WARD,
R.A.F. M.R.U.,
Hazelrigg Hall,
Ashby Road,
[underlined] Loughborough, Leicester. [/underlined]
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Leonard Cheshire to Pilot Officer A J Ward
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks him for letter and is glad he is making excellent progress.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-04-03
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SCheshireGL72021v10053
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.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Loughborough
England--Leicestershire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-04-03
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Cheshire, Leonard. Correspondence
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
License
A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.
Royalty-free permission to publish
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One-page typewritten letter
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Frances Grundy
617 Squadron
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
RAF Woodhall Spa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/818/18113/MFearnsH1591683-170903-010001.1.jpg
7e57aa2139f63645a1871e39afcf0b4e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/818/18113/MFearnsH1591683-170903-010002.1.jpg
9f8b30fffd8ef1ea158740aaee05ca9c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/818/18113/MFearnsH1591683-170903-010003.1.jpg
7dab68033efe628cfc2cbf2051547933
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/818/18113/MFearnsH1591683-170903-010004.1.jpg
ee0558f88e4a7536dbb86200461b09b8
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
Fearns, Harry
H Fearns
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Harry Fearns (b. 1925, 1591683 Royal Air Force), seven photographs, his service badges and identity card. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 100 and 97 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Harry Fearns and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-24
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
Fearns, H
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
Harry Fearns Identity Card
Description
An account of the resource
Identity card issued to Harry Fearns on 13 Feb 1943. It records he was medically examined in Sheffield and placed in Grade 1. Final page gives various post-war addresses.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. HM Government
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-02-13
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six printed pages with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MFearnsH1591683-170903-010001,
MFearnsH1591683-170903-010002,
MFearnsH1591683-170903-010003,
MFearnsH1591683-170903-010004
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Derby
England--Derbyshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1947
1948
1949
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/171/9859/LAtkinsAH418514v1.2.pdf
2442259ebfd050afd9ef5293f8203e96
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Atkins, Arthur
A H Atkins
Description
An account of the resource
24 items. An oral history interview with Arthur Atkins DFC (d. 2022, Royal Australian Air Force), his logbook and 23 photographs. Arthur Atkins grew up in Melbourne, Australia and joined the RAAF. After training he flew 32 operations as a pilot with 625 Squadron from RAF Kelstern.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Atkins 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
2017-01-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Atkins, A
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending additional content
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
Arthur Atkins’ flying log book for pilots
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Arthur Atkins, covering the period from 12 November 1942 to 12 July 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAAF Benalla, RAAF Somers, RAAF Malalla, RAAF Ascot Vale, RAAF Point Cook, RAAF Bradfield Park, RAF Brighton, RAF Andover, RAF Greenham Common, RAF Long Newnton, RAF Lichfield, RAF Church Broughton, RAF Boston Park, RAF Wescott, RAF Blyton, RAF Hemswell, RAF Kelstern, RAF Sandtoft and RAF Gamston. Aircraft flown were, DH 82 Tiger Moth, Wackett, Anson, Oxford, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He completed a total of 31 operations with 625 squadron, 15 night and 16 daylight. Targets were, Orleans, Foret de Croc, Caen, Saumerville, Wizerne, Kiel, Russelsheim, Tours, Le Havre, Rheine-Salzbergen, Saarbrucken, Fort Frederik Hendrik, Essen, Ardouval, Stuttgart, Le Landes, Pauillac, Fotenay le Marmion, Stettin, Ghent-Terneuzen Canal, Raimbert, Frankfurt, Calais, Emmerick, Duisberg and Koln. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Flying Officer Slade.
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
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
LAtkinsAH418514v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Berkshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Staffordshire
Belgium--Ghent
France--Calais
France--Calvados
France--le Havre
France--Les Landes (Region)
France--Orléans
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Saumur
France--Forêt du Croc
France--Tours
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Emmerich
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Salzbergen
Germany--Stuttgart
Netherlands--Breskens
Netherlands--Terneuzen
New South Wales
South Australia
Victoria--Benalla
Victoria--Point Cook
Poland--Szczecin
Victoria
England--Sussex
Poland
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Pauillac (Gironde)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1943-11-13
1944-07-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-06
1944-07-07
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-18
1944-07-20
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-08-02
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-08-31
1944-09-05
1944-09-06
1944-09-10
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-27
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-11
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-23
1944-10-24
1944-10-31
1944-11-01
1662 HCU
1667 HCU
27 OTU
625 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Andover
RAF Blyton
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Gamston
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kelstern
RAF Lichfield
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Westcott
tactical support for Normandy troops
Tiger Moth
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/696/17880/LBarryMR419764v1.2.pdf
c002c431c804b04c8ca768c4085ff776
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
Barry, Max
M Barry
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history with Max Barry (419764 Royal Australian Air Force) his log book, and crew photograph. After training, he flew 7 operations on Lancaster with 463 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Max Barry 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
2018-03-28
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
Barry, MR
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Daniel Richards
Max Barry was born in Beaufort, Victoria, Australia in 1924. His parents had a dairy farm at Colac which Max grew up on. Max was fortunate enough to be one of two hundred young people who got a scholarship from the Victorian Department of Education. This required him to become a teacher in the Education Department of Victoria. His family funds at the time, were fairly limited and his parents were very pleased that Max had this extra scholarship which provided books and certain other things. So, when he finished his schooling at seventeen and a half, Max became a student teacher and was teaching at Cressy. This was a two teacher school, and Max was the student teacher waiting to go to Training College in Melbourne.
When Max got to age eighteen, like most young men at the time he wanted to learn to fly so he applied to become a Reserve aircrew person and duly joined the Air Force in September 1942.
Max ended up as an air gunner at a Gunnery School at West Sale in Victoria. They used to have two Fairey Battles. One towed a drogue so that it had it yards behind. And the other aircraft had the pilot and the trainee gunner who flew alongside where the drogue was and had to aim at the drogue. You aimed at the drogue so you learned to use a gun, machine gun in in the air and you became a gunner. Max then went to England after he had reached nineteen years of age. He set sail from Adelaide. There were about six hundred personal on a ship called the Denbighshire. It was a cargo ship and the decks had been cleared out and everyone had hammocks to sleep in at night and rolled them up in the daytime. The ship sailed alone, across to New Zealand, then to Panama and then on to Bristol in England.
Once Max arrived in England he was sent down to Brighton, and from there up to Lichfield, 27 OTU and formed crews. The crewing up process was quite interesting in that they put a hundred young Air Crew in a room in five categories, twenty of each and said, ‘Crew yourselves up. We’ll be back in two hours.’ Everyone wandered around and found four other people to join to make a crew for a Wellington. Max’s Bomb Aimer was also from Melbourne, with the other three crew members from Queensland.
The crew became very close. In the crews you had to really know the other people and trust them because everybody depended on each other and they became very close. The crew then went off to do training at Church Broughton which was a satellite of Lichfield and trained in a Wellington. And from there they were converted to a Stirling aircraft. And they gathered two more crew members. A flight engineer and a mid-upper gunner. From there they then converted to a Lancaster and went to Lanc Finishing School which was at Syerston. And from there to a squadron. 463 at Waddington. Arriving there in late May ’44.
At this time, the big effort of Bomber Command was to make life difficult for the Germans to bring up troops and equipment to the Normandy area where the landing was to take place shortly after. On D-Day morning for example the crew had been to the coast of Normandy bombing German gun emplacements and then they were flying back west of Cherbourg and Max looked up the Channel and there were five thousand ships there.
About four nights later on, on the 10th, 11th of June the crews mission was to Orléans to bomb railway yards. Then as they were flying home after dropping their bombs, west of, or north of the Le Mans area. Suddenly Max saw great sheets of flame coming past his turret. His Lancaster was on fire. The controls became difficult for the pilot and the engineer to handle. The pilot told the two gunners to get out of their turrets and throw overboard anything, they could to lessen the weight of the aircraft because they were losing height fairly quickly.
The Lancaster became impossible to control for the pilot, and it looked as if they would either crash or have too ditch in to the Atlantic if they kept going.
The pilot told the crew to bail out, which they did. The two gunners were standing near the rear hatch which was open and the mid-upper gunner was the first out. He had to, according to instructions sit there facing backwards and roll sideways. He did sit there and didn’t fall out so Max had to give him a shove, so he fell out. Max sat there and tried to do the same but without success. The centrifugal force was holding him back, but fortunately he had grown up on a farm using slip rails and whatever. Max was quite capable of going through them so I quickly got back in to the fuselage and faced forward and rolled through the door, clear and floated down in the dark. This was his first parachute jump, at the count of ten max pulled the rip cord, and floated down.
The first thing he knew he was near the ground, was when the tree branches came past his face. It was pitch black. You couldn’t see anything. But max landed safely.
The crew had difficulty getting out of the Lancaster, Max was the last one to jump out of the plane. The bomb aimer who was first out saw the aircraft crash, unfortunately the pilot didn’t manage to get out. After getting down in the dark Max gathered his parachute together, and stuffed it under some bushes. Then he started to walk off north, towards the invasion.
Max had an escape kit which included a compass and some food. Max knew some French from high school, so could talk to the local farmers and get food and swapped his uniform for farm clothes. Old farm clothes. So then he could walk in daylight as long as he kept away from the Germans.
Max walked north for three weeks and came to a village of six houses. He could hear the front not too far away, he found a French family who were friendly and initially got some milk to drink and then the lady was obviously friendly. She could see I was a stranger so I told her that I was an English airman on the run. I didn’t mention Australian because that didn’t mean a lot to people in Europe.
Max talked for a while and then the lady said, that he could hide in a barn on their farm which was about a kilometre away and told him how to get there. Max hid upstairs in an old barn, on the farm and used to be left out some food each night. And a week on the farm a lad who worked on it, came down early in the morning and said, ‘Get out quickly. The Germans are in the village.’ Max took off in a hurry and was about a few fields away before two German Army men said, ‘Halten halt,’ and then, ‘Papier.’ Max had no papers.
He was immediately arrested, marched up to the local town which was La Ferriere-Harang, and then questioned there by the Army. It was accepted that he was an airman on the run, due to the little metal discs, Identity discs that the Air Force used. He was then passed over to the Luftwaffe people who then took him to Oberursel, near Frankfurt which was a big interrogation centre for airmen. After questioning and being photographed and fingerprinted he moved to Bankau. The Stalag Luft 7 for NCO airmen, and went there with other people, other similar men. On the way he received a Red Cross parcel of clothing and toilet gear.
.
Max arrived in the camp at Bankau on the 5th of August ’44, and initially he was in small hut. These were temporary huts. The camp had only started in June, and Russian prisoners were building bigger barracks with rooms of bunks for the POW for winter accommodation and they moved in to them in October.
Towards the end of ’44 as the Red Army marched west the camp was alerted that they might have to move prisoners, prisoners in Polish camps might have to move to Germany. It began a very miserable journey because the POW had very little food and little shelter on the way.
The second night the POW were marched forty-two kilometres, it was minus thirteen degrees’ temperature. After about three weeks on the road they were at a place called Goldberg and there they were all crammed in to train trucks. About fifty five or so people per truck, standing room only and they had been given food for two days but no water and then the journey started, for three days to Luckenwalde, about fifty kilometres south of Berlin.
They ended up in a new camp in Luckenwalde. They had a big hall like building that they were in. Four hundred men in that room. They had straw on the floor to sleep on and they had enough room for yourself to lie down and maybe a walkway here and there.
It was better that way because when we were in a barn if we were lucky to have a barn we would take it in turns to sleep in the middle because the one in the middle was warm.
Max stayed at the camp in Luckenwalde for three or four weeks.
One day an American war correspondents came in a jeep, with big white stars on it and, they called at the camp to pick up one of their friends who was also a war correspondent.
The Americans arranged trucks to take the POW out, because they were only about forty miles from the Elbe River which was the boundary between American and Russian troops.
A few days’ later ambulances did come and took the sick people away for the hospital and then a few days later a whole lot of American trucks came early in the morning. By the lunchtime Max was wondering if it would be possible to go into these trucks. Word came around that they were not going to be able to take everyone out, so quite a lot of people started to walk down the road towards the American line, which was forty miles away.
Max eventually got to Brussels and then flew back to England on a Douglas DC3
After the war Max enrolled on a 5-year vet training course and married soon after graduating. He kept in touch with some of his aircrew and later went to Normandy to find the people who were kind to him during the war. The friendship has continued.
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
M R Barry's air gunner log book
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for air gunner for M R Barry, covering the period from February 1943 to 10 June 1944. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Ballarat, RAF West Sale, RAF Lichfield, RAF Church Broughton, RAF Swinderby, RAF Syerston and RAF Waddington. Aircraft flown in were, Wackett, Anson, Oxford, Battle, Wellington, Martinet, Stirling and Lancaster. He flew a total of 7 night operation with 463 squadron, going missing on his seventh operation on 10 June 1944 and becoming a prisoner of war. Targets were, Nantes, St Martin de Vareville, Ferme de Varreville, St Pierre du Mont, Argentan, Rennes, Orleans. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Fletcher.
This item was provided, in digital form, by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by the IBCC Digital Archive.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
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
LBarryMR419764v1
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.
Australia
France
Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Staffordshire
France--Argentan
France--Nantes
France--Normandy
France--Orléans
France--Rennes
France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes)
Victoria--Ballarat
Victoria--Sale
Victoria
France--Saint-Martin-de-Varreville
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-06
1944-01-25
1944-01-26
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-29
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
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.
1660 HCU
27 OTU
463 Squadron
Anson
Battle
Bombing and Gunnery School
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Martinet
missing in action
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Lichfield
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/934/22537/LLovattP1821369v1.1.pdf
d03b3c127e00f6788f8a0a2501ab6d56
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
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lovatt, P
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
Peter Lovatt's navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for Peter Lovatt covering the period from 12 April 1944 to 20 June 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Burnaston (16 EFTS), RAF Barrow/Walney Island (10 AGS), RAF Oulton (223 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Anson, Liberator, Fortress. He flew a total of 38 night-time bomber support operations with 223 Squadron, many providing Window cover for the main force. Main force targets were Duisburg, Denmark, Bochum, Hanover, western Ruhr, Neuss, Essen, Gladbach, Merseburg, Karlsruhe, Ludwigshaven, Mannheim, Nurnburg, Magdeburg, Stuttgart, Siegen, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Wotton, Dortmund-Ems canal, Freiburg, Kamen, Munster, Frankfurt, Ulm, Hamburg, Kiel, Augsburg and Wesel. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Hastie and Flying Officer Spicer.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LLovattP1821369v1
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Cumbria
England--Derbyshire
England--Norfolk
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Siegen
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Ulm
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-10-07
1944-10-09
1944-10-11
1944-10-19
1944-10-25
1944-10-26
1944-11-01
1944-11-04
1944-11-18
1944-11-21
1944-11-28
1944-11-30
1944-12-02
1944-12-04
1944-12-12
1944-12-15
1944-12-17
1944-12-21
1944-12-24
1945-01-05
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-14
1945-01-16
1945-01-22
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-02-28
1945-02-29
1945-03-03
1945-03-07
1945-03-13
1945-03-23
1945-03-24
1945-04-02
1945-04-03
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-16
1945-05-17
1699 HCU
223 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
B-17
B-24
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
RAF Barrow in Furness
RAF Oulton
Tiger Moth
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/809/22583/LEdmundsAE430709v1.2.pdf
3cb999f857acfe6ff694b39669f8441c
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
Edmunds, Eddie
Albert Ernest Edmunds
A E Edmunds
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history with Eddie Edmunds DFC (b. 1917, 430709 Royal Air Force), his log book and one photograph. He flew operations with 106 and 608 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Albert Edward Edmunds and 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
2017-09-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Edmunds, AE
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
Albert Edward Edmunds’ pilots flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for A E Edmunds, covering the period from 18 August 1941 to 4 October 1945. Detailing his flying training, Operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Penhold, RAF Hatfield, RAF Prestwick, RAF Dishforth, RAF Kirmington, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Peplow (also known as RAF Childs Ercall), RAF Church Broughton, RAF Hixon, RAF Barford St John, RAF Downham Market, RAF Warboys and RAF Gransden Lodge. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Hudson, Ventura, Wellington, Manchester, Lancaster, Martinet, Mosquito and Mitchell. He flew a total of 44 night operations, 30 with 106 squadron and 14 with 608 sqaudron. Targets were, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne, Lorient, Milan, Bremen, Nuremburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Essen, St Nazaire, Kiel, Spezia, Dortmund, Pilsen, Bochum, Oberhausen, Krefeld, Berlin and Schleissheim. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Pilot Officer Lace. The log book also list his post war civilian flying.
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
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
LEdmundsAE430709v1
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.
Canada
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Alberta--Red Deer Region
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Oberschleissheim
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--La Spezia
Italy--Milan
Scotland--South Ayrshire
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1942-12-20
1942-12-21
1943-01-27
1943-01-28
1943-01-30
1943-01-31
1943-02-02
1943-02-03
1943-02-04
1943-02-07
1943-02-08
1943-02-13
1943-02-14
1943-02-15
1943-02-16
1943-02-17
1943-02-21
1943-02-22
1943-03-08
1943-03-09
1943-03-10
1943-03-11
1943-03-12
1943-03-13
1943-03-22
1943-03-23
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-08
1943-04-09
1943-04-10
1943-04-13
1943-04-14
1943-04-26
1943-04-27
1943-04-30
1943-05-01
1943-05-04
1943-05-05
1943-05-12
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-14
1943-06-15
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-18
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-03-26
1945-03-27
1945-03-28
1945-04-02
1945-04-03
1945-04-11
1945-04-12
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-16
1945-04-17
1945-04-19
1945-04-20
1945-04-21
1945-04-22
1945-04-24
1945-04-25
1945-06-02
1945-06-07
1945-06-12
1945-06-19
1945-06-27
1945-07-09
1945-07-23
1945-08-03
106 Squadron
16 OTU
1654 HCU
27 OTU
30 OTU
608 Squadron
83 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
B-25
bombing
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Manchester
Martinet
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Barford St John
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Dishforth
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Hatfield
RAF Hixon
RAF Kirmington
RAF Peplow
RAF Prestwick
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Warboys
RAF Wigsley
Tiger Moth
training
Ventura
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/510/22829/LDunnGC149315v1.1.pdf
fcfad9b0b8798eadff914a6413250601
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
Dunn, George
George Charles Dunn
G C Dunn
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dunn, GC
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. Two oral history interviews with George Dunn DFC (1922 1333537, 149315 Royal Air Force), a photograph a document and two log books. He flew operations as a pilot with 10, 76, and 608 Squadrons then transferred to 1409 Meteorological Flight.
There is a sub collection of his photographs from Egypt.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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 C Dunn’s pilot's flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot's flying log book one, for George C Dunn, covering the period from 11 January 1942 to 30 July 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RCAF Caron, RCAF Weyburn, RAF Chipping Norton, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Melbourne, RAF Rufforth, RAF Driffield, RAF Linton on Ouse, RAF Finningley, RAF Worksop, RAF Church Broughton, RAF Lulsgate Bottom, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Barford St John, RAF Downham Market, RAF Wyton and RAF Upwood. Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Anson, Oxford, Wellington, Halifax, Mosquito and Lancaster. He flew a total of 42 night operations, 2 with 10 squadron, 28 with 76 squadron and 12 with 608 Squadron. Targets were Essen, Kiel, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Wuppertal, Krefeld, Mulheim, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne, Aachen, Montbeliard, Hamburg, Remscheid, Manheim, Milan, Peenemunde, Leverkusen, Berlin, Munich, Montlucon, Modane and Kassel. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Pilot Officer Hellis. The log book also contains two target photographs of Berlin and an aerial photo of an airfield.
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
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
LDunnGC149315v1
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.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Norfolk
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Somerset
England--Yorkshire
France--Modane
France--Montbéliard
France--Montluçon
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Munich
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Remscheid
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Milan
Saskatchewan--Moose Jaw
Saskatchewan--Weyburn
Scotland--Moray
Germany--Mannheim
Saskatchewan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1943-04-03
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-05-27
1943-05-28
1943-05-29
1943-05-30
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-06-23
1943-06-24
1943-06-25
1943-06-26
1943-06-28
1943-06-29
1943-07-03
1943-07-04
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-07-13
1943-07-14
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-07-31
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
1943-08-22
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-09-06
1943-09-07
1943-09-15
1943-09-16
1943-09-17
1943-09-29
1943-09-30
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1945-03-01
1945-03-02
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
1945-03-10
1945-03-11
1945-03-12
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-18
1945-03-29
1945-03-30
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-12
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-16
1945-04-17
1945-05-11
1945-05-14
1945-05-23
1945-05-28
1945-05-31
1945-06-16
1945-06-22
10 Squadron
16 OTU
1663 HCU
18 OTU
20 OTU
608 Squadron
76 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aerial photograph
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Barford St John
RAF Chipping Norton
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Downham Market
RAF Driffield
RAF Finningley
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upwood
RAF Worksop
RAF Wyton
target photograph
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1362/23337/ERaisbeckLTurnerCF480128.1.jpg
0b58a1dbfe2af3a22c38000bf97b2535
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
Turner, Charlie
C F Turner
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Charles Turner DFM (1042292 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and photographs. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Barbara Turner and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-22
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
Turner, CF
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Charles Turner from RAF Record Office
Description
An account of the resource
The letter asks Charles where he would like his Distinguished Flying Medal to be sent.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1948-01-28
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typed letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ERaisbeckLTurnerCF480128
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Derby
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1948-01-28
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Medal
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1362/23338/ERaisbeckLTurnerCF480410.2.jpg
5cda25b6c288984e15225278729fa69b
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
Turner, Charlie
C F Turner
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Charles Turner DFM (1042292 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and photographs. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Barbara Turner and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-22
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
Turner, CF
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Charles Turner from RAF Record Office
Description
An account of the resource
The letter accompanies Charles Distinguished Flying Medal and a letter from the King.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1948-04-10
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typed letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ERaisbeckLTurnerCF480410
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
England--Derby
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10-26
1948-04
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Medal
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/530/23972/LShawSR3002545v1.1.pdf
773c5f8cba859cc92a945416183f8997
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
Shaw, Stanley R
S R Shaw
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Shaw, SR
Description
An account of the resource
37 items. An oral history interview with Stanley Shaw (3002545 Royal Air Force) Photographs, documents and his log book. He served with a Repair and Salvage Unit and attended many crashes. He later served in North Africa and the Middle East.
The collection also contains two photograph albums; one of his RAF service and one of his time in a cycle club.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Stanley Shaw and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-14
2016-02-11
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
Stanley Shaw’s observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book for S R Shaw, covering the period from 21 July 1942 to 1 March 1947. Detailing flying with the Air Training Corps and following training as an airframe fitter his service flying, and his flying with the communications flight at Aden, where he was reclassified as flight mechanic air. He was stationed at RAF Burnaston, RAF Ashbourne, RAF Bobbington (aka RAF Halfpenny Green), RAF Hixon, RAF Hethel, RAF Watton and RAF Aden. Aircraft flown in were Magister, Anson, Wellington, Liberator, Mosquito and Lancastrian. The log book also lists his civilian flying details and that of I M Shaw for the period 1963 to 1984.
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
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
LShawSR3002545v1
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Yemen (Republic)
England--Derbyshire
England--Norfolk
England--Staffordshire
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
Anson
B-24
fitter airframe
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancastrian
Magister
Mosquito
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Hethel
RAF Hixon
RAF Watton
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/24264/LLucasWE122826v1.1.pdf
f8b8a2ebb89d539b28a771b379da14f0
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
Lucas, Bill
William Ernest Lucas
W E Lucas
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lucas, WE
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. Two oral history interviews with Squadron Leader Bill Lucas DFC (1917 - 2018, 1255396 Royal Air Force), his log book, brief memoir and photographs. He served as a pilot with 9, 15, 139 and 162 Squadrons. After the war he ran in the 1948 Olympics.
The collection was catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
William (Bill) Ernest Lucas was born in Tooting Bec, London on the 16th January 1917, 3 years deep into World War One. Luckily for Bill he was not of age to endure with the fighting in the trenches. However, when Europe was engulfed into another worldwide conflict in 1939, this set way for Bill to become involved with the RAF and IBCC.
Growing up, Bill was an only child and left his school (Bec Grammar School) at the age of 15. He managed to get a job with a printers, which led to his second and only other job at an insurance company called the London and Lancashire. The company’s sports club enabled Bill to find his passion for athletics (especially running) and he was expected to participate in the 1940 Olympics until the war interfered. (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30884)
A photo of Bill in his running gear is shown in https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30865 where he is running down 55 Graham Road in Surrey.
Bill instead competed in the 1948 Olympic Games as the games were also cancelled in 1944 due to World War Two. Luckily the games were hosted in London (https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/london-1948) and Bill had retired from IBCC meaning that he had time to participate.
As seen in ‘Bill Lucas and the 1948 London Olympics’ (1948) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30866 Bill managed to come 6th in the Second Heat meaning he was one position off of being in the final on the 2nd August 1948! This collection also includes Bill in his older prime wearing his 1948 Olympic Games jacket and the official Olympic Games programme from 1948.
When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st 1939, Bill was 22 years old meaning that he was eligible to be part of Great Britain’s Army. Combining Bill’s hatred of the sea and his fathers recent experiences in the trenches, the RAF seemed to be the most compatible choice with Bill. (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/30884/B[Author]LucasWEv10001.jpg)
Bill was not involved in Britain’s mightiest air conflict against Hitler’s Luftwaffe however, instead watching ‘The Few’ defeat the Nazi aircrafts and succeed. Being considered to be Nazi Germany’s first ‘major military defeat’, this allowed for Britain to continue fighting in the war (https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/our-history/anniversaries/battle-of-britain/ and to an extent, allowed Bill to continue his path of becoming an Squadron Leader.
It was November 1940 when Bill started his pilot training, but due to a bomber offensive being the only way to properly counter the Nazis, this was huge not just for Bill but Britain as a whole. There had never been a bomber offensive before in warfare. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/30884/B[Author]LucasWEv10001.jpg
As seen in Bill’s official Pilot’s Log Book: (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/24264/LLucasWE122826v1.1.pdf) his training consisted of being part of 16 Elementary Flying School at RAF Derby from 1940 to 41 , 8 School of Flying Training at RAF Montrose in 1941 and 20 Operational Training Units at RAF Lossiemouth in 1941 . He flew three different types of aircraft during his training, Miles Magister, Miles Master and Wellington I’s.
Bill’s training finally finished in August 1941 and he was posted to his first official squadron, IX Squadron at Honington. Here he flew the Wellington Bomber.
Will Cragg
Record of Service:
4 November 1940- 4 January 1941: 16 Elementary Flying Training School at RAF Derby flying Miles Magisters
9 January- 4 May 1941: 8 School of Flying Training at RAF Montrose flying Miles Masters
31 May 1941- 13 August 1941: 20 Operational Training Units at RAF Lossiemouth flying Wellington I’s
14 August 1941- 4 November 1941: 9 Squadron at RAF Honington flying Wellington III’s
4 November 1941- 30 December 1941: 26 Conversion Fleet at RAF Waterbeach flying Stirling’s
30 December 1941- 1 August 1942: 15 Squadron at RAF Wyton flying Whitley V’s
1 August 1942- 3 August 1942: 218 Conversion Fleet at RAF Marham flying Airspeed Oxfords
4 August 1942- 18 August 1942: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Kinloss flying Whitley IV’s
19 August 1942- 13 August 1942: 3 Fighter Instructor Schools at RAF Hullavington flying Ansons
17 September 1942- 18 September 1942: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Kinloss flying Halifax II’s
18 September 1942- 24 October 1944: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Forres flying Mosquito III’s
30 October 1942- 19 December 1944: 1655 Mosquito Training Unit at RAF Warboys flying Mosquito IV’s
30 October 1944- 19 December 1944: 1655 Squadron at RAF Bourn flying Mosquito XX’s
7 June 1945- 28 June 1945: 162 Squadron at RAF Blackbushe flying Mosquito XXV’S
28 June 1945- 29 January 1946: 139 Squadron at RAF Upwood flying Lancaster III’s
29 January 1946: Station Head Quarters at RAF Upwood flying Mosquito XVI’s
William Cragg
William (Bill) Lucas was born on January 16th, 1917 in Tooting Bec, London. He was educated at Bec Grammar School, and left at the age of 15 to work at a printing company before moving to the insurers London and Lancashire to work as an assessor. While working there, he developed his talent for athletics with the Belgrave Harriers, with his best discipline being the 5000 metres. His goal was to compete at the 1940 Olympic games. However, in 1940, Bill was called up to help the war effort and mindful of his father’s advice to avoid the army and his own dislike of the sea, he chose to join the RAF.
Initially he trained as a fighter pilot on Miles Magisters and Miles Masters, but by the time he had finished training, the Battle of Britain had been won and the need for bomber pilots was more urgent. So, he was reallocated to bombers and trained to fly the Wellington at RAF Lossiemouth. Bill Lucas · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Following completion of pilot training in August 1941, he was posted to RAF Honington and joined 9 Squadron flying Wellingtons. He flew 14 operational sorties – notably Cologne and Hamburg – before converting to Stirlings at RAF Waterbeach. He then joined 15 (Bomber) Squadron at RAF Wyton, flying the Short Stirling and, by August 1942, Bill had completed a full tour of 30 operational sorties (over 40 operations in total). Bill experienced tense encounters with German defences, having to take evasive action and also getting caught in a cone of five or six searchlights. To get out of the searchlight glare he had to do things with the aircraft which it was never meant to do. Returning from one mission they flew too close to Kiel and the airframe amassed a lot of bullet holes and an alarming loss of fuel. Crossing the North Sea, the tank indicators showed practically nothing and they had to divert into Woodbridge in Suffolk. The groundcrew estimated there was less than twenty-five gallons of fuel left (probably less than 6 minutes of flying time).
He was released from operational duties and was posted to RAF Lossiemouth as a flying instructor. Then in December 1944, he returned to operational flying and was posted to 162 Squadron, part of the Pathfinder force, to fly the Mosquito, an aircraft he described as “a bit quicker and more responsive; a nice aeroplane”. He completed a further 34 operational sorites with 162 Squadron, including missions over Kiel, Berlin, Hannover and Magdeburg. In recognition of his war services, Bill was awarded the DFC and was Mentioned in Despatches.
Squadron Leader Bill Lucas was released from the Service in January 1946 and returned to the insurance job he had left to join the RAF. Eventually, he left the company to become an insurance broker. He also returned to athletics and the Belgrave Harriers; he ran in various internationals and competed for Great Britain in the 5000m at the 1948 London Olympics. Athletics remained with him for the rest of his life and he gave his spare time freely, working in prominent roles in the administration of athletics. He remained a Belgrave Harrier committee member well into his 90s. He became known as “the golden voice of British Athletics” for his many years as stadium announcer at the White City .
In his later years, Bill remained prominent in RAF and Aircrew Associations. He, along with a small Band of Sussex veterans, was instrumental in helping to raise funds for the construction of the Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park and the International Bomber Command Centre.
Chris Cann
1940: Volunteered for the RAF
4 November 1940 – 4 January 1941: RAF Burnaston, No. 16 EFTS, flying Magister aircraft
9 January 1941 – 4 May 1941: RAF Montrose, No. 8 SFTS, flying Master aircraft
31 May 1941 – 13 August 1941: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, flying Wellington aircraft
14 August 1941 – 4 November 1941: RAF Honington, No. 9 Squadron, flying Wellington aircraft
1941: Commissioned into the officer ranks
4 November 1941 – 30 December 1941: RAF Waterbeach, No. 26 Conversion Flight, flying Stirling aircraft
30 December 1941 – 1 August 1942: RAF Wyton, No. 15 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
1 August 1942 – 3 August 1942: RAF Marham, 218 Conversion Flight
4 August 1942 – 18 August 1942: RAF Kinloss, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley aircraft
19 August 1942 – 13 September 1942: RAF Hullavington, No. 3 FTS, flying Oxford aircraft
17 September 1942 – 18 September 1942: RAF Kinloss, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley and Anson aircraft
18 September 1942 – 24 October 1944: RAF Foress, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley and Anson aircraft
30 October 1944 – 19 December 1944: RAF Warboys, 1655 MTU, flying Mosquito and Oxford aircraft
19 December 1944 – 7 June 1945: RAF Bourn, 162 Squadron, flying Mosquito aircraft
7 June 1945 – 28 June 1945: RAF Blackbushe, 162 Squadron, flying Mosquito aircraft
28 June 1945 – 29 January 1946: RAF Upwood, 139 Squadron, flying Mosquito and Oxford aircraft
29 January 1946: Released from Service having attained the rank of Squadron Leader.
Chris Cann
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
W E Lucas’ pilots flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for W E Lucas, covering the period from 7 November 1940 to 18 February 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Derby, RAF Montrose, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Honington, RAF Waterbeach, RAF Wyton, RAF Alconbury, RAF Kinloss, RAF Hullavington, RAF Forres, RAF Warboys, RAF Bourn, RAF Blackbushe (Hartford Bridge) and RAF Upwood. Aircraft flown in were Magister, Master, Wellington, Stirling, Whitley, Oxford, Anson, Halifax, Mosquito and Lancaster. He flew a total of 67 night operations. 10 with 9 Squadron, 23 with 15 Squadron and 34 with 162 Squadron. Targets were Cologne, Mannheim, Brest, Boulogne, Turin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Genoa, Stettin, Lorient, Lubeck, Stuttgart, Warnemunde, Blaavands Point, Norderney, Essen, Emden, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Lemburg, Hanau, Nurnberg, Hannover, Berlin, Magdeburg, Erfurt, Kiel, Dessau and Osnabruck. <span>His first or second pilots on operations were </span>Sergeant Baker, Sergeant Bulford, Pilot Officer Saunders, Sergeant Cross, Sergeant Melville, Sergeant Bond, Sergeant Russell-Colins, Group Captain Kirkpatrick and Squadron Leader Walsh. He also lists his post war flying duties with 139 Squadron.
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
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
LLucasWE122826v1
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.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Denmark--Ribe
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Hampshire
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Lorient
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Erfurt
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Norderney
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--Genoa
Italy--Turin
Netherlands--Limburg
Poland--Szczecin
Scotland--Angus
Scotland--Moray
Germany--Rostock
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-08-26
1941-08-27
1941-08-29
1941-08-30
1941-09-07
1941-09-08
1941-09-10
1941-09-11
1941-09-12
1941-09-13
1941-09-15
1941-09-16
1941-09-26
1941-09-28
1941-09-29
1941-09-30
1941-10-01
1941-10-20
1941-10-26
1942-03-25
1942-03-26
1942-03-28
1942-03-29
1942-04-28
1942-05-06
1942-05-07
1942-05-08
1942-05-09
1942-05-17
1942-05-18
1942-05-29
1942-05-30
1942-05-31
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1942-06-03
1942-06-06
1942-06-07
1942-06-19
1942-06-20
1942-06-22
1942-06-23
1942-06-25
1942-06-26
1942-06-29
1942-06-30
1942-07-02
1942-07-03
1942-07-07
1942-07-08
1942-07-09
1944-12-21
1944-12-22
1944-12-23
1944-12-24
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1945-01-01
1945-01-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-10
1945-01-11
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-05
1945-02-06
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-10
1945-02-11
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
1945-03-10
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-20
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-03-27
1945-03-28
1945-04-03
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-11
1945-04-12
1945-04-20
1945-04-21
1945-04-23
1945-04-24
1945-04-25
1945-04-26
1945-06-04
1945-07-16
1945-09-17
1945-09-21
1946
139 Squadron
15 Squadron
162 Squadron
19 OTU
20 OTU
9 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Magister
mine laying
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Alconbury
RAF Bourn
RAF Hartford Bridge
RAF Honington
RAF Hullavington
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Wyton
Stirling
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/341/24682/LTinningHW19585v1.1.pdf
dce1da7637ab34989057226f81050674
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Tinning, Herbert
Herbert William Tinning
Herbert W Tinning
H W Tinning
H Tinning
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Herbert William Tinning DFC, his log book and three photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 51 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Herbert Tinning and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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
2016-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tinning, HW
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
Herbert Tinning’s Royal Australian Air Force Observer’s Air Gunner’s And W/T Operator’s Flying Log Book
Description
An account of the resource
Herbert Tinning’s Royal Australian Air Force Observer’s Air Gunner’s And W/T Operator’s Flying Log Book from 25th August 1942 to 11th March 1945. Recording his training as a navigator in Australia and Great Britain and a full tour of operations with 51 squadron, followed by a short period with 96 squadron (Transport Command). He was based at RAAF Cootamundra, RAAF Sale, RAAF Nhill, RAF Desford, RAF West Freugh, RAF Lichfield, RAF Church Broughton, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Snaith and RAF Leconfield. Aircraft in which flown: Anson, Battle, Tiger Moth, Wellington and Halifax. He flew 40 operations (19 day, 19 night, 2 abandoned/recalled) on the following targets in Belgium, France and Germany: Alencon, Boulogne, Brest, Caen (Emieville), Calais, Cape Griz Nez, Chateaudon, Collines-Beaumont, Croixdalle, Essen, Foret de Nieppe, Hannover, Haringzelles, Hasselt, Herquelingue, Homberg, Kiel, Kleves, Le Grand Rossignol, Le Havre, Les Catelliers, Marquise, Mont Fleury, Morsalines, Neuss (Dusseldorf), Oisemont, Siracourt, St Martin L’hortier, Sterkrade, Stuttgart, Trappes, Villers Bocage, Wilhemshaven and Wizernes. His pilot on operations was Flight Sergeant Moore. On 6th June 1944 he notes: “‘D’ DAY OPENING OF SECOND FRONT”. In October 1944 he notes “AWARDED - DFC”.
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
David Leitch
Cara Walmsley
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
LTinningHW19585v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Derbyshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Belgium--Hasselt
France--Alençon
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Cap Gris Nez
France--Châteaudun
France--Colline-Beaumont
France--Croixdalle
France--Haringzelles
France--Herquelingue
Belgium--Rossignol
France--Le Havre
France--Les Catelliers
France--Marquise
France--Morsalines
France--Oisemont (Canton)
France--Siracourt
France--Soligny-la-Trappe
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
New South Wales--Cootamundra
Victoria--Sale
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
France--Ver-Sur-Mer
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
Victoria
New South Wales
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Nieppe Forest
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-13
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-02
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-06-30
1944-07-01
1944-07-04
1944-07-06
1944-07-09
1944-07-17
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-09-10
1944-09-14
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-21
1944-10-23
1944-10-25
1652 HCU
27 OTU
51 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Desford
RAF Leconfield
RAF Lichfield
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Snaith
RAF West Freugh
tactical support for Normandy troops
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington