1
25
289
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1901/35243/PRobertsEJH1711.2.jpg
c115776ca98dce61c73c8a36d219c49c
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
Roberts, E J H
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
2017-07-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Roberts, EJH
Description
An account of the resource
50 items. The collection concerns E J H Roberts DFC (408451 Royal Air Force) and contains maps, documents, news clippings and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 61 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Grant and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
RAF Bruntingthorpe
Description
An account of the resource
A vertical aerial photograph of Bruntingthorpe. An approximate scale and a north arrow has been annotated on the image. Also at the bottom is ' 5 BTPE 14.6.43//5" 13,000 <--- 032° 0857 Bruntingthorpe C S 29 OTU'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
29 OTU
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-06-14
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRobertsEJH1711
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated
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.
1943-06-14
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
29 OTU
aerial photograph
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bruntingthorpe
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/28199/EBuppingerAWareingJXX09XX-01.1.pdf
6e178faa8c858c1dc022fb0dca704064
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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing 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
2016-10-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wareing, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] Reply:- c/o Capt A. Buppinger R.A.S.C, C.S.D. Soulbury [underlined] Bucks. [underlined] [/inserted]
[Hotel Rembrandt crest]
HOTEL REMBRANDT,
LONDON,
S.W.
7.
[underlined] Sept [/underlined]
My Dear Joan,
Thank you for your letter which I received last week, & I apologize for the delay in writing. I wanted to write you as soon as I returned but was bound down by the Air Ministry. However as they appear to have given you a certain amount of information, I’ll tell you what I can. You will appreciate my difficulty I know, but I will be completely truthful & honest with you, as I think you can take it the right way.
We had bombed our objective on the night of 7/8/Aug.
[page break]
& were approaching the French Coast east of Le Havre. About 6-10 miles from the coastline, we were attacked by a German fighter, who came in three times & eventually set the aircraft ablaze in the cockpit. The rear gunner, mid-upper gunner wireless operator & bomb aimer were killed & I have personally seen their grave. The engineer baled out first, followed by the second nav, (Bob King.) & I followed them. King was burnt a little & I burned my legs getting out, & sprained my ankle on landing. Bob was still flying the aircraft in all this, & believe me Joan, I feel very
[page break]
proud of him. He was a real skipper & stuck to his job.
I wandered about all night trying to find assistance & finally at nine o’clock next morning, contacted some French people who passed me on from one to another until that evening I was taken (with Paddy Tarrans the engineer) to a farm in the woods. Here we hid for three weeks while a local doctor looked after my burns, & ankle, & patched up a few scratches on Paddy. While there they told me that King had been caught by the Germans & taken to Le Havre Hospital to get his
[page break]
burns dressed. Bob was picked up by a renegade Frenchman & passed over to the Germans, who also took him to the same hospital. He was a little worse off than we, but exactly how much I could not discover. The Frenchman concerned was picked up by the local Maquis, & they showed me Bob’s signet ring, wrist watch & your address which he had written out. These were retained by the Chief of the local Resistance movement for, I presumed, restoration to you.
As far as I know, they were both in Le Havre Hospital
[page break]
right up to the time of capitulation & since then I have been eagerly awaiting news of their return.
When our troops moved to within six miles of our farm, Paddy & I made a dash for it& got in touch with them on 1st Sept. Then by degrees we were passed back to the beach head, & embarked by sea for Newhaven on the 7th Sept.
Since then I have been busy with medical boards, hospitals, kit chasing, (about £40 worth missing!) & sick leave. I have my ankle
[page break]
encased in plaster, & it should be all right by the 16th Oct.
The point about Bob, Joan, is that he may or may not have moved out of Le Havre, we shelled & bombed it too, but tried to avoid the hospital etc etc. So you see – I don’t want to raise false hopes of any kind. I have told you all I know, & I can but add that I hope & pray that things will come out all right for you. I think I know enough about you to realise that you will understand.
Did you know that bob had driven his car to the usual
[page break]
garage in Market Harboro’ for servicing? I mentioned it to the Adjutant & asked him to let you know. If you want to dispose of it or anything like that, let me know & I’ll be very pleased to do anything to help you.
I’ll try & visit you when I can, & we will have a more personal talk.
Goodbye for now, & remember Joan – you have a husband to be proud of.
Yours very sincerely Alan
[page break]
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Joan Wareing from Alan Buppinger
Description
An account of the resource
Describes events during an operation to support the Normandy troops when Robert Wareing's aircraft was attached by fighters and set on fire. Four crew members were killed and four baled out. Author and one other evaded with help of French resistance, linked up with allied troops and returned to England. Two other crew including Robert Wareing were caught or handed over to Germans. Both were in Le Havre hospital. Continues with subsequent events and discussion about Wareing's car which he left in Market Harborough.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A Buppinger
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Christian
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven page handwritten 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
EBuppingerAWareingJXX09XX-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
France
France--Le Havre
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Leicestershire
England--Market Harborough
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-09-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
bale out
bombing
evading
final resting place
killed in action
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
prisoner of war
Resistance
shot down
tactical support for Normandy troops
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1252/16973/SCheshireGL72021v10051.1.jpg
dc381b9b135f13e9dee57265a3189679
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
P/O A.J. Ward
RAF. MRU.
Hazelrigg Hall
Ashby Road
LOUGHBOROUGH, Leics.
March 3rd’ 44
Wing Commander Cheshire DSO.DFC.
Dear Sir
I just wished to let you know that I am making excellent progress with both arm and leg and that the Doc thinks I shall probably be fit in 4 or 5 weeks time.
Very best wishes to the Squadron.
Yours sincerely
Arthur J Ward
P/O
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 Leonard Cheshire from Pilot Officer A J Ward
Description
An account of the resource
Writes that he is making excellent progress with both arm and leg and should be fit in five weeks.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A J Ward
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SCheshireGL72021v10051
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--Leicestershire
England--Loughborough
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03-03
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
ground personnel
medical officer
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/331/3491/PSouthwellDE1603.1.jpg
14aae2a01070e096fa9c00a5c57a4ace
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/331/3491/ASouthwellDE160424.2.mp3
bd5f88b470f50c82d0fece440095f478
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southwell, Don
Donald Edward Southwell
Donald E Southwell
Donald Southwell
D E Southwell
D Southwell
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Donald Edward "Don" Southwell (b. 1924 - 2019, 423987 Royal Australian Air Force), documents including a navigation chart, and six photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 463 and 467 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Don Southwell and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-24
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
Southwell, DE
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 audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DES: [unclear] have you?
AP: My little question sheet.
DES: Oh, good, [unclear] you should have given it to me before.
AP: No, no, no.
DES: [laughs]
AP: So what I do, uhm, because of this little adapter, if I unplug it, the careful tuned thing dies and it gets embarrassing cause it never works. So, instead I have to plug in earphones, so that I can check cause this is a little splitter. I can plug in earphones so that I can listen to it, because if I just try on the speaker, it goes out the earphones so, anyway. It works now, that’ the most important thing, I’ve had a couple of interviews where I had to use the little microphone built in here cause I never know if this thing’s working. Very very [unclear].
DES: I didn’t know there was a mike in those. See, I use one of those all the time. [unclear]
AP: Well, some of them, some of them do, so there is actually a little camera up here, there is a little microphone there, so it is like for web cam, is not for very good quality and it picks up all the noise that’s around, this seems to be more, uhm, localised to adjust your voice, which [unclear] in the recording. I did one of those with a bloke, uhm, Jack Bell, who, he was shot down in Libya, uhm, he’s 98, he was shot down in Libya in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as prisoner, ’43, very early [unclear].
DES: Ah, prisoner.
AP: 42 [unclear]
DES: In Germany?
AP: Uhm, in Italy and then in Germany.
DES: Ah.
AP: Uhm, and the house next door was actually being demolished at the time we did the interview. In the background you can hear a little bit of it, but not very much. So, for a twenty dollar E-bay special, they are pretty good. Anyway, if you are comfortable and ready to [unclear]
DES: Yeah.
AP: All this is, as you know, IBCC interview, uhm, basically we just have a chat. Uhm, I’ve got a sort of list of questions to get us started, but basically I’ll let you run and we go wherever we go and then we might come back and fill in gaps, all that sort of stuff.
DES: You edit it. Yeah.
AP: Yeah, uhm, we just go until one of us begs for mercy basically. I know what you are like, so it could be for a while [laughs].
DES: No, no, no, it’s not right. No, I, whenever this comes up and I’m in a group, I know the people who’ve got all the interesting stories. I’ve been doing this since Australia all over.
AP: No, I.
DES: Down in, [unclear] I’m gonna write him a letter too, but, uh, Ian McNamara and uh he was, uhm, I was all, I did directing, at, down there, I got the, we got this bloke and got this bloke, got that bloke, got that bloke, he’s gonna get all interesting blokes, you know, I knew [unclear] too long [laughs] and they didn’t want me [laughs] Yeah.
AP: Very good. Anyway, uhm, so, look, the shortest interview I’ve done went from forty five minutes long to three and a half hours or so, you know, whenever we get, we get, it’s quite ok. As I said, there’s a list of questions to sort to start of, so
DES: Forty five minutes, [unclear]
AP: That’s very short one, that was very hard because I had to keep asking questions to. Uhm, my favourite one.
DES: You’d might have to do that.
AP: We’ll see what happens when I ask the first question, that’s always the same question I start with and once the opening response went for about ten words, the longest one has been an hour and fifty before I had to say anything else. Which
DES: [unclear]
AP: It’s astonishing, it’s really really good. Anyway, so, uhm, I start off with a little spiel, so, kick off with that now, just to sort of set the time and the place, uh, so, we are recording and it looks good. So, this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Don Southwell, who was a 463 Squadron navigator at the tail end of World War Two. Interview is taking place at Don’s home in St Ives in Sydney, it’s the 24th of April, I should know that, it’s their [unclear] day, my name is Adam Purcell. Uhm, so, as usual, Don, we will start with the normal question, can you tell me something of your early life, growing up, what you did before the war.
DES: Yes, I can certainly do that. Ehm, I was born in Croydon, in New South Wales, in number 10, Hardidge [?] Street as a matter of fact and I was the third child of my mother Cathy. Ehm, I had my brother Brian, my sister and myself, we were four years between each of us and we lived in Croydon, in Sydney. My father died when I was thirty, when he was thirty five and my mother brought us all up to the [unclear], my, I went to school in [unclear] High school and I had, oh I had a job when I left high school. I was, uhm, my first job was at, uhm, RKO Radio Pictures and I was there for about eighteen months and uhm, my mother thought that this picture business wasn’t the sort of place that [laughs] her son should be spending his career in. So, she started to work on various people and I finished up with a job at the MLC. At the MLC, at this particular stage, they only took you with the leaving certificate. My mum couldn’t afford to keep me on the leaving, so, while my brother and sister went to Fort Street High School and did the leaving, uhm, my mum couldn’t afford it. Anyway, we, I went to RKO Radio Pictures and we, uhm, I lasted there and, uhm, I got the job at the MLC and my sister actually worked and that’s how I probably had a little bit of influence and they didn’t want to appoint me first of all but I reached the stage where there weren’t getting many men in because of the war and the war had started and this was in 1941. And so, uhm, I was very fortunate to get that job because I remind there laws about 90 and that’s not a jag either, this is quite true and I [unclear], I have to write, yeah, uh, I was there for eighteen months and the war came and I’d already enlisted, I’d already joined the air training corps, it was 24 Squadron at Ashfield and under control of squadron leader Whitehurst and he had the grads there and we did all the courses for the air training corps and I was also an ARP warden on my bike and I had an ARP band on my arm, patrolling the streets at night to make sure the people were keeping to the blackout rules. I used to sit in those, sit at the top of the town hall at Ashfield and looking for [laughs] Japanese planes coming over. We didn’t get any Japanese planes but we had to report all things that were going in there and then I got the call up for the army. Because I was eighteen the army called me up and because I was in the air force, I had already been in the air training corps it didn’t make any difference so I went up to the infantry training battalion at Dubbo in central New South Wales and, uhm, I was there for about three weeks, while the rifle regiment came in on a motorbike and looking for [unclear] and took me back to the, you know, the orderly room, I was put on a train to Sydney, I was discharged from the army and sent down to Woolloomooloo. In Woolloomooloo was the air force, uhm, recruiting depot and there we did the medical tests and so forth and I was then posted off and I to number nine Glebe Island [?], which is a wharf in Sydney, I went in as an aircrew, I was called, the air force had so many people for aircrew that they couldn’t cope with them at a particular time and they made us air crew guards and I served for three months in Sydney, there’s an aircrew guard, some of them got posted all the way from New South Wales but I was fortunate enough, I caught number nine Glebe Island, where we guarded little beds, belonged to the air force and so forth and we also did jobs working on the wharves and I was part of the secret war people talk about, that the wharfies continually being out on strike and so forth and they asked the, they sent one of us down to do various jobs on the wharves because later all the supplies were going up to New Guinea, was on a ship called the Marino and it belonged under contract to the air force and now, the wharfies were pilfering stuff from this convoys that were going up to the, the trips up in New Guinea, they were pilfering stuff there and so we had a, we were put, what do you call it? A revolver, a Smith and Wesson revolver around their waists and I did stay for one night, I’d be inside the wharf for one day, inside the wharf in the stores where they had all the stuff there laying. We had a guard on the door, a guard on the, uhm, where the crane came down and picked the, uhm, supplies up, one on top on board the ship and one down in the hold. And we virtually stopped the pilfering in the, but there was a great war against the wharfies in those particular days but a very interesting book has been written about the secret war and it’s not only happened there, but it happened in the army and all around the place. So, that was just a little side set up, while I was waiting to go to aircrew. I was then called up to number 2 ITS in Bradfield Park, to go and do my initial training school and, uhm, so began my career in the air force. Then, do you want me to go further?
AP: Yeah, can you keep going as [unclear].
DES: I’m in the air force then, ok.
AP: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Absolutely.
DES: We’re in Bradfield Park and Bradfield Park was the centre of two ITS and we did the normal parades on the [unclear] rid marches, uhm, we did cross country runs, we did all sorts of subjects that were pertinent to air crew and so forth, meteorology, all that sort of business and we, uhm, that took us about three weeks to do that and then I was categorised as a pilot. Cause I wanted to be a pilot because my brother was a pilot and so they made me a pilot. They sent me off to number 8, I think it is number 8, EFTS at Narrandera and so began my career, started my career as a pilot. The time limit for getting through, through the school was you had to go solo in twelve hours, now came twelve hours and I hadn’t gone solo and the, uhm, my instructor said; ‘Come on, Don, we gotta get you through this’ and we were operating from a little satellite area, outside of Narrandera, he said you gotta go up and go solo today [laughs]. So, I worked out all what I had to do in the circuit and so forth and I went up on the, took off, made a nice take off but I got the wind changed and then [laughs], I didn’t know the wind had changed and I’m doing the circuit on the basis of when I took off, I did the left-hand circuit and so forth and coming, all of a sudden there is a Tiger Moth coming up beside me, it was my instructor and he was pointing down to the wind sock and I didn’t know what he was talking about, you know, so I didn’t, I just went up and landed, I did a beautiful crosswind landing, it was a good crosswind landing but that’s the last time I, I think I lasted for another half an hour or so flying and then they decided that I, you know, I hadn’t gone in twelve hours, didn’t look like it, so they scrubbed me, I was scrubbed and that was a terrible thing to happen to me, to be scrubbed, I wanted so much to be like my brother who could fly before the war. And, so, uh, I was then, I thought, oh, I’ll have it now the air crew but they transferred me. The boy that got a B in mathematics 1 and mathematics 2, the intermediate, they transferred me to embarkation depot as a navigator and so, but I, and then I stayed at the, I came from Narrandera back to Sydney and I stayed there at the embarkation depot and uhm, just as on the side, we used to, get my [unclear] at Burwood, that was a [unclear] about twenty minute train ride from Chatswood, we used to have a night down, tucked down under the barbed wire, get down a lady game driver, was not a lady game driver this near, walk up to take off, picked to be kept, seen the fiver air crew, when I say we there were a lot of fellows doing this, and we get, I get the train to Han, I spend the night at Ham (or Han), get out of bed at about five o’clock, then come back and up [unclear] at five o’clock ready for parade. And so that, that didn’t go on for long of course, but I did my, that was our waiting game but of course, we were going overseas an therefore we couldn’t leave Australia until we were nineteen, that was a government rule, they just couldn’t, you couldn’t leave, you couldn’t get out, be transferred out of Australia unless you were nineteen. So, I kept going, I was before I turned nineteen, I went to embarkation depot, so I kept [unclear] just about every day reminding them that I was, I’ll be nineteen on the seventeenth of April. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were bound on a train up to, from Central Railway, we went up to Queensland and transferred to Kalinga and the army came, was a big army came and we slept in tents, oh, by the way, the train trip was terrible, we were in, we had to sit up or some fellows were sitting up, lying down on in the luggage racks upstairs but we had a terrible trip that night, that train, they put us like cattle in there, and so we got up to Brisbane to Kalinga and we had to wait there for our ship and that was somewhere around the first or second of July in 1943, ’43, yeah ’43, and we uhm, one night we had the cars or the truck all arrived and took us down to the boat, was the Noordam, was the United States army transport going back to San Francisco, empty or as empty, except for us air force, because they’ve been bringing all those hundreds of thousands of American troops over to Australia for the Pacific War and uhm, so uhm, we set sail from Brisbane heading or Morton Bay and then shortly about two or three hours out from Brisbane we [unclear] and we wonder what we were doing because of the Japanese submarines and all that sort of thing and it was the, only about three or four days before, or, yeah must have been before, we have to because the Japanese had sunk the hospital ship, the, the, the, the, because they sunk one of their hospital ships and we had two minutes of silence we expected to be torpedoed [unclear] and we headed on our way to, I think it took us about eighteen days to get to San Francisco and never been past Hornsby, past Wollongong, never seen the Blue Mountains, I hadn’t been out to the parks to the, in the [unclear] and to Dubbo in the army and, uhm, here I was, just coming into San Francisco harbour and so I made sure I was at the front of the ship and I never left that ship till about two o’clock in the afternoon, we came by, saw the Golden Gate bridge [unclear] I was nineteen years of age and we heard the, we saw the [unclear] prison and the San Francisco bridge and we landed at Oakland and from there we were put on a train and sent up to, up the uhm, West Coast of America, uh, to Vancouver, where we switched trains for our trip on Canadian national Railways, was a steam, was an old-burner train and we went to, went on our way through the Canadian Rockies to Edmonton and slightly north of Calgary at and the thing that strikes us, was the difference in travelling in Australia in the cattle trucks, where we had, uhm, they weren’t there for our Americans in those days but they were there for Americans were waiting on us, we had sleepers, everything was laid on, the Canadian people, the Canadian government were fantastic, and here we were, we were only leading aircraftsmen, we weren’t even sergeants, and so anyway, we got to Edmonton, I went to the, uhm, manning depot, manning depot and I have a big photo in my home here of the, uhm, on one of our parades, you can pick me out in the [unclear], we had the morning [unclear], you can pick out the Australians because of their blue uniforms, all the rest wore khaki, was in summertime, but anyway, you could pick us out, pick me out with the manning depot and then I was transferred from there, which was just across the road, really, to number 2 AOS Edmonton, that’s where I did my navigation course. My first trip on navigation course was a real, [laugh], was a real did last as far as I was concerned but I’ll tell you about it. We, uhm, I had a, uhm, another navigator, we were flying Avro Ansons and, well, just digress slightly on our Avro Ansons and then poor our navigator had to wind the wheels of the Anson, Avro Anson up, a hundred and forty-nine times to get the wheels up, that was their job for, just straight on take-off. Anyway, we went on from this first navigation trip, I had a second navigator with me, who was supposed to be giving me fixes and that sort of thing and I got lost and so while I was suggesting we do, the pilots by the way were all civilians, they were not in the air force, they were under civilian contract and that was [unclear] Canada and, uhm, Maxi Titlebomb his name was and he suggested we get out and have a look at the railway sign [laughs] so we went down to the railway station and were at a sort of place called Wetaskiwin, not far out of Edmonton, but it was Wetaskiwin so I proceeded to [unclear] I knew where I was, I got me air plucked for Wetaskiwin and went up and we continued on our course, I expected to be scrubbed straight off on that score but I wasn’t, no, they didn’t, was the best thing that ever happened to me because I made a mistake on my first trip, you were never, the navigators rule was never to drop your air plot and I dropped me air plot because if you kept your air plot [unclear] end your life to get a position, make some sort of, where you think it was but you, you’d always got the opportunity to do that and, so a navigator never had to, should never drop his air plot. But anyway I finished up, was about six months course, was about six months and we, incidentally we had to, people talk about the weather these days, it was forty degrees, one night it was forty degrees below zero, now was in Fahrenheit was thirty-two degrees and so was seventy-two degrees of frost. We had to warm the aircraft up in the hangers before we went out and we had winds, sometimes we had headwinds where we were going backwards up in the north part of Canada [laughs], you know, very, very frightening for a nineteen year old [laughs] that didn’t know a lot about navigation, but we got through all of it and we, I finished up with a reasonable max coming out of my course, I was always better at the air plot than I was, I always had trouble with my theory things, wasn’t very good on the theory but I was, even if I say so I was reasonable as a navigator. And so we got our wings there and was around December 1943 and I haven’t been out to find many [unclear] since I came across my fellows book called Navigator Brothers the other day and I wrote to the author, because in there was a photo of one of the group that was having their passing air parade, cause a big deal the passing air parade, the Canadians really put on all their pomp and ceremony for their passing air parade. The, uhm, uh, yes, we got our wings and we proceeded then to go to, uhm, to uhm, we’d being posted to Montreal [unclear] I just had a thought, we went to Montreal and we had to wait a bit to go over to England and, you know, during my stay in Montreal, we stayed at a place called the Sheen, we were sent off for six weeks up to a ski lodge, so they didn’t have a boat to take us over to England so they sent us, was about thirty of us, we were all sent up to a ski lodge, luxurious place for, you know, a couple of weeks, two or three weeks, we learned to ski, we learned to use the tennis rackets on the feet to walk in the snow, we learned to ice skate, to do all sorts of things, it was wonderful. Anyway, we got back from, we went back to the Sheen and I found out that my brother, was, uhm, who was a pilot in the Middle East and an instructor at Lichfield, which would probably entirely they said to be Bomber Command.
AP: Absolutely.
DES: But he, uh, I found out he was coming over on his way home to Australia having completed his tour, he was transferred back to Australia but on his way he had to go, he was [unclear] to fly back with a brand new Liberator and Bryan was in New York with his crew, but they’d been flying Liberators although a lot of these fellows who did this were Lancaster pilots, cause there’s two hundred of them eventually, and then Bryan and I we shared a room in Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York for a couple of days. Then he went on his way home or to California, I should say, where he did three months before he flew off back to Australia, If you like I might talk about that later on. But, then I went back to Montreal and we then got advised that a ship was waiting for us in Halifax, so we did a night trip to Halifax from Montreal and we joined the maiden [?] vessel called, the maiden [?] vessel called the Andes, was a flat bottom boat, a, yeah, a 20000-tonner I suppose, but it was very fast and on that boat we had a complete Canadian armoured division, were ten thousand fellows with their tanks and about a hundred aircrew, [unclear] pilots joining there, there were navigators, there were wireless operators, there was bomb aimers, all been trained in Canada and sending us all over and so we went over there on our own, we didn’t go in a convoy, we went on our own, took us about seven days, we went up towards the North Pole and [unclear] in Liverpool but we didn’t have any, uhm, we didn’t have any [unclear] things happening to us except that we, was a [unclear] taking more than seven days but it was a fast trip was what we did and we weren’t allowed about decks at night time, so, at night time you couldn’t go up on deck no matter what it was because people had a habit of lighting cigarettes and submarines could catch you but some of these, the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary, they were too fast for the submarines so they, we zig-zagged all the way across and we arrived in Liverpool and uhm, we uhm, got, we arrived nearly as the morning met by the salvation army, they gave us food and so forth, we went in the big tunnel out of Liverpool and came down to, went down to Brighton PDRC and that’s where I started my first, uhm, flying, my first events in England.
AP: What did you?
DES: Now.
AP: What did you think of wartime England when you first got there?
DES: When?
AP: As a nineteen year old Australian, you are now in wartime England. What?
DES: What I thought of it? Well, uhm, when I first got there I, we went by train down to, we skirted to London, we went to, Brighton was a lovely place but, we were, there was the IFF that had taken over the uhm, the uhm, the Metropole and the, the Metropole and the, the two big hotels, I have just forgotten their names but it was where Margaret Thatcher was blown up later on, she escaped the bombing near in Brighton some years later but we went straight down so, we didn’t see much of the, uhm, the countryside. We were billeted out from the hotels, the [unclear] were billeted out in homes quite near the hotel but we didn’t see any great, you know, people had their coupons, that sort of thing and I saw a lot of it after on my first leave to London, then was when I, you know, realised how terrible things were but there in Brighton, where we were, all the beaches were, they’re all pebble stones not sand all the beaches were mined so you couldn’t go there. If anybody knows Brighton as the Brighton pier, and then it had been chopped in half purposely and the bottom half was used by the air force to, but we used to go and gonna get paid there, we used to go and collect the money on a Thursday or whatever it was, and so uhm, we didn’t see, uhm, in all fairness, you know, I didn’t see, you know, it was, I wouldn’t say, you know, nasty looking, you know, there wasn’t, there was no visible damage that I saw down in Brighton but, my mother and father both came out from England in 1912 so I had relations to go to in England and so I was, uhm, my first leave I had when I went to, I went to a place called Maidstone where my mother was born and uhm, I went to see uncle Ted and auntie Gladys who became [unclear] mother while I was there and I stayed with them and they had a big two story home. He was the general manager of Fremlin’s Brewery, which was a big brewery [laughs] in London and Maidstone, and was a white, the emblem was a white elephant on all the London busses and he was the general manager of this [unclear] and so naturally I was well looked after. If they wanted some meat, if they wanted a steak or some, which was very rare, she takes it, make sure you keep the uniform on and we’ll go down to the butchers today and she, he’s my cousin from Australia you know and they’d toss out some special food for us. But uhm, they seemed to live pretty well you know I think they were, you had to be careful with petrol rationing and that sort of thing but in the group that I sort of as, you know, these people were part of, put in mind, you know, reasonably well off as people and, but she was a real mother to me, she used to take me round on, I always used to go there on leave but she used to take me round and onto, show me the Rochester cathedral or Ramsgate, where my mother used to go and swim as she was a kid and so forth, you know, and I’ve met all my relations but I, I don’t have any, it’s only when later on I went down when I was in the middle of the buzz bombs and the V2 rockets that I realised, you know, how terrible that, uh, what the Germans had done to our people here in London and, you know, when you see streets that are just completely, [unclear] smashed, it was quite something but generally speaking I can’t say that I, you know, I go shopping in London and I, one of the girls there I used to take out, Elisabeth Fulligan, she was a solicitors clerk in London and I used to see her every now and then when I was on leave but I generally speaking, you know, the, I go into a restaurant but we might have a bit difficulty in getting decent sort of stuff but, you know, I can always get eggs and bacon or some I think we had horse meat at some places in London but I didn’t know we were eating horse meat until somebody told us but. Uh, all I can say is about, the people there were marvellous [unclear] and if I can just get back, the people in Canada I missed them, I spent a lot of time when I was in Canada doing my course, one of the fellows on my course was Harry Thompson and he was a Canadian, he lived in 1065 107 Street and we used to go to weekends there and you know, they couldn’t do, his parents and their friends had us all out to their places and we go, they take us to their places and, you know, you can never pay for them, they , it was fantastic in what they did for us and I had, as I say, I had relations in England and they are all the same and I, I think that I was fortunate in that I had relations to go and stay with, all our on the other side of that I missed seeing a lot of England, I used to go down on leave to Wesperdale [?] , good to be when I was there, I was enjoying myself immensely you know, I didn’t drink beer, I drank cider and that was worse. I can always remember going to a Rotary club meeting in Maidstone and they introduced me to a sergeants household and I had to get up and say who I was and I didn’t drink beer and I thought I’d have some cider and I think I was silly as anything because I didn’t realise cider was, I any, I didn’t know much about the air force and before we finished I’d like to speak about to something about the air force that I would like to say but I answered that question there and that’s about the best I can do about the people and the conditions and that sort of thing.
AP: So.
DES: Except that I had a good time.
AP: Well, that’s the important thing.
DES: When I was on leave that was, all my leave [unclear], that’s when you notice these things.
AP: So, from Brighton, where did you go next?
DES: Oh, ok, from Brighton my first port of call was, I think it was 29 OTU, operational training unit at Bruntingthorpe, which was near Leicester and that’s, no, I’m sorry, that’s not where I went, I went to the advanced flying unit in Freugh in Scotland. There’s a good story about Freugh and that’s where we did our first lot of real navigation. We did all trips, day trips out to the Mull of Kintyre, we’re up right in the north of Scotland, no the north, but half way of Scotland, and we were doing all these trips. You went over pretty close to Ireland, we’re doing all these marvellous trips, you know, that’s where we really learned to be navigators, really into, we got our wings in Canada, but this where we really did the real thing and there we spent, West Freugh is near Stranraer and Stranraer was the main port of call when you go over to Northern Ireland and now we are on the maps, normal maps, you can find them on google now but on the normal maps you buy, you will never see West Freugh, I’ve asked many a Scottish bloke about West Freugh but they can never find West Freugh, they can only assume it was probably a farm of some sort but they had especially for that, they made it [unclear] because it was flying, we’re on Avro Ansons again, we were flying Avro Ansons there at West Freugh, they’re a two-engine aircraft, and they had two navigators on board and then we, uhm, so, I think from a point of view of a AF advanced flying unit, by the way, it was number 4 [unclear] which is [unclear], we stayed there about, uhm, oh, we didn’t stay there long, we stayed there from July ’44 to the end of July, early July, 5th of July to the 21st of July and that’s where we did our AFU advanced flying unit . Now, from there, we graduated from there and we were only doing cross country trips and that sort of thing from there. From there we went to 29 OTU at Bruntingthorpe and that’s where what we called crewed up and that’s where we, uhm, we’re all pilots, navigators, wireless operators, correct me if I’m wrong, there was, we didn’t have any engineers cause we didn’t have engineers at that stage we had two air gunners, not certain about if we had all, and the wireless operator and so we all, where we were, we were put in a big room and we were told to find yourself a pilot, navigators find yourself a pilot sort of, so, all was a real PR job, you know, we’d all yeah and there might have been a few drinks [unclear] around too as I say but they all, we were all supposed to be friendly and you wanted to find out if you, you wanted to find you’ll gonna have a team that you could work together with and I, I don’t know how I picked my pilot but I [unclear] [unclear] from [unclear] and was slightly older than me, he’s a big man and he had the biggest hands I’ve ever seen, he was a, he had a grape, not a vineyard, well it was a vineyard but he had dried fruits in [unclear] and now was to sitting behind a big bomber and we had to carry a full bomb load and with his hands gave him a great confidence. But I’ll get back to the Bruntingthorpe now, but we, we got together and we finished up with whatever we had to do and we all then did various cross country fighter affiliation where they send up and you get up in the air find another fighter plane to come and meet you and then attack you and all that sort of thing and all various subjects pertaining to air, Gee, H2S, all that sort of thing and we we’ve been introduced to, that was our navigational aids, air positioning indication, that was another thing we learned all about but that was, an hour on Wellingtons, Wellington bomber, well, they were bombers in the early stage, they were being used for training at this stage now and uhm, the uhm, and so we, when they thought the pilot was satisfactory, off we went then to, let me see, we went to, from to HCU which was the heavy conversion unit and that was our introduction to four-engine aircraft and we caught the Sterling, now said and the, uhm, we were there for a short time, that was just, this was mainly the, the pilot getting used to and the navigator, we were doing more, more uhm, things that we had done before, you know, were dropping bombs and packed us bombs and we were doing long, uhm, long cross countries, uhm, you know, five hours, two hours, that sort of thing and uhm, we, uhm, we’d be when the pilot was satisfactory trained, we were showed off to what we called the Lank finishing skill, it was the Lancaster finishing skill and we were introduced to Lancasters and the, from and that was once again, we all did our own thing with the pilot and he just had to become a professional on that particular type of aircraft and from there we were sent to the squadron. Which was Waddington, which was just a few miles away and, and that was when we started our operational flying.
AP: So, what was your first thought of the Lancaster when you first [unclear]?
DES: Oh, after being on the Sterling [laugh], after being on the Sterling it was marvellous, uhm, yeah, with, uh, yeah because [unclear], the carry under the Lancaster, you know, this was probably the best aircraft that had ever been produced at that time for the duration of the war uh, but everything was, when you are a new pilot on the squadron, you usually get the [unclear] aircraft, but some of them, some of had been there for a while had their own aircraft made sure that they kept their own aircraft, we were not allowed to do this, I was on my first start, we were on one particular type of Lancaster and but everything was so modern and up-to-date, you know for us the Gee was, the navigational instruments were all spot on, you know, we never, I don’t know who did the, to this day I don’t know who did all the mechanics and the [unclear], our aircraft was already, it was one of the ground crew base but, you never saw them at work, at least I never saw them at work, unless something really went wrong but yeah, the gap at the back steps of the Lancaster and to walk along the, yeah, it’s try I suppose when I first went up there, you wonder, Gee, where am I going, you had to walk over a big spare but then again I had my own room, well, area, it was just a small area with a black curtain around it but I had a nice desk, had the astro[unclear] up on top which would flashed the various maps down on the and the stars onto the table, everything was spot on and you know, we came to expect, we’re on a Lancaster, we’re on the best we had and that was the feeling that I had, that I was very, very fortunate, you know, some people like the Halifax , you know, but, you know, they say, I love the Halifax and so forth but we just happened to, uh, it had such a good reputation and such a wonderful aircraft and could carry so many more bombs than anyone else. Uh, you know, I think that, uhm, that was my feeling about my first, but I was amazed, really. I was in awe. Yeah.
AP: So, you then go to Waddington from, what’s it, I think, I saw Skellingthorpe in [unclear]?
DES: Yes, I did, I went to Skellingthorpe I thought that was after. I went to Waddington [unclear].
AP: [laughs]
DES: No we didn’t get to Skellingthorpe.
AP: You didn’t get to Skellingthorpe? [unclear] after.
DES: No, we went to Skellingthorpe after the war finished. We went to Skellingthorpe and we were all transferred to Skellingthorpe and we were, uhm, we had our final passing air parade in August, August 1945. We had our passing air parade.
AP: So, alright, we will get back to Waddington then.
DES: Yeah, get back to Waddington.
AP: Yeah [laughs]. Uhm, where and how did you live on the Squadron at Waddington?
DES: Oh, well now, Waddington was a permanent station in England, a permanent RAF station. It was, it had been there for many years and it consisted of what you would call apartment-type of accommodation, it was brick, big brick flats and in that we’d all, the officers, my pilot now was a flight sergeant right through but as soon as he went to the Squadron, he got his commission and that was the rule then he got his commission. And so he went to the officer’s mess and they had their own specific area and we had our own, we were in dormitories and, uhm, I had, I sort of, well, I was a flight sergeant a lot of that time but I was regarded as a bit senior, not senior but, I seemed to be the one that organises for when and what we are doing outside out of the, you know, for our recreation cause my pilot didn’t smoke or drink and that is marvellous, [unclear] didn’t smoke or drink, he was young too but, but he was a great one for, uhm. He was really wrapped in aircraft, which he should be I know, no, but he gathered at the end of the runway if we weren’t flying a particular day on the squadron he’d go off at the end of the runway and watch them all take off and that sort of thing, he was, he was a wonderful bloke and then he took a great interest in everything, but he. My brother was the same, he would do all that sort of thing, you know, they’re really wrapped but others might be doing something else, but, we used to, well, there were various things we could do, I used to take them down to the, we used to go down to The Horse and Jockey, which is still there, the hotel, but it was a hotel in the , you know, we could go and have something to eat down there, or we’d have a few [unclear], play darts, [unclear] balls and that sort of thing and there a lot of our lot, we had pushbikes and we could pushbike down to the Horse & Jockey and that was in the little town of Waddington, was only a little place and uhm, uh, a lot of our time was spent going around and then we’d have, every six weeks we’d have leave. But, sticking to Waddington, uhm, you know, we had a lot to do, we had dances, the west [unclear] we would have dances all night, yeah, we’re all, uh, I reckon that we were all well looked after and they really were, I’ve recently been back to the Horse & Jockey, and, you know, they are so pleased to see you and they were like that in England. Most, I think of most of them were, I’m not being a snob but I think most of them were pretty good party fellows, there were not a lot of drunks, gave me a favorite to drinks, we had a, we had right a bite back and a [unclear] who used to stop us every now and then and say: ‘Aye, aye, aye!’ but they wouldn’t do anything to us. They were quite, uhm, quite pleasant. But I’ve really found that the people there, I didn’t get involved in anything much outside [unclear] leave I had relations to go to [unclear] wonderful, cause I had my mother’s side and my father’s side so I had relations of both so [unclear] he was from, my father was from Maryport in Cumberland, right up in the north and I have been there a few times since. I met my grandfather that I had never seen and a bit quite of the other relations but the grandfather was the closest, he was a tenner and there was gaslight, there was no electricity, was gaslight, and he, I had to sleep with him, he had no other accommodation there was I think he had a family gone but there wasn’t a very big place and I had forgotten he had, I was [unclear] he was one of six brothers, my father was one of six brothers but later on I found out that my grandmother had fourteen kids so that meant we, in the last few years I’ve been chasing up all these people we’ve met, since I didn’t know we had but sticking to the, uhm, on the Squadron, yeah, we, uhm, I don’t think I had much more [unclear] than I, I had just a normal [unclear], I used to go to church at the Lincoln Cathedral every now and then, I used to go to Southwell. In case you don’t know that Southwell was six miles south out of Newark in Robin Hood territory and it’s a cathedral, it’s got a cathedral so it’s a city, it’s only a small place but it’s a city of Southwell, although they call it Southwell, and so I went there a few times, I was made very welcome and incidentally the Southwells in Australia is one of the biggest families in Australia but, and I am connected with them but they’re in Canberra and they, their offshoots are all, uhm, there is an enormous lot of them, probably the biggest family in Australia, the Southwells. You might, [unclear], but the government gave them a grant in the bicentenary they have their big reunion in Canberra, so there must be some truth in there.
AP: So, you mentioned The Horse & Jockey earlier. Uhm, if you walk into the Horse & Jockey, in wartime, what’s there, what does it look like and what’s going on?
DES: Looks like an old English pub.
AP: Yeah? Funny that.
DES: Yeah, a bit out [unclear] cause I went back a few months again and I hardly knew the place, it had been changed around, they moved a lot of the chimneys out, but I can’t remember getting to a reunion in 1995 at the Horse & Jockey and they had an upstairs everybody could go and we had a great get together that day which was been back on Channel 9 and I was lady in the singing of all the wartime songs in Waddington but it was a real meeting place down, there was another pub we tried [unclear] plus I didn’t drink much but I went to that, oh, I was drinking as at that stage I hadn’t started to drink but that’s another story. My brother, I didn’t mind, now I never drink in our family and my brother on his way back he came up to see me in Montreal at one stage and he said: ‘Would you like a beer?’ And I said: ‘Oh no, I will have a lemonade’. And he said: ‘I will have a beer’. I said, oh, so I didn’t say anything to him. And when since I got back to Montreal, I’ve had a beer and I’ve been drinking beer ever since [laughs]. But, you know, Canada was a funny place for beer because it’s a, they don’t sell beer in a, in those days they didn’t sell beer in a hotel, you had to go into a place that was especially designed and sit down and have a beer but you put salt into the beer to get the gas out of, it was so gassy, that’s another story. But, the Horse & Jockey now, I gonna say now because honestly I’ve forgotten what it was there like but now they have a lot of dart boards around, we played darts and we played balls outside, it was fun, uhm, but it was just, you know, there were members of the public, you know, the people that were working there, we would fraternise with them, they were all friendly with, so, it was generally, it was nice, actually it wasn’t a bad place to go and have a [unclear] and a [unclear]. No, I wouldn’t say that, [unclear] we were [unclear] but more recollections of the Horse & Jockey that was, I said, the crew kept together, I kept the crew together, we were all there together, it was the whole other six of us, there as, that didn’t mean, there was no worry about that but I would like to add that I had [unclear] to my place in about 1950 or 60 and he [unclear] smoked. So, [laughs], [unclear] it’s been a change, he remained a bachelor all his life. But he was wonderful fellow and he was another one, as I say he was very, very keen on, what he did, he took on the training course after the war in [unclear] and he was, he got a medal for that, an RFD or doing something like that, royal returned forces, no, not returned, what’s it, returned something forces decoration? Not returned forces. Anyway, as an RFD, as a, there’s a post normal or medal, but he, he got one of those. But he was a great fellow and he brought us home safely.
AP: [unclear] Alright.
DES: But I had a lot of confidence in him, as I was saying, earlier on, [unclear] blessed hands, they were bigger than mine, I got the tiniest hands you’ve ever seen, mine, my wife’s gloves won’t fit me, you know, they’re my hands, my hands are so tiny, but, yeah, he was, yeah, that’s about it, [unclear].
AP: Yeah, we’re going alright still. So, a little bit more about this daily life in Waddington. The Sergeants Mess, what was that like, what sort of things happened there?
DES: Oh yeah, the Sergeants Mess. Yeah, well, we spend a bit of time there, no, after a trip we do was going to the mess and there’s a lot of, a lot of untoward things went on in the Sergeants Mess and some of the other persons over there, a bit longer than I was, tell some wonderful stories about bringing a donkey into the mess and there’s the Officers Mess and all sort of that. But, we, uhm, I can’t recall, my memory is not that good for the Sergeants Mess. I can, I know what it was like but it was not a place that, you know, we all met there at various stages and had our lunch there and our dinner there and all that sort of thing but, uhm, this never stayed in my mind as being rather relevant to me, I don’t know why but I know we ate there and had our meals there and you know the ordering officer would come round and say: ‘Any complaints?’ [Laughs] Every day in the evening we had our meal there, the ordering officer would come round and say, quite often it was one of the, one of your pilots that, [laughs] you know, was his turn to come over from the officers mess and say: ‘Any complaints?’ What’s the officer, orderly officer, any complaints, I don’t know, that I had many complaints, no, I can’t help, I can’t recall a lot about the Sergeants Mess.
AP: Did 463 and 467 Squadron eat in, did they have their own officer’s mess [unclear]?
DES: No, we were all together, they had their own, the two were there together.
AP: So it was more [unclear] Waddington.
DES: yeah, yeah, yeah. Was Waddington, yeah. Yeah, when we went back to Waddington in, when we went to the Officers Mess there was just one place, yeah, there was only one place, there was 463 and 467, yeah, we got to know each other 463 and 467, as you know 467 was the first Australian Squadron, first Squadron on, uhm ,first was their own Squadron, they were formed in about 1941, something like that and then after they got a big bigger, we wanted to have another Squadron, so 463 grew out of [unclear]? Yeah, [unclear], grew out of [unclear], is it about November or December? ‘43, would that be right? 47 might have been ’42, I think it was ’43.
AP: Yeah, ’43.
DES: Yeah, it was ’43, I think. And so that’s how 463 was. Uhm, and that was under Wing Commander Rollo Kingswood-Smith, who send me off the parade ground for not having a shave. And I was only a young bloke who only shaved about four days a week and I was on, and they sent me off the parade ground for not having a shave. And then later on of course, I’m going ahead of fifty years I became the secretary of 463 Squadron, Rollo was, he is the patron at present, no, he is the patron, I think but he was and he came up to me, oh, I did know him a bit afterwards so. He came up to me and looked at me and said: ‘Oh, Don, you’ve done your shave today’. And days before he died, he said to me: ‘Don, you had your shave today’ and I reminded him when I came back from England but I became quite a good friend of Rollo, when I finished, cause he is really very, very good, he always [unclear], you know, he was a flight commander, no he was a CO, or was a flight commander, whatever he was, he wasn’t a station commander, because that was different from, but he was, he was a 463 commanding officer but he did his trips at the time, he never, he always did his trips, so, he could have quite easily have said, No, I’m going tonight or something like that, but Rollo would always do his trips and never fail. And he was always very good with his, I know, with his writing to people for, you know, lost their and lost their sons and but I believe he was a very strict, he was a very, very strict man, as I say, he was quite different in late years, well, he was, you knew where you stood with him but, and I think he had to be to be the commanding officer at that particular, and we had all walks of life in our, uh, in the air force.
AP: Did 463 Squadron have any superstitions or hoodoos or anything that you are aware of of [unclear]?
DES: Not that I am aware of, I always used to carry my RAF, I had no RAF scarf, always carry my RAF scarf, had to go back one night to get it, but, which I had forgotten, I had to get back but that was only a personal deal I don’t think I was really superstitious about I had to carry my RAF scarf, it was a scarf, it wasn’t a tie, it was a scarf, I didn’t see many of them, I still got mine on my top drawer beside my bed I’ve got my Royal Air Force scarf. I also had my Royal Air Force [unclear] [laughs].
AP: [laughs]
DES: Some [unclear].
AP: We were talking about off tape before we started. Very good. So, you flew nine operations [unclear].
DES: I did nine operations, yep.
AP: Do any of them particularly stand out?
DES: Yeah, was a couple I can have. The trip, uhm, I did to Pilsen. We took off, was a long trip, Pilsen was in Czechoslovakia and it was a long trip and not, we had a couple of hours and now one of our engines went and the skipper said to me: ‘Do you think we can make it?, and I said: ‘Yes, I think so. I think we can take a few short cuts [unclear] we might be able to make it, we don’t tell anybody whatever’. And he said, [skimming through pages of a book], yeah, the uhm, I said: ‘I think I could make it’ and I did a few calculations and even though I say [unclear] I reckon I did a pretty well navigation so I think that was that day because you know you had to be careful if you gonna take any short cuts it couldn’t stand out we were on a track that you were given and as long as you stayed four miles or five miles out of the side of the track you are fairly safe because that’s where all the other aircraft were going, and we were tossing out the silver paper, the Window, that made look as if there are more aircraft out and that sort of thing. But we had to be careful if we went out of it, you could be picked off by the German radar, so you had to be a little bit careful. So, anyway, we got there on time, uhm, we uhm, and uhm, so that was a long trip that I got a bit of praise for by my skipper in the briefing that we went back to and that was about uhm, eight hours and we bombed on three engines. We were diverted when we got back cause we didn’t have much fuel left, uhm, we landed at Boscombe Down that particular night and, uhm, then the next day went back to, uhm, to, uhm, Waddington but uhm, yeah, it was that. And one other night we went to [unclear]. I was in a couple of thousand bomber raids, daylight, we were over Essen and Dortmund and I, we bombed through a cloud there and this was, you realised we were getting towards the end of the war and the master bomber was down below the clouds and he’d come up the cloud, drop the target indicators and go back down again and see how they went and he turned on the RT, the radio telephone and he turned into [unclear] TI by ten seconds or something like that, you know, and he’d be conducting the whole operation from down below. And, so we were just, we just dropped bombs, we didn’t see where they go, we just dropped them on top of the cloud, and that was on the Krupp works at Essen and Dortmund and. But there was another one I was going to mention and we went to [unclear], and uhm, which is just south of Hamburg and the wind changed that particular night and the whole force was all over north-western Europe, we got a little blown away but well, I got a little bit off course, I got to say this, I got a bit off course and we were chased by the German jetfighters, the 263 I think it is? The 263, something like that, the 263? But, we went into a cork, we did have, we were well-trained, went straight away and went into the corkscrew and we did all that, and, cause they can only stay up for about ten minutes and so they, you know, you, if you did your corkscrew properly, probably you were safe so we got out of that but that was, we were picked off there because I got a bit off course. And then I went to uhm, smaller refineries, Bohlen, I went to Bohlen, that was out near Leipzig, for people that might know where Leipzig is, a lot of these synthetic oil refineries were in Eastern Germany and, uhm, we’re at the crossing of the Rhine when the British army were, uhm, crossing the Rhine, uh, we were given the job of bombing Wesel, we were given the job of bombing Wesel and, uhm, which we did and I think it was only, it was only our, you know, our group went that particular night but the British army were on one side of the river and the German side, the Germans were on the other side, and we bombed the other side but we were given a certain time because the British were going into the water at a certain time to go over and I took it with the loss of one life, I think it was in, General Montgomery, Field Marshall Montgomery, he, send the message back to, they brought it over to the loudspeakers the next day on parade, do you want something to eat?
AP: No, thank you.
DES: It was on parade and we were on parade and they read out a message from Montgomery to say how wonderful it was and we did a wonderful job bla, bla, bla, yeah, and uh, yeah that was interesting because you can, if you go to Wesel afterwards it’s quite, you know, I’ve seen some photos of it lately and I think they have rebuilt most of, most of the place. And lastly we did the last operation of the war which was on Tonsberg, which was in the southern part of Norway and we approached it from the North, so it was a long crossing over the North Sea, this was the last operation of the war, on Anzac Day, and with the, we came down the coast, I was coming down from Norway, with Sweden on the left hand side and Sweden was all beautifully lit up, all lit up and the other side was all black, blacked up there was the, Norway which was under the control of the Germans, anyway, we, uhm, that was the last operation of the war and we, uhm, that was bombed successfully but on, if I check forward about fifty years, I was at a funeral and, uhm, of a lady who was of Norwegian birth and the ex-consul of Norway was there and I went and spoke to him and I said: ‘I’ve never been to Norway except on the air’. And he said: ’When were you there?’ I said: ‘Oh, I was there on the 25th of April 1945’ and he said: ‘Well, your aim was pretty good that night’. [laughs] Not at all, so I thought we did pretty well. He said yes. He said, but some of your bombers did bomb the shipyards, some of them went astray and they bombed some of the civilians and he said that all the people of Norway, the war was coming to an end, the 8th of May was the end of the war, the war was coming to an end, they are all thrilled, all happy because everybody knew the armistice was coming on that particular day and he said, now, all the people in the rest of Norway, he said, we were burying our dead and he was very nice about the whole thing and, you know, he is, I got him down as a likely speaker for whoever wants someone to speak about it but, they were very understanding and. So I must really go to France these days, you know, the people in France they were terribly bombed, you know, was, they are thanking you and thanking you and we did an enormous lot of damage but they realised that we had to, that we had to do that for, uhm, sake of winning the war.
AP: So, you mentioned that Messerschmitt, or the jetfighter.
DES: Jetfighter, yeah.
AP: And the corkscrew. So, you are the navigator. You hear corkscrew port go. What happens next?
DES: I have been difficult. Well, we gotta a set of pattern what you got to do the, if the plane’s coming in from the port, you corkscrew port go the rear gunner or whatever the hillside part will do his corkscrew and he’d go down fifteen hundred and he’d turn and he’d go up fifteen hundred feet and it’s quite a ring morale to do but you fly, if you do it properly you fly, you know, a certain course even [unclear] and so, you know, it didn’t do much damage to our [unclear] we didn’t have to make much allowance for an hour in our navigation, if you had to corkscrew port, you, you could just sort of forget about it and just there’s, as long as you weren’t [unclear] too long but generally speaking you flew a net course for this business, all designed to and it was very successful the corkscrew but I, I think we did this about three times I suppose.
AP: What does it feel like?
DES: Oh, I don’t mind, don’t forget we are nineteen years of age there, this was just, this was just wonderful, trusting the aircraft. Oh, of course you were worried a bit about where you were being shot down that goes into it, but generally speaking the corkscrew never, we thought if we did the corkscrew port we would be safe. You’ve got that feeling in your mind that you’d do that, I always remember Redge Boys [?] he was our hero, he was [unclear], he was our navigation leader at Waddington and Redge he did two tours and he said he never believed himself that he’d ever be shot down and he tried to, he despite the fact that the pilot was the chief, he always made sure the crew were all, you know, positive about what we were doing, they were all, they were always convinced that they were gonna get through this. They had this positive attitude that they, you know, and I think it helped, while you’re up there, [unclear], I tried to adopt that attitude that, you know, we all wanted to get home and see the people and I want to get home but, I must admit that, when we were on a bombing run, I used to see, a navigator didn’t have his parachute on, he, you couldn’t work on a desk when, cause we had a chest parachute that fitted on a harness on your chest and you had it sitting beside you. Now, uh, if I was to leave there at my desk, I’d always put my parachute on and I would go, if we were on a bombing run, I would remember the course you got to steer after we dropped our bombs and I’d turn the light out and I’d go up and stand behind the pilot, and watch all the, what was going on and I could then pop down to the rear gunner, near the rear gunner and say, could I have a look at the pilot [laughs] and you’d see the fires and all that sort of thing in the background. But, you know, I felt as if I wanted to be part of the thing so I wanted to see what was going on. Cause everyone else could see what was going on except the wireless operator and what’s the name because we were sitting [unclear] bomb’s gone, you’d have to wait a while, while the photo was taken, away was given course 270 and off we go. And, yeah.
AP: Yes, that’s unusual, most, uhm, most navigators I have spoken to would, you know come up and have a look [unclear] take the head and go, no, don’t ask me to do that [unclear].
DES: Oh, now, that’s, that’s another story. Well, that is. After, a lot of people don’t know about this. But after the war we disarmed, the war had finished and we were disarming with all our, [unclear] disarmed and we had to get rid of all the bombs on the station. So, what they did was we’d [unclear] might have been a couple of weeks, I could look that up but that’s been a couple of weeks, we flew out of Waddington with four bomb loads, headed to the North Sea, about two and a half hours and straight course out, dropped our bombs, they were dropped safe, they weren’ dropped armed but they were dropped safe, and there, I know what the Greenies [?] had signed out because they knew all these thousands of bombs now there was really thousands of us, there was not only our Squadron but every other Squadron was doing this. We go out there and then we come back and if you were above the cloud, we used to have a lot of fun with the pilot with going over the cloud, as if you were low flying. We had some lovely time so, but what I’m coming to is I thought this particular dive [?] was navigation record, no had Gee operator, [unclear], I didn’t done any, I didn’t have to do any strict navigation set up, I, cause I had near position indicators which told me, anyway, we, I thought I’d like to get into the rear turret and I saw [unclear] was the rear gunner and he could come up and sit in the navigation seat and I’d coming in here for a couple of hours, you know. So I trotted off down to the and the [unclear] showed me what to do and [unclear] I couldn’t have gone out of there, couldn’t have gotten there faster, was scared stiff, you know I’d never been because you’re away from the tires of the aircraft, when you are sitting back behind you, so, you are sitting out in the open. You know, you’re away from the aircraft so you feel like it and I think [unclear] having to sit [unclear] on our trip to sit in this thing, you know, you’d be, mind you, these, while our air gunners had had the experience of flying they knew what they’d, you know, they’d got used to it I suppose but me as a person I was scared stiff, I was more scared stiff getting into, getting out of that turret than I was, say, sitting out there in the navigation and bombs, looking down and looking at bombs going off and [unclear] I was scared stiff on that trip. And I had the greatest of admiration for our rear gunner out there, how they could [unclear], and [unclear] you know, I’m not necessarily claustrophobic but I thought oh, Jeez, I couldn’t do this. And I realised how well off I was, because the navigator was lucky I reckon because, as I say, on a ten hour trip you’d have, you had to get a fix every ten minutes or so and, you know, you no sooner that you’d got your fix, you’d plotted it, as you got your fix, you plotted it, you’d make the necessary course, the course change and so forth so If you had to make any change and it took time and the time went quickly this was what the beauty was the pilot was the same, he may be sitting around looking, you know, sitting out on the front [unclear] putting on a [unclear] every now and then, yeah, most of the time but he, and but the navigator had to do and the wireless op was something similar to, he had a lot of work to do, he had to keep the schedules and report back and we had our jobs and our logs don’t forget, as soon as we got back, were handed in to the navigation leader and you were marked as if you were at school and you get 60 percent, or 50 percent or 75. And uhm, you know but this is why we had, oh I must say this as a navigator, that we had marvellous navigator, the navigators were, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force, they were wonderfully trained, they, don’t forget, they took as about eighteen months to get into operations, the Americans, I understand can get in as navigating, get in about six weeks training, you know, and that’s not exaggerating, I believe as I say, because some of the B-24s out of Darwin carried, the Americans carried Australian navigators if you look up your history, which is not widely spoken about, but we were well trained and, as I say, we strictly [unclear], we knew our work was big marked anyhow so you had to be, you really gave you a greater incentive to be [unclear] but above all, you know, a ten hour trip might have seemed by far, you know, then, yeah.
AP: VE-day.
DES: Ah, VE-Day. This is all vivid with me, I had wonderful times on VE-day but VE-Day I did three trips to France bringing home, I think it was on VE-Day, yeah, it was on VE-Day, I don’t know if it was three or two we didn’t the next day, you know I did three trips of bringing home prisoners of war, we’d go over in Juvincourt in France and load up twenty five, it was called Operation Exodus and we were out, we load up to twenty five British war, British prisoners of war, they’d been, some of them had been there since Dunkirk in 1940 and the first load we carried, oh, they sit, the twenty five of them sat in the fuselage of the Lancaster on cushions, not seatbelts, uhm, they just had to hang on and [laughs] they just had to sit there and there were thousands of them, we brought out prisoners of war with this Operation exodus by the way, but they were, uhm, It was a wonderful experience, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, you flew these guys out, they’d been prisoners of war all these years and they, uhm, the first load I carried they were all Sikhs, they were Indians the first lot we carried out. The next load we carried were all obviously from England and it seemed to be most obvious, I made sure that I went down and I got them to come up gradually when the white cliffs of Dover came, got them, and we ferried them up but it was nice and orderly and hear the tears was rolling down their cheeks, you know, was absolutely wonderful to see the, uhm, and they all shook hands when we, uhm, they all shook hands when they got off the aircraft and that was what I did on VE-Day. Now, shortly after VE-Day we had a lot of celebrations and I, you know, I can always remember smoking a cigar, having a few beers, I was Mister Churchill at one stage, you know, was a lot of hilarity and joyness and it was a wonderful feeling, they, you know, all the station was all together and we were all having, officers, ordinary, you know, the airmen, we were all together having a and they’d put on some wonderful [unclear] there and at that particular time and that’s my, I worked on the VE-Day there and we were so glad we were doing, and the guy that wrote our 463-467 book, Nobby Blundell he was a, uhm, he was a fitter, he was a fitter, uhm, an engineer and on a ground staff and he wrote our books incidentally, all the books on 464-647 fisher [?] books were all written by Nobby did a magnificent job but the uhm, was great the, uhm, he managed to, you know, get, gives us all the particulars that we wanted to know, I don’t know, and he was all of our flying set up, all of the, he’d used the, [unclear], is that called, the evidence of our doing your trip, he used to get all these information from the [unclear], he spend years on doing this and so we were forever grateful and he did this but, uhm, getting back to VE-Day, I was more than, more than pleased with what was happening and then of course we had to start thinking about what was gonna happen as it was after VE-Day.
AP: Uhm, how did you get back to Australia?
DES: Ah, that’s a good [unclear], you’ve got some good questions. They are very good, you know, [unclear], we uhm, the uhm, oh I made two efforts to get away. We were disbanded by the way, we were disbanded in August at, uhm, Skellingthorpe, I think it was Skellingthorpe, we’d moved to Skellingthorpe from the Squadron and they formed a Tiger Force for people that were gonna go out to fight the Japanese and uhm, we uhm, managed to particular Tiger Force the uhm, [unclear] you know just asking [unclear].
AP: How did you go home?
DES: How did you go home, yeah. Lost my train of thought. At my age you can.
AP: That’s one. That’s the first one in [unclear]
DES: No, I forget.
AP: Off you go.
DES: Oh, good. [laughs] I know you can scrub that out, yeah, but getting home. Yeah, but I wanted to mention about, we disbanded and then we were transferred to Brighton to wait for a boat and the [unclear] came along. Now, a lot of people in the Air Force know what happened there, there was virtually no, [unclear] but the conditions on the [unclear] which is the [unclear] boat, there was no P&O those days, [unclear] made all the newspapers that a lot of the trips walked off the ship at Southampton because of the conditions, I didn’t want to go twenty five days or so we gotta go and we went back through the canal and [unclear], well we didn’t stop, well we stopped in a few places, the uhm, it was, the, in Brighton we went from, we’d gone onto the ship on the [unclear], we’d got onto the ship and we sailed eventually, we sailed to half of it and wouldn’t you believe we broke down in the Bay of Biscay and the war was over, there was no submarines or so, the war had finished at this time, this was in August or September 1945 [unclear] and we, in between time we had been flying, we’d been doing, taking stuff out to drop the bombs and we’d been doing fighter affiliation and all, we then found work for us to do. Anyway, we set sail out of Southampton and we broke down, and we were flying the black flag, anyone knows it’s out of control and so we eventually we got, we slipped back to Southampton, the first time I have ever been sick was on that bay because we just it [unclear] and happened [unclear] it was about 20000 tons and was their luxury ship when the [unclear] luxury could have been made into a troop ship and we went back to Southampton we were sent then up to Millham. Now Millham is right up near West Freugh, up near Stranraer, right up on the North-West of England and [unclear] us all up to, it was the middle of winter. And we were in Nissen huts and we had to try and keep warm and they had to heat us there but ran out of coal, they couldn’t get, we were rationed the coal, so we smarty Australians [unclear], there was the coal, we got into the coal, [unclear] and pinched the coal, I caught a couple of sometime [unclear] about but we had to go and pinch coal to keep warm. And uhm, we eventually went from there, we were there about a week I suppose and then they found another boat for us which was the Durban Castle, it was a [unclear] ship which went from London, used to go from London to Cape Town and that was a nice ship was made up of air, the complement of going home was a lot of air force people, we had New Zealanders coming home uhm, was quite an interesting lot of people that were on board but we were in [unclear], I was a warrant officer then I’d got up to warrant officer and there under the normal chain, six months of flight sergeant, twelve months of, uh, sorry, six months of sergeant, four months of flight sergeant, then you’re put and made a warrant officer, that was the RAAF and so we’d became warrant officers and then was commission if you got a commission. And the uhm, we uhm, [pauses] [unclear] yeah, yeah, we’re back, we’re off from and, yeah, we were now on the Durban Castle, we’re on the, I forgot, the Durban Castle and the Durban Castle and we had a lot of, we pulled into Gibraltar, can remember Gibraltar, the conditions on the boat were good, the food was good, I put on a stain on the way back because, you know, we put a lot of potatoes, they had a lot of stuff [unclear] but they fed us well, it was a full ship really, but we picked up people on the way, we went to Gibraltar but that was to drop off somebody who was sick so we didn’t pull in, it was just off Gibraltar and we could see the place and if anybody is interested they oughta go to Gibraltar, it is one of the most interesting places to go there. Uh, you don’t expect to see what you see, so we, Gibraltar just a night, we dropped these people off and then we went to Taranto in Italy, in the heel of Italy and there we picked up the New Zealand war brides, that had married a lot of the New Zealanders, who were fighting in Italy, they’d either gone home or [unclear], but the war brides were on their own and so we picked up the war brides and that filled the boat a bit more and then we went from Italy to the Canal, went through the canal, and they wouldn’t let us off the boat in the canal and, you know, none of us would have been through the Suez Canal and so, that was working of course and so was [unclear] to Port Tewfik, Tewfik? No, Port Said, we went to Port Said and they, one of the guys in that was with me at the time, was called [unclear] and he had a DCM, Distinguished Conduct Medal which he had earned in the Middle East but he was in the Air Force, he was, he was a gunner in the Air Force but and he’d been to Port Said, you know, he knew all about this place and we had to get to Port, [mimics the gunners voice] so there was a ladder down at the back of the ship and so a few of us got out of the bumboats as they called them [unclear] and we went ashore, we went ashore, we didn’t take any notice of them people [unclear] we, most of the people were doing this but they were not supposed to. And so we were wondering around the town and the Arabs tried to come and sell us something, dirty postcards on sale [laughs], you know, and we were looking, [unclear] got out, went off and he hit one of these blokes, he hit one of these blokes, you know, because he was trying to do something wrong or I don’t know what it was but he knew what he can get away with, he slapped him on the face [unclear] we gonna get caught [unclear] being in a riot, anyway we got back to our ship alright and went up the gangway this time, no one said anything so. We went through the canal which was a great experience to go through and see how that operates, I’ve never been through the Panama but a lot of our fellows went through the Panama, which I would have liked to have done, uhm, then we went into Aden, and then we, that was near Yemen, and that was in Yemen where you nearly got a lot of troubles and then we went to, uhm, Perth, we went straight across the Indian Ocean to Perth and that’s where we dropped of the Perth blacks [?] and I remember carrying, not carrying but helping a bloke who’d had too much to drink in Kings Park and we were gonna miss the boat, cause you had to be up to Perth and the boat was at Freemantle, we had to get back by train and we had to get him back so [unclear] helped him back but he was not used to Australian beer cause the British beer was pretty, uh, pretty weak and this Australian beer was pretty, you know, pretty [unclear] anyway we got back, we came around the [unclear] to Melbourne, and was Melbourne we got off the boat and went to, uhm, went on the train, went on the train to Sydney, I don’t recall, must have been the train of the time, we sat up but we didn’t have sleepers, and no, we went up to Sydney and the Vietnam blokes all complain that they didn’t get a welcome home. Well, none of us got a welcome home but we were quite happy, cause we arrived at Central Station on platform number one, my mother and sister were there to meet me, they took me home and then a week later I was to report at Bradfield Park, I went to Bradfield Park, they gave me a dischargement home and I went back to work.
AP: That was it.
DES: That was it.
AP: Did you have any issues settling down again? [unclear]?
DES: No, no, no, I had no issues. The only thing is for a while so I went straight back to my job that I left at the MLC and I had been there eighteen months, for eighteen months so I didn’t know much about the business and so I got into, when I went to, I applied when I went back, this is in early 1946 I uhm went back to the MLC and they put me on, they had to put me on that was the law, they had to put you back on staff and they sent me to a department where I was the only fellow with a hundred and forty girls. I’d been in the Air Force all this time with fellows, we had the well WAAF around but generally speaking you weren’t used to mixing around with women, you know, and they put me there for, they put me there for a purpose, of course, and they put next to me the girl that spoke the most [laughs] she was a real gossip, she spoke the most, Shirley Reed, and Shirley, and I, the first two weeks I didn’t hardly, apart from doing my work I didn’t say anything but not because I didn’t [unclear], I was just out, I don’t know what to do, you know, I was just doing my work but I thought, and I wasn’t that good at conversation at that particular time [unclear] we had lunch at our desk in those days, we bought some sandwiches and had lunch at our desks, she kicked the chair from underneath me, I was leaning back and she kicked the chair it was dangerous, she kicked the chair, I went down under the [unclear], well, everybody laughed and I laughed and from that time on I was married [?] [laughs]. I was in that department for about two years and I was still the only fellow. And I have great memories of that, of that two years because I was single, I went to so many birthday parties and twenty-first birthday parties, to weddings, I talked to get a few other girls, my wife was one of them and well, became one of them and I went to work for her in the department and I made [unclear] she came to England for four years and then came back and I married her then but I don’t, was I was then move to, I went again they sent me to Tasmania to open up the office in Tasmania in Launceston and then I was there for two years and then I, they did that in those days, don’t do it nowadays, then I was sent to, I was in Sydney for a while and then I was posted to Adelaide in 1960 and I, I was in charge of the collector branch there in Adelaide and we had two children there, Dave and Jane and that was another wonderful experience and then. I’ve got to say something about the air force, don’t let me forget.
AP: [unclear] of course.
DES: But, we had, Adelaide was a wonderful place to bring children up, I became a fan of the, I was a rugby person, rugby union, I became a fan of Australian rules when I first went to Adelaide I was, uhm, every Monday we had lunch with a group in the industry, in the life insurance industry and I didn’t have much to, I didn’t have much to talk about because I didn’t know anything about the Australian rules, for all they talked about were the teams that played at the weekend so I thought, oh, the best thing for me to do was to join those, if we were gonna have, [unclear], I’d better join them, better go out with them, so, they were members, a few of them were members of the Stirling football club, Aussie [?] rules club, and, no, The Double Blues, I can sing you the song if you want me to sing it, but they are The Double Blues and I became quite a rugby, an Australian rules fan, I’m not forgetting me rugby cause I’m a rugby person still but the, I used to, family, it was a family setup, we’d go out on a Saturday and we’d go, we’d have the radio would be on at the eleven o’clock match and then we’d go on, we’d have lunch or something then we’d go up to see the afternoon, the main game in the afternoon and then we’d finish there we’d go and buy some beer and some food and we'd watch the replay of that game and then we’d watch the replay of the main game in Melbourne, that was our Saturday but all the kids were all around at home that particular day and they’d come to the game in Adelaide, then they got so much free bottle they could pick up and the kids used to go and pick it up and make a lot of money on a Saturday [laughs] and but I became quite a fan of that we won the premiership four weeks running and that was my introduction to Australian rules, what a wonderful thing to be, but it’s a wonderful game and I love Australian rules and I do follow the Swans, uhm, but I don’t go out and see nowadays, I don’t go and see the rugby except on [unclear] occasions again I go and watch the rugby but. And in Tasmania I played rugby union and my [unclear] was the president of the North Tasmanian rugby union, we had three teams and I played in one of the teams and, uhm, that was in Launceston and, oh I forgot, New Zealand. I was in, I was two and a half years in New Zealand and I was there for the Springbok Tour in 1956 and I saw quite a bit of the football there, I used to go to the football in those days but New Zealand was another great place to be I was married there but I came back to Sydney, married Dorothy and then came back to New Zealand when she came back, she came back to work at the MLC for twelve months and, uh, and then we came back to, and I had a wonderful time because I have got relations there In New Zealand, so, I had places I had to go, so, I’ve seen every city in New Zealand except Gisborne and I don’t know why I’m saying that but, uhm, it was a wonderful place for me and it was a good place to, uhm, yeah it was a good, I was the, I joined the Kendala Lawn Tennis Club and I played tennis and I became the treasurer of the Kendala Lawn Tennis Club and so I fitted into the New Zealand mob, cause New Zealanders by and large as a group don’t like Australians, you know, but they do like, when they meet individually we’re all great, you know, we might talk about the Anzac business but they have really odd, that’s only my observation of course, they don’t’ really and I’m a, I regularly go to funerals in New Zealand at the moment but you know I’m a great fan of New Zealand and they as a group, they are jealous of Australians, I think, cause we’re so big.
AP: Ok, could be something.
DES: Yeah.
AP: Yeah, worked with a few kiwis, anyway. Uhm, yeah, you were gonna say something [unclear].
DES: I was gonna say, I do a lot of this, you know, I’m gonna plug in for the Bomber Command Commemorative Day and I’ve been involved with 463-467 Squadron Association, I’ve been involved with, uh, the Bomber Command Commemorative Day Foundation but that’s just a little aside. Uh, I’m doing this really because [clears throat] I owe the Air Force something. [sighs] When my, when memoires bring us [unclear] when I went away on the Air Force, I didn’t know anything, I was a real greenhorn, I was a green eighteen, didn’t know anything cause mum, you know, we were never allowed to play cards on a Sunday as I’d never, we never had cards in the house, mum didn’t, mum was a bit, she was an Anglican and uh, but she wasn’t, she wasn’t an [unclear] or anything either but a [unclear] drink she might have been, we never had but grog in the place, I tried to have [unclear] sherry sometimes [laughs] she went [mimics and astonished expression] when she heard, she was a great mother by, a great mother by the way but our mum, I’m trying to get the message over that I didn’t know a lot about the world until I went to the Air Force and the Air Force made me and I feel I gotta make some contribution to the Air Force and the same thing applies to the office MLC, that they to me were absolutely marvellous and I only retired from there about two years ago when I, I retired in ‘84, I went back to do a job for three months, to set up the database, helped set up the database in the MLC and now twenty five years later I’m still there with two, with another guy, it was five of us who stayed on for a while, but then, three had died and two of us are still left. But the MLC were, they, you know, I was on a, I tell you I was on a two and half percent mortgage for a time at the MLC, and they didn’t pay as much as probably some of the other companies but you know, I never, you felt you had a real, uhm, you know, they never sacked anybody except if you pinched money [laughs] and that, it remarks the office that didn’t happen but the MLC were wonderful to me, the Air Force and the MLC were wonderful to me and a lot of my friends are not jealous of me but they would have loved to have had a job like I’ve got, working with the MLC until I was just on ninety and, uhm, and I was doing every bit as good a job as I was as the people beside me that I was working, I was doing all computer work and this sort of thing. Oh, when I say computer work, it wasn’t on a main frame but it was, was all the stuff was all set up for us to do but I did some work on the telephones and that sort of thing but there was a lot of sixty plus, sixty five plus fellows that could, they some of the companies could, instead of putting them off, give them extra time, you know, keep them employed on a, say, five days, four days, three days, because, you know, I was bored stiff for a while when I first retired and when I got this [unclear], I was a bit two-minded about going back and doing this and that was one of the best decisions I have ever made and so there for that, this is not wartime setup but the MLC they could have paid when I was in the Air Force but I was getting more money in the Air Force than I was in the MLC [laughs] so I didn’t much from it but. Had I not been in the aircrew I would have probably cause we were paid extra in the aircrew, not a lot but we were paid extra. And, yeah, so that was, I have a lot to thank the Air Force for and that’s why I’m doing, I do this work now with volunteering with doing various things on Bomber Command Association and the 463 business, anything to do with the Air Force I like doing, you know, and I meet a lot of nice people.
AP: Good. Final question. Uhm, what do you think the legacy of Bomber Command is and how you want to see it remembered?
DES: Uh, well, I don’t think we will ever see another Bomber Command, in these days we will never see another Bomber Command because the days of the, uhm, what do we call them? The, you know, the things that fly on their own? You’ll never see another Lancaster bomber bombing places, you will see atom bombs or, not atom bombs, but these other sort of, what do you call the little?
AP: Drones. Yeah.
Des: The drones, you see, just here in one of our Squadrons here now, the 462 Squadron in Adelaide, they are mixed up in drones, you see, and so, you know, I’m very proud of, uhm, joining and taking part in Bomber Command. I think they did a magnificent job; they’d had a rough trot until 1942, when they weren’t hitting their targets, [unclear] as things got better, they did the, I’m fully happy with all what the Bomber Command did. I think the world of Air Marshal Harris and I get, I get annoyed sometimes when people who want to criticize him. You know, every year I get a message from Melbourne about Dresden [laughs], which, you know, which annoys me, more than anything else, because Dresden deserved what they got, you know, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, London, Liverpool, Coventry, they all got a similar treatment and I don’t think, you know, there was a lot about Dresden that, and I’m sorry I brought that up but we know that there were a lot of people operating in Dresden which were military, they were hidden, slightly like the people today are putting, uh, children and some of these in where real targets are and there were definitely a lot of things in Dresden that deserved to be bombed and, you know, we’re at war, we had to do our best to do that but I’m quite proud of what we did in Bomber Command and I’m very, I think I finished my speech at the reflections at the Bomber Command thing in Canberra a few years ago and I was very proud and fine with Bomber Command and but I don’t think we will see another Bomber Command type of people, there will never be a group like us ever again, so I don’t’ think there is any future, but it will be done by the drones, what it’s gotta be done I think will be done by the drones and then that creates a bit of loss of life to civilians but I’m afraid when you are fighting a war it’s just, you know, it’s just the way it goes. Uhm, I don’t know, of [unclear].
AP: How do you want to see it remembered?
DES: How will I remember it?
AP: Yeah, how do you want to see it remembered, how do you want Bomber Command to be remembered.
DES: Oh, [unclear], oh, I just like the people here today to and that’s what we’re in the business with the Bomber Command Commemoration Day Foundation, we want the children of our people to carry on and thank the people of, like the 5000 who died, not us particularly but, ah yeah, the 5000 Australian airmen we hope you’ll remember them, you might forget them, as I hope you won’t forget the Vietnam people and the people who went to Korea and the people who went to [unclear]. We do remember them and I pray that they remember them on Anzac Day, uhm, but I think that, uhm, I would like to and I am amazed at, uh, the young people today that we have come into their [unclear] up to about four or five years ago and never heard of some of the things of their fathers and grandfathers had done. And I’m amazed by the number of people who came out of the woodwork to find out more about now and it’s up to us now, cause we are talking here now, it’s up to us to make sure that we get the message out to the younger people that their living today because of the sacrifice that the people made, that died over in the Bomber Command raids and that sort of thing, that they would be, uhm, might be leading a different sort of life, that they, uh, if it hadn’t been for the actions and the deeds of those who fought in Bomber Command. But I’d like them to think nicely of us and I think most of them do. I get, not amazed, but I’m really interested and pray that today for instance I’ve been talking to people that were involved and had involvements, you know, a lot of them didn’t know to a certain extent what things we’d done and how we’d helped shorten the war and that sort of thing, cause we did really and I suppose dropping the atom bomb bought us to and I’ve got no objections to the atom bomb being dropped either, it probably saved a lot of lives too. It’s a terrible thing but once, if I can say again, I’m amazed at the young people that are so interested and yet there are some families that they are not interested at all, not interested at all and parts of families, including my own, now, some of mine are not that interested, my son is and but, and I think [unclear] but one of my grandchildren is very interested. It’s on the other side but that’s their decision, we probably haven’t got the message over to them which is [unclear] and I am disappointed when I speak to some of my friends who don’t want to talk about it, it’s not boasting about these [unclear], people should know that these sort of things went on, that these, because of their actions, they’ve had fifty, sixty, seventy years of freedom here, even in Australia which might never have happened if those people hadn’t made the sacrifices that they did and volunteered and don’t forget, all the aircrew in Australia were volunteers, there was no, no one was conscripted, they were all volunteers. Yeah.
AP: Oh well, that’s the end of my questions. So.
DES: Well, that’s good. Yeah.
AP: You’ve done very well.
DES: [unclear] How long was that?
AP: That was one hour forty two.
DES: That was alright, well, that was [unclear]
Dublin Core
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/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASouthwellDE160424
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Don Southwell
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:42:57 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-24
Description
An account of the resource
Don Southwell grew up in Australia and worked for RKO Radio Pictures and as an Air Raid Precautions Warden before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. After training in Australia and Canada, he flew nine operations as a navigator with 463 Squadron from RAF Waddington. He describes crewing up and everyday military life at the station, and gives accounts of his operations and being chased by Me 262s over Hamburg. He remembers ferrying liberated prisoners of war as part of Operation Exodus.
Coverage
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
Canada
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
New South Wales
Alberta--Edmonton
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Brighton
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Leipzig
New South Wales--Sydney
California--San Francisco
United States
California
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Sussex
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
29 OTU
463 Squadron
467 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
fear
Lancaster
Me 262
memorial
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Waddington
RAF West Freugh
Stirling
superstition
training
Wellington
-
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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
A name given to the resource
Bailey, John Derek
John Derek Bailey
Bill Bailey
John D Bailey
John Bailey
J D Bailey
J Bailey
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with John Derek "Bill" Bailey (b. 1924, 1583184 and 198592 Royal Air Force) service material, nine photographs, a memoir and his log book. He flew a tour of operations as a bomb aimer with 103 and 166 Squadrons from RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF Kirmington.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bailey 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
2016-12-07
2017-01-13
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
Bailey, JD
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
Bill Bailey's Cadet's Flight Log
Description
An account of the resource
Cadet's Flight log of Bill Bailey issued by City of Leicester Wing, Air Training Corps. It records one flight in a Tiger Moth on 30 May 1942, duration 10 minutes
Creator
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Air Training Corps
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-05-30
Format
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One printed booklet with handwritten annotations
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
MBaileyJD1583184-161207-020001, MBaileyJD1583184-161207-020002
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
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.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-05-30
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22441/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-104.2.jpg
44ddd51154bc26f222fce6e55837bdb7
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
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air Training Corps Certificate of Proficiency
Description
An account of the resource
A certificate awarded to Dick Curnock for passing the Aircrew syllabus.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Air Training Corps
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-10-17
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed sheet with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Training material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-104
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--Leicester
England--Leicestershire
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-10-17
aircrew
training
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1894/34890/MColeFIG1817994-180214-010003.2.jpg
3330b655db6c573decfa01b3754fb631
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1894/34890/MColeFIG1817994-180214-010004.2.jpg
33cac56cc83e88eb029f9dceb12b5f89
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1894/34890/MColeFIG1817994-180214-010005.2.jpg
cf61b5923d25f91f6a728bd70669a566
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Cole, Ivor
Frederick Ivor Geoffrey Cole
F I G Cole
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cole, FIG
Description
An account of the resource
42 items.
The collection concerns Sergeant Frederick Ivor Geoffrey "Ivor" Cole (1817994 Royal Air Force) his log book, documents and photographs, and a photograph album of his post war service in Singapore. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 103 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Frederick Cole and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air Training Corps Sports Certificates
Description
An account of the resource
Five certificates awarded to Ivor in June and July 1942.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Air Training Corps
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Melton Mowbray
England--Leicester
England--Leicestershire
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
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Five printed sheets
Identifier
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MColeFIG1817994-180214-010001, MColeFIG1817994-180214-010002, MColeFIG1817994-180214-010003, MColeFIG1817994-180214-010004,
MColeFIG1817994-180214-010005
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
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.
sport
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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
A name given to the resource
Evans, Albert
A Evans
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-24
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Evans, A
Description
An account of the resource
39 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Albert Evans (1922 - 1944, 157299 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 44 Squadron and was killed 25 March 1944. <br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by S Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><span data-contrast="none" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW61255494 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW61255494 BCX0">Additional information on<span> Albert Evans </span></span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW61255494 BCX0">is available via the</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW61255494 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}"> IBCC </span><a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/107170/">Losses Database.</a>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[date stamp]
Mr & Mrs. W. Edwards,
No 2 Leabrook Road,
(Near Boat Inn)
Leabrook,
Wednesbury.
[underlined] Staffs. [/underlined]
1433237. SGT. Evans. A,
Sergeants’ Mess,
RAF Station,
SALTBY.
Nr. Melton Mowbray
[underlined] Leicestershire. [/underlined]
[underlined] Saturday [/underlined]
Dear Mary & Bill,
Thanks for your letter of Tuesday night which I received on Thursday, and don’t apologise about the delay in your replying when I can quite understand you’ve still got quite a few things to do around and about. I congratulate on putting the “spuds” in right, Bill, but don’t let them pull your leg about it. I can imagine them doing it when they all get together – the female species, I mean – but if they do, you can refer them to me and I’ll personally deal with one for you. I may get more back than I bargain for, but its [sic] worth trying!
Your memory must be affecting you. Mary, if you don’t know
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
where you live, but no doubt you were glad to know it was all a mistake. You seem to have found what you’ve been after for so long, and you’re certainly very happy about it all, but I don’t blame you. I have hope that it won’t be long before Mick & I can settle down in a house of our own, but I’m afraid there’s a lot of work to be done yet and there’s a lot of worry & anxiety going with it. But we’ll live through it and peace will be all the more heavenly when it does come at last.
Yes, I did have some bad luck last week-end, but its [sic] even worse this week because although I have Monday off I can’t get a train to give me any length of time at home. I’ve been told, too, that I won’t be given leave to get married in the middle of the course, but I’m hoping to be able to work round that
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined]
by flying as much as possible and getting ahead in hours. We’re leaving all our arrangements as they stand at the moment, hoping to be able to carry them out, but if luck isn’t with me, we shall have to postpone the happy day until Aug when I finish the course.
I had a good laugh to myself about Joan and her curls, and I wish I could have seen her! I’d have had her crying if it was at all possible with teasing her!
It seems that your tongue did work overtime to get your working hours cut down, but honestly I don’t blame you in the least. Lots of people have told me you seem to be getting thinner all the time, and I think you will admit [indecipherable word] lost some weight doing a double job, so I’m glad you have got Dr Lambert certificate for that.
I never thought about writing
[page break]
[underlined] 4 [/underlined]
to Rays’ about Sam, but it’s a good idea and I wonder if you’d put in a word from me when you do write, sending them my sympathy. I don’t think I knew Joe’s girl, but I certainly know the Robinson family in Richards St so its possible I’d know her if I saw her. Trust George to say that – its his factory language coming out, you know. (I’m glad I can always stop using air force language for women when I’m at home!)
Well, Mary, there’s only one point left – about Jim Leavesby, and I must say I didn’t even know he’d gone out East. Still, he’s a prisoner and that’s for the better than being unaccounted for, isn’t it?
The only news I have for you is about exams we’ve had this week They’ve been concerned solely with the Wellington aircraft from the point of view of the pilot, but I’ve
[page break]
[underlined] 5 [/underlined]
not had any trouble with them. The other day we had to do a blindfold check in the cockpit, going through all the various actions as though actually flying, and today we had a 2 hr paper on pretty well everything connected with flying Wimpy’s. [sic]
Well, there I must close I’m afraid because I’m due on link in ten minutes time, and I want to have a wash before I go. So good luck for now, and all the very best.
Cheerio,
With love from
[underlined] Albert [/underlined]
X X X X
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 from Albert Evans to Mary and Bill Edwards
Description
An account of the resource
In the letter to his sister and brother in law Albert he thanks them for their letter. He talks about getting married but his service is getting in the way.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Albert Evans
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-06-05
Format
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Five handwritten sheets and an envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EEvansAEdwardsW-M[Date]-030001, EEvansAEdwardsW-M[Date]-030002, EEvansAEdwardsW-M[Date]-030003, EEvansAEdwardsW-M[Date]-030004, EEvansAEdwardsW-M[Date]-030005, EEvansAEdwardsW-M[Date]-030006
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--Leicestershire
England--Wednesbury
England--Staffordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
RAF Saltby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/851/10847/AHambrookHJ180109.2.mp3
15e7d30c5d0a426e2cfb291679011120
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
Hambrook, Harry
Harold John Hambrook
H J Hambrook
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Harry Hambrook (1925 - 2021, 1890683 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 166 and 153 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hambrook, HJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GR: Hang on a second.
Other: Stop a minute.
AM: So, my name’s Annie Moody and I’m working with the International Bomber Command Centre and Lincoln University and it’s Tuesday the 9th of January 2018 and today I’m with Harry Hambrook in Harrogate and I’ve also got Gary Rushbrooke with me and Harry’s daughter with me. And what I’d really like to know Harry to start off is where you were born, you’ve just said you’re a Cockney, and a little bit about your childhood. What your parents did and school and stuff like that. So where were you born first of all?
HH: As far as I can recall I was born in Hackney.
AM: Right.
HH: And I lived in Dalston.
AM: Yeah.
HH: Which is a part of Hackney.
AM: What did you, what did your dad do?
HH: My father was a cabbie. A London cabbie.
AM: Yeah.
HH: He was, I think he had many different types of jobs but I can remember him as a cabbie.
AM: Right.
HH: Driving a cab.
AM: And what sort of house did you live in?
HH: It was two houses, terrace one. Just two houses in a, I mean a long line of houses, but and we lived in a basement, semi-basement and the first floor and the top floor was let.
AM: Right.
GR: Brothers and sisters?
HH: I had one sister, eighteen months younger than me and one brother, five years younger than me.
AM: Right. And what about, can you remember what school you went to? What was school like?
HH: Oh, well I enjoyed school but I couldn’t get away from it quick enough. and I didn’t do very, I didn’t do very well at school at all because I had no intentions of staying. All I wanted to do was to get out to work.
AM: So how old were you when you left? Fourteen?
HH: Fourteen.
AM: Fourteen. So what did you do then to find —
HH: I was an office boy.
AM: Right. How did you find your job?
HH: I think it was through the Labour Exchange.
AM: Right. And what sort of company was it? What sort of things did you do?
HH: Oh just, ‘Do this,’ ‘Do that,’ ‘Do this,’ ‘Do that, Harold.’
AM: Dogsbody.
HH: Yeah.
AM: But that’s at fourteen years old.
HH: We had another office about three or four miles away and I used to cycle back and forward to that four times a day to collect post.
AM: Right.
HH: And inter-office material, you know.
AM: Yeah. Can you remember how much you got paid?
HH: I think it was twelve and sixpence.
AM: A week.
HH: Yeah.
AM: And how much of that did you have to divvy up to your mum?
HH: Ten shillings. Two and six for me.
AM: You kept two and six. What did you spend your two and six on?
HH: Oh, I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell you.
GR: Had war broken out by then?
HH: No.
GR: Right.
HH: No. I was fourteen in March ’39.
AM: Right.
HH: And the war broke out in September. What was it then? ’39.
GR: Yeah.
AM: So at, so at fourteen then, war has started. You were working as an office boy. So at what point did you decide to join the RAF? What made you decide to join the RAF?
HH: Well, I was coming up to when I had to register. Eighteen.
AM: Yeah.
HH: And I didn’t fancy going in the Army so I volunteered for the RAF the week before I had to register.
AM: Right.
HH: And they said, they had an office not far from us and so I went to join the aircrew. So they said, ‘Well, we haven’t got any vacancies for aircrew except gunners. So I said, ‘Well, that’s alright.’ So that’s what I did.
AM: And that’s what you did.
HH: I was, I wasn’t called up until September October the same year. Quite some time.
AM: So what year would that be? ’40?
HH: ’39.
GR: No.
HH: ’43.
GR: ’43.
HH: ‘43.
AM: So you’re coming up to eighteen.
HH: Yeah.
AM: In ’43. So what —
HH: That’s right.
AM: So you went and joined up. You were told you were going to be an air gunner.
GR: Sorry. Going back to 1939/40 and obviously you said you were born in, was you living in Hackney still? What was it like in London during the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and all that?
HH: Well —
GR: You would have been fourteen, fifteen.
HH: Well, as I say we had two air raid shelters in our garden. We had the Nissen one which the government put in.
GR: Yeah.
HH: And also we had quite a big garden and quite near to us there was a local firm of engineers that made these invalid tricycles. You know, the —
GR: Oh, I know, yeah.
HH: Like that.
GR: Yeah.
HH: And my father was very friendly with the people there and they wanted somewhere for their men to go during the day. So they built an underground air raid shelter in our back garden.
GR: Garden.
HH: Which we used to use at night.
GR: Which you used as well.
HH: And they used to use in the day but it slept nine. All through the Blitz that’s where we went every night. We didn’t wait for the air raid to sound. Just went there automatically.
GR: Because in, obviously in the Hackney area —
HH: We never lost a window.
GR: Never because it was bombed a lot, wasn’t it? Yeah.
HH: Yeah. It was all around us but we never lost a window.
GR: Yeah.
HH: Yes.
GR: So you went into that air raid shelter every night.
HH: Every night.
GR: Yeah. Did you ever end up in the Underground?
HH: No.
GR: Because a lot of them did didn’t they when they were bombed out?
HH: Yeah.
GR: And all that.
HH: No.
AM: So were there, were there nine of you in the air raid shelter and did it have, did you have beds or —
HH: Yeah. Well, there was seats to sit on and then, and then another one which was lowered and that was pulled up and hung up so that someone could get up there. A couple at the other end. It wasn’t, wasn’t as big. About half the size of this room.
AM: Right. But nine of you in there.
HH: I think it was either seven or nine slept in there every night. Yeah.
AM: Right.
HH: Yeah.
GR: And do you have any recollections of the —
HH: We had electric down there. Electric light and electric, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HH: And a primus stove.
GR: Any recollections of the Battle of Britain with the fighter boys going on above you at the time? I think you’d be —
HH: Well, not —
GR: No.
HH: No. Not a lot really. I think most of it was down more southeast to us.
GR: Yes. Yeah. And then obviously yeah then they moved in to the Blitz and everything else. But yeah, obviously very interesting also living there during, well, 1941/42. And then you volunteered for air crew in ’43.
HH: Yeah. I passed out in ’44. Was posted to [pause] Oh, I forget what it’s called now.
AM: What was the training like? Where did you do your training?
HH: Well, it’s all in there actually.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Is it in the logbook?
GR: Yeah.
AM: We’ll have a look at the logbook.
GR: But when they called you up you’d been waiting, you’d been waiting a few months and then you got the call up papers to go.
HH: Yeah. St Johns Wood we were sent to to start with.
GR: Yeah.
HH: Initially to report to —
GR: Was that Lord’s Cricket Ground?
HH: The cricket ground. That’s right.
GR: Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
GR: And then —
HH: And then from there I think I went to —
GR: Wymeswold. I’ve got Wymeswold.
HH: Oh that. Yeah. That’s later on.
GR: Yeah. Later on is it?
HH: I went to Bridlington for the six weeks square bashing.
GR: Square bashing. Join the RAF and you’re marching up and down.
HH: Yeah. In the winter and it was quite cold.
AM: I was going to say what did you think of Bridlington then? A southern boy like you?
HH: Didn’t think much of it to be quite honest.
AM: Were you staying in digs like?
HH: Yeah.
AM: A lot of people stayed in the holiday digs, didn’t they?
HH: That’s right.
AM: Yeah.
HH: In houses we were. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
HH: Going for dinner at night and you got sardines on toast and things like that.
GR: And that would have been the first time you’d been away from home wasn’t it?
HH: Yeah. Apart from holidays, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HH: We had relations in North Wales which we used to go to quite often during the summer as kids.
GR: That’s better.
HH: In fact, my mother and father used to put me and my sister on the train at Euston.
GR: And send you off.
HH: In the guard’s van, in the care of the guard. And my grandmother used to meet us at Chester.
AM: Yeah.
HH: Couldn’t do that today could you?
GR: No. You couldn’t.
AM: With a little label on.
HH: Yeah.
AM: So after Bridlington then have I got it right that you ended up in Stranraer?
HH: Stranraer. That’s where we, I think that’s where we passed out.
GR: That was —
AM: Even further north.
GR: Number 3 Air Gunnery School.
HH: Yeah. I think that’s where we first started flying.
GR: Yes.
AM: So what was that like? First time in a plane.
HH: Well, to be quite honest I was quite scared actually but I wouldn’t show it. Otherwise they wouldn’t let you fly any more.
AM: Right.
GR: Yeah. I think it was Ansons, wasn’t it?
HH: Ansons. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Which was the original training aircraft. And you’re obviously there for a couple of months and then passed out and then on to 23 OTU at Wymeswold.
HH: Yeah. I think that’s where we went to, to crew up.
GR: Yes.
HH: About three or four hundred airmen all in a hangar and we were just told to crew ourselves up.
GR: Yeah.
HH: We weren’t told, ‘You go there and you go there.’ You had to find your own skipper.
AM: So who found who? Did the skipper find you or did you find the skipper?
HH: I can’t, I can’t remember.
AM: You can’t remember.
HH: No. No. It’s just wandered around blank. ‘Have you got a gunner yet?’ ‘No.’ ‘Alright. I’m here.’
GR: Because that have been a tried and tested way for really the whole of the war.
HH: Yeah.
GR: For some reason they didn’t sort of say, ‘Right,’ you know, ‘You’re with him. You’re with him,’ putting you all together. And in general I think the pilot used to start walking around and then —
HH: Yeah.
GR: Try and find a flight engineer, a navigator, an air gunner.
HH: Well, our pilot at that time was a sergeant.
AM: Right.
HH: Whereas most of the pilots in those days were, I think were commissioned.
GR: They were commissioned. Yeah.
HH: He was only a sergeant.
GR: What would you have been at the time?
HH: Sergeant.
GR: You were a sergeant as well.
HH: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: And that and, then that’s when we first started training as a crew, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HH: Doing cross countries for the navigator and experience for the pilot because he’d never flown two engine aircraft and we were on Wimpies.
GR: Yes.
AM: Right.
GR: So when you said you’d crewed up that would have been a crew of five would it? There wouldn’t have been —
HH: Seven.
GR: There were seven of you on the —
HH: Seven. Pilot, engineer, bomb aimer, wireless operator.
GR: Mid-upper and rear gunner.
HH: Two gunners.
GR: Yeah.
HH: And who have I missed out? No. That’s right. That’s seven.
GR: That’s seven. Yeah. Yeah. That’s seven. Yeah. So, and did you keep the same pilot all the way through once you’d crewed up?
HH: We did. Yes. We had him right until he blacked out on take-off, and he was grounded. They wouldn’t let him fly any more.
AM: During training?
HH: No. During operations. We were actually going down the runway on take-off with a full bomb load and he blacked out.
AM: So what happened?
HH: The engineer managed to pull off all the power because we hadn’t even, we had been, we were going but we hadn’t, hadn’t got to that point. Couldn’t do anything you know.
GR: It wasn’t.
HH: About a minute short of it.
GR: It wasn’t the first operation was it?
HH: Oh, no. No.
GR: No. You’d done a few ops by then.
HH: Oh yeah. We’d done loads.
GR: I know we’re jumping forward but —
HH: We’d done over twenty ops by then.
GR: And did you ever find out what the reason was he blacked out or —
HH: No. No. He was, he was sent somewhere else for tests and all that sort of thing and we never saw him again. They wouldn’t let him fly though.
GR: Well, no. Not if he’d, not if he’d, certainly if he’d blacked out.
HH: The CO came out, ‘Don’t worry chaps,’ he said, ‘I’ll get you another pilot.’ You can imagine what they said to him. So he got another crew instead.
GR: Yeah. So you didn’t fly that night. You —
HH: We didn’t fly but they did.
GR: Yeah.
HH: They took it out. Then came back.
GR: Yeah. I was just going to say, took your aircraft because some of the stories you hear something like that the aircraft doesn’t come back and its fate that you didn’t go.
HH: They came back. Came back. Yeah.
GR: So I notice also then you moved on to Heavy Conversion Unit and you were training on Halifaxes.
HH: That’s right. Yeah. Four engine. Four engine aircraft.
GR: Yeah. With the same pilot. Flight Sergeant Potter.
HH: Yeah. By that time he was a flight sergeant. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. And then a month later they moved you on to Hemswell which was Lancasters.
HH: Lancasters. Lancasters.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Right.
GR: Yeah. Which one did you prefer? Lancaster? Halifax?
HH: I don’t have a preference really.
GR: I suppose being —
HH: Because I mean the rear turret was basically the same in either.
GR: I was just going to say the rear turret was, yeah.
HH: And you got in the same. The same way, you know.
GR: Yes. Yeah. Down the chute.
HH: So —
GR: And then around about —
HH: I think, I think the pilot preferred a Lancaster.
GR: Yeah. I’ve heard some aircrew say that they, certainly aircrew who flew on operations on both aircraft that the Halifax was more roomy and if they ever had to get out of it quickly they preferred to be in the Halifax.
HH: Yeah.
GR: But obviously that never happened to you but, yeah just checking your logbook around about September ’44 you were sent to 166 Squadron at Kirmington.
HH: That’s right. That was our first operational squadron.
GR: Yes.
HH: I don’t think, I don’t think we did. We might have done one trip from there but I’m not sure whether we did any like actual operations.
GR: No. You’re quite right. You did some cross country.
HH: We did cross countries and that.
GR: Yeah.
HH: And then, and then we were sent to Scampton to start an operational squadron again because at that time Scampton was non-operational.
GR: Right.
HH: So, so the skipper said, ‘Come on, gather your things up,’ he said, ‘We’ll get there first so we’ll get the best [laughs] best accommodation.’
GR: Did other people go from 166 go or were you the only crew that went?
HH: No. The, all the chaps that went to Scampton that day to form a new squadron were all from Kirmington.
GR: Oh right. Yeah. And that was 153 Squadron.
HH: 153. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. And then again just checking the logbook you did a couple of cross countries and then October the 31st you went to Cologne. Was that your first operation? Cologne.
HH: If that’s what’s in there —
GR: Yeah.
HH: For our squadron that’s where we went. Yeah.
GR: How did you feel about that?
HH: Well, it was just an operation.
GR: Yeah. Your first time was —
HH: I can’t remember anything about it.
GR: But it was, yeah.
HH: Just —
GR: As a crew you just you just did it.
HH: You just get out and do it.
GR: Yeah. And then over the next few months any, any near misses or anything?
HH: I never pulled the trigger. We were lucky. We never had, you know, we never got attacked by enemy fighters. One or two shells burst quite near. You could feel the vibration, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HH: But apart from that when we got back we would walk around the aircraft to see if there any holes anywhere.
GR: Like you say. Yeah, so as an air gunner and I’m sure the mid-upper gunner was the same you never saw any night fighters or have any —
HH: No. No.
GR: No. And then, yeah just going through your logbook. Cologne, Dusseldorf.
HH: We not only had to keep our eyes open for night fighters but other, other friendly aircraft because I mean when you get three or four hundred aircraft going on a trip.
GR: Yeah.
HH: You know, you’d often see one just floating over the top of you.
GR: It’s when the bomb bay doors open, which I know has happened to a few people.
HH: Yeah.
GR: But again no near misses.
HH: No.
GR: Yeah. So —
AM: A charmed life.
HH: Charmed.
GR: Yeah. And I notice you flew on New Year’s Eve so that was a nice way to see in the new year.
HH: That’s right. Yeah.
GR: But yes. As Annie just said a charmed life. Not to say it was easy but you escaped.
HH: Oh, I escaped. Yeah.
GR: Unharmed most of the time.
HH: Well, that’s it. I mean each trip was a trip. You got in it, did it and then we never gave it another thought really.
GR: Yeah. Which is the best way to do it. And, yeah jumping back to what you said about your pilot that night who was a flying officer by then, Flying Officer Potter. I’m just trying to [pause] here we go so that was around about February. So you were off ops for a little while and then back in.
HH: Yeah. I missed. I was also off ops about that time because I had a lot of sinus trouble. Because you can’t fly —
GR: No.
HH: With sinus trouble. You get terrible pains.
GR: Serious headaches and pain. Yeah.
HH: So I was grounded for about three weeks. I missed three trips. The crew did three trips without me.
GR: Right. And they were flying with a spare bod, were they?
HH: They had a spare bod. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. So that when you came back did you have a new pilot then?
HH: No. I can’t remember. I think we were still flying with Potter at that time. It’s difficult to remember now exactly.
GR: Yeah.
HH: The dates.
GR: I think Potter’s, his last op was around about March the 7th to Dessau.
HH: Yeah. Well, I was back flying by then.
GR: Yeah. You’re back flying and then literally at the beginning of April, Flight Lieutenant Williams.
HH: That’s the chap who took over from our skipper.
GR: And he was taking over a crew that had probably done —
HH: We’d, at that time I think we’d done twenty six.
GR: Twenty six. So you were near the end.
HH: I’d done twenty three and the crew had done twenty six because I missed three.
GR: Yeah.
HH: And I think he needed three trips to —
GR: Complete his.
HH: Thirty.
GR: Ah right. So he was an experienced pilot.
AM: Oh, so yeah.
GR: Yeah. Which is good.
HH: So that brought out the rest of our crew to twenty nine and me twenty six and the war was nearly over so they grounded us.
GR: Yeah.
HH: So then I went home on leave.
GR: Yes. 9th of April. Last operation to Kiel, and back safely.
HH: Yeah.
GR: So, and what, they just grounded you because you were near the end of your tour.
HH: Well, they didn’t need us anymore. You know. They were more or less pack it in.
GR: Yeah.
HH: What they were using them for was to move troops about. Get people home.
GR: Right. Did you do any of that?
HH: No.
GR: No.
HH: No. They didn’t need gunners for that. No. They only needed a pilot.
GR: Oh course not. No.
HH: Navigator and that, so and a flight engineer.
GR: Yeah. Of course, yeah because then they could get more prisoners of war and —
HH: That’s right.
GR: Those type of people in the aircraft couldn’t they? So the last op was the 9th of April. They sent you home.
HH: Sent me home, and I was home until August.
GR: Right. With the family.
HH: With the family. Yeah.
GR: With mum and dad and that. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
AM: And then what happened? How long was it before you were demobbed?
HH: Oh, I wasn’t demobbed until 1947.
AM: So what did they do with you in those, in those last two years then?
HH: Well, I was eventually posted to a unit in the Midlands. I forget what it was now. And the officer in charge there had all these people that had been posted to him. He said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you lot.’ [laughs] You know. He pulled out a few jobs that might be vacant and he said, ‘Post Office,’ I said, ‘That’ll do me,’ because it was on the domestic site so you’ve got the journey backwards and forwards you see. So, the officer in charge of the Post Office, he said, ‘You don’t want to go into the RAF — ’ [pause] I forget what they call it now. Equivalent to the army.
GR: RAF Volunteer Reserve? No.
HH: No. No. And anyway, so I said, ‘No, I don’t really think I want to do it,’ because I wasn’t really looking forward to all the physical training that would be involved.
GR: RAF regiment.
HH: RAF regiment.
GR: Yeah.
HH: So I said, well he said, ‘Remuster to the Post Office,’ he said, ‘We’re short here,’ he said ‘That’s why you’re here.’ So I said, ‘Yeah, ok. I’ll do that.’ So he signed my remustering form and I was sent to Kirkham on a fortnight’s course. Postal course. And when I got there we were told that everybody when they finished their course goes overseas [laughs] So I was on a boat to India. So I was out there for eighteen months until I got my demob.
GR: Right.
AM: What? What was that?
HH: Working in a Post Office.
GR: Working in a Post Office.
AM: Yeah.
GR: In India.
HH: And on the local RAF station. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
HH: Kanpur.
AM: Right.
GR: That’s, sorry what rank?
AM: Kanpur.
HH: Kanpur.
GR: Oh, I thought you said corporal.
HH: Kanpur. That was the name of the station. No.
AM: No.
HH: No. And while I was out there, I mean as you probably know the RAF rank was automatic.
GR: Yes.
HH: In aircrew.
GR: Yeah.
HH: Sergeant, flight sergeant, warrant officer and then it finished. I got, I got to the station when I got my WO.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
HH: And about three weeks after I got it everybody above the rank of sergeant was reduced to the rank of sergeant.
GR: So you went out to India as a sergeant.
HH: So I went back to being a sergeant again.
GR: Did they pay you as a warrant officer though?
HH: I think. I think they did. Yeah.
GR: They did. Yeah. From speaking to other gentlemen that for some reason yeah they demoted everybody.
HH: Yeah. Because there was too many of us coming along.
GR: Yeah. But you kept the same pay grade.
HH: Yeah.
GR: Which obviously was decent of them.
HH: Yeah.
AM: So you were working in the Post Office in Kanpur. Where were you living? What sort of living quarters were you?
HH: Domestic site on the station because Kanpur was a big, a big RAF unit, you know with loads of huts.
AM: Right.
HH: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
GR: A lot of ex-aircrew ended up in India.
AM: Yeah.
GR: For a couple of years after the war.
HH: Because they wanted, as soon as the war finished they wanted to get the people who had been out there a long while —
GR: Yeah.
HH: Get them home.
GR: Get them home, yeah.
HH: And they had to have people out there to replace them because they couldn’t just have empty units.
GR: And obviously India at the time there was going towards —
AM: Partition.
GR: Partition and everything else.
HH: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. We came out in spring of ’47.
GR: Yeah. And was it, was it straight back home and demobbed from India?
HH: Oh, I went straight, I went straight back to the company that I left to go in the RAF to. They had, they had to take you back.
GR: Yes.
HH: So I was there until I retired at fifty, sixty one.
AM: Good heavens.
HH: So I did fifty odd years.
GR: Living down in Hackney or that area.
HH: Well, I lived in Hackney until I got, until I got married.
GR: Right.
AM: So, so what did —
HH: And then, and then we had reps all over the country.
GR: Yeah.
HH: And the chap who was doing Yorkshire was retiring so, and I knew all the reps because I had, when they came in to the office I had a lot to do with being on the sales side you see. So I said to him, ‘I wouldn’t mind doing this. Your job is a bit of cake.’ Anyway, I applied and I got it so that’s what brought me to Yorkshire.
GR: Right.
HH: So I came to Yorkshire in the ‘60s with my family. Susan was about what? Five or six.
Other: I was five.
HH: Five. Yeah.
Other: Yeah. Steven was a few years —
HH: And I’ve been in this area ever since.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. So you started off in that company as the boy cycling from one to the other delivering mail.
HH: That’s it.
AM: And ended up in Yorkshire.
HH: Finished up as a sales rep. For the last six years I spent back in the office.
AM: Yeah.
HH: They were [pause] things were getting smaller. They weren’t the amount of customers about, you know. They were retiring and, or not, or closing businesses and that sort of thing, so they amalgamated territories and they took me inside to run the sales office.
GR: Yeah. But still forty odd years with the same company.
HH: Oh yeah. Yeah.
GR: Is —
HH: From ’39 to [pause] I forget when it was. Seventy. Seventy something.
AM: Seventy. Yeah.
HH: I think it was about.
Other: It was later than that because you retired after Laura was born. She was born in ’85.
HH: Yeah. Well —
Other: So it was —
HH: It was about ’86 then when I retired.
GR: Yeah.
Other: I was pregnant with Philip so it was ’86/87. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
Other: When you retired.
HH: I think, I think it was about forty eight years. I think I was about two years short of doing fifty.
AM: Right.
HH: What was it? I forget now.
AM: You know, thinking back now to the war years and the way it’s been portrayed since what, what do you think about what we actually did?
HH: I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it really.
AM: No. Because people have different views. Most, most men actually that were there just say, ‘Well, we did it.’
GR: Yeah.
AM: You know, they started the war, we did it and it helped turn the war.
Other: I think people then were more used to doing what they were told to do, weren’t the?
AM: Yes.
Other: Then they are these days. We question things more.
AM: Yeah.
HH: Well, that’s probably quite true that, you know. You were there to do what you were told.
AM: Yes.
GR: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you —
HH: Well, I mean it happened and you had to go with it.
GR: Yeah, because obviously I’ve spoken to a lot of people you’re —
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 Harry Hambrook
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Moody
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
2018-01-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AHambrookH180109
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:27:57 audio recording
Language
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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
Harry Hambrook was born in Hackney and when he left school he became an office boy. He volunteered for the RAF and became an air gunner. He was posted to 3 Air Gunnery School in Stranraer for gunnery training flying in Ansons. From there he went to 23 Operational Training Unit at Wymeswold where he crewed up. He joined 166 Squadron at Kirmington, and was posted to Scampton to form 153 Squadron, and at the war’s end had completed 26 operations. At the start of one operation his pilot blacked out and the flight engineer had to take control of the aircraft. His last operation was to Kiel on the 9 April 1945. He remustered to join the RAF Post Office and was posted to India and was demobbed in 1947 on his return to the UK.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
India
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
India--Kānpur
Germany--Kiel
Scotland--Stranraer
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04-09
153 Squadron
166 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
Operational Training Unit
RAF Kirmington
RAF Scampton
RAF Wymeswold
training
-
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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
A name given to the resource
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
U/S posting wef 13/1 [postmark] [postage stamps]
[indecipherable word] 201/239 WINB
W. [deleted] O. WARD A. OR SGT. D. CURNOCK,
Sunnycroft,
59, Minehead St,
Leicester.
U.K.
[page break]
From:- 167580 F/L Woodhead A.
[postmark]
[page break]
167580 F/L Woodhead. A.
c/o 83, Tennyson Avenue,
Scarborough,
Yorks.
15th January 1946
Dear Dickie
Thanks for the photographs and letter it was very good of you to remember me. If you happen to come across any others I would be very pleased to have a copy. Did any of ‘Jacks’ photographs ot the ones taken in the ‘yard’ come out if so send them please.
The journey was quite uneventful and the whole procedure is very smooth. The train left Treviso at midnight on Friday the 3rd and by 1800 hrs on Wednesday the 8th I was a free man (?). The customs people were quite lenient to anyone who was honest enough to declare everything, and in most cases charged either nothing at all or a nominal twenty or thirty shillings. Frankly I got away without paying a single penny though I did declare everything I could think of.
Just a little higher up I put the words ‘a free man’ with a very large question
[page break]
mark after them, you may think this somewhat eccentric, but if you are leaving the R.A.F., you will see the logic of the question mark in due course. This civilian life is governed by more laws than there are in the whole of KR’s and A.C.I.’s, and S.R.O’s are published every day through a medium once known as the ‘free press’ (?). (That question mark has crept in again.) There are plenty of jobs going in ‘civvy street’ today, for example you can be a coal-miner, a brick layers assistant, (it takes 2 years to become a qualified bricklayer) and numerous other jobs in the same category. My wife and I had quite a good four day holiday in the Midland Hotel in Manchester, bed and breakfast was only 2/10/- per night and dinner was recognised as being quite reasonable ay 15/- per head for three courses (without bread.) I know the maximum charge for a dinner is 5/- but at this place, in fact at most places, there is a cover charge of 5/-, a 5/- service charge and 5/- for dinner. For our first drink [deleted] at [/deleted] in U.K., four of us went to the Euston Hotel in London and we had four half pints of lager (no beer) the cost of these four half pints was 6/6, and anything
[page break]
less than a 2/- tip caused the barman to go on strike. Incidently [sic] ‘striking’ is apparently the recognised method of earning a living. Another strange innovation which has found its was [sic] into our lives is method of obtaining a taxi for your benefit I will outline the procedure. First fall down flat on your face as if completely exhausted, cry out to heaven in a loud voice for mercy on your tormented body. The taxi driver then does one of two things, either runs over you or offers, (in a very haughty manner), to permit you to ride in his taxi. On any fare below 5/- he expect [sic] a tip equivalent to 100% of the fare, on fares between 5/- and 10/- a 75% tip is anticipated and on all fares over 5/- a 50% tip is the order of the day. As this seemed to be quite a lucrative profession. I have endeavoured to get in it, but I was told that it is a ‘closed shop’ or in other words only available if Mr. Morrison likes you. Nearly all questionnaires for jobs contain the following questions, ‘Did you vote labour at the last election? Do you intend to vote labour at the next election? Do you like the labour government? Are you prepared to say ‘Heil Morrison’? Have you read ‘Mein Kamp’
[page break]
by Herbert Morrison, if not you are uneducated. Have you more than 15/- to your name? if so you are a capitalist. Are you an ex-serviceman? if so you were a fool weren’t you! So it goes on ‘ad infinitum’. Incidently [sic] I can put you in the know for a job which has many advantages, e.g. security, a bed, three meals a day and money too, it is known as the ‘Services.’ If you are there already [underlined] do not leave [/underlined] .
Sorry to sound so bitter but really there is no England anymore but only a country known as ‘Labour Utopia,’ or ‘Alice + Bevan in the Underground.’ Crazy isn’t it but that’s how I feel.
I am addressing this letter to Alec and you just in case you have come to this country before it gets to Italy.
Cheerio for now and
enjoy yourselves.
Arthur Woodhead.
P.S. Tell Alec that I shall be back in 56 days time.
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 Dick Curnock from Arthur Woodhead
Description
An account of the resource
The letter thanks Dick Curnock for sending photographs and a letter. He describes a short holiday in Manchester and discusses prices of meals, drinks and taxis.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Arthur Woodhead
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1947-01-15
Format
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Four handwritten sheets and an envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWoodleadACurnockRM460115-0001,
EWoodleadACurnockRM460115-0002,
EWoodleadACurnockRM460115-0003,
EWoodleadACurnockRM460115-0004,
EWoodleadACurnockRM460115-0005,
EWoodleadACurnockRM460115-0006
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Scarborough
England--Leicester
England--Leicestershire
England--Yorkshire
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1947-01-15
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Bradbury
David Bloomfield
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/317/3474/APorteousB161102.1.mp3
80867f55350bb6d512266a1b71d81dc6
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
Porteous, Bob
Bryson Porteous
B Porteous
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Bryson "Bob" Porteous (441356 Royal Australian Air Force).
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
2016-11-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Porteous, B
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BG: OK, so I’ll introduce us just the way they suggest. Which is, this Interview is, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Bob Porteous and the interviewer, interviewee is myself Barry Green and its taking place at Bob’s home, Meadow Springs Estate in Mandurah. So, first of all Bob, um, you, you’ve signed the agreement?
BP: Yep.
BG: And so the mainly the focus of this is your experience in Bomber Command but if, to set the background, [clock chime] where did you grow up?
BP: Born in Kalgoorlie, grew up in, er, William Street in Perth, Customs House in William Street in Perth. Then, er, my mother divorced the old man because he was infe— infidelity and then she married a Lawrence Povey of Povey’s Furniture Manufacturers and we lived in North Perth. And I did all my schooling in North Perth School, state school, and then Perth Boys’ School and, because the old man was an abusive drunk, I went bush. Did a few things in the, er, bush, came back and he — first thing that Seth [?] asked me what was I doing after a couple of years in the bush? And I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ll go and enlist or something or other on Monday.’ Of course that was on the Thursday and I said, he said to me, ‘What about tomorrow?’ Being a Friday. So, I said, ‘OK.’ And Friday morning I went into the A and A [?] House I think it was then and enlisted, and I was the last person on my course, and we went to England.
BG: What, what year was that?
BP: It was 1942 and, er, luckily he unknowingly gave me a good, good thing, because everyone who enlisted on the Monday they went to Rhodesia to train and then they went up to the desert and they are either still in the desert or they became POWs in France, in Italy. So, his words about when I should enlist actually served a good purpose.
BG: Right. So, what happened from there?
BP: Trained at Cloncar [?]. I have a friend here. He’s in the next room. He’s an ex-padre and we always have fun and games over the fact that he’s a padre and I tell him that I spent more time in chapel than he did. And he wanted to know why. And I said we were billeted in, in a chapel. So I sent three months in a chapel. [laugh]
BG: So, this is when you were training as a navigator?
BP: As a navi— no, I was just training as an airman then and we were then sent to Mount Gambier. That was a navigation school and, er, gave, given the choice of going Point — to other places, Evans Head and all the rest of it, and we had a lot of air cadets fresh, fresh out of school, who all wanted to go to Port Pirie because it was nearer to Perth, but we being a few old heads we said, ‘No. We’ll go to Evans Head.’ So, according to the Air Services and all the rest of it, we, well I, went to Port Pirie and all the other boys went to Evans Head. They went up to the islands and they’re still up there.
BG: So, from there you were — at what stage did you first get into an aircraft?
BP: A trainer or a real one?
BG: Well, the trainer, yep.
BP: The trainer was, oh, about three or four months after I enlisted and we had great fun and games because three of us were training as navigators and we had three, er, navs and a pilot to train in an old Anson and they drew straws as to who was going into the first leg of this triangular course and I lost, and consequently I drew the nav table, and I opened the nav drawer to put my charts in it and found that the chap who had it before had been sick in it [laugh] so consequently the pilot, when we returned, he complained to — and the chap they found out who had been the person who had been sick and he had the job for the next couple of weeks of examining all aircraft every morning before they took off to find out that they were fit, besides his ordinary work. [laugh]
BG: So, how long did you spend there before getting into, er, operations?
BP: It took three, five, six months of actual training before we were graduated as navigators and got a weeks’ leave and then we went to Melbourne and we were billeted in the embassy. Gee, a cold bloody hole that was [laugh] and then came the day we were issued with our, um, woolly flying gear, which was no indication we were going to England but that was no indication in the Services of the gear that they issued you, er, meant that you went there because I have known people being sent to the tropics with their woolly flying gear. Any rate, we were on this boat and we were told we were going to Vancouver because we had some EA air cadets, EATS cadets, who were to be trained in Calgary. So, after twenty-odd days on the ship we pulled into Panama. The next thing we know we go through the canal and we land in Boston. And, er the OC troops on the ship says, ‘We want volunteers to take these air cadets to Calgary.’ So they numbered us all off and he said, ‘Alright, everyone on — with a two in their number is a volunteer.’ So, I had a free trip according to the CPR railways to Calgary with these four hundred-odd cadets. Consequently when I got back to Fort Hamilton in New York all the rest of the chaps who’d travelled on the boat from Melbourne they, had been shipped to England. Unfortunately that ship was torpedoed and they were lost in the North Atlantic. So twenty-two of us had an extra couple of weeks in New York where I was fortunate enough to be billeted with a millionaire. [cough] His name was Mendenhall which was a — not an excuse — was a bit of a blow because the final drome that we had in England was Mildenhall so I had to think to whom I was talking and what about I was talking as to what was the name of the place, whether it was Mendenhall or Mildenhall. [laugh] Any rate, we, er, oh —
BG: So, how did you find New York? How long were you there for?
BP: A couple of weeks. They knew absolutely nothing. They were dead bloody hopeless. My opinion of the Yanks and their learning ability is zero from what they knew. Lofty and I were walking down Fifth Avenue dressed in our RAAF uniforms and a couple of cops pulled us up, thought that we were Austrians [emphasis]. They couldn’t bloody well read.
BG: Yep.
BP: ‘You come from Australia?’ They had said, ‘I thought, oh, that’s a little island in San Francisco Bay?’ Alcatraz. And things like that they were bloody hopeless [emphasis] as far as geography and things like that were concerned and the more I learned about them during the war the, the less I thought about them. [clears throat]
BG: Right, so from New York ship across the —
BP: Ah, as there were only twenty-two of us we were put on the Queen Mary, QM1. We had seventeen thousand Yankees, a regiment of them, on the boat going over and they — everyone had to do a job. So they said, ‘Twenty-two Australians. What on earth will we to do with you?’ So they gave us submarine watch on the bridge. It took — we were two hours on, one hour off. It — where we were billeted down on the boat I was Blue C4. It took twenty minutes to — from there up to the bridge, you spent two hours on bridge watch, then twenty minutes back, which gave you twenty minutes time to go to the toilet and that and you had twenty minutes to come back again so we told the first officer, ‘What’s the use of giving us an hour off to go and do that? We might as well stay up on the bridge.’ So, he agreed the thing. So the first officer and Captain Bisset (he was the captain of the Mary at the time) — so we used to do navigation exercises so I’ve navigated the Queen Mary. [laugh]
BG: Right. You’d more time to think about that.
BP: Yeah. Well, so, er, navigation exercises for five days. The twenty-two of us we navigated the Mary across to Greenock in Scotland.
BG: Right. Go on.
BP: Got, got to Scotland and we were then sent down to, mm, Padgate. That was a PDRC outside Warrington, and of course mum had always told us if you go anywhere do see as much as you can of the place. So, one thing and another, the first thing we did was when we put our gear down and all the rest of it, ‘What’s the time? Let’s go into town.’ We wanted to see town so during every spare moment my friend and I we visited whatever we could. So, over the whole of my tour in England, I visited most of England in one time and another. Any rate, we went to Warrington. We used to go in there and come down to the coffee shop, which was opposite the railway station, have our tea in there. Actually it wasn’t coffee. It was a bun, sticky bun and tea, and so when the train pulled up we hopped, raced across the road and hopped into the train because we didn’t have to pay for it, being servicemen, Australian ex-servicemen, Australian servicemen. Only this happened to be — we did that on the Wednesday and the Thursday. On the Friday we did the same thing only the train happened to be special train going to Manchester. So, the first time I went to Manchester was by mistake. [laugh]
BG: So your first operational unit when you got to the UK —
BP: [cough] It all depends what you call operations because when we were on, um, at Bruntingthorpe we were on Wellingtons at the time and we were given the job of annoying, under Operation Annoy, and annoy the German air flak gunners on the Friesian Islands and all up and down the coast. It was our job to fly up and down just out of range, toss window out the chute and all the rest of it, and annoy the German gunners. So, they didn’t call that operational but we were two crews still hut [?] we flew H-Howard and another crew flew, Bert’s flew M-Mike and we, er, did the first twelve trips alright and came the thirteenth one and we got down to the briefing room and found out that the silly looking operations officer there had made a balls up of the things and we were listed to fly M-Mike and Bert and his boys flew H-Howard. So when we came back after the raid they told us that it was OK to land but beware of the burning plane in the funnels. That was Bert and his crew in our plane. So that was my first experience of Bomber Command and their misdeeds.
BG: So, you, you were up in the, you went up in the wrong plane basically but as it turned out the best plane to be in?
BP: Yes.
BG: And this — what squadron was that?
BP: That was on Heavy Conversion Unit, HCU, before we even got on the squadron so we thought to ourselves if we can do things like that before we got on the squadron what do we do when we get on the squadron and we went to — I was posted — actually, I went to the ablutions hut one morning and had a shower and a shave and all the rest of it and someone stole my navigation watch. So the crew was delayed a couple of days while we faced a court of enquiry as to how and why and where I’d lost my watch. When we got on the squadron we found out that the crew that had taken our place were, um, had been in this particular hall and we were delayed on entering because they were cleaning the, their gear out. They had, er, taken off the previous night and hadn’t come back. So, could have been us.
BG: Yep.
BP: Any rate I was on 622 up at Mildenhall and being a base drome, three other aerodromes around the place, and a couple of [unclear] squadrons on the drome we got the dirty work. Why should they go out to one of the satellite dromes and give their information and all their rest of it to someone else. So, being new chums on the drome we got the, er dirty work of doing things around the place. So as far as operations work my work on operations was very limited and — [cough]
BG: So, getting back to your — this was your first operations and your, your log books. Tell us more about that.
BP: The things that we did with the odd jobs around the place and my six [unclear] for instance, they got us on a special trip. We supposedly flew an admiral and a commodore with their aides. In actual fact was all they wanted was a Lancaster to fly to Gibraltar because the officer, secret service officer down there said, ‘Alright, we’ll do a trip over to Tangier.’ And when we went to Tangier we had a chappie there who was another, er, secret officer, who gave us a tour of the town whilst they left, whilst we had left the plane on the drome, which we were not supposed to do but he, being a wing commander — alright, he says, ‘Leave the plane there and go into town.’ You don’t disobey the wing commander so we did. When we came to take off we found out the plane was heavy. We had flown from England to Gib, taken off and flown into Tangier. By then we should have only had, oh, probably a half a petrol load. But that plane was fully loaded. We found out of course when we landed at Gib we were heavy in the landing and of course you don’t land a heavy Lancaster the same way as you do one that’s half empty, so they had to tell us we had a full load on board, but they didn’t tell us what the load was. Turned out to be seven tons of gold [clears throat] so in actual fact it had been a gold smuggle. They wanted the gold that had accumulated from Africa into Fez and Tangier and then taken to Gibraltar to pay for he lend lease of the British war effort so it’s one of those little things and yet it’s not in my log book. When I have been to Canberra to talk to my old veterans over there I found out that their log books do not agree actually with what they did. One chap has had twenty trips written into his log book that he never did. I mean, he said twenty-five trips, you know, he actually did but he’s listed as forty-five trips. The other twenty-five, where did they come from? The same as my log book. I do not have it to be able to verify it, but I have seen a copy of the records and the records that, that have been obtained from the — Canberra and all the rest of it do not agree with my memory of the log books. So, knowing a few things that have happened during the war and that, the log, the record keeping of the Air Force or Air Ministry and that is up the balls up.
BG: So were you mostly flying as the one crew or was the crew —
BP: We — a chap Quinn and crew, the same crew all the time and, er, luckily we kept it al— always. They were mainly things that, um, other crews around the place — we were very disappointed over the fact that we didn’t do more trips, operations, than the, that the others but we were listed as the “bunnies” round the place doing the odd jobs. So, they put us on things like, um, gardening and Operation Manna, Operation Exodus bringing back ex- ex-POWs from France, from Juvencourt and that and we had the job of Operation Python, bringing back, taking people out to Italy and bringing them back from there. So, shall we say I was not a fully operational man. I did my work with 622 but the thing was after the VE Day they wanted people to fly with Operation — what was it? Out to Australia, out to Okinawa — I can’t think of it.
BG: The, the nuclear thing or —
BP: Yeah. They wanted us to go out to, um, Okina— join up with a crew, not that crew, but to join up with 460 Squadron to go to Okinawa and fly and bomb Japan and — what’s the hell name of that?
BG: Do you mind if I keep going because, you know this will be edited? So, I’m trying to think the name of the place.
BP: I’m trying to think of the name of the thing that we all joined. [clears throat]
BG: As in a —
BP: Well, it’s a well-known thing that all the Australians in England were given the opportunity of joining 460 Squadron to come out here and we trained for a couple of months, low level work, heavy loads and things like that to fly out to Okinawa and bomb Japan.
BG: Right. So this was after —
BP: After VE Day.
BG: After VE day, right.
BP: When VJ Day came along the — we had a Wing Commander Swan. We were being briefed to take off the next morning when the chappie came in with the wireless thing and showed him and said Japan had surrendered. He said [slight laugh] — he threw the message down on the table and he said, ‘I don’t know what you buggers are going to do but I’m going in the mess and get drunk.’ He said, ‘Anyone who wants to go into town go and see the adjutant.’ [laugh] So we all shot through to London for V, VJ Day.
BG: So how long were you in England?
BG: ’45.
BP: ’45. And we got on board this ship, the Orion, SS Orion, which set out to reclaim its record to Australia but had broke down in the Bay of Biscay and unfortunately the, er, one of the insurer’s representatives had found us at Southampton and as we had surplus Sterling money on us got us to insure our kit bags and that and, er, I said OK and I had a couple of pounds so I insured my kitbag. Any rate we went back to Southampton and they sent us on a train up to Millom [?] in Scotland. They reopened an old drome at Millom and instead of sending us on leave as they should have done. So we stayed at Millom for about a fortnight and they promptly found out that we were causing too much damage to their turkey flocks because, being Australian and that, we were very expert of killing sheep and skinning them and also ringing turkey necks so consequently they sent us on leave in London and we finally left England on the Durban Castle and then —
BG: This is after VE Day?
BP: After VJ Day.
BG: After VJ Day.
BP: And it was not until I arrived back in Australia that I learned that my flying kit bag had gone missing for which actually I had insured and got forty pound, yeah, Australia was still in the Sterling bracket, I got forty pounds insurance money for the kit bag, but the thing was I lost my log book.
BG: Ah, right back then.
BP: Yeah. So that’s where it is.
BG: So any, any particular missions that you went on? You’ve mentioned a few. Any others that sort of come to mind?
BP: Actually no because we just did — we dropped people over in France and things like that so we didn’t do actually bombing missions or mine a harbour or two or something like that but the war was nearly over by the time we had so all my actual war experience was on 622 but I still, we still had to fly.
BG: So you were flying over, over enemy territory in Europe?
BP: All the time, yeah. We, even though they had, the Air Force had a lot of planes and crews doing nothing they put on tourist trips where we had to fly people, ground crew and interested parties on the drome, we flew them to places like Normandy and the, um, the bomb sites and things like that, and also up and down the Rhine to see how the bridges that we, that had been bombed and things like that. So, er, I cannot claim to have done very much bombing experience.
BG: So, you said you did some mining, mine laying. What, what was involved in that?
BP: Oh, that was on Hamburg Harbour and, um, one place we did bomb was Hamburg but that was just a mass raid and everything like that because, er, later on the experience that the padre (he is an ex-serviceman padre) and when I told him when I was examining the window and told him, you know, it looks nice and bright this scene of a burning town and told him that it looked like Hamburg and that and he said, we bombed that and he said, ‘Yes. I had a job of clearing it up afterwards.’ They sent him over as a padre in that place so he and I don’t exactly get on well together. [laugh]
BG: Right.
BP: I’m trying to think of that name [beep sound] and I forget what the American, New Zealand squadron was to represent them.
BG: Yep. I’m just trying to get the name. I can’t help you there. I’ll put that in the back and it might pop out a bit later. So did you cop much — had any mechanical problems on your flights?
BP: I don’t know about mechanical problems, the only time we got shot at properly we were on supposedly on a safe [emphasis] trip dropping food to the Dutch. We were to fly in over a racecourse, I think it was this first time, and drop food. Lancasters had all the food up in the bomb bays in the open top coffins. And, er, sometimes the drop bars would come high up and the food would drop and sometimes the whole of the assembly would drop, and you could see a, an incendiary container hit a cow, or something like that and everyone had cow meat for lunch. And when we came back the ground crew they said we were very lucky. They counted we had ninety-seven bullet holes in our plane and luckily underneath the navigator’s seat was one of these incendiary containers that hadn’t fallen off, and in the bottom of it was half a dozen dents from bullets, where the bullets had struck. So the worst raid that we had was supposed to have been the safest because we had four of those. [clock starts chiming] We got shot up the first time. The second time I think we had a couple of bullet holes in the wings but nothing as near as bad as that so, um, that did count as one of our operations.
BG: Right. So how many was in the crew?
BP: Seven.
BG: Do you remember them all? Do you remember names? Do you want to mention names or not?
BP: Oh, Frank Quinn. He got married over there. A chap, Nobby Clarke, was the bomb aimer, and we had Bill Day as the tail gunner, Chick [?] Anderson as mid upper gunner and — I forget the name of the wireless operator. That was one of the things that as, er, Bert and his boys, before he bought it the — I was in the crew, I was in his crew and when they had a pretty good night in the mess his navigator got too, too well liquored up and he cycled across the paddock instead of going down the roadway and went, went over a creek, which was by then was frozen and the ice broke and he went into the water, and he went into the hut and other than getting dry or anything, he went to bed as he was and he got pneumonia and died. So the replacement chap was a friend of the other crew so we changed crews so the crew that had Bert and his crew, which I was originally on, was the crew that bought it. So the new crew was Frank. So, I outlived that one all right. [clears throat]
BG: A cat of nine lives.
BP: And a few more. [laugh] [clears throat]
BG: So, the mechanics of the aircraft. Pretty reliable? You didn’t have too many —
BP: They were very, very good. We lost, um, two motors one night on doing something or other and they gave us — they said they were no good, that they — we’d have to get another plane because they had no engines to fix it up so they sent us to, the duty crew, took us to Lindholme and Lindholme had a, a warehouse and alongside the warehouse had been a hut site for two dozen huts with their concrete floors and the air strip. And so went in and, er, signed for the new aircraft and the chap said, ‘Oh. That one there,’ he says, ‘You can have that one.’ So, okeydoke, and when we took it, when we looked at where we had to go to get to the strip, it was over these concrete bases, and he said — we complained or Frank complained that every time we went over a bump the wings, you know, fluttered and all the rest of it, and he rang up on the radio and said that it was a horrible bloody ride, and the chap said, ‘The wings stayed on,’ he said, ‘That’s part of the test.’ So, okeydoke, so we had a new aircraft we had to take up and test out so, um, apart from that, the loss of two motors things, otherwise things were OK. The only accident that we saw occur was one where we were doing low level flying around two hundred feet in Britain in dusk. That is not recognised as being very healthy and, er, this particular time I, being a pretty good navigator, I was in the lead and the others had to follow. We had our tail plane, er, painted so that they recognised who was the lead navigator. And so I was in front and the rest were following me and the chap at the rear, his, one of his motors caught alight and he said, ‘Bail out.’ And at two hundred feet bailing out at that height it’s a no-no and they couldn’t find out where he landed and it was a week later they found out that he had landed in a farmer’s silage pit, so he drowned in a load of shit.
BG: Not nice.
BP: Not nice. [clears throat]
BG: So, tell us more about the navigation. What, what you had to work with. So, were you good at maths at school is that why you went down that path or —
BP: Actually, I was colour blind and I did, when I was at ITS, I had to go into town once a week or twice a week and that, and see a Dr Rardon [?] and have my eyes tested, and all the other things that he did, and I found out when I got back to navigation school that all our maps were orange not red. So, consequently, being red colour blind didn’t affect me. So all the lines on our radar maps were either black or orange so as you — they were big, not semi-circles, eclipses [emphasis] with the radar stations that were bases in England so you had, er, diverging lines going out over the continent, so you had to do your cross, T-crosses, where they crossed and so it was the further you went from England the worse it got. There was no such thing as accurate map reading. The only thing it was that we had a new invention. They called in H2S. It was a radar dome in the bottom of the aircraft which gave you an excellent view of things like rivers or lakes or, um, coastlines and things like that. The only catch was that the Germans knew when you operated that they could trace the signal so if you turned your H2S on you were liable to be to be shot at. And of course they had just developed the German night fighter with up firing guns so consequently they lost a lot. So they did not like you using H2S too frequently. The only other time that we had trouble, one place we were at, that they had, um, war-time huts. They were ordinary, just about cardboard, you know, hard cardboard and that —
BG: Right.
BP: [cough] And a couple of the chaps had been to the mess this night and they’d come in the rear door and they had left the, er, outside door open because they had a door, you know, a light lock on the two doors at each end and, er, they’d hear this plane buzzing round the place and this silly little chap went down and opened both doors and stood in the door way. ‘What’s going on?’ Of course, the chap came down and shot him. [slight laugh]So, we — there were twenty of us in the hut and we had to claim baggage insurance on the baggage insurance, go down to the warehouse and claim new baggage.
BG: So, in terms of your navigation, did you use D-Beam, inter-directional beacon? Did you track on VHF transmitters or anything like that?
BP: No. Dead reckoning all the way because they were just — you were so, so scarce on navigation aids it was dead reckoning. Unless you were good you’d had it. [clears throat]
BG: So, I mentioned I worked on the Becker navigation which I understand came out of Loran. Did you have any experience with that?
BP: No. We didn’t on that. The Pathfinder Force boys were the ones that got Loran. They wanted, everybody in Pathfinders wanted it, and they were busy making Pathfinder Force a regular thing, so we just did not get it because it wasn’t available.
BG: Right. Right. So, do you want to perhaps describe your, your job from — so prior to the, um, mission you’d be — tell, tell us what you’d be given and the process you’d go through. You’d have some time to plan your course before you went out or what?
BP: We didn’t have much time. They’d take you down to briefing around about 4 o’clock and you’d be given what, where you were going that night and they’d tell you what routes you had too and they would say what the expected winds were. And never rely on the Met men. They were bloody hopeless. They were worse, they were worse than the people we have at present. And they would tell you it would be a nice fine night and of course there’s be 10/10 dense bloody cloud and then you’d have the opposite. So, you know, you’re going to have a bumpy ride tonight and it would be a clear, clear fighter moon night. So you just didn’t know what was going.
BG: So, on the overcast nights, um, your dead reckoning’s pretty challenging I would think?
BP: Yes. Oh, you had to, you had to be on the ball, what you were, and of course the thing was that if it was a clear night you could actually see [emphasis] people. Of course the odd person didn’t switch their lights off and things like that. They were bloody hopeless. You were supposed to go with no navigation lights, nothing, and yet you could see half a dozen lights around the place. You knew, you knew that you were somewhere right because you had someone following you. Whether you were in the wrong place you had half a dozen people in the wrong place.
BG: So the missions that you were on were mostly not bombing missions so you were a lone aircraft. You weren’t part of —
BP: Part of three or four people, planes that went out.
BG: Right, so in most cases there would be, you wouldn’t be a single aircraft going out?
BP: No. Very rarely were we ever single.
BG: So you kept in visual contact with the other aircraft or —
BP: Tried not to. [laugh]
BG: Tried not to. Right.
BP: Because of the reason, the fact of the enemy could see the other aircraft and have a go at him and they could also, also see us so it was a case of beware, get out.
BG: Yep. Did you encounter German fighters much or
BP: No. We were lucky in that regard that we didn’t. We, once we had a few stray shells come. Where from, we hadn’t clue. We were flying, you know, I wouldn’t say it was dense cloud. It was very misty, foggy and things like that a couple of stray bullets came up through the — well, they weren’t bullets. They were blody fifty millimeter shells or something like that. Yeah, they tore holes in the fuselage sort of thing. But uneventful.
BG: Do you want to have your cuppa?
BP: Oh, yeah. You can shut it off for a while.
BG: At the end of the war, did you come back by ship?
BP: Yep. We came back by the Durban Castle. That was the ship that the, after the war, the steward murdered someone, some girl, and pushed her out the port hole.
BG: Life was cheap in those days. [laugh]
BP: Yeah. We had an ENSA party on board and, er, we were coming down the Red Sea. Nice clear night, nice and smooth, the moon was out and things like that, and the ENSA party was on the front deck. They were, um, doing Service songs and Service skits and things like that. The Dominion Monarch pulled up alongside of us. They had the, er, Maori Battalion on board. So there they are, the two ships, within ten yards of each other, doing twenty-odd knots down the Red Sea and the ENSA party having a whale of a time and come midnight [coughing]. You talk too much and you get a tickle in your throat.
BG: Right. [pause] So, do you want to call it quits with that? Have you had enough?
BP: No. I’m just going to finish off there. [pause] So, it was on New Year’s Eve, this New Year’s Eve party, and it came to the end of the party at midnight and there was a hoot on the hooter from both the ships and the Maori battalion gave us the haka. It’s a sound that you, a scene that, I’ll never forget. The two ships, the moonlight and where we were in the Red Sea and the haka being — one of those, one of those things that you would never ever forget. And that’s the thing that war always reminds me of, the finish of the war.
BG: Yep, yep. Then you came back to Perth?
BP: Yes. The old man was still alive. So, I told mum, ‘Alright. He’s alive.’ So I went and joined 37 Squadron, where we used to fly up and down to Japan and, er, we served BCOF in Japan where there was a few points to the Philippines and that and we used to fly up to New Guinea, New Britain, [unclear] round Australia. Even flew politicians around from bloody Canberra to Melbourne or Sydney and back. Don’t ask me about that.
BG: So, how long were you in the Air Force after the war?
BP: Three years. [clears throat] And one of those things, I met a girl. Her husband used to work for the manager. He was where they had a B and B up in Noarlunga and he used to be manager of CSR in Fiji and he had this B and B and they were looking for someone to make up a four for bridge. They used to hold a bridge night each Tuesday night. So they found Norma and her husband had been up in New Guinea during the war. He got killed. So, er, I finally met her. So the four, two of us lived for four years. She suddenly dropped [clears throat] dead one day. She was the second fiancée of mine to die. The first one was by a flying bomb in England. We used to — it’s a funny thing. I was on the, on the squadron and all the rest of it. Bomber squadron. We used to go on leave to Croydon which was the middle of flying bomb alley. Over the road from us on the thirteenth green from us was a flak battery. They used to fire across the roof of the house at the bombs as they came up the Thames valley and Faye and I used to go to the local pub two hundred yards down the road. Been to an English pub?
BG: No.
BP: Smoke, smoke and more bloody smoke and all the rest of it and of course one thing is I don’t smoke. So, I said, ‘Better get out of here. You know, too much smoke and all the rest of it. Come for a walk down the road.’ ‘I want to talk to the girls.’ ‘Talk to the girls, alright.’ So I went down the road and I only got a hundred yards down the road when a flying bomb flattened the pub. So instead of going on leave I went to a burial party.
BG: Bad lot.
BP: One of those things yeah.
BG: So you got back to Western Australia. So, you said you sent the rest of your life in Western Australia?
BP: Yeah. Oh, sent a few years in Sydney. Then, er, mum wanted me to come home and I said I wouldn’t come home until Seth [?] died. Of course he died on the operation table from something or other. So, I managed to get through uni and that ultimo and came over here and I joined the BP refinery and they were wanting people to manage the place so they sent a few of us over to Grangemouth to learn how to run a refinery. You should have heard mum, ‘You’re away for fifteen bloody years and all the rest of it. You come home for a fortnight and you go to London for six months.’ [laugh] She was not amused.
BG: So I guess your engineering experience through the Air Force would have been invaluable in your later life?
BP: [clears throat] Well, I was their emergency controller. By day I did nothing. All, all the time I did nothing but if the siren went and there was an emergency I was in charge of the place. So people had to do what I told them. I didn’t have to know names. All I knew was what people could do, so I said, ‘You do it.’ And of course they couldn’t argue about it because I could tell them what to do.
BG: Yep. So getting back to your time — so you were always RAF crews. They didn’t mix crews up of Air Forces?
BP: Well, we had a Scottish engineer. He was from Glasgow. His family were in, er, Coventry when it got bombed. That was the reason why he was a very good — he joined the Air, he joined the RAF. When we used to go to France on Operation Exodus and other such things, rather than wear the RAF uniform, we used to outfit him with the blue RAAF uniform. We were WOs at the time so we also gave him a WO badge. He was only a sergeant, flight sergeant, in the RAF but he was a WO in the RAAF. [laugh]
BG: Right. So in the week typically how many missions during the —
BP: Two, three but of course during the off times, in the summer time, they used to send all the spare bods out to the farmers to pick peas and dig potatoes and you name it and we were veg— I wouldn’t say we were vegetarians, we were gardeners. [laugh]
BG: Right. So that was part of the job.
BP: Part of the job. I’ve got some photos if you were here long enough to show of me doing things like that.
BP: Recreation. Now, that’s censorable. [laugh] No. I knew Faye but I was a good boy. For recreation we used to go to London. Of course, thing was we used to be paid what? Thirty bob a day then. And we had an odds incidental form, Form 1257. You got paid three pence for a bloody hair cut or three pence a week because you didn’t — a hard living allowance or you didn’t have a batman or things like that, so every three months we used to get this sheet which was about another thirty pound. So, every month we had about forty pound to spend and every third month we had about sixty and so we used to go to London and spend it.
BG: So, it wasn’t a bad life if you survived.
BP: If you survived it was a good life because I used to go to wherever I was. I’ve seen more places in England than a lot of English people purely because they iss— as we were RAAF people we were allowed a rail pass to anywhere in Britain.
BG: Right, right.
BP: The RAF or the English people could only go to their home town. We went to anywhere so go down to the pay clerk and say you were on leave, for your leave warrant, and coupons and that. ‘Where are you going this week?’ We had a map. ‘Oh we’ll go there.’ [laugh] Been over cotton mills and steel works, you name it, and all the rest of it. I’ve been from Plymouth up to Lossiemouth and things like this. We had bags of fun.
BG: Well, it’s been great talking to you Bob and I really appreciate you taking the time.
BP: Well, if you had a couple more days to talk I’d tell you what I really did. [laugh]
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APorteousB161102
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Interview with Bob Porteous
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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00:52:20 audio recording
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Pending review
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Barry Green
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2016-11-02
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Flight Sergeant Bob Porteous grew up in Australia and after spending time in the bush he joined the Royal Australian Air Force. After training and spending time in the United States, he travelled to Scotland on the Queen Mary. He flew operations as a navigator with 622 Squadron from RAF Mildenhall. On one occasion he describes a secret operation to Gibraltar and Tangier on a Lancaster that brought back gold. He also explains his role as navigator and equipment such as H2S.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
Great Britain
Morocco
United States
Gibraltar
England--Leicestershire
England--Suffolk
Morocco--Tangier
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
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1942
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Christine Kavanagh
622 Squadron
aircrew
Cook’s tour
entertainment
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Mildenhall
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/201/10044/BBaileyJDBaileyJDv1.1.pdf
3a146f510c94f18f8643a8ac43ad6772
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Title
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Bailey, John Derek
John Derek Bailey
Bill Bailey
John D Bailey
John Bailey
J D Bailey
J Bailey
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with John Derek "Bill" Bailey (b. 1924, 1583184 and 198592 Royal Air Force) service material, nine photographs, a memoir and his log book. He flew a tour of operations as a bomb aimer with 103 and 166 Squadrons from RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF Kirmington.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bailey and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-07
2017-01-13
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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.
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Bailey, JD
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Transcription
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[centred] “WAS IT ALL A DREAM” [/centred]
[centred] The Memories of a Wartime Bomb Aimer Bill Bailey with No. 1 Group Bomber Command February 1942 to April 1947
These things really happened. I now have difficulty in remembering what I did yesterday but happenings of Fifty-odd years ago seem crystal clear, or
Was it all a dream? [/centred]
[page break]
Chapter 1. Enlistment – Royal Air Force Training Command.
The story begins on 2 February, 1942, my 18th. Birthday, when I rushed off to the recruiting office in Leicester and enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as potential aircrew. Being a founder member cadet (No. 6) of 1461 Squadron Air Training Corps was a help. I passed the various medicals, etc[sic] and was sent to the aircrew attestation centre in Birmingham for the various tests for acceptance as aircrew. Like most others I wanted to be a pilot but on the day I attended I think they had that day’s quota of pilots. It was said my eyesight was not up to pilot standard but I could be a navigator. I was said to have a ‘convergency’ problem and would probably try to land an aircraft about ten feet off the deck.. I was duly accepted for Navigator training. The procedure was then to be sent home, attend ATC parades regularly and await further instructions. This was known as ‘deferred service’ and with it came a letter of welcome to the Royal Air Force, from the Secretary of State for Air, at that time Sir Archibald Sinclair, and the privilege of wearing a white flash in my ATC cadet’s forage cap which denoted the wearer was u/t (under training) aircrew.
So it was that on the 27 July 1942 I was commanded to report for service at the Aircrew Reception Centre at Lords Cricket Ground, St. Johns Wood, London. I was now 1583184 AC2 Bailey, J.D., rate of pay two shillings and sixpence per day. We were billeted in blocks of flats adjacent to Regents Park and fed in a vary[sic] large underground car park at one of the blocks or in the restaurant at London Zoo. Talk about feeding time at the Zoo!! A hectic three weeks followed, issue of uniforms and equipment, dental treatment, numerous jabs, endless square bashing - the ATC training helped. Lectures on this, that and everything including the dreaded effects of
[page break]
VD, the latter shown in glorious Technicolor at the Odeon Cinema, Swiss Cottage. Not that this was of much consequence at that time because we were reliably informed that plenty of bromide was put in the tea.
One day on first parade I and one other lad from my Flight were called out by the Flight Corporal, a sadistic sod, who informed us we had volunteered to give a pint of blood. Apparently we had an unusual blood group and some was required for what purpose I have never really understood.
Having completed the aforementioned necessities it was a question of what to do with us next.
The next stage of training was to be ITW (Initial Training Wing). but there was congestion in the supply line from ACRC to the ITW’s so a “holding unit” (this term will crop up from time to time) had been established at Ludlow and it was to there that we went.
Ludlow consisted of three Wings in tented accommodation and was progressively developed into a more permanent establishment by the cadets passing through, using their civilian life skills. We were allowed (officially) one night in three off camp so as not to flood the pubs, of which there were many, with RAF bods, and cause mayhem in the town.
Four weeks were spent at Ludlow. It was said to be a toughening up course and it was certainly that.
Next stop from Ludlow was to an ITW. Most ITW’s were located in seaside towns with the sea front hotels having been requisitioned by the Air Ministry. In my case I was posted to No.4 ITW at Paignton, Devon where I was to spend the next twelve weeks living in the Hydro Hotel, right on the seafront near the harbour.
Twelve weeks of intensive ground training. At the end of this period I was at the peak
[handwritten in margin] followed (needs a verb[?]) [/handwritten in margin]
[page break]
of fitness and having passed my exams was promoted LAC – pay rise to seven shillings a day.
One of the subjects covered at ITW was the Browning .303 machine gun and I well remember the first lecture on this weapon when a Corporal Armourer giving the lecture delivered his party piece which went as follows: “This is the Browning .303 machine gun which works by recoil action. When the gun is fired the bullet nips smartly up the barrel, hotley [sic] pursued by the gases …”. Applause please!
Another subject learned was the Morse Code and here again the training in the ATC stood me in good stead.
The next phase would be flying training, but when and where?
On New Years[sic] Day 1943 we were posted from Paignton to yet another ‘holding unit’ at Brighton. The move from the English Riviera to Brighton was like going to the North Pole. At Brighton we were billeted in the Metropole Hotel. More lectures, square bashing and boredom, until, after about three weeks, on morning parade it was announced that a new aircrew category of Airbomber had been created and any u/t Navigators who volunteered would be guaranteed a quick posting and off to Canada for training.
Needless to say, yours truly stepped forward and within a week had been posted to Heaton Park, Manchester which was an enormous transit camp for u/t aircrew leaving the UK for Canada, Rhodesia or America for training.
They used to say it always rains in Manchester and it certainly did continuously whilst I was there. Anyone who has seen the film “Journey Together” will have seen a departure parade at Heaton Park in pouring rain. I am told that on the day that film was shot it was fine and the fire service had to make the rain. Sods Law I suppose!
[page break]
Chapter II. Canada – The Empire Air Training Scheme.
Next, after a farewell meal of egg and chips (In 1943 a delicacy), and a few words from the C in C Training Command, it was off to Glasgow to board the “Andes” for our trip to Canada.
The ‘Andes’ was said to be jinx ship in port. She didn’t let us down. In the Clyde she dropped anchor to swing the compass and when she tried to up anchor a submarine cable was wrapped around it. After a couple of days we finally left the Clyde and I endured six days of seasickness before arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia and then to yet another enormous transit camp at Moncton, New Brunswick where we enjoyed food that we had not seen in the UK since the start of food rationing. It was in a restaurant in Moncton that I had my very first ‘T’ Bone steak.
The first task at Moncton was issue of cold weather kit to cope with the Canadian winter and Khaki Drill to cope with the very hot Canadian summer. We were at this time in the middle of the winter and colder than I had ever experienced before.. The next stop should have been to a Bombing & Gunnery School but before that there had to be the inevitable ‘holding unit’. So it was off to Carberry, Manitoba, five or six days on a troop train, days spent seeing nothing but trees, frozen lakes, the occasional trace of habitation and the odd trappers cabin. At intervals on the journey across Canada, people were taken off the train suffering from Scarlet Fever. It was believed that this disease came from the troopships.
As we passed through Winnipeg on our journey, for the first time we were allowed off the train and as we went from the platform to the station concourse we were greeted with bands playing a huge welcome from the good people of Winnipeg. They had in Winnipeg the “Airmens Club” and an invitation to visit if there on leave. They
[page break]
had a wonderful system of people who would welcome RAF chaps into their homes for a few days or a weekend when on leave. This was to stand me in good stead as you will hear later.
Shortly after arrival at Carberry I fell victim to Scarlet Fever and spent five weeks in isolation hospital at Brandon after which I and a fellow sufferer by the name of Peter Caldwell had two weeks sick leave in Winnipeg and the Airmens Club arranged for us to stay with an English family. Wonderful hospitality. The Canadians were wonderful hosts to the Royal Air Force.
Carberry and Brandon were, of course, on the Canadian Prairies and whilst in hospital at Brandon, one night and day there was a terrible dust storm and despite the usual Canadian double glazing, everywhere inside the hospital was covered in black dust. This is probably of little interest but to me at the time was an amazing phenomenom.
Now it was back to reality and a posting to 31 Bombing & Gunnery School at Picton, Ontario. A two day journey by train around the North Shore of Lake Superior to Toronto and Belleville and then twenty plus miles down a dirt road to Picton. The airfield still exists, on high ground, overlooking the town on the shores of Lake Ontario. The bombing targets were moored out in the lake and air gunnery practice took place out over the lake.
The weather during this spell was very hot and flying was limited to a period from very early morning until midday. Canadian built Ansons were used for bombing practice and Bolingbrokes, which were Canadian built Blenheims, were used for air to air gunnery practice. The target drogues were towed by Lysanders.
Nothing outstanding took place at Picton except perhaps for our passing out party which we held in Belleville. In my case, being full of Canadian rye whisky of the
[page break]
bootleg variety I literally passed out and for many years afterwards could not even stand the smell of strong spirits.
Having recovered from the passing out the next stop was No. 33 Air Navigation School, RAF Mount Hope, Hamilton. Ontario. Mount Hope is now Hamilton Airport. Navigation training in Ansons was fairly uneventful and ended with us receiving our Sergeants stripes and the coveted “O” brevet. (Known to all as the flying arsehole) The “O” brevet was soon to be replaced with brevets more appropriate to the trade of the wearer, ie “B” for Airbombers, “N” for Navigators, etc. Next it was back to Moncton for the return to the UK.
The return voyage was on the ‘Mauritania’ where there were only 50 sergeant aircrew who were to act as guards on the ship which was transporting a large number of American troops. O/c. Troops on the ship was a Royal Air Force Squadron Leader. To our amazement when the Americans boarded the ship they had no idea where they were going. Most seemed to think they were going to Iceland and when we told them Liverpool was our destination they could not believe it. We were asked where we picked up the convoy and when we told them we did not go in convoy this caused a great deal of consternation. All the troopships going back and forth between the UK and North America were too fast to be in convoys and fast zig zag runs were made across the Atlantic. It was very long odds against the likelihood of encountering a U Boat..
Having safely arrived in Liverpool our next temporary home was yet another ‘holding unit’.
[page break]
Chapter III. Flying Training Command.
This time it was the Grand Hotel in Harrogate overlooking the famous Valley Gardens.
The RAF had taken over both the Grand and Majestic Hotels. Sadly the Grand has now gone. I rcall our CO at the Grand was Squadron Leader L E G Ames the England cricketer. Time at Harrogate awaiting posting was filled by swimming, drill, the usual time filling lectures, etc. We did, of course, get what was known as disembarkation leave. I went home and whilst there my granddad, with whom I had always had a very close relationship, took ill and died at the age of 85 and I was very grateful that I had been able to talk to him and to attend the funeral.
Christmas was spent at Harrogate, there being a ban on service travel during the Christmas period. On, I believe, Boxing Day, Maxie Booth and myself were in Harrogate, fed up and far from home, when we were approached by a chap who asked if we were doing anything that night, to which we replied “No”. He then said he was having a small party at home that night and had two Air Ministry girls billeted wit6h his family and would we like to join them. We readily accepted and when we arrived at the party we found that one of the girls was Maxie’s cousin. Small world! Still at Harrogate on my birthday 2 February, now at the ripe old age of 20. My room mates contrived to get me very drunk. I will spare you the details.
After a short time we were posted to Kirkham, Lancs to yet another holding unit, for a couple of weeks and then onward to Penrhos, North Wales, 9(O) Advanced Flying Unit for bombing practice. We were using Ansons and 10lb practice bombs. In Canada the Ansons had hydraulic undercarriages but at Penrhos they were Mk1 Ansons and it was the Bombaimers job to wind up the undercarriage by hand. A hell
[page break]
of a lot of turns on the handle – not much fun.
Next move was to Llandwrog, Nr. Caernarvon for the Navigation part of the Course. Same aircraft flying on exercises mainly over the Irish Sea, N. Ireland, Isle of Man, etc. Llandwrog is now Caernarvon airport with an interesting small museum. [handwritten in margin] museum since closed [handwritten in margin]. Llandwrog was unusual in that the airfield and our living site were below sea level, a dyke between us and the Irish Sea. Because of this there was no piped water or drainage on our site and it was necessary to carry a ‘small pack’ and do our ablutions at the main domestic site which was above sea level. I, and a pal or two went into Caernarvon for a weekend in the Prince of Wales Hotel to get a bit of a civilised existence for a change. However our stay at Llandwrog was quite brief.
The 1st. March 1944 was very significant in that it marked the move from Flying Training Command to Bomber Command. 83 Operational Training Unit at Peplow in Shropshire. Never heard of Peplow? Neither had I, it is a few miles North of Wellington. [handwritten in margin] Peplow was formerly Childs Ercall – renamed to avoid conflict with High Ercall airfield, nearby, I understood. [handwritten in margin] We arrived by train at Peplow, in the dark, station ‘lit’ by semi blacked out gas lamps. Arriving at Peplow were Pilots, Navigators, Bombaimers, Wireless Operators and Gunners from different training establishments.
Somehow, the next day, we sorted ourselves out into crews of six, Pilot, Nav, Bombaimer, W/Op and two gunners and were ready to start the business of Operational flying as a bomber crew.. We had never met each other before but were to spend the next few months living together, flying together and relying on each other, and developing a unique comradeship..
Peplow was notable for several things. From our living site, the nearest Pub was five miles in any direction. Having twice walked in different directions to prove the
[page break]
mileage we quickly acquired pushbikes. At that time there were no sign posts. One night doing ‘circuits and bumps’ in a Wellington we were in the ’funnel’ on the approach to the runway, skipper put the flaps down and the aircraft started to make a turn to port which he could not control. He ordered me to pull up the flaps and he then regained control. We then climbed to a respectable height and skip asked me to lower the flaps. The same thing happened again, an uncontrollable turn to port and quickly losing height. Flaps pulled up and normal service resumed. Skip then got permission from Air Traffic to make a flapless landing which he managed without running out of runway. We taxied back to dispersal and on inspection found that when the flaps were lowered only the port side flaps came down. Apparently a tie rod between port and starboard must have come apart. Could have been nasty!
On a lighter note, when cycling back to camp from Wellington one night I had a problem with the lights on my bike and was stopped by P.C Plod and booked for riding a bike without lights. Fined 10 shillings.
Another incident clearly imprinted on my mind was one day in class we were being given a lecture on the dinghy radio. I had heard all about the dinghy radio so many times I could almost recite it. I was sitting on the back row in class and I put my head back against the wall and must have dropped off. Suddenly a piece of chalk hit the wall at the side of my head. I awoke with a start and the guy giving the lecture (A Flying Officer) said, “I suppose Sergeant, you know all about dinghy radio”. To which I foolishly replied “Yes Sir”. He then said “In that case you can come out and continue the lecture”. Even more foolishly I did.
When finished I was asked to stay behind to receive an almighty bollocking for being a smartarse.
Finally whilst at Peplow a young lady I met in Wellington gave me a red scarf for
[page break]
luck and after that my crew would never let me fly without it.
We were now getting down to the serious business of preparing for actual operations and on the 24.5.44 we were despatched on an actual operation which was known as a ‘nickel’ raid, leaflet dropping over France, a place called ‘Criel’. 4 hours 35 minutes airborne in a Wellington bomber.
[Where is chapter IV?]
Chapter V. No. 1 Group Bomber Command.
On the 26th. June we were on the move again, ever nearer to being on an operational Squadron in Bomber Command. This was to 1667 Conversion Unit at Sandtoft where we were to convert to four engine aircraft ‘Halifaxes’. These were Halifax II & V which were underpowered and notoriously unreliable and had been withdrawn from front line service. In fact Sandtoft was affectionately known as ‘Prangtoft’ because of the large number of flying accidents. One of my pals from Harrogate days, Harry Fryer, got the chop in a Halifax that crashed near Crowle.
So that I do not give any wrong ideas, let me say, the Halifax III with radial engines was a superb aircraft and equipped No. 4 Goup.
It was here at Sandtoft that we acquired the seventh member of our crew, a Flight Engineer, straight from RAF St. Athan and never having been airborne.
We obviously survived ‘Prangtoft’ and then moved on the 22 July to LFS (Lancaster Finishing School) at Hemswell, which supplied crews to No. 1 Group, Bomber Command, which was the largest main force group flying Lancasters. We were only two weeks at Hemswell, the sole object being to familiaise[sic] with the
[page break]
Queen of the skies, the LANCASTER. A beautiful aeroplane, very reliable, able to fly easily with two dead engines on one side, and to withstand considerable battle damage and still remain airborne.
Chapter VI. The Tour of Operations. 103 Squadron.
Now for the real thing. On the 10th August we joined 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds, in North Lincolnshire.
At this point I should like to introduce our crew:
P/O George Knott. Pilot & Skipper.
F/Sgt. Ron Archer. Navigator.
F/Sgt. Bill Bailey. Bombaimer.
F/Sgt. Gus Leigh. Wireless Opeator.
F/Sgt. Wally Williams. Flight Engineer.
F/Sgt. Jock Greig. Midupper Gunner.
F/Sgt. Paddy Anderson. Rear Gunner.
After a bit more training we eventually embarked on our first operation on the 29th,. August. I now propose to go through our complete tour of Operations as recorded in my flying log book and other documents.
Before doing that perhaps I should give an insight into Squadron procedure. We were accommodated in nissen huts on dispersed sites in the vicinity of the airfield, two Crews to a hut. The huts were sleeping quarters only and were heated by a solid fuel stove in the centre. Bloody cold in the bleak Lincolnshire winter. The messes were on the main domestic site. Every morning (provided there was no call out in the night)
[page break]
it was to the mess for breakfast, check if there was an Order of Battle and if you were on it. If not, we made our way to the flight offices and section leaders. I would go to the Bombing Leader’s office where we would review the previous operation and look at target photographs. Releasing the bombs over the target also activated a camera which took line overlap pictures from the release point to impact on the ground.. We would then return to the mess to await the next orders or perhaps take an aircraft on air test, although after ‘D’ day this practice was discontinued because the aircraft were kept bombed up in a state readiness. Temporarily at least Bomber Command was being used in a close support role to assist the Armies in France.
When a Battle Order was issued, the nominated crews assembled in the briefing room at the appointed time and when everyone was present the doors were closed and guarded. On a large wall map of Europe in front of us was a red tape snaking across the map from Base to the designated target. The length of the tape dictated the reaction of the assembled company.
Pilots, Navigators and Bombaimers did their pre-flight planning prepared maps and charts ready to go. Each crew member received a small white bag into which he emptied his pockets of everything. The seven bags were then put into one larger bag and handed to the intelligence office until our return. We, in turn, were given our ‘escape kits’ and flying rations. The escape kit was for use in the event of being shot down and trying to evade capture and return to England. We also carried passport size photographs which might enable resistance workers in occupied countries to get us fake identity documents. Phrase cards, compass, maps and currency notes were also included. The flying rations issued were mainly chocolate bars (very valuable at that time) also ‘wakey wakey pills’, caffeine tablets to be taken on the skipper’s orders. All ready to go. Collect parachutes, get into the crew buses and be ferried out to the
[page break]
Dispersals A visual check round the aircraft and then climb aboard. Start engines when ordered, close bomb doors, complete preflight checks and taxi to the end of the runway. The airfield controller’s cabin was located at the side of the runway and on a green lamp from him, open the throttles and roll. We were on our way. The Lancaster had an all up weight for take-off of 66000 lbs and needed the full runway, into wind, for a safe take-off. The maximum bomb load on a standard Lancaster was 7 tons but operating at maximum range the bomb load would be reduced to about 5 tons to accommodate a maximum fuel load.
On return from operations, after landing and returning to dispersal, shut down engines, climb down and await transport back to the briefing room for interrogation by intelligence officers. Hot drinks and tot of rum available and back to the mess for the customary egg, bacon and chips..
At this time were confined to camp because of the possibility of being of being[sic] called for short notice operations.
THE TOUR OF OPERATIONS.
No. 1 29.8.44 Target – STETTIN.
Checked Battle Order to find our crew allocated to PM-N.
Briefing for night attack on the Baltic Port of Stettin. Bomb load mainly incendieries.[sic] The route took us across the North Sea, over Northern Denmark, S.W. Sweden and then due South into the target, bomb and turn West to cross Denmark and the North Sea back to base. The force consisted of 402 Lancasters and 1 Mosquito of 1,3,6,& 8 Groups. It was a very successful attack and 23 Lancasters were lost. We suffered no damage from anti-aircraft fire and saw no fighters. Whilst crossing Sweden there was
[page break]
a certain amount of what was called friendly flak, shells bursting at about 10,000 ft whilst we were flying at 18000 ft
This was my first sight of a target and something I shall never forget, smoke, flames, bombbursts, searchlights, anti-aircraft fire. It was also very tiring having been airborne for 9 hours 25 minutes and flown some 2000 miles.
Used full quota of ‘wakey wakey’ pills.
No. 2. 31.8.44. Target .Flying Bomb launch site. AGENVILLE France.
Daylight attack, Master Bomber controlled This was one of several targets to be attacked in Northern France. Seemed like a piece of cake after the long trip to Stettin. Not so! We were briefed to bomb from 10,000 ft on the Master Bomber’s instructions. On approaching the target area there was 10/10 cloud and the call from the Master Bomber went like this: “Main Force – descent to 8,000ft and bomb on red TI’s (Target indicators). – no opposition” We descended to 8,000ft and immediately we broke cloud there were shells bursting around us, Fortunately dead ahead was the target and I called for bomb doors open and started the bombing run.. At the appropriate point I pressed the bomb release and nothing happened. A quick look revealed no lights on the bombing panel. Whilst I was checking the main fuse the rear gunner was calling “We are on fire Skip – there is smoke streaming past me” The ‘smoke’ proved to be hydraulic fluid which was vaporising. We climbed back into cloud and assessed the situation. Whilst in cloud we experienced severe icing and with the pitot head frozen we lost instruments which meant skip had no way of knowing the attitude[?] of the aircraft and for the one and only time in my flying career, we were ordered to prepare to abandon aircraft and I put on my parachute pack. However we emerged from cloud and normal service was resumed. We had no
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electrics, no hydraulics, bomb doors open and a full load of bombs still on board Skip decided to head for base via a North Sea designated dropping zone where I could jettison the bombs safely. This was accompanied by going back along the fuselage and using a highly technical piece of kit, a piece of wire with a hook on the end, pushing it down through a hole about each bomb carrier and tripping the release mechanism.
Having got rid of the bombs it was back to base, crossing the coast at a spot where we should not have been and risking being shot at by friendly Ack Ack gunners. We arrived back at base some one and a half hours late. Now for the tricky bit. The undercarriage, in the absence of hydraulic fluid, had to be blown down by compressed air. This was an emergency procedure and could only be tried once, a now or never situation. Now we have to make a flapless landing and hope that the landing gear is locked down and does not collapse when we land. Not being able to use flaps means the landing speed is greater than normal and then we have no brakes. Skip made a super landing but once on the runway could only throttle back and wait for the aircraft to roll to a stop. This it did right at the end of the runway.
On inspection after return to dispersal it appeared that a shell or shells had burst very near to the bomb bay and shrapnel had severed hydraulic pipes and electric cables in the bomb bay. I should think we were very close to having been blown to bits. This trip was a little bit sobering to say the least. The aircraft resembled a pepper pot but luckily no one was injured.
No. 3 3.9.44 Target Eindhoven Airfield, Holland. Daylight Operation.
Allocated to PM-X (N having been severely damaged on our last sortie)
A straight forward attack on the airfield, one of six airfields in Southern Holland
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attacked by.675 aircraft a mixture of 348 Lancasters and 315 Halifaxes and 12 Mosquitoes, all very successful raids and only one Halifax lost.
This was my first experience of the ‘Oboe’ target marking system now used by Pathfinders flying Mosquitoes.. A very accurate system – the markers were right in the middle of the runway intersections. Very impressive.
No.4 5.9.44. Target – Defensive positions around LE HAVRE.
Aircraft allocated PM-W. Bomb load 15,000 lbs High Explosives. Daylight operation.
This attack was in support of Canadian troops who were demanding the surrender of the German garrison. The first phase of Lancasters orbited the target awaiting the outcome. This was negative and the attack took place. In clear visibility our riming point was 2000 yards in front of the Canadian troops and the area around the aiming point was completely destroyed.
No.5 10.9.44 Target – LE HAVRE again. Daylight operation.
Aircraft allocated PM-E Bomb load 15000 lbs High Explosive. Daylight operation. 992 aircraft attacked 8 difference German strongpoints only yards in front of Canadian troops. All were bombed accurately. No aircraft were lost.
No.6 12.9.44. Target FRANKFURT. Night operation.
Aircraft allocated PM-G. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries.
This was an unusual operation in that we were one of several crews who were briefed to bomb 5 minutes ahead of main force, identifying the aiming point ourselves. The
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object was to occupy the defences whilst the pathfinders went in low to mark the aiming point for main force. Our route to target took us South into France, near Strasbourg and then a turn North East towards Frankfurt. Our navigator Ron at some point realised we were well off track because he was getting wrong positions due to distortion of the ‘Gee chain’, wither by jamming or almost out of range.
As well as being bombaimer I was also the H2S radar operator and so I switched this on to try to verify our position I managed to identify Mannheim on the screen and was then able, with Ron, to fix a course to the target. As we approached the target there were hundreds of searchlights but instead of combing the sky they were laid along the ground in the direction of our track. It took a few minutes to realise that what they were doing was putting a carpet of light on the ground so that any fighters above us would have us silhouetted against the light. Gunners be extra vigilant! I dropped the bombs and we headed for base without incident. Intelligence reports said it was a very successful attack.
No. 7 17.9.44 Target Ammunition Dump at THE HAGUE, Holland Daylight.
Aircraft allocated PM-B, Bomb load 15000lbs Gen. Purpose bombs.
This attack by 27 Lancasters of 103 Squadron only and was carried out without loss.
No. 8 24.9.44. Target CALAIS. Close support for the Army. Daylight.
Allocated aircraft PM-B Bomb load 15000 lbs GP Bombs.
103 & 576 Squadrons were chosen to attack this target, gun emplacements, at low level (2000 ft) in the interests of accuracy. The weather was atrocious, almost as soon as we got off the runway we were in cloud. However we set course for Calais flying
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at around 1000 ft so as to keep the ground in view. As we approached the Channel the cloud lifted a bit and we were able to climb to 2000 ft but as we approached the target the cloud base lowered again and we had to descend again to 1000 ft for the bombing run. A we approached the aiming point, I was lying in the nose and could see everything on the ground. And being in the best position to see what was going on. could see where I thought the worst of the anti-aircraft fire, and indeed small arms fire was coming from.. I therefore ‘suggested’ to skip that when I say “bombs gone” you put her over hard to port and get down on the deck. Bugger the target photograph, we’ll have a picture of the sky! George did this and where we would have been if we had gone straight on whilst the camera operated, were shell bursts. We got out of that unscathed. Of the 27 aircraft that started that attack, one was lost, 8 landed away with various degrees of battle damage and of the remainder only 3 aircraft returned to base undamaged. “B” was one of them. As Ron recorded in his notes “Oppositions – everything”.
No. 9 26.9.44. Target Gunsites at Cap Gris Nez Daylight.
Allocated aircraft PM-B Bomb load 15000 lbs GP Bombs.
This was a highly concentrated and successful attack with very little opposition. Obtained a very good aiming point photograph.
No. 10 27,9,44.
We were briefed to bomb in the Calais area again on 27th. Sept but this operation was aborted due to the bombsight being unserviceable.
This ended our operational career at 103 Squadron. Only two of our operations had been at night.
Ourselves and one other crew from ‘A’ flight were transferred to 166 Squadron at
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Kirmington, one of the three stations forming 13 Base, to form a new ‘A’ flight at 166.Squadron.
As a matter of interest, Kirmington is now South Humberside Airport. Before moving on to the next phase I should explain that operational aircrew were given six days leave every six weeks which will explain some of the gaps in the story.
Chapter VII. The Tour of Operations. 166 Squadron.
166 Squadron, Kirmington, Lincs.
When we arrived at Kirmington we were allocated a hut on a dispersed site in Brocklesby Wood, about as far as could be from the airfield. Primitive living arrangements, but not too far from the Sergeants Mess.
By now we were no longer confined to camp and “liberty buses” were run from camp to Grimsby and Scunthorpe. Most of us used to go to ‘Sunny Scunny’ where there was a cinema two well known pubs, The Bluebell and The Oswald, the latter became known as 1 Group Headquarters. This establishment had a large function room with a
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minutes after other aircraft had set course. We took part on second aiming point and catching up 20 minutes on round trip landed No.3 back at base.
No. 14 28.10.44 Target COLOGNE
Allocated aircraft AS-D Bomb Load 1 x 4000 lb Cookie plus incendiaries.
Daylight operation. 733 aircraft despatched to devastate residential areas in NW of the City There was heavy flak opposition and our aircraft suffered some minor damage A piece of shrapnel came through the Perspex dome in front of me whilst I was crouched over the bombsight It hit me on the shoulder on my parachute harness but did me no harm.
This was a very good operation as ordered.
No. 15 29.10.44. Target Gunsites at DOMBURG. Walcheren Island, Holland. Allocated aircraft AS-M Bomb Load 15000 lbs HE. Daylight attack. 6 aircraft from 166 squadron together with 19 others attacked 4 aiming points. All were accurately bombed. There was no opposition.
No. 16 30.10.44. Target COLOGNE, Night operation.
Allocated aircraft AS-K Bomb Load 1x4000lb Cookie plus 9000 lbs HE.
No. 1 Group was assigned to attack aiming point which was not successfully attacked on 28th. October. Over the target there was clear visibility, moderate flak opposition. This was considered to have been a very good attack.
It was on this operation, whilst we were on the bombing run an aircraft exploded ahead of us. At least I believe it was an aircraft although the Germans used a device which we called a “scarecrow”. This was a pyrotechnic device which exploded to
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simulate an exploding aircraft. Presumable meant to put the frighteners on us!
On the 31,.10.44 we were again briefed to attack Cologne but having climbed to operating height a crew check by the Skipper revealed that Paddy our rear gunner was unconscious in his turret. Gus, wireless op went back and pulled him from the turret and onto the rest bed in the centre of the aircraft. He fitted him up with a portable oxygen bottle and skip made the decision to abort and return to base where an ambulance was waiting to whisk paddy[sic] off to sick bay. Apparently the problem had been a trapped oxygen pipe in the turret. We had been airborne for 2hrs 15 mins.
To depart for the moment from the tour of operations, it was about this time when I developed at[sic] rash on my face which turned to a weeping eczema which meant that I could not shave and I had to report sick. The Doc took a look and said, “OK You’re grounded”. I replied “You can’t do that Doc, my crew will have to take a spare bombaimer and I shall have to complete my tour with other crews”. After pleading my case Doc agreed to allow me to continue flying provided each time before flying I reported to Sick Quarters and had a dressing put on my face so that I could wear my oxygen mask. The Doc was treating me with various creams which had little or no effect until one day the WAAF medical orderly who applied the treatment said to the Doc “Why don’t we try a starch poultice”. The Doc suggested that was an old wives remedy. However as nothing else had worked he agreed to let the Waaf[sic] give it a try. I know not where this young lady learned her skills because I gathered she was a hairdresser in civvie street, in Leicester, my home town. She applied the said poultice and the next day I reported back to sick quarters where she removed the poultice and whatever was clinging to it. I went back to our hut and very carefully shaved. The starch poultice had done the trick. I thought frostbite had probably caused the
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problem in the first place but I was to learn some months later the real cause which I shall reveal later in the story.
No. 17. 2.11.44. Target DUSSELDORF. Night operation.
Aircraft allocated AS-C. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie and 9000 lbs HE.
“C” Charlie was now to become our regular aircraft, for which we developed a great affection and a very special relationship with the ground crew.
992 aircraft attacked Dusseldorf of which 11 Halifaxes and 8 Lancasters were lost. It was a very heavy and concentrated attack with extensive damage and loss of life. This was the last major Bomber Command raid of the war on Dusseldorf.
At about his [this] time friendships were struck up. In my case I was returning from leave and whilst waiting for my train at Lincoln Station to Barnetby (where I had left my bike) I met a Waaf, also returning from leave and who was, surprise, surprise stationed at Kirmington. I asked how she was getting from Barnetby to Kirmington and she said she was walking. No prizes for guessing that she got back to Kirmington on the crossbar of my bike. (No it was not a ladies bike). We became good friends and she along with others, would be standing alongside the airfield controllers cabin at the end of the runway to wave us off on operations.
Also at about his [this] time George and Gus acquired friends from the Waaf personnel, one of whom was a telephonist and the other a R/T operator in the control tower. When returning from operations George would call up base as soon as he was able, to get instructions to join the circuit. First to call would get the 1000’ slot and first to land. The procedure then was to make a circuit of the airfield around the ‘drem’ system of lights, report on the downwind leg and again when turning into the funnels on the
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approach to the runway. We would then be given the OK to land or if there was a runway obstruction, go round again. I understand that word was passed to those who wished to know that “Knott’s crew were in the circuit.”
No. 18. 4.11.44. Target BOCHUM. Night operation.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load. 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 9000lbs HE.
749 aircraft attacked this target. Unusually Halifaxes of 4 Group slightly out numbered Lancasters. 23 Halifaxes and 5 Lancasters were lost. No. 346 (Free French) Squadron, based at Elvington, lost 5 out of its 16 Halifaxes on the raid. Severe damage was caused to the centre of Bochum, particularly the important steelworks.
This was the last major raid by Bomber Command on this target
It was about at this on return from an operation, I felt the need of a stimulant and so, instead of giving my tot of rum to Jock, I put it into my ovaltine, which curdled and I ended up with something resembling soup and a chastising from Jock for wasting ‘valuable rum’.
No. 19. 11.11.44. Target DORTMUND Oil Plant. Night operation.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load, 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 9000lb HE.
.209 Lancasters, all 1 Group, plus 19 Mosquitoes from 8 Group (Pathfinders) attacked this target. The aiming point was a synthetic oil plant. A local report confirmed that the plant was severely damaged. No aircraft were lost.
No. 20 21.11.44. Minelaying Operations in OSLO FJORD Norway.
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Aircraft AS-E. Bomb load 6 x 1800 lb Accoustic[sic] and Magnetic Mines.
Six Lancasters from 166 Squadron and 6 from 103 Squadron detailed to plant ‘vegetables’ in Oslo Fjord. AS-E to mine a channel half a mile wide, between an island and the mainland. This was to catch U Boats based in the harbour at MANNS. The attack was carried out at low level and required a very accurate bombing run.. It was a major sin to drop mines on land as they were classified Secret This was a highly successful operation with no opposition and no aircraft lost. Time airborne 6hrs 45mins
No. 21. 27.11.44. Target “FREIBURG” S.W. Germany. Night operation.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries.
Freiburg was not an industrial town and had not been bombed by the RAF before. However. No. 1 Group 341 Lancasters, which was maximum effort for the Group, plus 10 Mosquitoes from 8 Group, were called upon to support the French Army in the Strasbourg sector. It is believed the Freiburg was full of German troops. The target was accurately marked using the ‘OBOE’ technique from caravans based in France. 1900 tons of bombs were dropped on the target from 12000 ft in the space of 25 minutes. Casualties on the ground were extremely high. There was little opposition and only one aircraft was lost…
On this operation we carried a second pilot as a prelude to his first operation. He Was Charles Martin, a New Zealander and he and his crew were to claim “C” Charlie as their own when Knott’s crew had finished their tour. Martin’s wireless operator was Jim Wright, who now runs 166 Squadron Association and is the author of “On Wings of War”, the history of 166 Squadron.
This crew completed their tour on “C” Charlie and the aircraft survived the war.
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No. 22. 29.11.44. Target DORTMUND. Daylight operation,
“C” Charlie. 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 9000 lbs HE.
This was no ordinary operation, 294 Lancasters from 1 Group plus the usual quota of Mosquitoes from 8 Group. At briefing we were told that as Bomber Command had been venturing into Germany and particularly Happy Valley in daylight, and, unlike the Americans, had not been attacked by large numbers of fighters, there was concern that because of our techniques in Bomber Command, each aircraft making its own way to the target in the Bomber stream, we might be very vulnerable to fighter attack. We could not possibly adopt the American system of flying in mass formations and do some boffin somewhere had come up with the ‘brilliant’ idea that we should indulge in gaggle flying. No practice, mind, just – this what you do chaps – get on with it.. The idea was that 3 Lancasters would have their tail fins painted bright yellow and would be the leading ‘Vic’ formation. All other aircraft would take off, find another squadron aircraft and formate on it. Each pair would then pack in together behind the leading ‘vic’ and the lead Navigator would do the navigating with the rest of the force following. The route on the flight plan took us across Belgium crossed the Rhine between Duisburg and Dusseldorf then passing Wuppertal and North East into the target area. All went well until we were approaching the Rhine when the lead navigator realised we were two minutes early. It was important not to be early or we would arrive on target before the pathfinders had done their job. The technique for losing two minutes was to do a two minute ‘dog-leg’. When ordered by the lead nav, this involved doing a 45 degrees starboard turn, two minutes flying, 90 degree port turn, 2 minutes flying, 45 degree starboard turn and we were then back on track.
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Unfortunately the apex of the dog-leg took us directly over Dusseldorf, a town which was very heavily defended. All the flak in the world came up, especially among the three lead aircraft and suddenly there were Lancs going in all directions. I actually saw a collision between two aircraft which both spiralled earthwards. Once clear of this shambles we found we were now in the lead and so we continued to the target and there being no markers down, apparently due to bad weather, I followed standard instructions and bombed what I could see. We had suffered slight flak damage but nothing to affect “C” Charlies[sic] flying capabilities and we arrived back at base 5 hours 35 mins after take-off. Six Lancasters were lost.
This was our one and only experience of ‘gaggle flying’.
No. 23. 4.12.44. Target KARLSRUHE. Night operation.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries.
The railway marshalling yards were attacked by 535 aircraft. Marking and bombing were accurate and severe damage was caused. A machine tool factory was also destroyed. 1 Lancaster and 1 Mosquito were lost.
No. 24. 6.12.44. Target Synthetic Oil Plants “MERSEBERG LEUNA” Nr. Leipzig.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000 lb Cookie 6000 lbs mixed HE.
475 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitoes were called upon to destroy Germany’s largest synthetic oil plant following numerous ineffective raids by the U.S. Air Force. This was the first major attack on an oil target in Eastern Germany and was some 500 miles from the bomber bases in England. “C” Charlie and crew were detailed to support pathfinder force (We were now considered to be an experienced crew). This meant we were to attack six minutes before main force. Weather conditions were
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very poor and marking was scarce and it was thought the attack was not very effective. However, post raid photographs showed that considerable damage had been caused to the synthetic oil plant and it was later revealed that the plant manager reported that the attack put the plant out of action and the second attack on 14.1.45 was not really necessary. 5 Lancasters were lost.
No.25. 12.12.44. Target ESSEN. Night attack.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie 10000 lbs HE bombs.
This was the last heavy night raid on Essen by 540 aircraft of Bomber Command. Even the Germans paid tribute to the accuracy of the bomb pattern on this raid which was thanks to “OBOE” marking by pathfinder Mosquitoes.
6 Lancasters lost.
No. 26. 13.12.44. Target Seamining [?] KATTEGAT. Night operation.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load. 6 x 1800 lbs mines.
6 aircraft from 166 Squadron and 6 from 103 Squadron were detailed to lay mines in the Kattegat. This force took off in poor visibility but over the dropping zone the weather was good. On this occasion the mines were to be dropped using the blind bombing technique. I was to use the H2S radar which was a ground mapping radar. The dropping point was a bearing and distance from an identifiable point on the coast which gave a good return on the radar. On reaching the dropping point the pilot had to steer a pre-determined course and I had to release the mines at say, one minute intervals. The H2S screen was photographed so that the intelligence bods back at base could check that the mi8nes had been put down in the right place. In this case – spot on!! We then received a signal from base informing that the weather had
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clamped and we were diverted to Lossiemouth. We landed at Lossie having been airborne for 5 hrs 45 mins. At Lossie we were given beds and of course food, with the intention of returning to Kirmington the following morning.
The next morning we were given the Ok to return to Kirmington and went out to the aircraft. One engine failed to start and a faulty starter motor was diagnosed. A replacement was to be flown up from Kirmington. There we were dressed in flying kit with no money or toilet requisites and not knowing when the aircraft would be serviceable It certainly would not be today. We managed to secure a bit of cash from accounts and towels, etc from stores. That night Jock and I decided to go out on the town breaking all the rules about being out in public improperly dressed. However we got away with it. On the 17yth. “C” Charlie was serviceable and we were permitted to return to Kirmington. When we joined the circuit we could see Flying Fortresses on our dispersals having been diverted in the day before. The weather was certainly bad in the winter of 44/45.. The Americans crews allowed us to look over their Fortresses and we in turn invited them to look at our Lancaster. Their main interest centred on the Lancaster’s enormous bomb bay compared with their own.
21/12/44/ Seamining BALTIC Night operation.
Aircraft AS-H. Bomb load. 5 x 1800 lb mines.
This operation was aborted shortly after take-off due to the unserviceability of the H2S which was essential for the accurate laying of the mines. The visibility at base was very poor and we were given permission for one attempt at landing and if unsuccessful we were to divert to Carnaby in Yorkshire which was one of three diversion airfields with very long runways and overshoot facilities. We therefore
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jettisoned fuel to reduce the landing weight and made the approach. The airfield controller was firing white Very lights into the air over the end of the runway to guide us. We crept in over trees in Brocklesby Wood, trees which had claimed other Lancasters coming in too low, and made a perfect wheeled landing. It does not bear thinking about what would have happened if the undercarriage had collapsed, we were sitting on top of 9000 lbs of High Explosive. Good work skipper! Did not count as an operation.
The Squadron had a stand down at Christmas and on Christmas Day there was much merriment and a fair amount of booze put away and we went to bed a bit the worse for wear. It was therefore a bit upsetting to be got out of bed at 3am on Boxing Day morning, sent for an Ops meal and told to report for briefing at some unearthly hour. So to operation No. 27.
No. 27.. 26.12.44. Target “ST-VITH” Daylight operation.
Aircraft ‘B’. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie and 10000lbs HE.
“The Battle of the Bulge”, the German offensive in the Ardennes was in progress. A large force from Bomber Command was called upon to support the American 1st. Army trying to stem the German advances in the Ardennes. The attack was concentrated on the town of St. Vith where the Germans were unloading panzers to join the battle.
The whole of Lincolnshire was blanketed in fog with ground visibility of only a few yards. After briefing we went out to the aircraft, climbed aboard and waited for the time to start engines. Just before time there were white Very Cartridges fired from the
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control tower which indicated the operation was scrubbed. We returned to the mess and were given a new time to go out to the aircraft. Another flying meal.
We went out to the aircraft again and had a repeat performance. Third time lucky, we sat in the aircraft and although there was still dense fog, time came to start engines. This time no scrub. A marshall appeared in front of the aircraft with tow torches signalling us to start taxying and we were guided to the end of the runway. A glimmer of a green from the airfield controller and we turned onto the runway, lined up, set the gyro compass and we roared off down the runway at 1.15pm. Airborne and climbing we came out of the fog at about 200 ft and it was just like flying above cloud. We set course according to our flight plan and visibility across France and Belgium was first class. No cloud and snow on the ground. We did not really need navigation aids, I was able to map read all the way to the target. Approaching the target area there were a few anti aircraft shell bursts and it was apparent the Germans had advanced quite a long way. We bombed from 10000ft and the bombing was very concentrated and accurate. In fact it was reported that 80% of the attacking aircraft obtained aiming point photographs.
It was now time to concern ourselves with the return to Kirmington. The fog was still there and the only 1 Group airfield open was Binbrook, high up on the Lincolnshire Wolds, which stuck out of the fog like an island. The whole of 1 Group landed at Binbrook. There were Lancasters parked everywhere. Whilst we were in the circuit awaiting our turn to land, I was looking out of the window and noticed a hole in the wing between the two starboard engines. When we had landed and shut down the engines, we went to look at the hole. On top of the wing it was very neat but on the underside there was jagged aluminium hanging down around the hole. Obviously a shell had gone up and passed through the wing on its way down, without exploding.
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An airframe fitter looked at the damage and said the aircraft was grounded. This meant that after interrogation we were allowed to return to Kirmington by bus and proceed on leave.
Our next operation was not until 5.1.45 but some of us returned early from leave to attend a New Year party in the WAAF mess which was actually situated in Kirmington Village.
No.28. 5.1.45. Target HANOVER Night operation.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load. 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus incendiaries.
325 Aircraft of Nos. 1 and 5 Groups were briefed for the second of a two pronged attack on Hanover.
Nos. 4 and 6 Groups had bombed the target two hours earlier with bomb loads of mainly incendiaries. When we crossed the Dutch coast, the fires could be seem[sic] from at least 100 miles away. Our track took us towards Bremen and was meant to mislead the enemy into believing that was our target. However we did a starboard turn short of Bremen and ran into Hanover from the North. The target was well bombed and rail yards put out of action. I don’t know what we did right but “C” Charlie arrived back at base 4 minutes before anyone else.
No. 29. 6.1.45. Seamining. STETTIN Bay. Night operation.
Aircraft AS-D. Bomb Load 6 x 1500lb Mines.
Knott and crew started their third and final gardening trip (As seamining was known) 48 aircraft of Bomber Command were detailed to plant ‘vegetables’ in the entrance to Stettin Harbour and other local areas. The enemy was able to pick up the force 100 miles North East of Cromer because bad weather condition forced us to fly at 15000
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ft to the target instead of the usual 2000ft,. As a result of this early warning enemy fighters were waiting and the target area was well illuminated by fighter flares. It was believed that the enemy thought this was a major attack on Berlin developing. Knott and crew dropped their vegetables in the allotted area, securing a good H2S photograph and again returned to base first.
No. 30. 14.1.45. Target MERSEBERG LEUNA (Again) Night operation.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000 lb Cookie plus 5500 lbs HE.
200 Aircraft attacked this target to finish off the job started on 6th December. A very successful attack.
No. 31. 16.1.45. Target Oil refinery ZEITZ Nr. Leipzig.
“C” Charlie. Bomb load 1 x 4000lb Cookie plus 6000 lbs GP Bombs.
This was the one we had been waiting for, our last operation. We went into briefing and were told by the intelligence officer that although we were being briefed the operation might be cancelled because a large force of Amercan[sic] Fortresses and Liberators had been to the target earlier in the day and a photo recce Mosquito had gone out to photograph the target and assess the results. Before the end of briefing it was confirmed that that[sic] the Americans had missed and our operation was on. At 1720 on the 16th January we took off on this operation. Over the target there were hundreds of searchlights, the markers were in the right place and we completed our bombing run. The target was well ablaze and there were massive explosions. At one point Paddy called out “We’re coned skip” meaning we were caught by searchlights.
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It was briefly very light in the cabin but the light was caused, not by searchlights but by the explosions from the target.
Of the 328 Lancasters that attacked the target, 10 were lost.
When we returned to base all of our ground crew, including one guy who had returned early from leave, were there to welcome us and join in a little celebration.
George Knott was awarded an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross, said to be a crew award for completing a tour of operations.
All seven of us were posted from Kirmington, on indefinite leave to await our next assignments.
Apart from activities in the Officers and Sergeants Messes, and trips into Scunthorpe where the “Oswald” was the central drinking point, the main point of activity was the pub in Kirmington village. The “Marrow Bone & Cleaver” or the “Chopper” as it was known, was the meeting place for all ranks. The pub is now a shrine to the Squadron, there is a memorial in the village, lovingly cared for by the villagers’ and memorial plaques in the terminal building at Humberside Airport.
There is also a stained glass window in Kirmington Church.
I have mentioned our off base activities but, of course, a lot of time was spent in the Mess and the radio was our main contact with the outside world. I think the most popular program was the AFN (American Forces Network). They had a program which I believe was called the “dufflebag program”. Glen Miller and all the big [inserted in margin] this sentence needs a verb! [/inserted in margin] bands of the day. The song “I’ll walk alone” was very popular and was recorded by several singers. The British one was Anne Shelton, an American whose name escapes me and another American called Lily Ann Carroll (Not sure about the spelling of that name). This girl had a peculiar voice but it had something about it.
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Since the war I have not been able to find anyone who ever heard of her but I did hear the record placed on one of the archives programs on BBC, two or three years ago. If anyone knows of Lily Ann Carroll I would love to know.
I can’t remember where it was but on one occasion when we were out together as a crew, someone asked what the “B” meant on my brevet. Quick as a flash Paddy jumped in “It means Big Bill Bailey the bastard Bombaimer”.
The completion of our tour of operations was of special relief to Gus Leigh, our wireless operator who incidentally had a few weeks earlier had[sic] been commissioned as Pilot Officer. Gus was married and his wife Enid was pregnant and lived in Kent. George our skipper had relatives who lived near Thorne which was quite near to Sandtoft and not really too far from Elsham and Kirmington so it was arranged that Enid would come to stay with George’s relatives and Gus would be able to see her fairly regularly. As we approached the end of our tour you can appreciate the tension. I was to hear later that after we had left Kirmington, Enid had a son and then suffered a massive haemorrhage and died. What irony, a baby that so easily could have been fatherless was now motherless.
Before leaving the scene of operations, so to speak, I would like to clear up one or two points.
I have often been asked the question, were you frightened? I can only speak for myself and maybe my crew. I don’t think ‘frightened’ was the right word, apprehensive, maybe but except for a very few, I believe all aircrew believed in their own immortality. It was always going to be the other guy who got the chop, never yourself. Had this not been the case then we would never have got into a Lancaster.
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Ron Archer used to tell me he thought we were the luckiest crew in Bomber Command.
There were, of course, a very few aircrew who lost their nerve and refused to fly. All aircrew were volunteers and could not be compelled to fly but if that became the case then they would be sent LMF (Lack of moral fibre) and would lose their flying badge and be reduced to the ranks.
Much has been said and written in recent years about the activities of Bomber Command and in particular our Commander in Chief, “Bomber” Harris. I believed then, and still believe that what was done was right. I did not bomb Dresden, but had I been ordered to do so, I would not have given it a second thought.
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Chapter VIII. Lossiemouth.
I was at home in Wigston, Leicestershire and my 21st birthday, the 2nd February was fast approaching. Parents and friends were trying to organise a party, meagre rations, permitting. They need not have worried because I received instructions to proceed immediately to 20 OUT Lossiemouth, At 9.30 pm the eve of my birthday I caught a train from South Wigston station to Rugby and then onto a train bound for Scotland. I arrived at Lossiemouth at 11pm and following day. What a way to spend a 21st birthday!
The next day having completed arrival procedures I duly reported to the Bombing Leader for duty. At the same time I discovered that George Knott had also been posted to Lossiemouth as a screened pilot. I flew with him ocassionally[sic] when he needed some ballast in the rear turret when doing an air test.
The role of 20 OUT was to train Free French Aircrew, again flying Wellingtons and my job was to fly with them on bombing exercises to check that they were using correct procedures. I used to say, “Patter in English please”, which was alright until they got a bit excited and lapsed into French. Bombing took place on Kingston Bombing Range, on the coast East of Lossiemouth. One of my other jobs was to plot the bombs on a chart using co-ordinates given by observers at quadrant points on the
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range. These were phoned through to the bomb plotting office. The student bombaimer then came to the office to see the results of his aiming efforts. 10 lb smoke bo9mbs were used for daylight bombing and 10 lb flash bombs for night bombing. In the summer at Lossie, night flying was almost impossible due to the short night in those Northern parts. It was quite common to take off after sunset and then see the sun set again.
After a few weeks I was attached from 20 OUT to 91 Group Airbomber instructors school at Moreton in Marsh for 3 weeks before becoming an official instructor. I returned to 20 OUT and shortly afterwards was again sent off on a course, this time to the Bomber Command Analysis School at Worksop. Here I became an alleged expert on the Mark XIV Bomsight.[sic] This was a gyro stabilised bombsight [sic] which was a tactical bombsight [sic] rather than a precision bombsight.[sic] It consisted of a computor[sic] box and a sighting head and obtained information of airspeed, height, temperature and course from aircraft instruments plus one or two manual settings and converted this information into a sighting angle. The only piece of vital information to be added was the wind speed and direction which had to be calculated by the Navigator. The bombaimer was then able to do a bombing run without the necessity of flying straight and level.. It took account of climbing, a shallow dive and banking. The sequence of events when bombing was, when the bomb release (hereafter called the ‘tit’ [)]was pressed several things happened, the bombs started to be released in the order set on the automatic bomb distributor, so that they were dropped in a ‘stick’. The photoflash was released, the camera started to operate and as the bombs reached the point of impact almost immediately beneath the aircraft, the photographs were taken. Having used this equipment for the whole of my tour of operations I can vouch for its performance. The Americans had their much vaunted Norden and Sperry Bombsights [sic]
[page break]
which were claimed to be very accurate but required the aircraft to maintain a straight and level flight path for an unacceptable time against heavily defended targets. The Mk XIV was so good that the Americans adopted it for their own aircraft and called it the T1 Bombsight. Many T1’s were used by the RAF in lieu of the MkXIV. A matter of production I guess.
On my return from Worksop, with glowing reports from my two courses, the Bombing Leader said “OK Flight Sergeant you had better apply for a commission.” This I did and after going through all the procedures was commissioned in the rank of Pilot Officer (198592) on the 5th June, 1945.
Of course ‘VE’ Day took place on the 5th May after which it was only a matter of time before the OTU’s were run down and in the case of Lossiemouth this was to be sooner rather than later. The Wellingtons were all flown down to Hawarden in Cheshire for eventual disposal, I must record one tragic incident which happened whilst I was at Lossiemouth. One Sunday morning a Wellington took off on air test and lost an engine on take-off and the pilot was obviously trying to make a crash landing on the beach to the East of Seatown. He didn’t make it and crashed on top of a small block of maisonettes killing most of the inhabitants who were still in bed. A tragic accident!
The question now arose as to where next we would all go. We were given the option of being made redundant aircrew, going to another OTU or going back to an operational Squadron. My problem was solved for me, ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, ‘A’ Flight Commander, came into the plotting office and said “I’m going back on ops, I want a bombaimer”. Thus I joined his crew and other instructors made up a full crew with the exception of a flight engineer, all having done a first tour. Johnnie had to revert
[page break]
from his Squadron Leader rank to Flight Lieutenant. All the other members of the crew were officers.
Chapter IX Tiger Force.
On the 6th. July we went to 1654 Conversion Unit at Wigsley, were not wanted there and were sent to 1660 Conversion Unit at Swinderby. It was necessary to do a conversion course becaused[sic] Johnnie had done his first tour on Halifaxes and needed to convert to Lancasters. We also picked up a Flight Engineer who was actually a newly trained pilot, who had also done a flight engineers course, there now being a surplus of pilots. He happened to be a lad I knew from my ATC days.
We were now part of “Tiger Force” which was 5 Group renamed and we were to fly the Lancasters out to Okinawa to join in the attack on Japan. The Lancasters would shortly be replaced by the new Lincoln bombers which were bigger, more powerful and had a longer range.
We commenced our training, for my part I had to familiarise myself with ‘Loran’ which was a long range Gee for use in the Pacific. I did say earlier in the story that I would tell you about my ‘rash’. At Swinderby I had a recurrence and immediately reported sick. The Doc took a look at me and said “Oh! We know what that is, it is oxygen mask dermatitis, when you sweat your skin is allergic to rubber. We will make you a fabric mask. Problem solved. The new mask was not needed, however,
[page break]
because the war ended and with it my flying career.
VJ Day was a wild affair, In the “Halfway House” pub at Swinderby my brand new officer’s cap was filled with beer when I left it on a stool.
In a final salute to the mighty Lancaster, Swinderby had an open day to celebrate the end of the war and the Chief Flying Instructor, the second on three, the third on two and finally the fourth on one engine. What an aeroplane! What a pilot!
Chapter X The last chapter.
There followed a strange period. First to Acaster Malbis, nr York where all redundant Aircrew handed in their flying kit. Then to Blyton, Nr. Gainsborough where we were given a choice of alternative traded. Seldom did anyone get their first choice and I was chosen to become an Equipment Officer and after a brief spell at Wickenby was posted to the Equipment Officers School at RAF Bicester. A four week course and I was meant to be a fully qualified equipment officer. I was posted to Scampton but not needed there and so was posted on to RAF Cosford where I was put in charge of the technical stores. The Chief Equipment Officer was fairly elderly Wing Commander who took me under his wing and kept a fatherly eye on me. The Royal Air Force was beginning to return to peacetime status and Wingco[sic] warned me that it was probably not a good idea to fraternize with my ex Aircrew NCO’s in the “Shrewsbury Arms”. If you must, get on your bikes and go further afield, was his advice.
[page break]
One Monday morning I was called up to the WingCo’s office to be asked “Where is F/Sgt. Brown (Not his real name) this morning”. “I don’t know sir” I replied. “Well I will tell you” he said. “He is under arrest at Shifnal Police Station”
This particular ex Aircrew NCO lived in a village quite near to Cosford and had permission to ‘live out’. It transpired that almost everyone in his village had new curtains made from RAF bunting and quite a few people were wearing RAF or Waaf shoes. I was ordered to do a stock check on my section and for his part he was charged by the Civil Police and at Shifnal Magistrates Court received little more than a slap on the wrist. No doubt his war service stood him in good stead. Because he had been dealt with by the Civil Courts he could not be charged and Court Martialled by the RAF and all that happened was that he was posted away from Cosford and released early into civvie street.
At the time, lots of POW’s were passing through Cosford on their way from POW Camps in Europe to their homes.
Monthly “Dining In” nights were also resumed in the Officers Mess. Due to officers leaving the station or being demobbed, at every “Dining In” we were “Dining Out” those departing., always ending in a wild party. I remember one night which was extremely boisterous ending with Bar Rugby, footprints on the ceiling, the lot. I had better leave to the imagination how the footprints on the ceiling were achieved. That night I went to bed at about 3 am and when I went in to breakfast the following morning the mess was immaculate. The staff had obviously been up all night cleaning up.
On the 4th. November 1946 I received my final posting from Cosford to Headquarters Technical Training Command, at Brampton Nr. Huntingdon to be Unit Equipment
[page break]
Officer. The Headquarters Unit consisted of a Squadron Leader C.O., a Flight Lieutenant Accountant Officer, a Flight Lt. Equipment Officer and their staffs. I had a hairy old Sergeant Equipment Assistant who I believe was a regular airman and probably looked upon me as not a real Equipment Officer. However, his knowledge and experience were invaluable.
I enquired as to the whereabouts of my predecessor to be told that he had already gone having been posted abroad. There was, therefore, no handover of inventories. The next surprise was even greater, I was told that I also had RAF Kimbolton to finish closing down. I took myself to Kimbolton to find a ‘care and maintenance party’ of three airmen and one Waaf. Two were out on the airfield shooting rabbits and the other two were dealing with some paperwork. The entire camp had been almost cleared, barrack equipment to a storage/disposal site, fuel to other sites and/or the homes of the local population. Legend had it that a grand piano from the Sergeants Mess had gone astray. One day a Provost Squadron Leader came into my office and said: “Bailey, I want you to come with me to St. Neots Police Station to identify some rolls of linoleum which they have recovered from a farmer”. We went to St. Neots and a police sergeant showed us several rolls of obvious Air Ministry linoleum standing in a cell. I examined the rolls and could find no AM marks so I told the Provost that I could say the rolls ere exactly similar to AM Lino but I could not positively identify them as AM property. The provost told the police sergeant to give the lino back to the farmer. Heaven only knows how many houses had their floors covered in Air Ministry lino in the Kimbolton area. No doubt this sort of thing was happening all over the country. The politicians were so anxious to get servicemen back into civvies street that establishments were seriously undermanned.
When I, a mere Flying Officer, did the final paperwork for RAF Kimbolton I raised a
[page break]
write off document well in excess of £1 million at 1947 prices and this only involved equipment known to be missing.
With regard to Brampton itself, the winter of 46/47 was extremely severe with heavy snowfalls. Even the rail line between Huntingdon and Kettering was blocked. When the snow thawed there was severe flooding. One weekend I went home and returned to Camp on Sunday afternoon to find that the previous night there had been a severe storm with gale force winds and Brampton was a scene of devastation. Trees had been blown down crushing nissen huts. The camp was flooded and the sewage system was completely useless. The following morning I located a stock of portable loos (Thunder boxes so called). A four wheel drive vehicle was despatched through the flood waters surrounding Huntingdon, to RAF Upwood to collect these things. Things gradually returned to something like normal but it was a terrible time. The Officers Mess at Brampton was in the large house in Brampton Park and the Headquarters Staff from the C in C Technical Training Command down, were housed in Offices adjacent to Brampton Grange. There were far more senior officers at Brampton than junior officers because of the very nature of the place.
The PMC of the mess was a Group Captain and one day he came to me and said “Bailey, we are going to have a Dining In and I thought it would be nice if we could have some proper RAF crested crockery and cutlery”. I informed the PMC that these items were not on issue whereupon he suggested that I use my initiative.
It just so happened that whilst I was a[sic] Cosford I learned that in the Barrack Stores the very things I was being asked to get were in store, having been there throughout the War. I spoke with the Wing Commander, my former boss, who
agreed to release a quantity of crockery, etc. I informed the PMC of my success and he arranged for a De Havilland Rapide aircraft from our communications flight at nearby Wyton to take
[page break]
me to Cosford to collect the two heavy chests of crocks. I am sure the Rapide was overloaded on the flight back to Wyton but the mission was accomplished and the PMC was able to show off his ‘posh’ tableware at the next Dining In.
I was shortly to have to make a major decision, the date was fast approaching for my release back into civilian life, I had agreed to serve six months beyond my release date and had made an application for an extended service commission which would have kept me in the Royal Air Force for at least another six years. However my civilian employers became aware that I had done the extra six months and were not amused. I, despite having access to ‘P’ staff at Brampton could not get a decision from Air Ministry and I made the decision to leave the service.
On 1st. April, how significant a date, I headed off to Kirkham in Lancashire to collect my demob suit. A very sad day.
This is the end of the ‘dream’ but not quite the end of my love affair with the Royal Air Force. But that, as they say, is another story ……
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Two photographs in RAF uniform; one in 1942 aged 18 and the other in 1945 aged 21.
[page break]
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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Was it all a Dream
The memoirs of Wartime Bomb Aimer Bill Bailey
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Bailey's wartime memoirs, from enlistment, training in UK and Canada and detail of each of 31 operation in Bomber Command. After completion of his tour he was transferred to Lossiemouth to train Free French aircrew. After successful progress he was offered a commission. Later he trained for Tiger Force ops at RAF Wigsley and Swinderby. When the Force was cancelled he became an Equipment Officer at Bicester then Cosford, Brampton and Kimbolton.
Creator
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Bill Bailey
Format
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45 typewritten sheets and two b/w photographs
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Photograph
Identifier
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BBaileyJDBaileyJDv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
United States Army Air Force
Free French Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
England--Birmingham
England--Devon
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Yorkshire
France--Domléger-Longvillers
France--Ardennes
France--Calais
France--Cap Gris Nez
France--Le Havre
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leipzig
Manitoba--Carberry
Netherlands--Domburg
Netherlands--Eindhoven
New Brunswick--Moncton
Norway--Oslo
Nova Scotia--Halifax
Ontario--Hamilton
Ontario--Picton
Poland--Szczecin
Netherlands--Hague
France
Ontario
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Warwickshire
Manitoba
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1 Group
103 Squadron
166 Squadron
1660 HCU
1667 HCU
4 Group
5 Group
576 Squadron
8 Group
83 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
B-17
Bolingbroke
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
briefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
Gee
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
Lysander
Master Bomber
medical officer
memorial
mid-air collision
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Mosquito
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
promotion
RAF Acaster Malbis
RAF Bicester
RAF Binbrook
RAF Blyton
RAF Brampton
RAF Cosford
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Hawarden
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kimbolton
RAF Kirmington
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Paignton
RAF Penrhos
RAF Peplow
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Scampton
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
RAF Worksop
RAF Wyton
Scarecrow
searchlight
superstition
Tiger force
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/566/8834/PEvansE1602.1.jpg
70edd28e823fd9b3701eb02ab8fcb037
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/566/8834/AEvansE160331.1.mp3
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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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Evans, Eric
E Evans
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Evans, E
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-31
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Eric Evans (1923 - 2017, 2211558 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 463 Squadron but also served as a Captain in the Royal Tank Regiment. Also includes a letter from prisoner of war senior British Officer to Russian authorities.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Evans catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright, I am interviewing with Sergeant Eric Evans of 463 Squadron, who served in the RAF, initially as sergeant, then warrant officer and finished as captain in the Royal Tank Regiment. It’s taking place at his home in Liverpool on Thursday the 31st of March 2016 at 10.30. So, would you like me to call you Eric or Mr Evans?
EE: Eric.
BW: Eric. If err, you wouldn’t mind just starting us off please Eric, could you confirm your service number and your date of birth please?
EE: The 31st of the first 1923 and my service number was double two, double one, double five, eight.
BW: OK, thank you. And you were born in Liverpool, is that right?
EE: I was.
BW: And, along with your parents, did you have any other brothers and sisters?
EE: I had two brothers.
BW: Ok. And how was it in your early life growing up? What was your family life like?
EE: It was very pleasant. A good middle-class family.
BW: A good middle class family.
EE: My father was a major in the Army.
BW: Right.
EE: My two brothers were err, both commissioned, one in the Navy and one in the, one in aircrew.
BW: Right, and were you the middle brother?
EE: I was the youngest.
BW: The youngest.
EE: I was sixteen when the war broke out.
BW: And you had a brother in the Navy. Was he the elder or the middle?
EE: The elder.
BW: The eldest brother was in the Navy, and so, your next eldest would have been in the RAF. Did he go straight in as an officer or did he go in —
EE: He went on training, to Canada.
BW: I see.
EE: And he flew as a navigator.
BW: Right. And what happened to him —
EE: He just got through the war.
BW: He came through OK?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And, at that time it was common for people to leave school at fourteen. Is that what happened to you?
EE: No, I stayed at school until I was sixteen. I went to a private school.
BW: I see.
EE: We were all privately educated.
BW: All privately educated, right. And whereabouts did you go to school?
EE: Quarrybank
BW: I see.
EE: A local school.
BW: And what was it like there? Was it pretty strict or was it a good school?
EE: It was a good school. I didn’t like school very much it was very strict but it was a good school.
BW: And then, when you were sixteen, you say the war broke out.
EE: That’s right. My father arranged for me to do an apprenticeship. He got me a position as an indentured apprentice marine engineer.
BW: An indentured apprentice marine engineer. I see.
EE: Yes.
BW: I see.
EE: With a fee of fifty pounds.
BW: And whereabouts was that? That must have been in Liverpool as well?
EE: In the docks.
BW: Right.
EE: Liverpool docks. It was a firm called Grace and Rollo and Clover Docks Limited.
BW: Grace and -
EE: Rollo
BW: Rollo
EE: And Clover Docks.
BW: And Clover Docks. I see.
EE: Limited.
BW: Right, and how long were you there? A year or two or less?
EE: A couple of years, and then I tried to get in the Army but I couldn’t get out because I was in a reserved occupation.
BW: I see.
EE: So, eventually they announced, if you joined aircrew, you could, you could leave.
BW: All right.
EE: So, I joined.
BW: (laughs).
EE: I joined aircrew.
BW: And what drew you to the RAF? Why them and, obviously, you said —
EE: Well, it was the only one I could get into –
BW: Yeah, I see, of course.
EE: The Army wouldn’t take me.
BW: Yeah.
EE: I joined the Army twice.
BW: Any you didn’t fancy the Navy?
EE: Well, I couldn’t get in the Navy.
BW: Same, same rule applied? They wouldn’t take you from a reserved occupation?
EE: Only aircrew.
BW: And, did you err, intend to fly or did you —
EE: I intended to fly, of course, there again, I could only go into a flying branch —
BW: Right
EE: Or they wouldn’t release me.
BW: So, if you had wanted to go in as a fitter or mechanic, you, you—
EE: No, I couldn’t have done.
BW: I see, so it sounds a pretty important job you had at, in the Docks.
EE: Well, they considered it to be so.
BW: What sort of things were you doing there as a —
EE: I was just an apprenticeship, with ship repair. We did the, we did the Campbeltown, the one that did the dockade at St Nazaire.
BW: Yeah.
EE: We worked on the Campbletown.
BW: Right, and was that re-fitting the Cambletown for that raid, or —
EE: Yeah.
BW: Really?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And was the purpose of fitting Campbletown out at the time known to you, or was it just given to you as a —
EE: No, we didn’t know. It was just filled with concrete all the bows were filled up with concrete.
BW: Right.
EE: [unclear].
BW: So, were you involved in filling the bows with concrete or —?
EE: No, no.
BW: It was just part of the fitting.
EE: It was part of the fitting.
BW: Right and so, when the raid took place on St Nazaire, that must have been, I’m assuming the only time you knew that was what the purpose of that ship was?
EE: She was an ex American destroyer.
BW: Right, that’s fascinating. So, when did you join the RAF?
EE: Err 1943.
BW: Ok. When about was it roughly?
EE: I don’t know.
BW: Okay. That’s all right, there’s no, we don’t need an exact date. All right, so, we’ve just had a look at your RAF service and release book and it confirms your date of service from 13th September 1943 to the 5th February 1947.
EE: I joined six months before that —
BW: You joined six months before?
EE: I waited six months to get in.
BW: I see.
EE: I went to Padgate for all my exams.
BW: So, you did your exams at Padgate, and that’s at Warrington, that’s one of the recruitment centres, isn’t it?
EE: That’s right.
BW: Err.
EE: Six months before.
BW: Right, and once you’d done your basic training, where did you then go?
EE: I went to err oh, [pause] from Padgate to Bridgnorth.
BW: Bridgnorth.
EE: And then I did all my square bashing at Bridgnorth.
BW: Right.
EE: And then I went to um Yorkshire, Bridlington.
BW: Bridlington.
EE: And I went from Bridlington to err, gunnery school in Northern Ireland. Bishops Court.
BW: Bishops?
EE: Bishops Court.
BW: Bishops Court in Northern Ireland was a gunnery school. I see.
EE: We went from gunnery school to [pause] —
BW: And this is your log book we’re looking at now?
EE: Yeah, [pause]. Let’s see, start on my log book.
BW: OK.
EE: It was gunnery school, a continuation of gunnery school.
BW: And so, this starts in January 7th of January 1944, and you’re flying Ansons at this time.
EE: That’s right. That’s at gunnery school at Bishops Court.
BW: Uh-huh.
EE: And you turn over.
BW: This is just details, the number of rounds that you fired in practice on, on targets.
EE: That’s right.
BW: I see, and that confirms you flying twenty-one hours and ten minutes at 12 Air Gunnery School, Bishops Court.
EE: What’s this?
BW: And then a move to 14 OTU Bosworth.
EE: That’s it. And Wellingtons.
BW: Flying Wellington mark tens. This is April ‘44, so this is very nearly err, seventy-two years, almost seventy-two years to the day actually, since you started —
EE: Yes.
BW: How did you find flying in Ansons and target practice compared to flying in Wellingtons?
EE: It was all right. It was just normal [indistinct] you just gave, you just took what they gave you.
BW: And were you given much instruction about the arms, the guns that you were firing?
EE: Oh yes. [unclear] blindfold and all that kind of thing.
BW: Right. You had to take them apart in a certain time and do it blindfold.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And how did you find that? Was it—
EE: It was easy enough.
BW: Ok. And what was your, I mean, these detail your different sorties, how did you find your um, accuracy on the guns?
EE: Reasonable. I think I was average.
BW: Mm-hmm.
EE: I didn’t expect to be more than average. But err, you just went out and did what you had to do, to the best of your ability.
BW: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm So, looking at this you’ve had, you were flying pretty much every day almost, maybe the odd day or two in between and that lasted up until May, the end of May ‘44. But there’s a mark here, where you’ve got bullseye.
EE: Yeah. [pause] That’s it.
BW: I see. And some of these are marked on duty as cine, is that right so were they filming you, is, that right?
EE: We had cine instead of bullets —
BW: I see —
EE: They had cine film on. I think err, what kind of aircraft, oh no [unclear].
BW: I see
EE: We used to fly against Spits and things —
BW: And this was what they called fighter affiliation then —
EE: That’s right.
BW: So, the Spitfires would be flying dummy attacks —
EE: That’s right, and we would film them.
BW: There’s a description here, fifteen minutes, I think that will be fighter affiliation, infra-red, what does that entail?
EE: I don’t know, don’t remember, oh night time, night time I think.
BW: Right.
EE: End of 14 OTU. Operations Unit.
BW: So, same type of aircraft here now. This is the 8th of May ‘44 err, where you have moved to 14 OTU at Market Harborough —
EE: Yeah.
BW: Still flying Wellingtons, and [pause] it’s a mix of live ammunition and cine film. Were the bombers flying straight and level or were they taking part in manoeuvres?
EE: Oh no, they were doing corkscrews and things. All the manoeuvres one would normally do.
BW: And so, while the pilot is putting the aircraft into a corkscrew manoeuvre, you are still having to fire at a —
EE: That’s right
BW: At a target approaching.
EE: Yes.
BW: And I’m looking here there’s about the same time, equal time, spent day and night.
EE: Yeah. [pause].
BW: I see. And then from there, you had presumably a couple of months leave between May and July. This is when your heavy conversion unit training starts.
EE: Yeah, Stirling, horrible aircraft.
BW: What didn’t you like about the Stirling?
EE: Big and ugly. Big, awkward thing.
BW: Some crew found it quite spacious, did you -
EE: Too big.
BW: Too big?
EE: it was like a bus.
BW: [laughs]. Did it feel like it handled like a bus?
EE: Yeah, didn’t like the Stirling at all. Never felt safe in the Stirling.
BW: And that was simply because of the amount of space around you?
EE: Just a big ugly —
BW: Right
EE: Big ugly thing.
BW: And so, you’ve done between the 14th of July 44 and the 11th of August ‘44 at 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit at Wigsley, you’ve done um, best part probably of six weeks training thereabouts, maybe a month’s training?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And, were you, um, placed as a rear gunner or in different positions?
EE: A rear gunner the whole time. Never changed, or I wouldn’t, stayed as, never took any other position.
BW: And is that a role that you asked for, to be a rear gunner?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And was your preference for that? What drew you to that?
EE: I dunno.
BW: And then, moving on from err, the conversion unit, this is Number Five LFS,
EE: Lancaster Flying School.
BW: Lancaster Flying School, at Syerston in Nottinghamshire, and 27th of August 1944, this presumably was your first flight in a Lancaster?
EE: Yeah.
BW: How did that feel after being in Stirlings and Wellingtons?
EE: Good, but they were all clapped out old aircraft. They lost ten percent of all crews in training. Ten percent, it’s outrageous.
BW: Right.
EE: Because they were all clapped out old aircraft.
BW: Gosh.
EE: They weren’t fit for squadron use.
BW: And, did you know any guys on your courses who were lost as a result of —
EE: Oh yes, I don’t remember their names now.
BW: But there were guys who —
EE: Oh yes, ten percent.
BW: Right
EE: One out of every ten.
BW: Mm. So, you’ve not long, really, you’ve probably, only literally a few days, maybe a week at a Lancaster School thereabouts, and then you join —
EE: 463 Squadron.
BW: 463 Squadron, RAAF at Waddington. How did it feel to finally get on your squadron?
EE: Well, it was, what it was all building up towards. It was quite a, quite a do. First trip was to France.
BW: And do you recall what the target was in France?
EE: Yes, troop concentrations, it’s written down.
DW: Ah ha
EE: It’s written down there
BW: And then same again, troop concentrations around Boulogne? And this is after the invasion.
EE: Yes.
BW: Was there a sense of having missed out on what they call the big show, the invasion?
EE: No, it wasn’t a big show for the RAF. We did all the bombing for it. For the Legions of Honour. For those two trips.
BW: I see, so because you took part in raids over France, you became eligible for the Legion D’Honneur.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And did you take up the offer from the French government for that?
EE: I’ve taken it up, but I’ve not heard from them yet.
BW: I see.
EE: Very long winded.
BW: Well, I hope it comes through soon. There’s a note in your book here and it looks like you were flying in the group captain, group captain’s Lancaster, Group Captain—
EE: Bonham-Carter
BW: Bonham-Carter, over Germany?
EE: Yeah, right.
BW: And then a note about Guy Gibson.
EE: Well, he was missing. He [unclear]. He went missing on that trip.
BW: And what was he fulfilling?
EE: Master bomber.
BW: Master Bomber?
EE: Yes.
BW: Did you hear anything about what happened to him?
EE: No, they kept it quiet for about three weeks.
BW: I think he was killed in a Mosquito.
EE: He was. I’ve been to his grave.
BW: Have you?
EE: Yeah, in Holland.
BW: Presumably you never met Guy Gibson, just heard of him.
EE: No, I never met him.
BW: What was the err, I suppose the legend about him, how was it at the time—
EE: Nobody liked him.
BW: Nobody liked him?
EE: No, he was an arrogant bugger.
BW: And then, from October ’44, you are flying still Lancasters with 463. You had a regular aircraft it looks like, Q —
EE: Yes, you eventually got your own. Queenie.
BW: Queenie?
EE: That’s right.
BW: And do you recall the names of your other crewmen?
EE: Oh yes.
BW: There was a chap called Sunderland.
EE: Yeah, he was my pal.
BW: Was he?
EE: The navigator, Stanley.
BW: There was a Stanley Harding.
EE: He was a mid-upper.
BW: And —
EE: He was killed.
BW: Now your mate Sunderland, what was his first name?
EE: Cecil.
BW: Cecil? And so, Cecil Sunderland is navigator, Stanley Harding is the mid-upper, and, there was a chap called Lynch.
EE: We were pals.
BW: What was his first name, can you recall?
EE: Joe.
BW: Joe?
EE: Yeah.
BW: His first initial was a C but he must have gone —
EE: C J Lynch.
BW: And your bomb aimer was a chap called Rogers.
EE: Was a chap called?
BW: Rogers.
EE: Yes, that’s right.
BW: Do you recall his first name? It was R C Rogers, couldn’t -
EE: Can’t recall it.
BW: No problem. The flight engineer was Sergeant Haywood.
EE: Yes.
BW: And what was his first name.
EE: Don’t know.
BW: And there was a chap, he was an Aussie, the wireless operator called Woolmer.
EE: Eric.
BW: Eric. So, there were two Erics on your crew.
EE: I saved his life.
BW: Say again?
EE: I saved his life, I got him out.
BW: Really.
EE: It was in the write up. You read the write up.
BW: I ’ll ask you about that in a little while, um, do you recall any particularly memorable raids out of this lot?
EE: Yes, this one. That one.
BW: This is to Nuremburg.
EE: I could never have done that again. I’d have gone LMF I think.
BW: And, what was it that you particularly recall about that raid?
EE: Well, we flew in to a mile squared of predicted flak. A mile square of predicted, imagine what that was like.
BW: A mile square of predicted flak. So, it’s -
EE: We had to fly though that to get to the target. It was impossible, but we got through.
BW: And so, you could see, the rest of the crew could see this? You were obviously in the rear turret.
EE: We cut all our Perspex out. We cut all ours out, from the top to the bottom so there was better sight.
BW: I am just going to temporarily pause the recording because there is some background noise.
BW: So, were you briefed about this particular flak hazard at Nuremburg, did you know about it beforehand.
EE: No. They told us very little about this kind of thing. They didn’t tell us about the upward firing guns.
BW: Schräge Musik
EE: Never told us. There was a plane shot down in 1943 with complete, seventy-degree guns fitted, they didn’t tell us about it.
BW: And, in terms of um, general preparation for a raid, just talk us through what, what would happen, from the base, from your point of view. You would attend a, a briefing about a raid, what, what sort of things went on? How did you —
EE: Well, there were maps all over the wall. Loads of maps, you knew where you were going, and you just prepared for wherever it was [laughs]. Everybody moaned.
BW: So, were there particular trips that everybody moaned about, particular targets that were notorious?
EE: All the Ruhr targets. My three COs were killed on the one I was shot down on. Three COs killed there.
BW: On the same raid?
EE: Different raids.
BW: Different raids, but same target?
EE: Yes. Most heavily defended target in Germany.
BW: Gosh. And why was that? What was significant about —
EE: Dortmund-Ems Canal.
BW: I see. You obviously knew your crew pretty well. How did you get to meet them? How did you crew up in the first place?
EE: Just in the hall. Just crewed up. Found the pilot and found the navigator and we just crewed up.
BW: Just got talking and liked the look of each other. There were only a couple of Aussies on your crew and yet it was an Australian squadron.
EE: We were lucky. Best squadron of them all. No bullshit whatsoever. Superb squadron. Had the biggest losses of the war, my squadron.
BW: I read that, yeah, the Australians and your particular squadron had the highest loss rate, probably because you had such heavy targets to go against.
EE: Well, that’s it. We were 5 Group, which was one of the top groups. All the dirty work was done by us.
BW: All the dirty work was done by 5 Group. Did they have a reputation amongst the air force separate from the other groups?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And what was that?
EE: They were a bit gung-ho.
BW: And was that, do you think, because of the mix of I don’t know, let’s say, colonial crew and squadrons —
EE: I don’t know, I don’t know why.
BW: What sort of preparations would you make before actually getting on board the aircraft and taking off? What, what kind of things would you do? Were there any mascots that you took, or rituals you had as a crew?
EE: No, no. Just got on board and got on with it.
BW: So, you weren’t a superstitious bunch at all?
EE: No. Not that I knew of. I didn’t take anything.
BW: And did you socialise as a crew on base as well?
EE: Oh, always. I used to go out with my navigator.
BW: And so, whereabouts did you go into?
EE: Into Lincoln. All the pubs in Lincoln.
BW: And what was that like? Were you treated well in the pubs?
EE: Yeah, except in Yorkshire. They didn’t like us in York.
BW: And why was that?
EE: I don’t know [unclear].
BW: Mm.
EE: But Lincoln was a stinking place.
BW: Did you meet any of them before you joined the squadron, or did you meet the all at —
EE: Met them all there, met them when, when we became a crew.
BW: And what was your pilot, Joe, like?
EE: Nice fellow. He was a year younger than I was, he was only twenty.
BW: You were all young and Stanley was only nineteen at the time as well. So, you were all in your late teens, early twenties.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And what were you wearing as a rear gunner? There were electrically heated suits, did you have one?
EE: Yeah. It was a silk suit, on your sort of skin and then underwear and a pullover and pants, and a denim overall, and an electric suit. The electric suits were useless. Used to short out and you’d get a red-hot leg and a cold one. Bloody useless. They never checked.
BW: And how did you find your position in the, a rear turret of the Lancaster? They said they were made to get in to and not out of. Was it fairly cramped?
EE: Yes, yeah. Very cramped, but there was space to do everything, except if you get a bad stoppage.
BW: And did that ever happen?
EE: Yeah. I had a separated case.
BW: And how did you manage to clear the guns when you had the stoppage?
EE: Well, you couldn’t, just isolate it. Stop the feed.
BW: And the guns you were using at the time were the 303s, is that right?
EE: 303’s, they were just being converted to the point fives when they got shot down.
BW: Did you ever get the chance to use your guns in anger?
EE: Yeah, I shot down a 110.
BW: Really.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Talk us through that. What happened?
EE: Well, he suddenly appeared about a hundred yards behind me. I say I shot him down, but I don’t know if I ever did, how can you tell at night? Anyway, he got a full, full load in the face. I got two that night, I hit two that night. I don’t know how many, I don’t know what happened to them. I never claimed them.
BW: That’s interesting, that you managed to hit two separate aircraft and didn’t claim them. Why did you not go through the —
EE: Well, how could I claim them, I just fired at them.
BW: So, they didn’t go down in flames but they stopped their attack.
EE: I don’t know, they could’ve done, you don’t wait around, do you?
BW: No.
EE: They’re both down there [pause], Brunswick.
BW: Okay, op number eight over Brunswick. Two fighters, so actually on the same raid —
EE: Yeah. One, I’m certain I got him. He was only about a hundred yards behind me. Hit him full on. I could see the pilot.
BW: And, that’s a really close range for them to, to be attacking you. They’ve obviously come in to a very short distance before attacking, were there —
EE: They didn’t realise. One night we were flying along a fighter between our tail plane. Flying along with us. Main partner tail plane, we suddenly looked and we both peeled off.
BW: And so, because it’s at night, even, even so it was very difficult, so you were lucky in that case that you didn’t have a mid-air collision.
EE: Yeah.
BW: With a fighter between your tail plane [laughs]. Were there any other raids that were particularly eventful or memorable? For you.
EE: All the Ruhr raids.
BW: All of them on the Ruhr?
EE: And when we got lost.
BW: Wilhelmshaven?
EE: We went to Bremerhaven by ourselves and then turned back and went to Wilhelmshaven by ourselves. Nearly got sent to Sheffield. You know about Sheffield, do you?
BW: Not in detail, tell me about —
EE: You don’t know Sheffield?
BW: I know of the city but —
EE: Nobody seemed to know about Sheffield. It was a punishment camp for aircrew.
BW: I see.
EE: An RAF punishment camp.
BW: And this, presumably, was a result of you flying to um Bremen, instead of Wilhelmshaven, but you didn’t drop your bombs on the —
EE: We did eventually.
BW: But only on Wilhelmshaven.
EE: No, we were going to Wilhelmshaven but we went to Bremerhaven.
BW: Bremerhaven.
EE: We turned around, we saw the fires so we turned back. Went to Wilhelmshaven and dropped them.
BW: And, as a result of that, you were then sent to Sheffield which was a punishment —
EE: We weren’t sent —
BW: I see.
EE: We were threatened with it.
BW: You were threatened with the punishment camp?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And would that have applied to all the crew? Or just —
EE: The whole crew.
BW: Gosh.
EE: People don’t know about Sheffield. It was, it was, an Army camp like a glass house. You got about a couple of weeks or a couple of months of strict discipline, then sent back to the squadron. But the Argies wouldn’t stand any of that nonsense. They had their own, no Argie was ever punished by the British.
BW: I read somewhere that they were paid by their own government, not by the British.
EE: They got twice the pay that we got.
BW: So, did your pilot buy the rounds in the pub [laughs].
EE: No [laughs].
BW: [Pause]. And then, on your last mission, this was November 6th, 1944, and this was significant for a couple of reasons. Clearly this was going to be your last trip in a Lancaster, but you mentioned as well that you saved the wireless operators life, and there is a description in the book, or the memoir that you have put together. Would you just talk us through what happened on that, on that night?
EE: It’s all written up there, yeah.
BW: So, this is fairly early on. This is a target at the Dortmund-Ems canal system at Gravenhorst, and then you were hit by a night fighter, and this was just as you were on target, and it says that you were flying straight and level with a bomb load of fourteen, one thousand-pound bombs of high explosive, and the impact was just behind, your, your turret.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And so, can you describe what was happening at that particular point, did you see the fighter?
EE: No, he was underneath. He was way, far away, he would be under, under the main bar.
BW: And so, you didn’t see the fighter because it came underneath, behind your turret, and —
EE: We didn’t start firing until they were seventy degrees, so if you took an aircraft and you were firing here, and I was here — [background noise].
BW: OK. I’m just going to pause the recording for a moment briefly, partly ‘cos of background noise but just to have a quick look through the description too. So, there are bullets coming through the fuselage behind you, and your turret is partly rotated to the beam position you said. Can you describe what you recall next?
EE: We were trying to get out through one door, with the seat back, I got out and didn’t touch the sides, went out like a ‘rat up a spout’, into the fuselage and found the wireless operator. The mid upper came down and he told us to grab the—
BW: And the mid upper got hit in the second attack by the —
EE: Yeah, cut him in two, right through the middle we stepped over to the osam position. Obviously, they had all gone on the first attack, apparently everybody had gone. I don’t blame them for going, we were still there.
BW: I’m just going to pause this one moment, we’ll just continue, there was some background noise. And at this point in the raid, you said there were a number of others that had already got out and you didn’t blame them. There was you and the wireless operator left in the aircraft, is that right?
EE: And the mid upper.
BW: And the mid upper? And you describe in your account how you got him out, with the aid of a foot in the back?
EE: Yeah. I got him on the step. He passed out on the floor and I dragged him to the step and kicked him out, a hand and a leg over the step and pushed him out. I never told him.
BW: He survived the bail out, but he was unconscious when you pushed him out.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Was the aircraft still straight and level or was it going down gently?
EE: I don’t remember, she was going down. Then suddenly she banked and caught me. I got trapped.
BW: And you were pinned against the fuselage by the seat by G force.
EE: That’s right, he’d gone.
BW: And there was nobody else in the aircraft at this point.
EE: I was the last one. Had a minute and a half to go according to records, before she hit the deck.
BW: And so, the aircraft is in a steep dive, your pinned to the roof of the fuselage—
EE: Right opposite, I could see the door below me.
BW: And, at a critical point, the aircraft banked—
EE: She banked, let go of me and away I went. Hit the tail plane going down [laughs].
BW: And at that point, the aircraft banked, did you go straight through the door, or did you have to crawl to it and get out?
EE: I don’t know. I don’t remember. And then I hit the tail plane.
BW: And you were lucky, in the sense that you had a seat pack parachute —
EE: Yeah.
BW: Most gunners, fitted their chute to the side of the aircraft.
EE: Yeah
BW: Did you have choice to have a seat pack?
EE: No. Just issue. Very lucky, been lucky all my life. Very lucky man.
BW: And it saved your life in that respect.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And, the hit against the tail plane didn’t knock you out. Did it injure you?
EE: No, I hit it with my back. I remember I was crouched up, and I straightened me up and skidded over the top of it, and after that I don’t remember much.
BW: You managed to pull the chute.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Did you see any of the other crew in their chutes?
EE: No, no.
BW: There were two other aircraft lost on that raid, that same night.
EE: Four altogether.
BW: Four altogether?
EE: We were the only ones that survived.
BW: So, the others went down and the crews were all killed?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And, were you given an order to bail out by the pilot?
EE: No, no, they’d gone.
BW: So, there was no order, they sensed the attack because of the bullets hitting the aircraft and they just took their own decision to go.
EE: Yeah. They may have got an order to go, but I didn’t get one. They probably did, I don’t know.
BW: Do you know roughly what height it was when you bailed out?
EE: No. No idea.
BW: How long do you think you were in the chute before you landed?
EE: No idea. I can’t remember now, too long ago. Not very long [pause].
BW: You then landed on your backside, it says here.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And I think you had another lucky escape, where you landed.
EE: I did.
BW: Just, can you explain why that was?
EE: Just sheer luck. Sheer good luck.
BW: Were there sharpened spikes in the field?
EE: Yeah, they had trees sharpened, planted in the field.
BW: Trees, planted in the field, that were sharpened, specifically to stop guys like you landing there.
EE: Yeah [laughs].
BW: And, out of all of that, you missed all of them.
EE: Yeah [laughs].
BW: So, you’re now down, and safe, in the sense that you have survived, but you are in Germany.
EE: Yeah.
BW: What did you do next?
EE: Started looking for somewhere to hide.
BW: And, you describe here that you started to run, but you ended up in a bog.
EE: Yeah, lost me boots.
BW: Both boots?
EE: One boot.
BW: One boot. And, you tried to shelter in a, in a wood.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Can you recall, how it felt at this point?
EE: I didn’t believe I was in Germany. I just hoped I was somewhere else, but obviously was in Germany, but you just hope against hope you’re not.
BW: Did you find any of the escape kit that you were given useful?
EE: Oh, yes, I ate the Horlicks tablet and the chocolate.
BW: And, at this point, you were on your own, you didn’t run into any of the other crewmen.
EE: No.
BW: And you were trying to avoid Germans and dogs.
EE: Yeah [laughs].
BW: And you ended up by a jet fighter base?
EE: Yeah.
BW: What was going through your mind at this point, do you think?
EE: To get away from the jet fighter base as quick as possible.
BW: And shortly after that you were —
EE: I’d been attacked by a jet over [unclear], 262’s, over Brunswick.
BW: Over Brunswick?
EE: Yeah, over Brunswick.
BW: And was that a daylight raid at the time?
EE: No, night.
BW: Night?
EE: It was over Bremen, Bremen. Five fighters [pause]. Went to Bergen in Norway as well.
BW: So, there’s a possibility, perhaps, that when those five fighters had intercepted you at night, and those jets that you had seen attacking you —
EE: Yeah.
BW: Possibly were from that base that you were now sat in front of.
EE: Yeah.
BW: What prompted your decision to approach a farmhouse?
EE: Well, I had been three days out, absolutely soaked, would have died of the cold, never stopped raining. So, I had to approach somebody, I would have died of exposure otherwise.
BW: Can you recall the moment that you knocked on the door?
EE: Yes, old lady came to the door and an old guy, they were obviously the mother and father of the farmer. I saw a picture of Hitler on the wall. I knew they were German and that was it.
BW: And how did they treat you?
EE: Okay. They were a bit frightened of me. They were worried about me, as one would be.
BW: Were you able to communicate with them at all?
EE: No. I said I was an Englishfleger
BW: You said simply that you were an Englishfleger
EE: That’s right.
BW: And from your account, they must have called somebody who then came to arrest you.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Can you talk us through that period?
EE: Well, this guy, this fella came through in a very resplendent uniform, he was a forest warden. And err, he took me off to the pub, dragged me through the wood, which I’ve since then I’ve followed my route, I’ve been back to Germany. Followed my route, and he dragged me through the woods and then he took me in to the pub to show me off to his pals, and then the Luftwaffe came for me.
BW: And were you still in the pub when the Luftwaffe turned up?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And what happened?
EE: Well, they put me in a cell and then eventually I finished up on the Dortmund, on one of the canals.
BW: So, were you imprisoned at this, at this point?
EE: Not really. It was a guard house.
BW: It was a guard house by the canal?
EE: That’s right.
BW: That you actually been attacking near the canal, you said it was the Dortmund-elms canal.
EE: I don’t think it was the Dortmund.
BW: Was it not? And you mentioned that there was an American pilot brought in.
EE: No, he was already in there.
BW: He was already there.
EE: Yeah, all his face was bandaged and his hand.
BW: And an American thunderbolt pilot joined you as well.
EE: Yeah, he was okay, he wasn’t injured at all. He would just curse.
BW: How did he take to being captured?
EE: Very badly, very badly [laughs].
BW: And then you were taken by train to Frankfurt —
EE: To Oberusal and to Dulagluft.
BW: And put straight in an air raid shelter, ‘cos there was an air raid going on.
EE: Yeah.
BW: What did that feel like, being under an allied air raid, that only a few days before you would have been —
EE: Whilst I was in, I was bombed by the Americans, the Russians, the British and the Germans during my full-time service.
BW: So, at this stage then, you are in Dulagluft and you have been ordered to fill out information, and it seems they weren’t quite convinced you were RAF, is that right?
EE: Well, they always do this [unclear], tried to frighten you.
BW: Did it work?
EE: Yeah.
BW: There were um, rules about information you were able to give —
EE: Name, rank and number.
BW: And how effective were those rules do you think.
EE: God, I just told them my name rank and number, that’s it.
BW: And you weren’t mistreated because of holding to that?
EE: No.
BW: But you were put in a cell with a radiator at the end of it —
EE: That’s right.
BW: That, that was turned hot and then cold.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Seems pretty grim.
EE: Wasn’t too bad. There was a lot worse.
BW: ‘cause you had met people who had been injured —
EE: Yeah.
BW: And then been captured.
EE: Yeah
BW: And the food was not much to go by, was it?
EE: Oh God, no.
BW: Can you describe what they fed you?
EE: Yeah, two pieces of black bread and some watery soup, that was it.
BW: And this was very thin bread.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And nothing to look forward to there for a meal each day? And somebody lent you a book while you were in there.
EE: Yes, the fellow opposite. They opened the door and this bloke pushed a book across, it was Zane Gray, western.
BW: Zane Gray, western. Did the guard do anything, did they see it?
EE: They didn’t notice, just the door opened and he pushed it across.
BW: And was that the first contact you’d had with anybody?
EE: Yeah. Anybody from England. I don’t know who the guy was.
BW: And how did it feel? Did it give you a bit of hope knowing there was some others in there?
EE: Well, I suppose so.
BW: At, at this point, you snuck a shave when you shouldn’t have done apparently.
EE: Yeah [laughs], I went down the [unclear], waved my book and he sent me down to the library at the end, saw these, these blokes shaving so I joined them, and had a good wash and shave.
BW: And apparently having a wash and a shave was only a privilege not a —
EE: You had to, had to chat with them.
BW: And the colonel who was in charge of holding you, was not very impressed with that was he?
EE: He wasn’t. He went berserk.
BW: And then then there’s an interesting incident here, where a German officer told you that you were going to be shipped out to a POW camp, asked you to swear an oath that you would not escape.
EE: Yeah, he got shouted down and that, it was a stupid thing to say to us.
BW: And were you all taken out and lined up at this point?
EE: We were in a group, in a big room.
BW: And am I right in thinking that this was must have been the first time you had seen all the other prisoners together?
EE: Oh yeah, Americans and British and Canadians, Aussies and everybody, all mixed up.
BW: How did it feel, being, you know, in a larger group of your —
EE: Very impressed, hearing English spoken again.
BW: You were then taken by train and packed into trucks um, and then during the trip, you stopped at some marshalling yards at Ham. What happened there?
EE: We got bombed by the Americans.
BW: Your guards deserted you, didn’t they?
EE: Oh yes, they locked the carriage and buggered off.
BW: And so. You’re all trapped in the railway carts while —
EE: And they were all jumping off the bloody rails. The damn thing was jumping off.
BW: Because of the concussion of the explosion?
EE: Yeah.
BW: So eventually, after the best part of a week, five days and six nights you say here, you arrived at Stalagluft 7 —
EE: That’s it.
BW: At Bankau, and you managed to get some boots and a great coat.
EE: A polish hat. A new American great coat, new boots, and a Polish hat and that was it, oh, and a pipe.
BW: A pipe as well? And you’ve still got it.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And this looks just like a regular pipe but it’s got the inscription —
EE: I put that on, carved it with a razor blade.
BW: And you carved an air gunners brevet, into the bulb of the pipe, with 463 squadron on it.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Do you still smoke it?
EE: No.
BW: Did you still smoke it after you came out of service?
EE: No.
BW: Just kept it as a souvenir?
EE: Yeah
BW: It’s wonderful. And how did you manage to find boots that fit you?
EE: Well, they, they made sure they fitted. We got underwear as well, we got underwear and socks and things.
BW: So, the Germans issued you this or was it —.
EE: Oh, yes, it was all American.
BW: Was there any indication where they got it from?
EE: The Americans. Obviously, it was all American, new American army. Boots saved my bloody life.
BW: So, you were issued with underwear, socks, shirts, towels, comb, toothbrush, razor, razor blades and the pipe which you’ve shown that you still have, and this that your showing —
EE: A dog tag.
BW: Is a dog tag, which is about two inch long by one-inch wide, and it’s numbered one, two, four, zero, and German initials, which presumably are standing for Krieg —
EE: Fangelager.
BW: Kriegsgefangenenlager. D —
EE: Number seven.
BW: D dot, LW, dot number seven. And it’s inscribed top and bottom —
EE: I broke it in half. If you died, they broke it in half and buried one half with you and the other went to records.
BW: I see. So, there’s, there’s a hole in each corner, apart from one, and there are serrations in the middle, and so the inscription is top and bottom of this and, as you say, is used if the prisoner happens to die, then they separate the two halves and send one half back and bury the other with you. Fortunately, they never had to use that.
EE: No, now here’s my —
BW: And, now this is your Caterpillar Club card. Name, Flight Sergeant E Evans. Am I right in thinking that you had to return your chute handle to get one of those?
EE: No.
BW: No?
EE: [Unclear] as a squadron, says here. Letter’s in here.
BW: Okay, and a bit of luck I suppose, in the sense that you arrived at your prison camp just before Christmas.
EE: [Laughs] yeah.
BW: You describe getting Red Cross parcels.
EE: Yeah, the only one we ever got.
BW: And was that, do you think, because the Germans were intercepting them, or they were just no —
EE: Well, when we left, we left ten thousand in a place nearby, ten thousand parcels we should have had.
BW: And it sounds as though, from what you’re saying, that the Germans kept them and just used them for themselves and didn’t distribute them [Pause]. And there was a brew made for Christmas with raisins and prunes.
EE: I don’t know who made it. Some of the old lags.
BW: And it sounds pretty potent.
EE: [Laughs], it was, make you go blind.
BW: How would you describe life in the prison camp at that point?
EE: Boring.
BW: What did you do to relieve the boredom?
EE: Nothing. Nothing, bloody boring. Just walked round and round and round the perimeter by the trip wire.
BW: When you mention the trip wire, what springs to mind perhaps, is a scene in the Great Escape where there’s sort of a trip wire in front of the fence, was it accurate what they portrayed?
EE: Yeah, you just didn’t go over the trip wire. Got shot by the guards. One fella did get shot.
BW: And do you think that was because he’d had enough or was he trying to escape or —
EE: He’d had enough.
BW: And by this stage the war is coming to a close. We know this retrospectively, but at this time —
EE: Well, there was another six months to go.
BW: And the Russians were advancing.
EE: Through the Vistula. Always the Vistula. We were jammed between the Russians and the Oder and the Vistula. We were trapped in the middle, so they had to get us over the Oder before the Russians got us.
BW: And just describe, if you can, that period where, where, the Germans decide to evacuate the camp.
EE: Well, what can you do? You’ve got to go, you’ve no choice.
BW: Did they tell you what was happening?
EE: No. We thought we were going to be shot. We thought they were going to take us to us a wood somewhere and shoot us.
BW: Did they order you out of the huts in to the —
EE: Yeah, in to the main compound. Told us we would be leaving in half an hour. The previous night we had been bombed by the Russians, the camp was bombed.
BW: Were there any hits in the camp or was it just around —
EE: No. No.
BW: And, so, you start walking, and you mentioned previously that it was about a three-week trip. Can you describe the conditions with the sort of weather or the terrain or —
EE: Well, it was the worst weather for fifty years in Germany. Twenty below and we were living out. They were rushing to get us over the Oder before they blew the bridges. We were the last people over the Oder, they blew the bridges after we got over.
BW: And you joined a long line of columns, you mentioned people fleeing the Russians.
EE: They didn’t get over the Oder. They were turned left, just turned the off and then blew the bridges. We were the last people over the Oder.
BW: So you were given preference over the civilians to cross the river.
EE: Well, they wanted to get us away from the Russians. Civilians, they didn’t give a damn about them.
BW: And you pitched up at a brick works and it seems like a bit of black humour here, where there was German aircraft attacking and —
EE: Yeah. We saw the columns, and we used to look up and [laughs] there were black crosses on them and they were one of ours.
BW: By this stage you were saying, ‘it’s one of ours’, and on the 8th of Feb you arrived at StalagLuft 3-A Luckenwalde near Potsdam, and the Germans were looking for volunteers, is that right, to join their forces?
EE: No, that was previous, that was at the first camp.
BW: Oh, I see.
EE: Oh, at Luckenwalde, that’s right, they were. They were, that’s right yes [unclear]. I’d forgotten.
BW: And there were Russian prisoners there too, but they were badly treated.
EE: Yeah, different compound. There were thirty thousand when we camped.
BW: And again, harsh conditions in that there was no bunk or beds to sleep on, just straw, and no food as such, no medicine.
EE: And they brought the prisoners in from the Ardennes, the Americans came in and they had new accommodation for them, put them under canvas. There’s a picture of them in here [taps].
BW: Let’s have look. There’s a picture in the scrap book that you’ve got [pause].
EE: They’re there.
BW: I see, so these are large, I suppose, marquee style tents —
EE: Yeah.
BW: There would be several dozen to a tent. And the pictures show prisoners just sat around on the ground around fires, trying to keep warm and cook food. There looks to be clothes hung on the fence as well on the —
EE: Yeah.
BW: Where did you get the photograph from?
EE: A bloke took them, and he, I gave him my address and he sent them to me after the war.
BW: There’s a photograph of a football match going on too.
EE: Yeah [laughs].
BW: And a picture of Russian soldiers. And I think you describe, when the Russians turned up, that Zhukov’s forces were pretty professional and disciplined.
EE: Oh, they were, it was all the ‘rag, tag and bobtail’ that came in afterwards. They wanted to jump on the tanks and go to Berlin with them. We were the last camp to be liberated and we were passaged to Berlin, about twenty miles away. We just had to ‘bugger off’.
BW: And so they left you for their err, second line, or reserve forces to pick up.
EE: Yeah.
BW: But you felt they were much more poorly disciplined.
EE: They were just ‘rag, tag and bobtail’. No rations. No official rations.
BW: And then there’s a letter here, ‘senior British officer communicating the following in writing to the Russian authorities today the 7th of May’ —
EE: We were held hostage for a month by the Russians, that’s why I escaped.
BW: And so, the Russians took over the camp, and, and this is at the point that Zhukov had arrived and you stood right beside —.
EE: Marshall Zhukov.
BW: What, what, did he look like, can you describe him?
EE: Not really, one of the guys had trouble firing his gun, so he jumped down and fired it for him.
BW: So, the firing of the gun was presumably to, was it to keep people back or was it just a celebration?
EE: No, it was a firing of the salute to the [unclear].
BW: I see. Were you able to communicate in any way, with the Russians at all?
EE: No. they were savages.
BW: And was that through their temperaments or their —
EE: They were peasants.
BW: So, these weren’t the professional soldiers that you’d seen, these were the ‘rag, tag’ ones you mentioned.
EE: Yeah, millions of them.
BW: And, on the 21sth of April 1945, there was a battle nearby, and you were watching dog fights between American Air Cobras, Russian Yaks, and Stormaviks, a German fighter. That sounds quite a melee, completely disorganised.
EE: [laughs] Yeah.
BW: And you were lucky not to be hit by the shell fire and tanks, and fighters strafing the camp.
EE: Well, the bombers were coming over at night as well. They were dropping on Berlin. There was a short fall of twenty mile [unclear], so we used to dig in. I was a month late getting home from Germany, I was held by the Russians.
BW: And what was, what was happening during that time?
EE: Well, they were just ignoring the fact that we were prisoners of war.
BW: And the point you mentioned, the Russian troops were trying to persuade you to join them, you refused and they fired over your head.
EE: Well, that was when we were, the Americans sent the trucks to enter the camp.
BW: And it was at this point or thereabouts, that you, and a Canadian and two other Brits decided to make a run for it.
EE: We did. Let ourselves out of the camp, and took off. The most dangerous thing I ever did. Stupid really. We just got fed up being amongst the, we thought we were going back home through Russia, God knows what would have happened then, I would never have been seen again.
BW: So, it was a real fear that you were going to be held properly captive by the Russians —
EE: Oh yeah.
BW: Not just temporarily.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And you picked up err, or rather, you describe a man coming towards you on a bike, it turns out he was a British soldier.
EE: Yeah. He’s still in Germany, took over a farm [laughs].
BW: And he met a girl and was quite keen on living in Germany still.
EE: Yeah. There were a few of them.
BW: And then, trying to cross the river Mulde, you were at a ferry point and a sort of KGB type officer appeared and persuaded the ferryman to take you across.
EE: Yeah [unclear] we were just wondering whether to throw him in the water, the German, we had no need to.
BW: You ended up in an abandoned inn and met some Russians there, who insisted on feeding you, and, plying you with beer.
EE: Schnapps, schnapps, there was no beer.
BW: Just schnapps. The atmosphere seems to have changed a lot.
EE: Well, they were just Russian troops, they were quite friendly [laughs]. Told them we were American.
BW: And, so, these must have been the regular professional soldiers perhaps?
EE: Well, I don’t know [unclear].
BW: And what was the town major like that you met?
EE: Well, she was ok, a woman, a middle aged, sort of, no, late thirties I would say.
BW: And she had a few grenades with her, didn’t she?
EE: A belt full of ammunition. A belt with grenades, very fearsome looking.
BW: A fearsome looking woman with a belt full of grenades.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And this is pretty close to the full end of the war now and you are um, moved on, and given bicycles, and you met a young German girl. What happened there?
EE: Yeah. Well, she was obviously going to be raped by the Russians, so we took her with us, took her to the Russian, err, American lines. Got her through in the American sector. Very lucky, you couldn’t get, once you got to the Americans, the Russian wouldn’t let anybody across, people, one fella swam and got drowned, trying to get across. We just walked across with our bicycle.
BW: There was no bridge at this point I think you said, because—
EE: The bridge was down.
BW: And so, when you say “walk across”, what —
EE: We climbed up, rope ladder —
BW: And were there remnants of the bridge, perhaps rails or whatever —
EE: It was just collapsed. Huge iron bridge, huge metal bridge.
BW: And so, you clambered across the steel structure across the river, is that right?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And, even though you had to push through the, or pass, the guards at this point, from your description, is that right?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And you weren’t stopped. So, you managed to get this girl across —
EE: They didn’t stop us, threw her bike in the air and we were on our way. Someone took a film of it, an American took a film of it so somewhere there’s a film of it.
BW: And what sort of welcome did you get on the other side?
EE: Oh, wonderful. Food and drink and cigarettes, as much as you want.
BW: And how did the girl feel when she got across?
EE: Well, we handed her over to the Americans, they took her to a DP Camp.
BW: A displaced person’s camp, a DP camp.
EE: Yeah, and she was safe.
BW: And so, you, you were obviously well treated by the Americans —
EE: Oh, very well.
BW: Well stocked, and then you flew out of Germany on Dakotas, landed in Brussels you say, and you were talking with an old soldier, but what was your view?
EE: I want to get home, as quick as possible. He was left for weeks, you’d get ten pounds a day.
BW: And you just wanted to get home.
EE: Wanted to get home.
BW: How did you manage that?
EE: Well, just queued up the next morning, shouted my name, and away I went.
BW: And you, you arrived back by Dakota into the UK.
EE: Yeah.
BW: How did that feel after all that you had been through?
EE: Can’t remember now, felt good obviously.
BW: And, so, you’re, you’re back in the UK, what, what happened from that point up to being demobbed?
EE: I wasn’t demobbed then.
BW: Not at that point, but between arriving back in the UK —
EE: I took over prison camps. I ran prison camps.
BW: And, so, you had a long leave and returned to run two camps for German POW’s, one at Woodvale which is not that far from here, near Southport and the second one was a maintenance unit at Bramcote in Warwickshire.
EE: That’s right.
BW: You mentioned before, and it says here that you joined afterwards the 40th Kings Royal Tank Regiment and served for six years as a troop commander.
EE: Yeah.
BW: What, what led you to join the Army at that point?
EE: Because of the rotten treatment I had from the RAF.
BW: And —
EE: All my thanks were, a couple of weeks before I left the RAF, I was stripped down to a sergeant.
BW: Really?
EE: Yeah, and that was my thanks.
BW: And what was that for?
EE: Oh, God knows.
BW: So, you’d been through all that, and been a, I think you were a flight sergeant, you weren’t commissioned during your service, were you?
EE: No.
BW: So, you had been a senior NCO and promoted up to warrant officer, and then the thanks you got from the RAF, as you put it, was to be then stripped down to sergeant.
EE: That was it, no thanks.
BW: And they didn’t give you a reason for that?
EE: No.
BW: Understandably, that must have been pretty galling.
EE: It was. Of course, it was only a couple of weeks before I left the service, so I was a warrant officer for about a year. Best rank in the service.
BW: And what, what gives you the view of it being the best rank do you have?
EE: Well, you’re neither “fish nor fowl”.
BW: [Laughs].
EE: All aircrew should have been commissioned. It would have given us better rights under the Geneva Convention and a decent pension in the very likely event of your demise on ops. We were all doing the same job. Do you know seventy five percent, twenty five percent of air crew were commissioned, seventy five percent weren’t? Of the gallantry medals, seventy five percent went to the commissioned, twenty five percent went to us. Seventy five percent. That’s how fair it was.
BW: And in general, the rule was that, the reason airmen were given the rank of sergeant when the joined aircrew, was to at least guarantee them better treatment as prisoners.
EE: Yeah, but we were all doing the same job. Why commissioned?
BW: Yeah, and there were even, on your crew, there was a mix, one of them, I think the pilot, was a flying officer, and the rest were all NCO’s weren’t they?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And the rule has changed in the post war years, that all aircrew now have to be —
EE: That’s not the rule.
BW: Have to be officers.
EE: I have something else to write.
BW: So, you decided to join the Army.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Did you experience a better appreciation of you as an individual in the Army?
EE: Yeah, yeah. The Army was an established service with proper ranks. Proper rules and regulations, good background.
BW: And you didn’t have to go through any other training, did you? Apart from trade training as a tank commander.
EE: I went to the War Office Selection Board to enlist.
BW: And they put you forward and you became —
EE: To be a lieutenant, and then a captain, a substantive captain.
BW: And where were you based during that time?
EE: Bootle, near here, it was a TA regiment.
BW: At Bootle?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And how did you find the um, your colleagues, your Army mates, how were they? Officers’ final dinner. This is a —
EE: Well, we were disbanded.
BW: Right. Monty’s Foxhounds, your troops called. What sort of tanks did you use? Lieutenant E Evans yeah? Presentation of the colour on the 11th of April 1954, this is a sort of service, an order of parade document. Did Montgomery, as Commandant of the regiment, did he attend this parade at all?
EE: No. Err, Err, Lord Whatsername did it. Can’t think of his name, a Liverpool man.
BW: Just pause the recording there for the background noise. I say, I’m looking here for the official who attended the parade when you were at Bootle. Presentation of the colours.
EE: We had to learn sword drill for this.
BW: You had to learn how to salute with a sword, there’s a way of doing it isn’t there?
EE: Yeah, the new colours.
BW: Uh- huh.
EE: Can’t think who it was.
BW: And what do you recall of your time with the troop? Was it all home service? You weren’t sent abroad anywhere?
EE: No, we used to go to camps every year, firing camps and tactical camps. It was good, Comets and Centurions.
BW: Comets and Centurions.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And did you enjoy that?
EE: Great, yeah, I would still have been there but they disbanded that regiment. That was the final dinner.
BW: Hmmm. And what happened after you then left the Army in 1956?
EE: I was working for my father, in his business. I was a sales manager.
BW: You were working for your father, and what was his business?
EE: A motor business.
BW: I see, selling motor cars?
EE: Yes, and a workshop. Quite a big business actually.
BW: And how long did you stick at that?
EE: About ten years. Then we fell out and I started my own company. Had four businesses, I finished up with four.
BW: Right. And what were they?
EE: [Unclear], ship repair business, hydraulic business and workshop, machine shop.
BW: Right, that’s quite a broad base of business to have. Four business in com, in pretty different sectors, so, and you had all those four companies, for twenty, thirty years maybe?
EE: Yeah.
BW: And through all that time, you were presumably married, there’s a lot of family photos in your house.
EE: Yeah, three girls.
BW: Three girls?
EE: My wife died about ten years ago.
BW: Uh-huh.
EE: All three daughters are still alive. I’ve got nine great grandchildren now.
BW: (laughs) And do you see them regularly?
EE: Oh yes, my daughter will be here very shortly.
BW: So, how have you err, heard about the commemorations of Bomber Command, and what do you think of the activities to now try and restore a bit of err, pride or honour to Bomber Command?
EE: Well, the RAF ignored them after the war. Totally. He and Churchill, they turned their backs on us. No doubt about that, everybody said ‘shouldn’t you mention Bomber Command’ and they all came up with the bloody target in Germany. I was very sick of it.
BW: How do you feel about the recent recognition in —
EE: Well, it’s about time, fifty-five thousand of us died. Biggest loss of the war.
BW: Mm.
EE: Much bigger than the first world war even.
BW: And its err, at least commemorating you and your comrades and what, what you did. Have you seen, you went to the unveiling last year. How was that?
EE: Yes.
BW: How did you feel about that?
EE: It was okay.
BW: Yeah, it doesn’t seem fair does it, that there’s, there was only a clasp awarded for it?
EE: It was ridiculous, a bloody insult.
BW: Well, I think Eric, that is all the questions I have for you.
EE: Do you want to look through there?
BW: I will have a look through your, your scrap book, I will just pause the recording. Now this is an interesting telegram, it’s, is that from Liverpool to British Army staff at Washington DC, or is it that other way around?
EE: Not it’s from my mother —
BW: From your mum?
EE: In Liverpool, to tell my father.
BW: And your mum was Madge?
EE: That’s it.
BW: And you father was abroad at the time, was he?
EE: He was on the British Army staff in Washington [unclear].
BW: So, you mentioned he’d been a major in the Army, was he still in the Army all the way through the war.
EE: Yes. You can see a photograph of him later on.
BW: There’s a photograph of him?
EE: My mother and my eldest brother.
BW: That’s it, mother and eldest brother, who was in the Navy. Now this is a, this is quite a service family photograph, there’s five of you, including, your, well there’s three sons in the family and your father and mother.
EE: Yeah.
BW: Your father’s in his Army uniform, there’s you and your middle brother in your RAF uniform and your older brother in the middle of both of you, stood in the middle of both of you, in his Navy uniform. What rank was he in the Navy?
EE: Lieutenant.
BW: And your other brother is wearing an observers brevet.
EE: That’s right.
BW: What did he get up to in the —
EE: Navigator.
BW: Navigator.
EE: On the squadron at Waterbeach. That’s the guy that saved his life.
BW: Yourself and the wireless operator, taken, taken on D Day.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And that looks like he’s wearing the Australian uniform.
EE: It’s a bit dark.
BW: It’s a bit darker than the RAF one,
EE: Better quality.
BW: And did you keep in touch with him after the war?
EE: No.
BW: Do you know what’s happened to him since, not heard a thing or anything through associations or —
EE: No. That was a TA, he became a general. General Sir Richard Lawson.
BW: Sir Richard Lawson! And he sat across a table from you?
EE: Yeah, he was my adjutant, Dicky Lawson.
BW: [Laughs].
EE: He did very well.
BW: So, he must have transferred regiment then, presumably, if your unit had been —
EE: He was a regular adjutant.
BW: He was a regular adjutant, I see, so you were in the TA branch.
EE: [Unclear]
BW: Then there’s pictures here of a V1,
EE: Yeah, a piloted one.
BW: A piloted one.
EE: Yeah. I saw a V2 launch.
BW: Where did you see that?
EE: In Poland
BW: In Poland?
EE: Yeah.
BW: So, was this —
EE: On the march.
BW: Actually during the march?
EE: Yeah. We got to Sargan and we saw it launch. It went crazy.
BW: So, when we see the archive footage of these rockets going off, and there’s a few that do spin off and crash into the ground, and this was one that did, was it? It was lucky it didn’t come over your way and —
EE: We were a few miles away.
BW: I bet you could hear the bang from where you were.
EE: Yeah.
BW: And this photo is of May Schmeling.
EE: That’s Max Schmeling.
BW: Max Schmeling.
EE: He was a world championship boxer.
BW: Who visited at Stalag 3-A Luckenwalde in the uniform of a paratrooper, 3rd March 1945. Did you get to speak to him?
EE: Yeah, he gave me his autograph.
BW: What was your impression of him?
EE: He was all right, very broad.
BW: That must be your wife.
EE: Yes [laughs].
BW: I’m just going to pause the recording. I was just going to say, this is a —
EE: An AVM
BW: An Air Vice Marshall who has his own sort of service medals, stood with you, and where was the unveiling?
EE: At Green Park.
BW: At Green Park, so this would be in 2012 in London.
EE: Yeah.
BW: There are, it looks like, these, these must be the, the Germans there are some names here —
EE: I took a trip back. Went to the Dortmund Ems canal.
BW: I’ll just pause that again. May I just briefly ask you, the scrap book contains details of your visit to Germany. How did it feel, going back, and re-tracing your route?
EE: Very interesting actually, because there was. This is a telegram.
BW: Yeah. And you actually met the pilot of the—
EE: No, I didn’t meet him, I didn’t want to.
BW: I see, I was just seeing a photo of a German pilot there.
EE: I didn’t meet him.
BW: You didn’t. I see. Was it, did he happen to be at an event that you were also at
EE: This is an escape photograph.
BW: I see.
EE: Have you seen those?
BW: These are your escape photos. ‘Escape photos, issued to air crew, and the only personal things taken on ops’, it says here under description, ‘the photographs were to be used on forged identity documents etc, in the event of an escape or invasion. It was always difficult to obtain photos for this purpose, there were extra copies left at base, usually only two were carried. Note: unshaven appearance to add authenticity to photos’.
EE: [unclear] typical.
BW: And so, these were actually taken in civilian clothes because of course, then they can be used on forged documents, but it never came to that though, did it?
EE: No.
BW: And you went back and visited the graves of Sandy who’s your navigator, and Stan, the mid upper gunner, in Germany, seems you’ve been back a couple of times, is that right?
EE: I only went back once.
BW: You only went back once? And the barn demolished, it shows here, by the impact of the Lancaster when it came down. And they’ve managed to recover a prop, or a prop blade.
EE: Yeah. And a wheel.
BW: And a wheel. Wonderful, well, as I say, thank you very much for your time, Eric. If there is anything else you would like to add, by all means, but I shall end the recording there if its ok with you. There’s a picture of, there’s a coloured drawing of a camp.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Eric Evans
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Brian Wright
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-31
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Sound
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AEvansE160331, PEvansE1602
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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.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
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01:53:53 audio recording
Description
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Eric Evans was born in 1923 in Liverpool and was just 16 years of age when war broke out. He served in the Royal Air Force, and serving with 463 RAAF Squadron, going from the rank of sergeant and leaving the service as a warrant officer, before joining the Royal Tank Regiment, rising to the rank of captain.
At the age of 16, Eric had an apprenticeship as an indentured apprentice marine engineer at Liverpool docks, however wanted to serve, however he was classed as being in a reserved occupation, so therefore could only volunteer as aircrew.
Eric flew Avro Ansons, Vickers Wellingtons, before moving on to Short Stirlings with 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Wigsley where he trained as a rear gunner. He then flew Avro Lancasters with 463 RAAF Squadron at Waddington.
He flew missions to France, Nuremburg, Dortmund-Ems canal, Brunswick and targets in the Ruhr. Eric was shot down on 6 November 1944 and was taken prisoner of war, and he tells of his escape from the camp when it was liberated by the Russian forces.
After returning to the United Kingdom, Eric ran the Prisoner of War Camps, before leaving the Royal Air Force and joining the 40th Kings Royal Tank Regiment, and served 6 years as a Troop Commander.
Eric left the Army in 1956 and worked for his father as a salesman in the motor car industry. He started his own business and by the rime he retired, he had built up four businesses which he ran for approximately 30 years.
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Vivienne Tincombe
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Great Britain
England--Merseyside
England--Cheshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
England--Liverpool
France
Germany
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
14 OTU
1654 HCU
463 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bale out
Caterpillar Club
Dulag Luft
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Me 110
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Padgate
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
Stirling
the long march
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/604/8873/PMarlowR1601.1.jpg
de4cfb427a0d5ccc2eefc2c8776a90c3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/604/8873/AMarlowR160422.1.mp3
7b39c99798f2fb3bc68968136aaa9aff
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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Marlow, Ronald
R Marlow
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Marlow, R
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Ron Marlow (1924 - 2019, 1592700 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He trained as a wireless operator / air gunner and flew operations as rear gunner with 50 Squadron and as a mid-upper gunner with 466 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2016-04-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Warrant Officer Ronald Marlow at quarter to two on Friday 22nd of April 2016 at his residence in Lytham, Lancashire. With me as well this afternoon are his daughter Pat Darby, her husband Frank Darby, Ron’s son in law, and great grandson James Foster. So, Ron, if you’d like to start us off please just if you would like to confirm your service number and your date of birth for the record please.
RM: Yes. Well my service number is 1592700. My date of birth was 10 11 24 and I was born at Middleton, Leeds and brought up there at the time of meeting my future wife Pat.
BW: And how large was your family? How many brothers and sisters did you have?
RM: I hadn’t any. Well I had one brother which he was born and then died before I arrived so there was nobody I knew. So there was just my mother, father and my father who was an invalid. He’d, for some reason, I never knew how or why but he’d lost the use of his arms and used to just sit there like that day in day out which I didn’t know any background to.
BW: So you didn’t know whether he was in the army or anything during the First World War.
RM: No.
BW: Industrial accident.
RM: There was nothing ever mentioned at all about him and future forces or anything that could have possibly caused it. Yeah.
BW: So you were pretty much raised as an only child then weren’t you?
RM: I was. Yes. Yeah. As I say my father as long as I can remember from my school days and he was just sat in a chair. Used to just sit there day in day out. My mother obviously had to do everything for him which of course things like that I didn’t fully understand. I was a bit too young for that kind of thing but she had to do everything for him and his actual date of losing him. That I don’t know. Or my mother. But that was just the way it went. That was my life. As I say I was the only one and brought up, schooling and I started work.
BW: How, how did you find school? What was it like?
RM: Well it was Middleton Council School which of course we only ever played rugby. We didn’t play football or any other sport. We just played Rugby League so of course if you was in the team you were top of the tops. And I mean I played rugby with the school and they played cricket in the summer time and that was it. But it was, as a school it was just an average sort of a school. It was a council school which of course indicated that there wasn’t many people went from there to higher education and there was not many people could afford higher education because we were all working class people. So that was school as it was. Yeah.
BW: And did you leave at fourteen like everybody?
RM: I left at fourteen and started work at, was it Forgrove Engineering in Dewsbury Road. Forgrove. F O R G R O V E. Forgrove Engineering and I fully think some, some names. Mr Thompson was the boss. And all I was doing was we had machines that packed buttons on to strips of wire for the tailoring trade which of course Leeds was a big tailoring department and we used to just stand there and watch the buttons going down onto these, take them off, put new ones on. I mean not very exciting but that was it. I mean I suppose in a way at Middleton where I was born there was no industry. Just, you know a few shops. So I was lucky to get a job at Dewsbury Road there and I was there for quite a while until what, well yes until more or less my working days. Pardon me. Separated lifetime days because it was then that I eventually met Pat who, her parents, well they had a grocery and off licence business so I’d obviously got an eye in the right department. You know, I thought, well if they serve, that one day I met even get behind the bar which of course I did. You know, I used to eventually gave up and went and worked behind the bar when Pat lost her father and Mrs Finon was running the business which of course with being grocery and off licence it was open at 7 o’clock in the morning because a lot of the men used to get their Woodbines on their way to the pit and of course the bar closed at 10 o’clock at night. So, you know, I mean it was a full day and she was on herself with one of her neighbours helping and I eventually decided to, that with Pat in mind I would doing better for myself going into the business. I didn’t know whether it would one day become part of my life but at least it was a start.
BW: And so you met your future wife at a pretty young age then haven’t you?
RM: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean Pat and I, we both, I mean she of course with her parents being in business she went to Cockburn High School which of course you paid for which of course my parents couldn’t afford and she used to go to Cockburn High school. I used to go to Middleton Council School which it sounded very class. Middleton Council. But anyway it served its purpose. It got me that I could read and write. [laughs]
BW: And where you were working it wasn’t an apprenticeship by the sound of it. It was a regular full time job was it?
RM: It was a little engineering company and they just, I was lucky really to get in because they had this division where Mr Thompson ran these machines which just put the buttons on the threads ready to go to tailoring so I mean while there were tailors wanted buttons on these threads we were in business.
BW: Right.
RM: And of course I stayed there until such time as I eventually started giving Mrs Finon as she was, a hand in the shop and then eventually worked around towards going in the shop.
BW: And so where were, where were you when war broke out? What do you recall of war starting?
RM: I was at the shop. Yes. I was at the shop and I lived at home. Pat lived with her mother ‘cause I mean Pat used to go to, you know Torquay and places like that for her holidays. I used to go to Scarborough with my suitcase. [laughs] I think things were, they were all within your means you know. You couldn’t afford any more so you didn’t look to do any more. You lived and enjoyed what you’d got.
BW: And did you have workmates or school friends who joined up?
RM: Well funny thing was when I eventually joined up a good, I was more or less like on my own going into the RAF. None of the workmates or people I knew went and of course I was just like one off, one on my own and off I went into the RAF and that started my training.
BW: And when did you decide to join?
RM: Oh crikey. Now then. This is –
BW: Was it something that you felt you wanted to do straight away?
RM: Well no. I think the thing it was, it was inevitable I was going to be called up for the forces so I thought well the thing was you either get in first with what you want or you wait ‘til you’re called up and put where they want you and I thought well, you know, the idea of flying was, by crikey it was way way way. I mean in those days. So I just volunteered for the RAF, for the cadets and I was in the aircrew cadets for, for a while before I actually got into the RAF but I learned quite a bit there.
BW: So when you say the aircrew cadets was this the Air Training Corps?
RM: Yeah.
BW: So this would be around about 1941/42 because the air cadets were formed in ’41 weren’t they?
RM: Yeah. Well it was a bit later than that.
BW: Yeah.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Yeah. And what was it that motivated you to join the RAF? What, what did you like about it? Did you want to fly? Did you want to be a pilot?
RM: Well I think the first and foremost I knew that my education would limit me on what position I could undertake in aircrew and I thought well pilots, navigators. Then you come down a bit engineers and bomb aimers you know. They’re, they’re all just a little bit, and I thought well there’s one thing about it. As an air gunner you only learn to fire a 303 and once you can fire it that’s it and I mean the four guns were all linked up together. You pulled a trigger and they all went off and just a case of making sure you aimed in the right direction [laughs]. Oh dear.
BW: So, you, you’ve joined up and they’ve sent you for training. Did you fly on Ansons and Whitleys at first or do you recall?
RM: Wimpies.
BW: Wimpies.
RM: Yeah. Wellingtons. Yeah.
BW: The Wellingtons. Yeah.
RM: Yes ‘cause we went to London first of all. We were called up to London and the first flying we did was in Wellingtons. Well of course that was an advancement. I mean Wellingtons. Twin engine bombers. I mean ‘cause they were in service at the time. And it was just the fact that they had, you know, a rear turret, which they hadn’t a mid-upper, they’d a rear turret which of course suited what we were learning to, well wanted to be. So the two went together.
BW: And at this stage you, did you volunteer for rear turret? Or –
RM: I volunteered, I volunteered for aircrew and of course there was only really when you got down to the lower limits of aircrew you started with air gunners and worked your way up. Well of course I mean a lot of the training in air crew was much longer than air gunners because I mean air gunners if you could, as I say, if you could fire from a turret you was in. But of course I mean navigators, bomb aimers they all had an extended training period so I thought well if I’m going to be in it I might as well be in it as soon as possible as later.
BW: Were you specifically attracted to flying as a gunner in the rear turret?
RM: Well no it wasn’t really that. I think what it was it was just a case of, well I wanted to be in aircrew and then you know when things got whittled down as to what were available in air crew you realised well if I want to fly I can only fly with the capabilities I’ve got and that’s start at the back end and work forward [laughs]. Which of course they were all at the nose and you were stuck at the back end [laughs].
BW: Can you recall what it, what it was like the first time you fired your guns from a turret. Even in training?
RM: Well yes I mean it wasn’t a case I don’t think as I can recall that I was aiming at anything. I think it was a case of I thought I’d seen something and of course I mean you always thought you saw something because you were looking for them and it was bound to be out there somewhere and I think it was just a case of, ‘Was that?’ Let it go just to be, I thought well if it is I shall shift him and leave us.
BW: So, you, you passed out your training and were made sergeant which was standard for gunners.
RM: Yeah. St Johns Wood was where we, we were trained up and brought up and got into our basics of gunnery school and then of course we went on to flying duties, learning flying duties and then getting crewed up and I think, you know at the beginning you thought well I hope they pick me, I don’t have to pick them and I think they did. They more or less just got a crew together and you got to know each other and you worked together and developed. Yeah.
BW: Where was it that you met the crew? Was it at a conversion unit?
RM: At St Johns wood because St Johns Wood was the recruiting centre for aircrew so we went to St Johns Wood and there was you know the different schools and you learned your basics there and then you were more or less drafted through schooling into meeting up with other crew members. Higher educated, well, educated yeah and you know you eventually got to the point where the skipper selected his crew. Well, I mean, you thought you’d been selected. I’m in. I mean it wasn’t a case of you was just the same as anybody else but, and then we got crewed up. More or less met up, introduced to each other. This is who I am. This is who you are. This is what you will be. And we formed a crew and then started you know I mean we started first of all without flight engineers because you didn’t really need them on the early training but once you got established as a crew then you got together and got a crew membership of the seven people and all developed together. Yeah.
BW: And then from there you were posted to 50 squadron at Skellingthorpe.
RM: Skellingthorpe. Yes. Yeah.
BW: And did you pick up your flight engineer there when you got there? Or did you meet him before?
RM: Yeah. The flight engineer was the last one that we picked up because I mean they were, you know, trained separately but we did some flying together just prior to going to the squadron so we did know everybody in the crew. Yeah.
BW: And presumably this is at a Heavy Conversion Unit for Lancasters ‘cause that’s where you were first on wasn’t it?
RM: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh yes. I mean once you, once you were going to be up there on the squadrons it was Lancasters and that was it until you either got the chop or you got through. Yeah.
BW: And how was it when you were told you were going on Lancasters? Were you made up about that? Were, were you quite happy with that?
RM: Well I think it was a bit of a false reaction. You thought this is it. I’ve made it and I thought, flipping heck. Where are we going? You know and you made your first trip and it probably a quiet night, a silent night. Nothing ever happened. Nobody attacked you. I mean a lot depended on the target. If it was a place that was heavily defended you could expect anything. Ack ack or even attacked by aircraft. If it was a small place which a lot of them were small I mean to us there wasn’t, you know it was a target and that’s what you were going for and that’s what we went for and of course it wasn’t heavily defended so there was no real defences. Just sat there and you know, ‘How long are we going to be before we go back?’ It went very well any rate. I mean, it was, it was a little bit novel to start with. You thought well if this is it it’s not bad. We’ll get through. Then of course bigger targets came and more defensive and offensive and you learned your ways. Yeah.
BW: So I guess at this stage it’s now 1943 maybe in to 1944. Is that right?
RM: Yeah.
BW: When you start on ops.
RM: Yeah.
BW: And do you recall where your first op was? Where?
RM: Well it’s all in the book there ‘cause I’ve got that it starts the full tour.
BW: Right.
RM: But then it also starts where I did the five trips, five trips on Halifaxes with a wing commander.
BW: So you start in mid-May 1944.
RM: Yeah.
BW: And it looks like you’ve really, with a couple of exceptions where you’ve changed aircraft you’ve stuck with the same one.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Which was B. Did you have a nickname for it?
RM: Baker.
BW: Baker
RM: Well yeah B for Baker. B for Bravo. I mean it was just a bit versatile. Of course one of the trips I remember was the fact Pat’s mum was in hospital, your mum was in hospital and they didn’t know just how she was going to come out of it and they scrubbed me off that trip and gave me a twenty four hour pass to go and see her which was very kind of them. Can you manage there?
BW: Yes, thank you.
RM: So you can see by that we didn’t waste a lot time by doing a trip and then having nights and nights and nights doing nothing.
BW: Yeah. And your early sorties are mostly in France aren’t they?
RM: Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: ‘Cause this was working up to D-Day.
RM: ‘Cause when you’re thinking from Lincolnshire, straight down to the coast, across the channel it didn’t take long to get in to France, to some of the French targets. Places we’d never even heard of. So obviously from information there was something there. Something that was earmarked to the bomb aimers and pilots. The target is such, you know. That, that’s what you’ll go for and we used to go, get rid of them and let’s get out of here kind of thing. Yeah.
BW: And as gunner did you attend those briefings with the other crew members as well? Were you all briefed together? Or –
RM: Yeah. We were all briefed to go and then of course when we, when the trip was over we came back. There was a briefing but then if there was anything more in material that needed to be recorded for future trips then of course the crew just went to the briefing. That was it.
BW: And so when it was revealed what your targets were going to be what was the reaction generally? Were you –
RM: Well you see with a lot of them I mean some names you thought, oh my God. Flipping hell I don’t fancy going there. You know there were names that hit you straight away. There was obviously something there to be going for so we’d better look out. Some of the places which, if you look in there, some of the French targets we could have been in somebody’s back yard for what it was you know. There was I mean it didn’t mean anything to us at all. I mean the briefing was that there was probably some ammunition dump or some light ack ack there or some barracks or something. There was always something that they told us we were going for but never a lot of detail as to what it was. So it was just a case of well saturate bombing and hope you got rid of them.
BW: And what happened during the preparations for the mission itself? Can you talk us through what you might do having had the briefing what would you then do to get to and then get on board the aircraft and sort your guns out?
RM: Oh the thing was once you knew where you were going and what you were going for then that was pretty secret and that was a case of they told us and we didn’t tell anybody because somebody could have been listening that shouldn’t have been. So it was not a case of tell you and then you know you’d go for your tea about three or four hours later. Just a case of well you’d go for your meal, come back, briefing and more or less straight to the aircraft or within a reasonable time to the aircraft. So you couldn’t really, if you wanted to, you couldn’t really discuss it with people. It was pretty quiet.
BW: And would you get changed? Would you get in to your flying suit before you go out?
RM: Well you see the thing was your normal uniform. Then you ‘d to go to your crew room where you’re flying suit was which of course with us was flying suit and the mask and your mask and your harness and so forth which of course we took longer because I mean the crew at the front end they were, apart from a Mae West and that they had virtually nothing on where we of course had to put on a flying suit on, flying boots on, fasten it all up and harness round here and you know I mean when you walked you could hear it clunk clunk. [laughs].
BW: And did you, did you have a seat pack parachute or a carry carry on parachute?
RM: Well the parachute. At the rear turret when you opened the outer doors you used to swing into the turret but you left your parachute there. Got in to the turret.
BW: Inside.
RM: And shut the turret doors. So if you did have to bail out you’d got to be quick enough to open the doors to get your parachute, bring it in and turn the turret and go out backwards.
BW: Obviously never happened to you, that.
RM: It never happened. No. Thank goodness. No. We were never got to that situation. Thank goodness. In reality, I mean we did a full tour and there was never any real time when we, ‘Be prepared we may have to bail out.’ We could if anything. We were very lucky. We were very very lucky in the fact that we completed a tour and we never had any calamitous happening where, ‘Get ready to bail out,’ you know. We were very lucky. We were.
BW: And when you had got all your flying kit on and your suit and things did you take any mascots with you or have any good luck charms or anything? Had Pat given you anything to –?
RM: Oh some of them did you know. I mean some of them had little bits and pieces. Oh I must, I must remember to take this, and I must take. At, I think we had, I think we.
JF: Picture of grandma.
[pause]
BW: Oh right. That’s oh right this is a picture of Pat with an aircrew hat on and did you take that, did you take that with you?
RM: Yeah.
BW: Did you take the picture on board?
RM: No.
PD: Oh he did.
JF: You did.
RM: No. We didn’t carry anything with us in the turret because it was always a thought that if you did you’d want to get out as quick as possible and where have I put this, and have I got that? So we just left these in the billet.
BW: Oh.
RM: And got out as quickly as possible if we had to [laughs]. Tell you. So all in all I was one of the lucky ones.
BW: Do you recall what you had to do when you, when you had got yourself in to your turret did you have certain checks to do on the guns or anything like that? What can you tell us about that?
RM: Well the thing is you know your elevation and traverse, you know.
BW: Yeah.
RM: That they could go up and down and traverse and the turret was working. Obviously you couldn’t do anything with the guns but the fact was the turret was working. You could rotate the turrets, up and down the guns, everything was as it should be. It was just a case of would it be right at the time if necessary? So, you know you thought oh well everything’s working. Just sit there and keep looking around.
BW: And did you have 303s on this particular turret?
RM: Yeah. Browning 303s. Yeah. Four 303s. Yeah. [laughs]. And of course the, the change the bullets went down in front of you down underneath the turret into the fuselage. They don’t, they wouldn’t have lasted long if you’d have got four guns going but anyway we never had that requirement, thank goodness.
BW: And I understand some gunners took out the Perspex panels because it made it easier to see. Did you ever do that on your turret at all?
RM: No. I always left it in because I don’t know it was just one of those things that some did, some didn’t. And you believed that it was there for a purpose and you left it in. Yeah. I mean the thing was you could find that if there was bad weather and there was any rain or anything about it could, you know, look a bit obscure looking through it. Whereas you used to think, well I used to think well best left alone. Yeah.
BW: You mentioned before the crew that you’d met and teamed up with and aside from yourself your pilot was Pilot Officer Pethick.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Do you recall the names and roles of the other crew members?
RM: Now that I don’t. Pethick.
BW: Was there a Philips?
RM: Oh I must be honest I –
BW: Flying Officer Philips.
RM: I’m completely struggled when it comes to crew members. ‘Cause you see those that were officers you met them in the aircraft or any training but apart from that you didn’t see much of them because they were officers. You were NCOs. But in respect of other crew members [pause] I just can’t think.
BW: Ok.
RM: I’m sorry.
BW: That’s alright. Did you, do you recall being a fairly tight crew? I mean you mentioned about socialising with other, I suppose ranks or whatever. Did you, did you stick together as a crew?
RM: Oh you did if you were out and so forth but when you were on the station when it was practical I mean obviously it was a bit difficult, officers meeting up with NCOs, even though you were crew members. That was possible at times but generally speaking it was a case of them and us but I mean you’ve got to keep rank you know. I mean no matter what they were officers, you were NCOs and you could meet up when it was necessary as crew members training etcetera etcetera but you didn’t meet up socially completely. Yeah.
BW: And when you were in the aircraft were you on first name terms?
RM: Oh yeah.
BW: With each other.
RM: Yes. But I mean the thing was there wasn’t a lot of communication in the aircraft because the skipper would check on everybody. If you were in, in your position, in your situation, ‘Everything alright? Any problems let us know before we take off rather than later,’ and once everything had been checked throughout the aircraft with the skipper then you were on first name terms. Yeah.
BW: And so when you, when you took off were you pretty much in silence unless you had to talk?
RM: Oh you was. Yes, because there was no need to be talking. I mean you got to the end of the runway and you got the light and you turned on to the runway. The skipper said, ‘We’re going to take off,’ and that was the last words that were spoken when you went down the runway and climbed up, took off and you’d hear the skipper say, ‘Wheels up,’ and the engineer would get the wheels up and you would then be airborne and you were as a crew flying together. Yeah.
BW: And naturally as a rear gunner you were first in the air technically weren’t you?
RM: Oh yeah.
BW: ‘Cause the tail would come up first.
RM: When that tail lifted I was airborne. I mean I got more flying hours in than the others. Not that it was recorded as such. And I mean there was the occasion of course sometimes you know when you were glad to be back and he put the aircraft down and the tail wheel went down a bit heavy. You got a bit of a shudder. I’d think never mind we’re down. [laughs]. Oh dear.
BW: And it’s on your list of ops that you flew on D-Day itself as well.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Regarding that were you aware during your briefings and operations prior to that that the invasion was forthcoming. Was it suspected or were you told.
RM: It was indicated to us that this was a distinct possibility. That, you know, D-Day was very very imminent and that we would of course be more than likely to be called upon in or on D-Day so of course the last minute, if you will, last minute, ‘Well this looks like it lads. This is where we go.’ And nobody was, said this is D-Day but it was given to you well and truly to you that we were on the move. You, you know, you make your own decisions from here.
BW: And yours was actually a night-time flight wasn’t it on D-Day?
RM: Yeah. Was it? Yeah.
BW: It wasn’t early in the morning. It was.
RM: No.
BW: Late at night.
RM: Yeah. Oh dear.
BW: I don’t suppose you got to see any of the forces going over to France on that day did you?
RM: No, because as I say you see I was always looking back. I was looking at what had happened earlier. If there was anything left still going over that’s what I would see. The main force of course was ahead of me [laughs]. Still, never mind.
BW: And on the, on these operations how would you describe your view out of the turret? Could you see any of the other bombers in the main force at all?
RM: You could. Yes. I mean the thing is from a turret, either mid upper or the rear, you had a good out vision all the way around. I mean the thing is when you think of it while you were there you needed it. There was no good saying I could see you but I couldn’t see there or there could be somebody behind that. You’d got to be able to see all the way around through the, you know, the Perspex so really you’d a good view all the way around and you made sure that there was no little patches where you couldn’t see clearly. You know you got around. You got around. Yeah.
BW: And was it pretty cold in the back?
RM: Oh it could be. Yes. It could be. ‘Cause I mean the thing is there was no real heating on. I mean you’d your oxygen mask and your flying suit and all the rest of it. You were all connected up but I mean when you think the heat from the front end never really got to the back end to the extent that, ‘Oh it’s better now.’ You know it, I mean it was cold. I mean naturally you had to think it was cold because of where you were. You were at the tail end of the aircraft. There was not much coming through from there but anyway I mean you got used to these things after two or three times in the turret you just accepted what it was for what it was. You were there and hopefully with the grace of God you’d get through and finish a tour and hope that you didn’t get shot down before.
BW: And were your gloves adequate? It was pretty cold obviously, as you say, in the turret.
RM: Oh yes your gloves were electrically heated.
BW: Nice.
RM: Yeah. Clipped together and you know kept your hands because I mean well you can imagine back there I mean with your hands on triggers all the time because it was like a bicycle handlebars if you will. Small. But for operating both sets so you had to have your fingers free to be able to move them. Yeah.
BW: How did you elevate and move the turret? Elevate the guns and move the turret?
RM: You just –
BW: Sort of twist your wrists.
RM: That’s right. You twist the wrists to up, twist the wrists to down and then if you wanted to turn it you just tilted the handlebars and it moved the turret around.
BW: I see,
RM: Yeah.
BW: So as you say it’s I guess like a motorbike handlebars.
RM: You needed all your activities in your fingers. Your hands. Yeah.
BW: And I believe that you got to warrant officer at one stage but then something happened. They decided you weren’t –
RM: Yes.
BW: Going to stay at warrant officer. What happened?
RM: I’m trying to think. There was something that –
JF: You got drunk. You went through the officer’s gate when you were drunk.
RM: Pardon?
JF: You went through the officer’s gate when you were drunk.
RM: I can’t hear you.
JF: You went through the officer’s gate when you were drunk
RM: Oh that was it wasn’t it. Yeah. Went through the officer’s gate.
BW: Went through the officer’s gate.
RM: Which was not, was a case of non-entry to, to us.
BW: So as an NCO you ended up –
RM: I thought I was more than what I was. [laughs].
BW: But the reason was you’d had, you’d had a few drinks had you?
RM: Well I suppose that could have been the main reason [laughs] Dear oh dear. Yes, you, I mean the thing was in those days it wasn’t so much that you could consume. It was just a case of a couple of pints and oh I mean you couldn’t afford more but by Jove you enjoyed it.
BW: And so how were, how were you found out about this? Did somebody see? See you and –
RM: Well you were walking through the gate
BW: Report you?
RM: And somebody said, ‘Where are you going airman?’ I said, ‘Airman?’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘This is not for you. This is the officer’s gate.’ So it was about turn and what number, rank and name. Yeah. I think there was about two or three of us got hobbled on that sin.
BW: And did you have to go before the CO?
RM: Well no it was just a case of you shouldn’t have been coming through that gate. It’s a non-entry to any other crew –
JF: Gramps. You did. You went in front of the CO which was your pilot.
RM: Did I?
JF: Yeah. And he gave you a rollicking.
RM: Oh my God, make it worse wouldn’t it? I tell you a lot of things are, you’ve brought a lot back to me but oh through my own skipper. Coming in through our gate.
JF: It was at Driffield.
RM: Pardon?
JF: It was at Driffield. It was Hollings.
RM: Yeah.
JF: And he was the base commander and your pilot and he was the one that gave you the rollicking.
RM: That’s it now. Wing Commander Hollings because as I remember now, thank you. I’m thinking about the other one first. He said, ‘You do realise that I’d put,’ ‘cause they were all officers apart from me, he said, ‘You do realise,’ he said, ‘I’d put you forward for your commission,’ he said, ‘but you’ve had that now.’ That was the end of that.
BW: So this is when, this is when you’d finished with your first squadron and had transferred to 466 at Driffield.
RM: This is when I’d gone on to Yorkshire.
BW: Yeah.
RM: Yeah. Yeah. I just I can’t think of any reason why I would want to go back on a second tour when I’d done a tour but I suppose I was stupid.
BW: Well you, you’d done a good number of ops.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Already and you’d completed your first, first tour.
RM: First tour completely. Yes. I was, I was on instructing.
BW: And looking at your list of ops you mentioned when we were talking earlier your longest one being over eight hours this one is is there is one of nine but most of them are on average probably about four or five.
RM: Four or five hours. Yeah.
BW: ‘Cause they were French targets.
RM: Yeah.
BW: But there’s one or two here that are long trips and I suppose most of these would be in, be in Germany. There’s [Wiesbaden?] and Stuttgart.
RM: Yes. Yes
BW: What was Stuttgart like? Was it that a notoriously difficult target?
RM: Well, some of them, it was surprising in a way. You could be over the target or approaching the target area and there was very little air defensive but there was a lot of, you know, ground attack like ack ack and so forth but fortunately I suppose from our point of view there was very little of like, you know we put up Bomber Command and they’d put up Bomber Command and we used to put Fighter Command up in opposition. There was very little from them so I suppose in a way we were very lucky. Yeah.
BW: And you saw the flak and the –
RM: Oh you could see the flak.
BW: The ack ack coming up.
RM: Yeah but I mean the thing was, you know they at the front could see it before obviously we did and they used to say, ‘Oh there’s flak ahead,’ and you’d think oh flipping heck here we go. [laughs]
BW: It was notoriously accurate as well. Did, did you find that to be the case?
RM: Oh yeah. I mean it was, you could many a time come back with little holes, you know, in the aircraft where small, nothing big, heavy but small anti-aircraft had exploded and done a bit of damage. I mean it could have in the right area but if it just damaged the wing or the fuselage it didn’t make a lot of difference thank goodness. [laughs]
BW: And could you hear it when it hit the aircraft?
RM: Oh yeah, you could hear a bang on the fuselage and you’d think, oh my God what had, what’s gone? And then you’d hear a bang, a bump and then it would be quiet. And it was gone. You’d missed it.
BW: But they never caused significant damage on your aircraft. You didn’t lose –
RM: No we were -
BW: Engines and things like that.
RM: Fortunately we were never damaged to the extent where we had to consider whether we would need to bale out or not. We’d, you know, I mean damage could have been just a couple of small little shell holes that they used to just stick a bit of paper over and go again. So we were lucky. We were very lucky. I mean you could see aircraft go down. You know, there would be some ack ack and there would just be a flash and that would have been one aircraft been hit, probably in the bomb bay when the bomb bays were open. Could have been hit there and that was it he was gone. But we were lucky as I say. Lucky.
BW: And presumably over a target where there’s searchlights and things going you could, if you weren’t able to see the other bombers in the formation you could see them then.
RM: Yeah. Yeah well I mean that was one of the big dangers. They used to say don’t look at the searchlights because obviously you know the searchlights, the brightness could affect your eyes and for a while afterwards you couldn’t see anything clear. So if there were searchlights about you were to keep away from them. It was all –
BW: Did you ever get caught in a searchlight?
RM: Fortunately no. We were very very lucky. I mean a little bit of slight damage but nothing of a serious nature that would have caused or could have caused, you know, serious thinking by the skipper. Do we need to get out? I mean the engines were still turning and bomb doors were opening and closing. Let’s get out of here kind of thing.
BW: What was it like when you could feel the bombs had gone? You could hear the bomb aimer’s voice.
RM: You could feel the aircraft lift. You know. You’d be going along and you’d say to the bomb aimer, you know, ‘When you’re ready,’ and he’d say, ‘Right. Right. Steady. Left. left a bit. Steady. Steady. Bombs gone.’ And you could feel the aircraft lift. Yeah. You used to think to ourselves thank goodness they’ve gone. Be glad of them out of the way. Oh dear.
BW: And the Germans used blue searchlights as well. Did you ever see any of those? They used radar –
RM: No.
BW: Guided.
RM: Not that I can think. No. I mean they used the, you know, the normal searchlights but I can’t think of any blue ones. What was the purpose of that?
BW: I was just curious because they used the blue, the blue ones were radar guided and so they could lock on to a bomber.
RM: Yeah. Lock on. Yeah.
BW: And the other yellow or white ones.
RM: The others were manually operated. Yeah. No. Not that I can think. No. Mind you I wouldn’t be looking for searchlights. I’d be looking the other way.
BW: And you didn’t happen to see any night fighters around at all either?
RM: No.
BW: You’d be looking for those.
RM: No, I, again I say we were very very lucky. Now whether there wasn’t sufficient up or whether they were going for other aircraft and not us but never at any time can I recall seeing a German night fighter which was a blessing. It was.
BW: So I suppose it might be fair to say you didn’t actually fire your guns in anger.
RM: No. No. I mean my guns were cocked. They had to be obviously but never at any time did I have to fire at anything on a trip so –
BW: So I presume the only times you would fire them would be when you tested them over the channel on the way in.
RM: Oh yes. Just give your guns, the skipper used to say, ‘Right. Give your guns a burst. See if they’re alright.’ And that was it. Yeah.
BW: One of your targets here is Caen and that was in mid-July and that was at a time when they were really trying to push the D-Day forces on from the beach head.
RM: Well probably. I mean getting rid of some of the defensive situations on the beaches would be a good idea wouldn’t it?
BW: And of course at that, at that time at night you wouldn’t see anything of the city or anything like that so.
RM: No. I mean the thing is –
BW: No indication.
RM: From where we were you could not look straight down. You could look out at the sides and the skipper used to say, ‘Don’t look down. That’s the bomb aimer’s job.’ But of course the bomb aimer used to be laid in the nose and telling the skipper, ‘Left a bit. Right a bit. Steady. Steady. Steady. Bombs gone.’ And as I say when you felt it lift you’d think thank goodness they’re out of the way.
BW: And there was, there was one sortie where you were recalled. That was in June but it was presumably one where you were going to go to a target in France but you were recalled. Do you recall?
RM: Yeah.
BW: What, what that was. Was it a case of the target couldn’t be seen or something or –
RM: Well I don’t know because they just used to say that the target has been cancelled. Return to base. Don’t take off or anything but there was no reason given. Whether it was, you know incorrectly or whether it was something had happened at the other side or what but it was just cancelled and that was it.
BW: And so you’ve come through three months really. Almost three months to the day since you started on the 11th of May through to the 9th of August 1944.
RM: Yeah.
BW: You’ve had pretty consistent flying and presumably about thirty ops. I’ve not counted all these but there’d be about thirty ops. One, two, three –
JF: Thirty two.
BW: Thirty two.
JF: From memory I think, thirty two.
BW: And then you went on to gunnery instruction.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Was that something that your CO decided for you or did you volunteer for it or –?
RM: Well you see the thing is they had to find somewhere for you. I mean you’d finished your tour so what was you going to do? Just be kicking around at some station waiting till you were called again or what? So you volunteered to go to a gunnery school and get linked up with, you know gunners that were coming through. It helped. Well it was something for you to do if that’s a way of putting it but it was something for you to do and rather than just being kicking around at a gunnery school doing nothing. Yeah.
BW: And do you recall where that was? Do you know where you were posted to?
JF: Market Harborough I think it was called.
RM: Was it? It could have been. Thank you.
JF: I think that’s right.
BW: Market Harborough.
RM: Market Harborough [laughs].
JF: It was 14 OTU I think. Number 14. Yeah. Market Harborough.
BW: So do you recall anything from from that time of being an instructor? Can you recall what sort of things you would tell the other students to do?
PD: You crashed.
BW: Did you have a crash in a Wellington bomber at one point?
PD: When you’d been training [do you mean]
RM: Sorry but can you speak up a bit ‘cause I mean –
JF: You crashed.
RM: I’ve got a hearing aid in one ear which doesn’t work.
JF: Wellington.
PD: Landed in a Wellington in the woods and it split open didn’t it?
RM: Oh yeah.
PD: When you were training.
RM: Yeah. Sorry. Can you just give that out? Yeah. A Wimpy that we came down in. Didn’t do us a lot of good but fortunately we were not injured or incapacitated in any way. It just came, I don’t know what it was.
JF: You were, you remember, you told that skipper that you heard somebody on the radio saying that they were in trouble and they were going to go down?
RM: Thank you.
JF: And the skipper said, ‘Yes it’s us.’
RM: [laughs] Oh well. That’s being at the back end you see. You couldn’t hear things properly [laughs]. Oh dear. You’ll have to forgive me as I say. It’s a long time ago. I’ve done very well considering.
BW: That’s absolutely fine. So you were on a, you were on a training mission.
RM: Yeah.
BW: In a Wellington and some problem or other developed.
RM: Something. Obviously. Yeah.
BW: And the pilot told you that you were going to have to crash land.
RM: I mean the thing is when you look at it realistically I’m at the back end looking that way. They’re up there looking the other way to where the aircraft is going. What could I have possibly seen that was going to decide –
BW: Yeah.
RM: What the aircraft was going to do?
BW: Yeah. So all, so all you knew was it was going down and -
RM: Exactly, you know, am I going with it?
BW: The pilot says, ‘It’s us.’ And so do recall this crash in the woods? Do you?
RM: Well obviously it was nothing of the serious nature that anybody got seriously injured but the aircraft was obviously damaged wasn’t it? Yeah. Split open. Yeah. Split open. No.
BW: So –
RM: I mean when you think for what time I was in that wasn’t bad was it?
BW: Yeah. To go through all of that over enemy territory and then to –
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Have to crash in your own country.
RM: I mean the thing is you know I mean when you think of all those trips I did. What a hundred and twenty nine. To never be seriously damaged from enemy action that was very lucky. Yeah. You know, to be damaged by ack ack or enemy fighters which as I say to think if I ever saw one or two was the most. Yeah. ‘Cause you see I mean if there was ack ack fire going up they wouldn’t want the night fighters up ‘cause they could have been caught with that.
BW: And you never found out what caused the Wellington to go down?
RM: No. No. No it was probably some stupid idea that we’d got that something was going wrong. Probably an engine spluttered or could have been something and I mean we never went back to ask. You know. Crikey. Could happen again. Don’t find out. Never mind.
BW: Were you near the base at all? Were you near your home airfield or was it some distance away?
RM: It can’t have been that far away because I mean when you were ever doing any training flights in Wimpies you never did big long distance ones. You know they usually were within an area around the base so must have been pretty close.
BW: And then from there you went to 466 squadron at Driffield.
RM: Yes.
BW: An Australian squadron.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Did you, did you meet a lot of Aussies? I mean this particular unit wasn’t fully –
RM: Oh yeah.
BW: Occupied with Aussies until later in the war but –.
RM: Yes. Yeah. A lot of Aussies yeah. I mean as an Australian squadron it was basically Australian crew. Yeah. But as they, as they reminded me I slipped up with the going through the long gate, wrong gate. Thank you.
BW: And your pilot was actually the wing commander.
RM: He was the station CO. Yeah.
BW: Station CO as well.
RM: Yeah. Wing Commander Hollings. Station CO.
BW: This is Wing Commander Albert Hollings.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Who had, who had a DFC but he was an Aussie.
RM: Yes. Yeah.
BW: What was he like to fly with?
RM: Well I mean you couldn’t deny the fact that he was a wing commander which was way way way above me so I mean we only met when we had to do a crew training or crew instructions or anything like that. I mean other than that I mean when I’d, on the charge I was just marched in to the room. He was behind the desk, said what he had to say and said what he had to do and that was it. Me finished. Oh well.
BW: And when he did that were you demoted from warrant officer?
RM: Well I was. I was as I was. I stayed as I was.
BW: Right.
RM: I didn’t alter. I was going to go up but –
BW: And this was where he said you were going to be put forward for your commission but because –
RM: Yeah. He said, ‘I was putting you forward for your commission,’ he said, ‘But you’ve had that now.’
BW: Simply because you walked through the wrong gate.
RM: I walked through the wrong gate. Yeah.
BW: That’s harsh.
RM: I mean the thing is apart from anything I was a foreigner. I wasn’t Australian. Oh dear.
BW: And the aircraft you were flying this time were the Halifax Mark 3s.
RM: Halifaxes. Yeah.
BW: And you’d transferred from being a rear turret gunner.
RM: Yeah.
BW: To being a mid-upper.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Was that on the CO’s direction or was that just because there was a slot going? You wanted it?
RM: No just to make up, as they wanted the crew as we got the position ‘cause as I say used to sit on the top there. I thought flipping heck. You’re completely exposed. You know, you’ve no protection around you up here. Anyway, that was all by the by.
BW: Do you recall what your armament was? Were they, were they the half inch machine guns?
RM: Two 303s, two 303 Brownings. Yeah.
BW: On that version as well.
RM: Yeah.
BW: And did you meet or get to know the rest of the crew at all on this on this particular time.
RM: Well with the Aussies of course I mean they more or less kept together and the Aussie officers, the Aussie officers stayed together and you just didn’t mix unless it was anything that required you all to be together. Anything like that you were but other than that it was a case of you go that way and I’ll go this way. Anyway.
BW: So even, even though you’d been on a crew before where you might have mixed with a couple of the guys because you were the same rank. On this occasion there was even more segregation because –
RM: Oh yeah.
BW: The Aussies didn’t mix with you.
RM: Well you see being the station CO and the squadron commander I mean he’d got a group of Australian officers with him. I mean I suppose in a way I was lucky to have got on the crew. Well never mind.
BW: And how, how did you find flying in a Halifax compared to a Lancaster?
RM: Well, to a gunner there wasn’t a lot of difference. You were sat. I mean from rear turret to mid-upper turret you were just sat there. Sat upright. You could rotate fully. You’d two guns that would go up and down so there wasn’t a lot of change. You know you were just in a turret same as you would have been with the others in a Lancaster. Yeah.
BW: Did you feel there was more room though in a Halifax or a -?
RM: No. Well I think, I think you felt safer this way. I mean you could unclip your seat and drop out whereas with the rear turret you had to undo your back door, back door open that out then slide out into the fuselage so it was a bit more difficult. Yeah.
BW: And getting in and out of the aircraft in general did you feel it was a bit more roomy?
RM: Yeah ‘cause –
BW: Or easier?
RM: ‘Cause the door was in the aircraft side. Little short steps you know. You just, everybody climbed up those and went either front or rear. Oh yes. No, no problem.
BW: And was it, was it still as cold as before or was it a little bit warmer because you were nearer the nav?
RM: Oh it was warmer because you weren’t right down at the back end you know. I mean it was bound to be warmer. I mean I suppose in a way you looked at these things but you used to think well I’ve got my clobber on, I’ve got my coat on, I’ve got my uniform on, leave it at that. Yeah.
BW: And the difference this time is that it’s early 1945 now.
RM: Yeah.
BW: When you’re, where you’re on this part.
RM: Yeah. On the Aussies. Yeah
BW: And although your targets are still Germany was there still much opposition at the time? Were they still as active as you felt they had been before?
RM: Well I mean one of the things was obviously that the opposition, that’s really, real opposition was much deeper into enemy territory. I mean you crossed on to France and it was pretty quiet you know. It had receded. So it was a bit safer in that respect. Yeah.
BW: Were you aware of the war coming to an end? That it would end imminently.
RM: I don’t think so. I don’t think you really looked at it like that respect. You know you just looked at it well I’m in aircrew and we’ll keep flying ’til and told not to. [laughs]
BW: Just keeping going ‘til the end until they tell you to stop.
RM: That’s it. Yes.
BW: And so you’re on this, by this record there’s only five trips that were done between 12th March and 18th of April so that’s really only a month on this before you then stopped flying over, over Germany altogether.
RM: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
BW: Were you involved in other, let’s say humanitarian ops like bringing prisoners of war back or dropping food?
RM: No.
BW: To the Dutch.
RM: No. No. As we finished flying operationally we more or less finished flying and we were just on different stations with, you know, routine jobs. You know you’d still got your rank and you’d got your, whatever you were but you were not doing that anymore. You were just more or less filling time in with being with the services until it was your time to be demobbed.
BW: And so when the announcement came that the war had ended and that you know and that was the end of operations what then happened? Did you celebrate the news and move on or -?
RM: Yeah. Well of course I got my demob. Came home. Got back in to the shop and got that more or less sorted out. Yeah. I might have had a pint or two to celebrate. I mean it was on tap.
[Voices in the background.]
BW: I would imagine the Aussies had quite a big celebration.
RM: Well I mean the thing is when you think Aussies in Cambridge I mean, er Canadians, they could go home. I mean we were home. I mean train, bus or something and you were home. They had a long way to go so it didn’t take long to celebrate.
BW: And in some cases I believe the Australians and Canadians went home sooner or were demobbed much more earlier than the, than the British.
RM: Well I mean the thing was if you look at it from a realistic point of view why not get them home. They’d further to go. Much further to go. Get them away. We were on the doorstep. We could go home at weekends. Go home for seven days leave. I mean they couldn’t so it was practical to get them, you know on the move as quick as anything. Yeah.
BW: And to be honest you weren’t yourself that far from home. I mean if you were at Driffield in North Yorkshire.
RM: Crikey no. I mean.
BW: Back to Leeds. It’s not that far at all is it?
RM: No. No trouble at all. No. No I could get home very easily.
BW: And during all that time did you manage to get to see Pat during the time.
RM: Oh we got leave. Yeah.
PD: Can I say something?
BW: Yeah. Yeah. Go on.
PD: You used to get a penny platform ticket, get on the train [unclear] with your penny platform ticket.
RM: You’re not supposed to talk about that [laughs]
BW: So you used to get a ticket just for the platform and jump on the train instead. [laughs]
RM: [laughs]. Well we hadn’t much money you see had we?
BW: You had to economise. So even in between ops and I guess with not having that tight a crew where you’d socialise together I guess most of your opportunity to take time off you went home and spent, spent with Pat.
RM: Well that’s it you see I mean the thing is you either went out with the lads which are all more or less equal rank, you know, Sergeant, flight sergeant and so forth or if you were in the upper half you went with the boys so of course we just more or less as you say me being on home territory I could, if necessary, at times, get home. Yeah.
BW: And where, where were your favourite haunts? Did you go in to Leeds or any of the nearby towns?
RM: No, because Leeds was probably too near home to be, you know. [laughter in the background] Shut up. I mean the thing was if we were in you know, the other places like Lincoln well I mean Lincoln was farther away but I mean you know if they said, ‘Right there’s no ops tonight,’ Well we all just you know have a mass exodus down to the nearest pub.
PD: Drink chug a lug.
RM: Yeah. Get around a table and drink chug a lug. Drink chug a lug. Drink chug a lug.
BW: And you mentioned when we were talking before you mentioned that sight of Lincoln Cathedral when you were going out.
RM: Yeah.
BW: And seeing it on the way back.
RM: Yeah.
BW: So that seems pretty prominent in your memory.
RM: Well as I say we used to say well where you are in the rear turret it’s the last thing you see. I mean everybody’s looking forward apart from the mid-upper and I mean he’s probably just thinking where the heck are we going? We were looking behind us and the last thing was the two towers and then when we landed just before the tail wheel went down was to see the two towers again. We used to say, you know, ‘Thank goodness we’re home.’ [laughs]
BW: So that for your personally was quite significant wasn’t it?
RM: Those two towers meant an awful lot to us.
BW: And so I guess just jumping forward a bit that where the Memorial is now at Canwick Hill the Bomber Command Spire and it overlooks the valley to the Lincoln Cathedral. That’s quite appropriate isn’t it?
RM: Yeah. Are you digging in your basket again?
JF: You see, you’re distracting him now.
PD: I’m just looking at some photos.
RM: Oh sorry.
BW: So you finished your second tour, you’ve been demobbed, you’re back home at the fruit and veg shop.
RM: Off licence.
BW: Off licence.
RM: Yeah. Fruit and veg didn’t come into it.
BW: Oh. I beg your pardon.
PD: Groceries.
RM: And then we decided that, you see, Pat didn’t want the business. The wife didn’t want the business at all. She wasn’t going to go into it so it was a case of me and I would have had to take staff on so Mrs Finon would have been living off the business, we’d have been living off the business and there would have been staff. So that’s when we decided that we would come to St Anne’s and we moved to St Anne’s just by the railway station. St Anne’s. And that was a complete turnaround then of our family away from Leeds. Yeah.
BW: And so even immediately post war and this was would be 1945/46 presumably. So you’ve moved out this way to Lancashire.
RM: Yeah to to St Anne’s and then in to Lytham and oh two or three places anyway.
PD: Blackpool and –
RM: Yeah.
BW: So you’ve been in this part of the world for the best part of seventy years.
RM: Oh yes. Yes. Yeah. Much, much more. Yeah. Yes it’s been, it’s been most of the time here hasn’t it? Yeah. [pause] Well I hope we’ve helped you.
BW: I’m sure you have. You have. Yeah. You’ve given a lot of, a lot of good information. And when you went to the Memorial last year was that the first time you’d seen a Memorial to the men of Bomber Command or had you been to London?
RM: No. We’d been before hadn’t we? No.
PD: No that was the first time.
RM: That was the first time. Yeah.
FD: You also went to Skellingthorpe
PD: While we were down we went.
FD: No before then. We went to the Skellingthorpe Memorial.
PD: With you.
FD: When they, when they commemorated it.
JF: Was that in ’89?
PD: Yeah.
FD: Something like that. Yeah.
PD: Yeah. That was when he went last year it was a beautiful day.
BW: Yeah. Yeah. It was great wasn’t it?
PD: And James as I say arranged that. [pause] That’s his. That’s his original photo.
BW: Right.
That was my grandma’s. It’s still in its original frame.
BW: Yeah and that’s the same as the photo album.
PD: ’Cause they used to paint the colours on then.
BW: Yeah.
PD: Because they were black and white so that’s –
BW: Yeah.
PD: So that’s the original. The frame’s falling to pieces a bit I’m afraid. Who’s that young man?
BW: That’s [a sergeant?]
RM: This old man. This old man.
PD: My dad is only seventeen years older than me.
BW: Right.
PD: Aren’t you?
RM: Yes.
PD: When I take him to hospital they called me Mrs Marlow. I say, ‘No. I’m his daughter.’ And James.
JF: Yeah.
PD: That bit about dad’s dad. He was in.
JF: He was in the Flying Corps.
PD: He was in the Royal Flying Corps his dad. He was in the army and went into the Royal Flying Corps.
BW: Right.
PD: Do you remember you had his Royal Flying Corps cap badge?
RM: Yeah.
PD: In your RAF cap and you lost it didn’t you?
RM: Yeah. I did.
PD: You lost it. Yeah.
BW: So your dad used to be in the Royal Flying Corps.
RM: That’s probably where the feeling really came from of being, you know, airborne, if you will. Oh dear.
BW: So your dad was in the Royal Flying Corps.
RM: Yeah. I don’t know what he was but –
PD: He was in the army wasn’t he? And then he went in the royal flying.
RM: Yeah. But he never talked about it. Well I mean bless him he just sat there for day in day out. Never talked about anything. I suppose in a way he felt that there wasn’t much for him to talk about. I mean I don’t know. I know when he came out he was a tailor’s presser. Now whether the big operating steam presses that they had any effect upon him I’ll never know.
PD: And I have a sister as well. There’s two of us.
BW: So you had a son and two daughters.
PD: No. Just two daughters.
BW: Sorry. Two daughters.
PD: Two daughters. Yeah. My sister’s five years younger.
RM: Yeah.
PD: Yeah. I’d have liked a brother but it never happened.
BW: And so I guess you’re quite chuffed that there is a Memorial going up to the Bomber Command crews in Lincoln.
RM: Oh I mean as far as I’m concerned they’ve earned it. I mean it says down there how many were, how many were lost. Where is it?
JF: Fifty five thousand [unclear].
BW: Yeah.
RM: A heck of a lot were lost.
PD: And they didn’t get the recognition did they?
RM: No.
PD: They never got the recognition.
RM: No.
BW: You’ve got your medals and Bomber Command clasp as well.
RM: Yeah.
BW: And –
PD: He had to buy that one.
BW: Which is this?
PD: That’s, that’s one they had to buy.
BW: Right.
PD: It’s not. I don’t think recognised as a –
BW: Yeah. It’s not formal issue Bomber Command medal.
PD: No. No. There are his formal issue ones.
BW: Yeah.
PD: So –
BW: Ah. Thank you.
PD: And that was the, that was the recognition one he got.
BW: Yes.
PD: Which I think is rubbish to be honest. I think it should have been a proper medal but there we go.
BW: Yeah. There hasn’t, there hasn’t been recognition for –
RM: For air force, aircrew. No.
PD: For Bomber Command.
RM: No.
BW: But hopefully the, this Memorial and the Centre will go some way to it.
RM: It will mean a lot. It will mean a lot to people. Yes.
BW: Did you say there’s guys on there that you knew? Are there, are there any names of guys on there that you knew on the Memorial walls?
RM: Well there’s always a possibility.
BW: Or not.
JF: There’s one in Edinburgh Castle.
PD: Yes. There’s one lad. His name’s in the book in Edinburgh Castle.
JF: If it’s 5 Group isn’t it?
PD: What was his name?
JF: [just a minute?] Taylor
PD: ‘Cause you told me to have a look in the book.
JF: Taylor.
PD: Is it Taylor?
RM: Could be. I forget love.
PD: [unclear]
JF: [unclear]
PD: You know when the crews split up wasn’t it because of the night vision.
JF: Yeah.
PD: They all went with different crews and a lot were missing presumed killed and he was killed.
JF: Yeah.
PD: And he’s in the book in Edinburgh Castle.
JF: Yeah before he had, his first crew was obviously Pethick at Skellingthorpe. Before Pethick he had another crew but the pilot’s night vision had gone a bit iffy so it says in the, that the pilot was sent to London for re-evaluation so the rest of their crew was all spilt up and gramps was the only one of that crew that actually survived the war. The others all throughout the period of the war were shot down and killed. We’re unsure of the pilot. We could never find out what happened to the pilot.
PD: No.
BW: And so these guys on this picture. The crew. The pilot there you say was Pethick.
PD: Yeah.
RM: Yes.
JF: All that crew stayed there together didn’t they?
PD: And Tom’s there. After the war.
RM: Yeah. That’s Tom. Yeah.
PD: Tom was the one that died a couple of years ago. My dad was at Lincoln with Frank.
BW: Right.
PD: And he used to whistle all day long and he was whistling. This gentleman said, ‘I know that whistle anywhere,’ and they met up again. They’ve all gone now apart from dad.
RM: Yeah. Oh dear.
BW: And so those were the guys from –
JF: 50 squadron.
BW: 50 squadron.
RM: That flew with 50 squadron. Yeah.
PD: Sad isn’t it but people grow old don’t they?
BW: But as you say at least they all came through the war. They all survived it.
RM: Oh yes. We all, we all came through together. Yeah.
PD: Pethick came over from Canada twice to see you didn’t he?
RM: He did. Yeah.
PD: But of course he’s not now but yeah he came over.
RM: Well of course I mean skippers of course they were older weren’t they?
PD: Yes. Well you were the youngest one. You were only eighteen.
RM: Yeah.
FD: And after 50 squadron well after you’d done your tour Pethick then went on to Fighter Command didn’t he flying fighters.
RM: He probably did Frank. You probably remember more.
FD: Yes he did. Yeah. He went on to Hurricanes.
RM: Yeah.
FD: Yeah. Hurricanes.
PD: But dad was eighteen when he volunteered so he was quite young really. Married with a family and –
BW: Yeah. That’s quite a lot of responsibility at a young age. [pause] Ok. Very good. Well I think that’s all the questions I have for you Ron.
RM: Well I’m very pleased. I hope it satisfies what you’ve been looking for. Some background to –
BW: Yeah.
RM: The likes of me. Yeah.
BW: It does. It’s been very good. It’s been very good to talk to you. So –
RM: Thank you.
BW: On behalf of the Bomber Command team.
RM: Yeah.
BW: Thank you very much for your time.
RM: Thank you. My pleasure. Yeah. Very nice to meet you.
BW: Thank you.
FD: Have you ever heard of a Peter Lonk.
BW: A Peter.
FD: Lonk.
PD: No. He’s from Belgium.
FD: He’s a Belgian. Well, he’s in America now isn’t he?
PD: Yeah. He used to find wreckages of aircraft and –
BW: Right.
PD: He used to keep in touch with you didn’t he?
RM: Yeah.
PD: Where am I? My dad is Mr November in the calendar. [laughs]. British Legion calendar.
BW: British Legion calendar, yeah.
PD: Yeah. You look a bit pickled there dad.
JF: He probably was.
RM: What day was that on I wonder?
PD: I don’t know. It’s got different ones in.
FD: Alright there James?
JF: Yeah.
PD: From different. They came and asked could they take his photo.
BW: So this is the British Legion.
PD: I think it’s the British legion. I’m not sure to be honest. I think it is.
BW: Very good. So you’ve made it to November.
PD: Yes. Mr November. One of the calendar boys. Yes.
BW: Brilliant. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ronald Marlow
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Wright
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-22
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMarlowR160422, PMarlowR1601
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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01:21:28 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Ronald Marlow went to Middleton Council School, then worked at Forgrove Engineering. He joined the Air Training Corps, volunteered for the Royal Air Force training in London at St Johns Wood. He became an air gunner ad flew Wellingtons, followed by a post to Heavy Conversion Unit. Ronald was sent to 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe where he flew Lancasters on night and daytime operations in France during the Normandy campaign. After 32 operations as a rear gunner he was sent to gunnery instruction, crashing with a Wellington into woods near RAF Market Harborough. At RAF Driffield (466 Squadron) he served with Albert Hollings flying in Halifaxes Mk 3 as a mid-upper gunner. He carried out operations in Germany to Wiesbaden and Stuttgart. When demobbed he moved to Lytham St. Anne's and Blackpool. Ronald discusses operation cancellations with return to base, flights and preparation, reasons for joining, volunteering, crewing up, service and off-duty life, secrecy, mascots, rank structure, military service condition (temperature at high altitude and heated gloves), military discipline, anti-aircraft guns, aircraft damage during operations, searchlights, memorials, decorations, Bomber Command recognition and reunions.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Leicestershire
England--Yorkshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Lytham St. Anne's
England--Blackpool
Germany
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Stuttgart
France
France--Caen
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
14 OTU
466 Squadron
50 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
crash
crewing up
demobilisation
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
memorial
military discipline
military ethos
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Driffield
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Skellingthorpe
searchlight
superstition
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1171/11740/PMortensenJC1803.2.jpg
2902abff131d5b25fa39163e7da37336
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1171/11740/AMortensenJC180917.1.mp3
54eab7ebac5dce038fc42a6a53cfc8f2
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
Mortensen, James Christian
J C Mortensen
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer James Mortensen (1924, 2209575 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 149 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Mortensen, JC
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Warrant Officer James Mortensen of 149 Squadron, at 2.30 on Monday 17th September 2018 at his home in Leyland, near Preston. First questions if you don’t mind James, if you would just confirm your service number for us and your date of birth please.
JM: Double two o nine five seven five. [Laughs]
BW: You never forget that, do you?
JM: You never forget it. [Laughs]
BW: And what was your date of birth?
JM: 27th 12th 1924.
BW: Which makes you currently 93.
JM: Correct.
BW: Where were you born and where did you grow up, you mentioned -?
JM: Liverpool.
BW: Liverpool. Whereabouts in Liverpool, actually in the centre?
JM: Aigburch, Liverpool 17.
BW: Okay, and Aigburch, that’s an unusual spelling, isn’t it. A u g -
JM: A i g b u r c h.
BW: And along with your mum and dad did you have any brothers and sisters?
JM: Yes, I had two sisters and a brother.
BW: And were you in between, or were you the older brother?
JM: Yeah, I was third, [laughs] I had two older sisters and a younger brother.
BW: And what was home life like in Aigburch, was it quite a nice area?
JM: It was very good, my father was a detective in the police.
BW: What did your mum do?
JM: She just stayed at home [laughs].
JM: Unfortunately, she died in 1937. Very, very young. [Pause]
BW: So you would have not been so old yourself, about nine.
JM: About thirteen, fourteen that’s all.
BW: Thirteen, okay. And whereabouts did you go to school?
JM: St Anne’s Church of England School.
BW: Was that the, was that your first one, was it a primary school or - ?
JM: It was a primary school, yes. And it was, it was a church school right through, from five to fourteen.
BW: And you stayed there, as you say, until you were fourteen. I saw a school report that said you had a special aptitude for Maths and English, is that right?
JM: Yeah.
BW: Were they your favourite subjects then?
JM: Yes, [laughs] maths still is.
BW: Do you think you have a technical background, or a logical sort of brain to-?
JM: I can always remember phone numbers. When I pick up the phone I can ring up anybody and I never look at the, I know the numbers. [laughs]
BW: And you came top of the class in your last examination.
JM: Yeah.
BW: So was that, I think they called it high school certificate, is that right?
JM: Yeah.
BW: So in your year, you were top of that year.
JM: Had my mother been alive, I’d have gone to university. But dad decided otherwise. He was a self made man, he was a detective sergeant and he reckoned that all his children should be the same.
BW: What would you have liked to study at university had you been able to go, did you have plans?
JM: I don’t know, I never considered, I might be, I’d have got there.
BW: I just wondered if you’d had plans –
JM: No.
BW: Or particular focus on things to study.
JM: I was always very keen on maths, probably would have been something to do with that.
BW: And when war broke out you would have been about fifteen years old then, wouldn’t you?
JM: Yeah, I was in the ATC.
BW: And that only started in 1941 didn’t it.
JM: Yeah, number 7 Squadron, 7F squadron, the Founder squadron. That was in Liverpool.
BW: Did you join in 1941, or did you -?
JM: I can’t remember when I joined.
BW: Okay.
JM: I’d got up to NCO or some sort, I remember that, but which I don’t know.
BW: Did you manage to get any flying?
JM: Oh yes, and also we did gliding. That was great [laughs].
BW: So was it –
JM: RAF Sealand we went for that.
BW: Okay.That’s in North Wales.
JM: Yeah, North Wales, Cheshire, Cheshire.
BW: Was it the flying that attracted you to join the Air Force or was there some other aspect to training?
JM: It was flying, flying.
BW: And did you have intentions to become a pilot at this stage?
JM: I went in as a PNB, you know, pilot, navigator, bomb aimer; and when we got the, we went down to Bridgenorth when we, when I was joined up. We went to London first, you know for the ordinary thing at Lords cricket ground, and then I was moved to Bridgenorth. A lot of us decided then what we were going to do. And I went as PNB, and they said well you can go as a PNB but there’s a hell of a waiting list, and you’ve got to go to America or Canada. And he said, ‘it’s a long course,’ he said, ‘of course you can go as a rear gunner right away,’ I said, ‘No thank you’. [laughs]. And he said, ‘well we’ve got a radio school going, as a wireless operator.’ He had a course. I said I fancied that, so I went on that. If I’d gone on the PNB course to America I would have had to wait about eight months, and then it’s about another eight or ten months flying, so it rewarded me well.
BW: So what year was when it you joined up then?
JM: ‘43.
BW: In June I think it was, so you’d have been eighteen.
JM: Yes.
BW: And that was, at that time the minimum age for joining wasn’t it, the earliest point at which you could join.
JM: I’m not sure.
BW: Were you, you said you left school at fourteen,
JM: Yes.
BW: Were you employed between fourteen and eighteen?
JM: Yes, I worked in an office first, as an office clerk, doing the postage stamp et cetera, and then I went into Roots aircraft, building Halifaxes.
BW: And what were, what was your trade when you were building Halifaxes?
BW: Well I got up to like a leading hand, in charge of, they were all of women then, very few men and I was in charge, I was only about eighteen, seventeen whatever it was, and I was in charge of older women, because at that time they wouldn’t let women be in charge [chuckle].
BW: And what kind of things were you instructing?
JM: I was doing the interior of the Halifax, you know the riveting all round. You’d hold the gun inside while somebody outside -
BW: So you had to be quite, exactly the right position.
JM: Yeah, well you went along in a row, and you went from one to another and if you missed it hard luck! [laughs]
BW: And did you enjoy the work?
JM: Oh yes, it were very good.
BW: Was, sometimes these shifts I understood would have been pretty long and very long working hours, did you ever get a chance for a social life in between at all, or-?
JM: Oh yes, we used to go out and enjoy ourselves, a crowd of us. [chuckle]
BW: So you, you joined up in 1943, and you decided to go to be a wireless operator.
JM: Yeah.
BW: And that was simply really because of the shorter waiting list and training time, wasn’t it?
JM: Yeah.
BW: How did you find the training for that profession?
JM: It was excellent. It was RAF Madley in Hereford.
BW: And how long were you there?
JM: About eleven months, it was a long course.
BW: Can you describe what sort of things you were doing during that time?
JM: Yes. We started off learning the morse code, and eventually you had to get up to a certain speed, I got up to thirty two words per minute sending and twenty eight receiving which was not right at the top, and then we learnt all about the TR1154 55 which was the radio transmitter receiver we used in the Lancs. And we had to strip them, well they stripped them down and we had to put them back together eventually when we’d learned all about the valves, they were valves then of course. [chuckle] We used to take the condenser out, or put a dud one in or a dud valve and you had to come in and sort it out.
BW: Presumably this was not just so that you could maintain the radio let’s say in daylight hours in the aircraft, taken out, potentially you would have had to look at a problem with the set in the aircraft at night as well.
JM: Yeah.
BW: Were you training in fairly realistic conditions, in the sense would they turn the lights off to try and recreate night conditions or anything like that?
JM: No.
BW: Just for practice -
JM: Not that I can remember.
BW: Okay. I believe you began your training from then on Wellingtons, your sort of aircrew training.
JM: Yeah.
BW: Do you recall where that was?
JM: It’s all in me log books this. I can’t remember them all.
BW: Okay.
JM: We had Blenheims as well.
BW: So you learnt on Blenheims too?
JM: But on the radio school we were in Percival Proctors.
BW: Okay.
JM: And Avro Ansons and then the flight things for the radio. We were taught it on the ground first and then we used to go two or three in, in an aircraft and take over.
BW: And what kind of exercises were you doing in the aircraft.
JM: Only air to ground communications, morse code and everything.
BW: How did you find that compared to doing it on the ground, any different?
JM: It were very good, very interesting. [Laughs]
BW: What were your assessments like on that, did you, you said you came pretty well near the top on the sending and receiving in Morse Code, was that the same in the air, did you find that, those easy?
JM: Well yeah about the same. [pause]
BW: I believe you met your pilot who would become your, let’s say your, your regular crew pilot while you were flying Wellingtons.
JM: Yeah.
BW: Was that Sergeant Heady?
JM: Addy.
BW: Addy.
JM: A d d y.
BW: And what was, what was he like?
JM: He was fine.
BW: Did you get on pretty well?
JM: Big, tall chap, he lived in Torquay actually. [pause] He was a sergeant then of course. Then eventually all Bomber Command pilots were commissioned.
BW: And so he, he obviously was potentially one of the last remaining NCO pilots, wasn’t he?
JM: Yes, he must have been because it was March when I got to the squadron, ’45 so only few months before, er after a, the war ended.
BW: And from Wellingtons you went on to Lancasters and I believe you started at 16 68 Heavy Conversion Unit.
JM: Yeah, Bottesford, yeah.
BW: Is that Norfolk?
JM: No, I don’t think it is.
BW: South Lincolnshire?
JM: South Lincolnshire I think, Bottesford.
BW: And how did you meet the rest of your crew? ‘Cause you’d meet at the Conversion Unit or thereabouts before going on to the operational squadron?
JM: Well when we met the skipper there were other people, other navigators and bomb aimers there and we all sort of got together.
BW: Did you, some crews met in a hangar, was that your experience?
JM: I can’t remember that. [Laughs]
BW: You just sort of met them -
JM: It’s seventy years ago [laughs].
BW: Do you recall once you got to Methwold in, was it Methwold?
JM: Yep.
BW: In Norfolk, and 149 Squadron, East India Squadron. Do you recall the rest of the crew?
JM: Oh, I know the crew very well, yes.
BW: Do you know what their names and roles were at all?
JM: Oh yes, I kept in touch with three of them.
BW: Who were they?
JM: I kept in touch with the pilot, we used to send Christmas cards to each other every year till about three years ago, then it stopped, I’ve heard nothing since. The navigator died of pneumonia many years ago. The rear gunner, I kept in touch with him and his wife wrote me to saying he’d died. The navigator died of pneumonia I think it was, oh many years ago. So there’s only the bomb aimer and the mid upper gunner that I didn’t know anything about, and I still don’t.
BW: Do you recall their names at all?
JM: Yeah, Bob Simpson the bomb aimer he was from North, up Northumberland, and Barney the gunner, the top, no, mid upper gunner he was from London. Whether they are still alive I don’t know, but they are the only two I don’t know about.
BW: Do you recall who the rear gunner was at all?
JM: Alf Fawcett.
BW: Alf Fawcett.
JM: F a w c e double t. I kept in touch with him and then it was his wife who rang, or phone, sent a letter to me saying he had died, many years ago.
BW: And when you joined were the rest of them all NCOs, were they all sergeant aircrew like you or were any of them -?
JM: All except for the flight engineer, he was the older one of the lot. He remustered from ground crew. So he was like the father of us all, he kept, kept an eye on us. We had a father figure amongst the crew.
BW: And who, do you recall his name, who he was?
JM: Oh gawd, it’ll come back to me, I can’t think of it all but.
BW: No worries. And you said you, said earlier, that you flew with a reduced crew and there was only two gunners.
JM: We only ever had two gunners – a mid upper and a rear gunner.
BW: Okay.
JM: We never had a front gunner, the bomb aimer used to do that. And if we had a mid under, I used to do the mid-under. [pause]
BW: What was, what were the facilities like on the base at Methwold? Do you recall? Did you all share the same accommodation or were you in the sergeants mess, or -?
JM: We had a sergeants mess, but then, it was, they had six wings, and every wing had a dance. So six nights a week we were dancing. [Laughter] and we used to bring in the civvies from Hereford, on the bus, which the WAAFs hated.
BW: So there was, there was quite a good social life through there.
JM: Oh yes. Brilliant social life. And at Methwold, they didn’t have a cinema in Methwold and we had one on the camp so we used to bring the girls in to watch any films and things. It was a very sleepy little village.
BW: Was it quite close by?
JM: Yeah, couple, two or three mile, that’s all.
BW: So you could walk in to town.
JM: Oh well, you wouldn’t walk it, but you could get there handy, you know.
BW: Okay. Did you ever socialise off, off base as well, did you go into Methwold for drinks or anything like that, or did you just stay there?
JM: Yes, they were very good actually, because. My wife has been dead over twenty years now, but when she was alive we decided we’d have a, we had a caravan, I used to tow a caravan, and we stayed in Norfolk, so we went to Methwold, and as we drove into Methwold, right opposite at the junction we came to, was a café, and I said to my wife, I said: ‘That used to be a pub.’ She said, ‘It’s a café,’ so I said anyway let’s go and have a cup of tea. So we went and had a cup of tea, and I said to the lady, this looks very, very like a pub we used to drink in, and she said come with me and she took me through a little side door, and in the back was the bar we used to drink in.
BW: Did it bring back a lot of memories?
JM: Oh yes.
BW: Did you share many of those memories with your wife at the time?
JM: Oh yes, they were very good, some of them [chuckle].
BW: So just thinking now in terms of your sort of operational duties. Can you describe a typical operation, how you prepared for it?
JM: Well the first thing we did, we used to go down to the wireless operator briefing, they’d give us the call signs and everything else we needed to know, and emergency come-backs and things, and then we all used to go to the main briefing and then we found out where we were going.
BW: And how long would the main briefing sort of take?
JM: It would be half an hour, to an hour you know, on the Berlin one, explaining everything you know. It was quite a long flight.
BW: Hmm. Berlin was a notoriously difficult target, how did you feel –
JM: That was our last one.
BW: Yeah. How did you feel when it came up on your list again?
JM: Um, I don’t know, at twenty years of age you’re not frightened, [chuckle] you should be, and I think half the time you felt it was an adventure, off we go again.
BW: So once the briefing had finished, what kinds of things would happen then? What would you be doing in order to join the aircraft?
JM: You’d get all your equipment together, the order they do things and then you needed helmets and then out to the aircraft.
BW: And would you be bused out there?
JM: Oh yeah, well either bused or in a open, or a closed in, what do you call, lorry.
BW: Yeah. A truck with a canvas back sort of thing.
JM: Yeah, yeah.
BW: And did you or any of the crew have any superstitions or particular rituals for getting on board? I mean some crews did, but it was particular to them. Did you have any?
JM: Nothing I can think of, the rear gunner used to wave to a WAAF friend he used have, as we drove down, taxied round the perimeter, she’d you know come out and wave to him and that was about it.
BW: So you would all get on the aircraft then, ready to start the operation.
JM: Yeah.
BW: What kind of checks or preparations would you make at that point?
JM: Well we’d have to set the transmitter receiver up for the frequencies we were going to use, because every hour we got a group message, any agency could come in between, but every hour they got a group message, and you had to set up for that and everything. If you went in a different aircraft, because you never always flew in the same one, somebody else would have a different call sign so you’d have to put your own in.
BW: And did it take long at all to, to get ready, were you fairly quick and efficient at doing it?
JM: Yes as soon as possible so as you could sit down. [Chuckle]
BW: And as you sort of taxied out would the pilot be calling the crew for checks or anything like that, would he - ?
JM: He would just make sure we were all in position and then he’d took over with the control tower.
BW: So right at the, I suppose, start of a, an operation then, [cough] how did it feel if you think back to your first operation, and you having done all that training in the lead up to it, do you recall how it felt to go on your first op, over Germany?
JM: I think they all felt the same, we went either to the Ruhr or Berlin, but they all felt the same. At twenty years of age you weren’t bothered.
BW: There were no butterflies in the stomach or anything like that?
JM: Well, I suppose there must have been, but it wasn’t really in fear, I always knew I was coming back. ‘Cause I always made arrangements where I was going the next night. Mind, it didn’t always work out that way.
BW: And being so close to the end of the war because this was around March.
JM: Yes, March ’45. Yeah.
BW: 1945. Did you feel at any point prior to that an eagerness to get on to operations before the war ended, or -?
JM: Oh yes, we wanted to go, I mean we did three or four, and then we had a mess up and we were sent to Feltwell on the bombing course.
BW: And was there any reason given for that, being sent on the course?
JM: Well yes, [chuckle] a difference between the pilot and the navigator, and where to bomb.
BW: And do you think that was a mis-identified target or -?
JM: Yeah.
BW: Okay.
JM: When we came back, because there was a camera on board of course. And they photographed where we bombed and we were sent from Methwold to Feltwell which only a couple of mile away, and we did a fortnight bombing practice.
BW: Were those the only repercussions from the incident?
JM: Yeah. That’s all that I knew. I don’t know what happened to the pilot, have no idea. But they still stayed with us.
BW: So they certainly weren’t separated or anything like that.
JM: No.
BW: Were there any particular incidents from other raids that you went on? You flew in total four operational sorties, two during the day and two at night. Were there any particular incidents that stood out from those?
JM: Only one, when we were attacked by a night fighter. That was fun, well it wasn’t fun then but, but the mid upper started on him and the rear gunner and then I had a mid under and I had a go but I don’t think we hit him. But it must have been about, well a month later, we got a DFM sent to the squadron, only one. I don’t know who got it, I’ve no idea, it shouldn’t have been shared between the crew. somebody got it I don’t know who, could have been anyone.
BW: So potentially that might, might have been over, over Berlin, on your last sortie.
JM: It could well have been.
BW: Were there any other, there were no other, no other incidents, you only mentioned the one.
JM: No, I saw a few Halifaxes and Lancs hit and go down, but we were never hit or anything, so, just that one, the night fighter came down, over, he never hit us, he just went just past us and went underneath and that was it.
BW: And you mention your role was dual role as a mid-under gunner as well. Can you describe what that entailed?
JM: Well, it was very, very, very few aircraft had a mid-under turret. Most of the time they didn’t. They was just all flat prone. But if we were on an aircraft that had a mid-under I used to use it, that’s all. It was very seld,I think I only used it once, I think.
BW: And what sort of –
JM: Because most of them didn’t have them.
BW: What sort of gun were you firing?
JM: The 303, four 303s or two, I can’t remember now. They were 303s I know.
BW: And how were you positioned in the aircraft, clearly you’d be sat on the floor.
JM: Yes.
BW: But were you just, was there any kind of seating for you to be in as there was for other gunners?
JM: No, not really. You sort of bent down sort of thing, you know, on the loo seat we had. But then only happened once so, all the other aircraft didn’t have mid-unders.
BW: And were you given any gunnery training?
JM: Oh I did some gunnery training, yes,
BW: And was yours –
JM: ‘Cause I went in as a WOP/AG first, then half way through they changed it to the S brevet for Signals, so WOP/AG finished and the Signallers took over.
BW: And were you, was yours the only aircraft on the squadron with the mid-under gunner or were there any, any others?
JM: We didn’t have a mid-under gunner.
BW: Or any of them –
JM: It was the wireless op that did it. [laughs]
BW: Yeah, but were, were there any other aircraft on the squadron, on your squadron, that had that facility?
JM: Some of them, I never went through them all, but some I flew had, I think there was two had it, all the rest didn’t. Cause there were very, very few of them had them.
BW: Interesting this.
JM: Because they were old ones. Because they were the early mark one Lancs that had the mid under.
BW: Okay. And were you, from your position in the aircraft, you are fairly enclosed, were you able at any stage able to see the targets you were flying over at all?
JM: I had a window alongside me.
BW: So you had a reasonable view.
JM: I had a wonderful view, [laughter]. It was only when, apart from the pilot and the bomb aimer in the front, this was the only window, it was smashing and I could look out and see what was happening.
BW: Do you recall what it was like flying over the targets during the day as opposed to during the night, was it any significant difference for you?
JM: You were more vulnerable during the day, you could be seen easier of course, but we never had any problems at all, apart from that once. Which was like a trip going out and coming back, dropping your bombs and coming back. We were very lucky.
BW: Fairly straight forward then, wasn’t it?
JM: Yeah. Fifty percent luck.
BW: And I believe you were also involved in, or your flights after the Berlin raid and after the surrender, involved POW repatriation.
JM: Yes.
BW: You had one around May.
JM: Yeah, brought Italian prisoners, our prisoners from Italy, brought them back and also dropped food supplies to the people in Holland, got a photograph there of it.
BW: Can you describe those kind of sorties? They are quite different.
JM: It was wonderful actually, because we were flying over, we had to fly pretty low to drop them, and there were thousands of people round the, wherever we were dropping them, and we were frightened of hitting them, so that’s the point, they were so, because the minute the stuff dropped they were on them, because they were short of food.
BW: And when you say it’s very low level, would you say it’s below two hundred and fifty feet, something like that?
JM: Oh no, I wouldn’t think so.
BW: Slightly above.
JM: Probably about a thousand feet.
BW: Thousand. Okay.
JM: But, we couldn’t be too high or when they dropped you didn’t want to damage anything. You didn’t drop from a big height. We’d have messed some.
BW: Did they, do you recall how they delivered the food packages? Was it a case of just opening the bomb bay doors or did they go out the side, the sort of the crew door or anything like that?
JM: We used to throw them out the doors mainly ‘cause you couldn’t put them in the bomb bay really.
BW: What sort of size packages are we talking about do you think?
JM: Oh, I can’t remember, but they ended up on a short parachute down there, but the minute they landed they were on.
BW: So I guess they were kind of um, boxes that you could lift and -.
JM: I think there’s a photograph there isn’t there, that one.
BW: Yes, so these show, this photograph happens to show a Lancaster with its bomb bay doors open.
JM: There must have been some went down from there.
BW: And that, looking at that, the people on the ground obviously seem pretty happy to see you. Was that something, does that photograph look pretty familiar to you, was that the kind of thing you would see?
JM: Yeah, they were all waiting, we had to be very careful we miss them.
BW: Did you fly many of those, or was it just the one?
JM: Must have been a couple that’s all. We also took the top brass over the bombing areas after the war. They wanted to see what damage had been done to Berlin and places like that, I forget the name now, there was a special name for it. But top brass used to come and fly with us, so that they could see what had happened and went back again.
BW: Did you have to give up your seat for any of them so they could have a look out the window?
JM: No, I had to stay there in case there was a call. [Laughs]
BW: And just thinking about the POW flights, what can you recall of those?
JM: Oh, that was unbelievable, they were really, down and out and we took cigarettes and chocolate with us and gave it them, they were pleased as anything, you know. More Brits we brought back, from Italy.
BW: How many do you think you, you managed to fit in the aircraft?
JM: I can’t remember that.
BW: Because it was quite tight those.
JM: But they, they made room for them, you know. But they were very, very, very [emphasis] grateful for being brought back.
BW: And were they all RAF POWs? The Army?
JM: No, no, the Army, Navy, not Navy, Army and RAF mainly.
BW: And did they look like they’d had a rough time at all or were they - ?
JM: They didn’t look very happy, well they did happy when we got there.
BW: You flew both Wellingtons and Lancasters. Did you have a preference having flown either, was there any – ?
JM: Oh, the Lancaster.
BW: Particular characteristics?
JM: The Lancaster definitely, much better. Also flew in a mosquito.
BW: Have you: what was that like?
JM: Well, it was queer how it happened. I was a Warrant Officer then, I believe, or a flight sergeant, one of them, and I was in the office and this bloke came, was a pilot, he came in and he said, ‘Are you busy?’ I said, ‘Not too busy why?’ He said ‘I’m going up for a flight’ he said, ‘I need someone with me.’ Okay, fair enough. Told them, say where I was going, I went out there was a Mosquito, [laugh] terrific.
BW: Do you recall where you went?
JM: No, we were just flying round generally but, terrific aircraft.
BW: It wasn’t at low level was it, was it er - ?
JM: Just bits and pieces.
BW: Really.
JM: Oh no, the only low level was in the air display down in London, that was er, murder. We all went down for Battle of Britain day and the Lancs were going to do a low level fly past and the pilot was Squadron Leader, I’ve forgotten his surname now, but he said, I was going with him, only two of us, I had to act as flight engineer as well. He said okay. We got there and it was pouring rain so we all went to the pub, then the sun came out and they decided to go ahead with the operation. Did a four engine fly over, then a three engine, then a two engine. He said, ‘do you fancy a single?’ I said ‘you can go to hell!’ [Laugh] And then on the way back he said, ‘I’m knackered’ he said, ‘you can fly it back,’ so I flew it back, only straight and level obviously, keep the height and that’s all. And then woke him up when we got near the drome.
BW: You had no issues flying it, or taking, taking control or anything?
JM: Hmm?
BW: You had no issues taking control or anything it was very easy to fly?
JM: Well we used to take turns apiece the crew, pilot used to come out and, not on ops obviously, but low, on cross country flying we used to take, he’d to say come and have a go I’m having a rest and we’d all take turns. [Laughs]
BW: How did it feel to fly?
JM: It was fine.
BW: That’s quite something, to be just given a go on a Lancaster.
JM: Mind you, don’t forget there was a flight engineer sitting alongside you and he’s a pilot as well.
BW: True. Were there any other incidents, or sorties that were particularly memorable for you?
JM: No, I don’t think so, only the low level one we did, over East Anglia, about five of us in formation. Oh god, cows and sheep running riot.
BW: So there were five –
JM: They had permission to do that of course.
BW: So there were five Lancasters, in -
JM: Formation.
BW: Were you fairly close formation?
JM: No, not too close.
BW: So fairly loose formation, and presumably shaped like an arrowhead, one lead and two either side.
JM: Yes, from what I can remember. Oh, it was great.
BW: What sort of height were you for that?
JM: I can’t remember that, it was quite low.
BW: And you were over East Anglia.
JM: Yes.
BW: At that point. Did you go over the beach?
JM: Over the sea as well.
BW: Excellent. And who was your CO? You mentioned, you mentioned him before, when you went down to display, who was your CO on that?
JM: Group Captain, I can’t remember his name now, but he was a smashing bloke. And when we went out on day trips and things, instead of him coming in the car he come in the truck with us. He was a real down to earth bloke, you know, very nice.
BW: There was a Wing Commander Cholton in charge of the squadron at the time. I don’t suppose he, his name rings any bells does it?
JM: No.
BW: No. Okay. So after the war ended and you’ve had these, er additional sort of sorties, what sort of things happened to you after that?
JM: Well I was asked to stay on, sign on and stay on. And I had, had three months of church parades, drills, no flying, and I got bored to tears and said oh gawd this isn’t for me so I came out. But I was offered a commission if I stayed on, but I didn’t, perhaps it was a mistake, I don’t know, I’d have got a lovely pension by now. [laughs]
BW: So at that stage you were a Warrant Officer.
JM: Yes.
BW: And sort of, potentially you’d been asked to consider going up to officer but declined it, and so this would be, your, your service in the RAF ended in –
JM: ’47.
BW: February 1947.
JM: It would be the end of ’46.
BW: And you asked –
JM: I wasn’t the only one, I think they asked quite a few to stay on, but I was one of them. After having, as I said, a few months of no flying, ‘cause we hardly ever went up after the war finished, apart from these special ones, and there was that and loads of church parades every Sunday, and parades during the week, no, I thought I couldn’t stick four more of this. But afterwards I thought maybe I should have done.
BW: And were you still based at Methwold during that time?
JM: No, I was up at Kings Lynn. Marham. RAF Marham.
BW: And so eventually in ’47 you asked to be demobbed, and what happened to you then, what, what course did your life take after that?
JM: Well, I was sent to Burtonwood, that’s where we got demobbed, and I got me suit [chuckle] and then I went home.
BW: So Burtonwood’s not too far from Liverpool, really.
JM: No.
BW: Near Warrington.
JM: Yeah, Warrington. That’s where we got demobbed, at Burtonwood.
BW: And did you go back to the family home in Aigburch?
JM: Oh no, my father had remarried then and moved to Hunts Cross, which was a [posh voice] superior area of Liverpool, so they say.
BW: [Cough] And was he still in the police force at that time?
JM: Yep.
BW: So presumably he had been promoted from -
JM: He’d made it to Detective Sergeant, yeah. And then he remarried of course, and we won’t go into further details, and I left home. [chuckle] He [emphasis] was all right.
BW: And where, okay, So, um –
JM: I went into digs then.
BW: And were you still in the Liverpool area, on your own?
JM: Oh yes.
BW: And what did you do for employment after that, after coming out the RAF?
JM: My uncle was in the aircraft industry and I went into Roots and they were making Lancasters, Halifaxes then. No, start again, [mutter] can’t remember, oh, um, what the heck did I do then? [Pause] I went to the British School of Motoring, as a driving instructor.
BW: And how long were you there?
JM: About fourteen months, because someone said to us there was a firm opening up at Speke, where they made Ford cars and they wanted delivery drivers. So, I had a pupil, I said ‘you’re going for a nice long ride today, we’re going out to Speke!’ And we went out to Speke, I went to see the manager and he signed me up right away, well, being an instructor. And a couple of weeks later I was delivering new cars and Fords, all over the country. Single cars. Then eventually I drove the car transporters.
BW: How long did that last?
JM: Oh gawd, twenty odd years, I was there a long time. I retired from there actually.
BW: And what –
JM: I’ve been retired since 1997.
BW: And what sort of things have occupied your time since? I mean obviously you spent time with your wife, as you say, before she died two years ago, sadly.
JM: We had, well we had a series of caravans in the Lake District. We loved the Lake District and still do, and we had a caravan near Keswick, so we used to spend nearly every weekend up at Keswick. Used to go for long walks and it was great.
BW: Very nice part of the world.
JM: Oh, I love Keswick.
BW: And, just thinking about the sort of commemoration and recognition given to Bomber Command and the veterans since, have you been to the Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln? Alright. Okay, but you’ve been to East Kirkby and to Coningsby and so on.
JM: I went to Madley once, that’s all. I’ve been to Lincoln.
BW: And did you go to the unveiling of the memorial in Green Park?
JM: No, no, I went to the Cathedral, because they’ve got all the information in the Cathedral there.
BW: And what are your thoughts about the recognition that’s been given to bomber crew since?
JM: I think it’s about time, I mean we did lose fifty percent.
BW: Yeah, the 125,000 crew that’s –
JM: Yes, that’s a lot of crew.
BW: And lost 55,000 plus.
JM: Yeah.
BW: And were there any additional or other memorable incidents that you can recall from your service at all?
JM: No, not really.
BW: Do you think we’ve covered everything?
JM: Apart from one when I could have died, [chuckle] that was our own fault. We went out to a night do, in Hereford, a dance, and the last bus was eleven something and it was about twenty to twelve, and the, what do you call it? the SPs came up to me, said, Warrant he said, ‘I am going to give you a chance, there’s twenty minutes to go till midnight, if you are still here at midnight we’re booking you.’ So, we stayed didn’t we, and we got booked. But anyway we came out, there were no buses, and it was about eight mile back to the camp, about one o’clock in the morning and we were all walking along, horrible snowing and all, it was a horrible night, and lucky a, one of the transports came along, with food things, we got a lift back in that. God knows how we’d have got back otherwise. [Laugh] Course we got seven days for that, didn’t we.
BW: Was that the only time you spent in –
JM: CB, yes. [Laugh]
BW: And when you married, what, what happened? You had, obviously a son, Dave and -
JM: Got another son in America, Andrew, and a daughter in the Wirral. My son’s coming over from America in November.
BW: So you’ve had a pretty good post war life really, haven’t you?
JM: I’ve a very enjoyable life.
BW: Yeah. You enjoyed your RAF service and you’ve enjoyed your time since.
JM: Yes.
BW: Good. Well, that’s all the questions I have for you, James, so -
JM: Good!
BW: Thank you very much for your time and the information you’ve given to the IBCC.
JM: If you want any other stuff, there’s photographs there maybe, if you want them, and the, just make sure they’re working.
BW: So would you –
JM: Short burst on each, front and rear, and you know, that was it, as I say it was only once I think, only once or twice at the most, I ever had [emphasis] a mid under, most of the time I didn’t. There were very few Lancs had them.
BW: And you, you’d never fired your guns in anger had you?
JM: Only once. That was once.
BW: Just the, when you saw that night fighter.
JM: Yeah. Whether we hit it or not I’ve no idea. But we got a DFM to the squadron afterwards. I don’t know who got it. They said we were going to draw lots to get it, never heard any more about it.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with James Christian Mortensen
Creator
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Brian Wright
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-09-17
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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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AMortensenJC180917, PMortensenJC1803
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:49:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Herefordshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
Description
An account of the resource
Born on 27 December 1924 in Aigburth Liverpool, James was 15 when war broke out in Europe. He intended to join as a pilot, navigator, bomber aimer in 1943 but due to shorter waiting list and training time he trained to become a wireless operator at RAF Madley. James mentions that he trained in older medium bomber such as Blenheims and Wellingtons, and mentions how he met his regular pilot, Sgt Aedy. He qualified for heavy bombers at RAF Bottesford, on Lancasters, before being assigned to 149 Squadron 'West Indies' at RAF Methwold.
James says that a separate briefing was held for wireless operators to inform them of callsigns and code words to be used before the main briefing. James was also the mid-under gun operator when the aircraft required one. James’ crew only flew four operations over Berlin being near the end of the war; he mentions a mis-identified target incident and an attack by a night fighter. James’ account also details being involved in the Operation Dodge and Operation Manna, as well as recalling a time that he was invited to fly in a Mosquito which he described as ‘a terrific aircraft’. James continue to serve until 1947 until he de-mobilised due to his ‘dislike of a lack of flying’. James retired from active service as a warrant officer. He would work as a delivery driver until retiring in 1997. James recalls that he kept in contact with three members of his crew until 2015.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Alex Joy
Anne-Marie Watson
Steph Jackson
149 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing
Distinguished Flying Medal
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military ethos
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Bottesford
RAF Feltwell
RAF Madley
RAF Methwold
training
Wellington
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/119/1215/PThomasWH1501.2.jpg
745fc204912c7bac71a5523c73801932
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/119/1215/AThomasWH150711.1.mp3
b0bbf81f2421a7d15357a2b007230236
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BB: Ok Bill.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Thank you for allowing me to come into your home and interview you. It’s a real pleasure to meet with a veteran like yourself.
WT: I’ll give you, I’ll give you the bill later on.
BB: Thank you very much. Ok. What’s your birthday date?
WT: 28th January 1922.
BB: And place of birth?
WT: Redruth in Cornwall.
BB: Redruth. And did you go to school there as well?
WT: Yes I did.
BB: And you did your school certificate and all that kind of thing.
WT: I did.
BB: Ok. When did you, did you volunteer to join the RAF or were you conscripted and then decide for aircrew?
WT: Volunteered because as I said I’ve got that thing all written out. We had, in 1938 they started a flight of the Air Defence Cadet Corp.
BB: Yeah
WT: I joined that because our headmaster was an ex-fighter pilot in the First World War. And then I left school to start work so I couldn’t carry on with the flight but I managed to find the town flight and joined them
BB: And what was your pre-war occupation?
WT: In local government.
BB: Ok.
WT: On the health department side.
BB: And what attracted you to wanting to volunteer for aircrew?
WT: I think it, it was our headmaster who was, as I say, he was a fighter pilot.
BB: The ex RAF sea pilot. Yes.
WT: Ex RAF.
BB: Yeah. Good. He encouraged you to do that.
WT: Not only do that when I, when I was working, walking down past his house, as I had to, I heard, ‘Thomas. Why haven’t you joined the ATC?’ I said, ‘Well,’ ‘It’s the school.’ ‘There’s one down the end of your road. I’ll see you tomorrow night at three.’
BB: Good. So you, you volunteered for aircrew. You obviously went for air crew selection.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And they obviously graded you as, as a bomb aimer or did you go for a particular -
WT: I wanted to be a pilot.
BB: Right. And what happened with that that you couldn’t be. Were they oversubscribed or they just needed bomb aimers?
WT: No well I came out from doing the stuff. I went up to Sywell.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Tiger Moths.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Well I got twelve and a bit hours in but I never saw it
BB: And then you were scrubbed.
WT: Well I could take off. I could do everything in the air
BB: But the landing was a problem.
WT: Landing was a problem. On the little mini run, place -
BB: Yes.
WT: We had.
BB: Yes
WT: But the big one I could get in at. The chief flying instructor
BB: Right.
WT: Took me on a check and he said, ‘I’ll try my best but I don’t know what I can do,’ but he couldn’t.
BB: Anyway, so you were remustered as a bomb aimer.
WT: No. As a NavB.
BB: Oh as a Nav oh as a NavB. Ok. Right.
Other: Excuse me for just a second. Turn it off and press that to start again. Hold that down to this constant.
BB: Ok.
Other: Ok, right.
BB: So -
Other: I want to go and check on my dog.
BB: Ok. So -
Other: I’d better check on the dog in the car.
BB: Ok.
WT: Oh alright my dear.
BB: A NavB.
Do you want me to get up?
BB: A navigator bracket bomb aimer ok. Now, was that the half brevet with the B on it?
WT: No the old-
BB: Oh as the old observer. Ok.
WT: Oh yes.
BB: The flying O.
WT: That’s what I got.
BB: Right.
WT: ‘cause I went to Canada. Eventually.
BB: Oh you went, part of the old Empire Training School.
WT: I did. And I did my bomb aiming and gunnery. And then to oh I’ve forgotten what it’s called now - L’Ancienne-Lorette. And I did my navigation training there. I must have come out fairly well because I got granted a commission.
BB: Right.
WT: So the first six, we never knew which ones out of thirty two were commissioned and then I went to Prince Edward Island and we did three or four weeks special training there to go out over the sea. Navigation and all that. So -
BB: Ok.
WT: That finished.
BB: Right.
WT: Back to Moncton and that was the holding unit.
BB: Yeah.
WT: There for ages waiting to go back to England and eventually doing so. I had come over to Canada on the Queen Elizabeth.
BB: Wow.
WT: Came back on the Aquitania.
BB: Which of course had been converted to a trooper so it wasn’t very luxurious.
WT: Luxurious oh it was luxurious enough.
BB: It was enough, still luxurious.
WT: oh it was alright. And then down to the holding unit waiting to be, go somewhere. We were pushed here there and everywhere and eventually back again and told we were then going to Scotland to something, I said, ‘What is that for? Bomb aimers.
BB: Bomber aimer.
WT: So they converted us from that to bomb aiming.
BB: I see. Right. And so what time, at what date did you actually go, finish that training?
WT: Oh I can do it.
BB: Ok.
WT: Do it from here. [?]
BB: Roughly.
WT: Monckton. Harrogate. Oh back to England in November ’43.
BB: November ‘43 so -
WT: And then to Harrogate.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And then we were at Sidmouth, back to Harrogate again and eventually up to Wigtown.
BB: Oh.
WT: That was April ’44.
BB: Ok and you joined so your OTU where you crewed up. Where was that?
WT: That was down at Castle Donington in May.
BB: Castle.
WT: ’44.
BB: And was that? When my uncle was flying for 9th squadron at Bardney, an Australian pilot he did his OTU at Kinloss.
WT: Ah huh.
BB: And they threw them in to a big hangar and all the navs and the pilots and the air gunners and the bomb aimers were all in this big hangar and they virtually crewed up until they found their own crew.
WT: This is what we did.
BB: Good. So it seemed to have been an RAF -
WT: That was the way of doing it. Yes.
BB: Programme.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And it was, it was very good because each crew kind of found the people they kind of trusted to fly with and they’d ask questions like, to the pilot particularly, ‘Were you alright on your course?’ ‘What were you?’ ‘Oh I was above average.’ ‘You’ll do.’ And it was usually the navigator that found the pilot.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And once they’d got those two, ‘oh I met a bomb aimer over there. A guy I liked.’
WT: This was the way we did it.
BB: And that was exactly the same -
WT: We did it the same way.
BB: That you did it.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Ok and so you were all taking each other on trust at that stage.
WT: Sure and then we went on from there to Prangtoft sorry, Sandtoft.
BB: Sandtoft.
WT: And then Hemswell for Lanc finishing school and then I did what, I was transferred then from there to 166 at Kirmington and 166 squadron was there and we were the 3rd flight. AB. I think it was C flight. And they -
BB: And what were they flying at the time? Lancs?
WT: Well that was Lancs.
BB: Lancs. Yeah.
WT: And what they did was they they nearly burst C flight ready and then we went back actually down to Scampton.
BB: Right.
WT: As 153.
BB: Ok.
WT: And we were the first aircraft to land at Scampton ’cause they had just put the stuff in. We were the first aircraft to land there. In A Able which was somebody else’s kite anyway.
BB: Yes.
WT: But er yeah we went along the runway the lads were all waving. He said, ‘There’s mine’
BB: Now, when my uncle was on 9 squadron in ’43 of course. This was a bit later on in the war. The pilot i.e. my uncle and his navigator flew a second observer, a second crew. They went with a regular crew on a raid.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Who were about to finish their tour so the pilot and the navigator flew on that raid as supernumerary just to see what it was like.
WT: Only one. It was only the pilot went from our -
BB: Ok. Right.
WT: ‘cause he -
BB: They still did that in that place by the time you -
WT: Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: They did one trip.
BB: Yeah. As a spare bod. And -
WT: That’s right.
BB: They came back.
WT: That’s right.
BB: And then got their own crew.
WT: That’s right.
BB: Was the air, was the Lancaster you had on 153 a brand new one or was it, had it been recycled?
WT: Well -
BB: From another crew?
WT: Well it was one of the, it was one of the -
BB: One of them.
WT: In fact we didn’t get I Item until about four or five and then it was regular hours.
BB: Ok.
WT: Flying. That’s what it says up there.
BB: Yeah my uncle did much the same thing. He did, he did it seemed to be a Bomber Command practice.
WT: Yeah.
BB: That they got the pilot and the nav to fly these initial sorties.
WT: Ahum.
BB: And then they were given a gash not gash but spare Lancs or –
WT; Yeah.
BB: To fly one or two trips.
WT: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: And then their own brand shiny new Lancaster arrived from the factory and they had that for the whole of the rest of their tour. My uncle’s Lancaster was called Spirit of Russia and it finished the war with a hundred and nine ops.
WT: Did it?
BB: And so it was lucky. But anyway we’re not talking about my uncle we’re talking about.
WT: Thomas.
BB: So there you are on ops.
WT: Yeah and we -
BB: With your scratch crew. Yeah.
WT: Yes and we carried on right up until well we did one on the 3rd of February ’45. No sorry the 7th of March ’45. And on the 8th we did a grand loop.
BB: Ah.
WT: Our pilot passed out.
BB: Oh.
WT: We think it was a fit and we were on our way to Castle.
BB: Ah.
WT: And we came out and [wing co Piley?] said, ‘You’ll be flying tonight’ and we said, ‘Not [so and so] likely until we know what’s happened to the skipper.’ He said, ‘You’ll be on a charge.’ I said, ‘I’ll see you there. Sir’ and left it at that.
BB: So, what, the was pilot was
WT: He -
BB: Obviously written off.
WT: Yes he was pretty.
BB: Wrtten off.
WT: He was gone. By that time they’d taken him away. By the time we’d got gathered together and he came back, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s alright. The spare crew are going.’ so I saw him in the mess.
BB: He didn’t give you a spare pilot to fly that night.
WT: No. Well he wanted us to fly.
BB: Fly. So you didn’t do that.
WT: We didn’t go. No. We just didn’t. It was -
BB: That was your last trip?
WT: No.
BB: No.
WT: So what happened then, Bruce went into hospital and eventually they realised he wasn’t coming out. They sent us home on leave and brought us back and I can’t remember whether they gave us three weeks or anyway we came back again and we did our last three with a Canadian no an Aussie pilot who’d lost his crew and had three to do.
BB: Right. Ok that -
WT: So he did three.
BB: That was usually the way.
WT: We thought we should have done one more so what we did was twenty nine and a half ‘cause we had an abortion in the middle of it.
BB: Right. Right. Ok and I gather that rather unfairly French targets counted for half.
WT: No.
BB: At that time of the war.
WT: No.
BB: No.
WT: No.
BB: No.
WT: In fact the first one was Fort [Frederick Heinrich] just on the Dutch coast.
BB: Oh right. Ok.
WT: But that was a full.
BB: Ok.
WT: That was full.
BB: Yeah.
WT: They were all full.
BB: Yeah.
WT: ‘Cause we didn’t do very many French ones.
BB: No. Not at that stage. No.
WT: No. We were going out.
BB: No. No. Right.
WT: Including Dresden.
BB: Yes. Now what was you’re, ok we’ll get to Dresden later.
WT: Yes.
BB: ‘Cause it’s been quite controversial and everybody sees that as the bad thing that Bomber Command did. Um what what’s your opinion of that?
WT: My opinion is as I’ve said to many people we bombed Dresden because we, one, we were told to. But it turns out afterwards that Mr Churchill was given from the Russians three, three targets that needed to be hit, Dresden and two others. I don’t know which they were. And he was given to us, he gave them to Bomber Harris and said, ‘There’s the three. You do them whenever you think right.’ And we went on the Dresden -
BB: Yeah.
WT: Trip.
BB: Yeah Churchill gave them to Portal who was chief of the air staff.
WT: Yes and he -
BB: And Portal gave them to Harris.
WT: Yeah and Harris, Harris sent them.
BB: Just did what he was told basically.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah [?]
WT: But Harris said to us, you know, we didn’t, he chose them.
BB: Yes.
WT: He chose Dresden. Ten hours twenty that was.
BB: Yes it was a long trip.
WT: It was. And it was the best bonfire night I’ve ever seen.
BB: Yes it did. It was rather grand.
WT: But -
BB: As far as the crews were concerned –
WT: I found out afterwards and I’ve got the book saying -
BB: Yes.
WT: That Dresden was a target. It was full of troops. They were making very small arms stuff.
BB: Yeah.
WT: For submarines and things like that all scattered all over the place.
BB: Yeah it was a -
WT: So -
BB: Legitimate target.
WT: A legitimate target.
BB: Legitimate target. Yes. So that was Dresden and I think in the post war my own opinion and this is my own opinion and you know Churchill wanted to stand in the Conservative government. Labour were coming up and what we understand of labour it’s now called Labour it was a socialist government coming up and he wanted to back away from the actual how effective Bomber Command had been and um and more or less threw Harris to, to the wolves.
WT: And washed his hands.
BB: And washed his hands of it. But he did the same with Dowding after the Battle of Britain so there we go it says something about the great Churchill doesn’t it?
WT: No. I don’t, don’t respect him.
BB: No.
WT: Anymore.
BB: Anyway -
WT: Sorry.
BB: Enough of that.
WT: Go on.
BB: No. No. It’s ok but I saw Dresden on your bookcase and I thought I’d ask about it.
WT: I got it there.
BB: Now getting back to the crew.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And how you all trusted each other and had to rely on each other.
WT: Yeah.
BB: What, were there any, I mean were you scared?
WT: No.
BB: You weren’t scared.
WT: Never scared.
BB: Ok. Funny I’ve heard this a lot from Bomber Command crews. They weren’t, they were apprehensive but they weren’t particularly scared.
WT: No. We just went in and did it.
BB: And did it. Yeah ok. Now we’ve read a lot, or I’ve read a lot, there’s been a lot of post-war um study on LMF issues.
WT: Yes.
BB: Lack of moral fibre issues. In your time in Bomber Command did you ever come across anything of that sort?
WT: I think there was one. One night that I never found out true there was three of us three kites on a set of pads.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Or whatever you call them.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And we did a run up and then we used to come outside -
BB: Yeah.
WT: For a smoke or whatever knowing that the signal would go up, get in your kites, and there was a pilot on one of those things and I didn’t know him sat in the hedge smoking a cigarette and there was a little bit of a kafuffle and three staff cars came down and he went with them. Now, that was the bloke who had refused to go that night. When we got back everything was hushed.
BB: Was he commissioned?
WT: Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: We didn’t, I don’t know what had happened to him. I didn’t know the guy.
BB: He was just posted. That was it. Gone.
WT: It was just, he was just taken off. Yeah.
BB: Yeah ok. What year would that be roughly? Roughly. Doesn’t have to be exact.
WT: I can’t remember. It was certainly in ’44.
BB: Ok.
WT: ’45 I mean.
BB: ’45.
WT: The beginning of ’45.
BB: Because, coming back to my late uncle’s crew his rear gunner um Sergeant Clegg had been a pre-war warrant officer but had been busted down to sergeant many times for doing nasty things, naughty things I should say. I won’t go into details.
WT: Right. No.
BB: But he was always in and out of Sheffield. You know what Sheffield was?
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. He was always in and out of Sheffield and that’s another place that doesn’t have much publicity. It was the air crew rehabilitation centre or whatever they wanted to call it.
WT: Ahum.
BB: But I only found this out by looking at the form 500, 540.
WT: 540.
BB: Yeah and it had all the missions for my uncle and the crews and you’d see Sergeant Clegg and then you’d see three or four trips no Sergeant Clegg some other gash gunner had gone in and I asked some survivors on my late uncle’s crew what about Clegg? At first they were all very protective and then they said well actually Clegg was a bit of a lad and he got into trouble with drink and women and was always been sent to Sheffield but in in the air he was a perfect rigger just I mean you know my uncle trusted him implicitly and when he was at Sheffield my uncle felt really, really uncomfortable with this gash gunner sitting at the back who he didn’t know. But you know he got, he got through his tour unfortunately my uncle but was killed instructing.
WT: Our wireless op he was, he was an Australian and he was a silly B really and he drank like old boots so when he got in the kite he would do everything he had to do but Jack, our navigator was a great guy ‘cause he knew there was a group, a message to come. I’ve forgotten was it half hourly -
BB: Yeah.
WT: Quarter hourly.
BB: Half hourly.
WT: He’d give Digger a kick.
BB: Usually the weather and, yeah.
WT: We’d could usually hear, ‘Digger wake up you silly B.’ And he’d be, ‘Oh oh alright,’ he says and he never missed, he had everything down, he never missed a thing. He knew exactly where we were going.
BB: Yeah. That’s great. My uncle’s navigator was the old man of the crew. He was -
WT: Yeah.
BB: He was thirty two.
WT: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: He’d been a postmaster in the Isle of Man and had volunteered to be a navigator because he was very good at maths but he was the old man of the crew and the rest of the crew called him Pop. Because the average age on, the average age on my uncle’s crew was what nineteen, twenty.
WT: Ahum.
BB: My uncle himself he was twenty one when he was killed. And that’s having done thirty trips.
WT: I was, I got I was twenty one in Canada. While I was in Canada.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I got deferred service so so such a long time.
BB: Yeah.
WT: In fact I registered as I had to do.
BB: Was that because you were local government job that was deferred?
WT: No nothing to do with that at all. ‘cause they were happy.
BB: It wasn’t a reserved occupation or anything.
WT: No it wasn’t.
BB: No.
WT: It wasn’t reserved. What happened was I signed on as we had to do and I said look here’s my number. Oh yes well that’s ok. Three weeks later I got called up for the army and [noise off] that’s somebody downstairs.
BB: Oh right.
WT: Don’t take any notice of that. And I got called up for the army and I managed to get out of that with a big brigadier somebody that we well knew. He rang them up and he said silly B. He told you what was happening because they were going to come and fetch me.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So that worked out alright.
BB: Good.
WT: Because, you know it didn’t always go right.
BB: No.
WT: I was lucky.
BB: So there were, there were evidence of LMF when you were on the squadron.
WT: Just that one.
BB: Just that one.
WT: Just that I know of.
BB: Yeah. Exactly. Just that you know of. And he was commissioned.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. I’ve heard other stories where had it been a sergeant air crew Harris was so worried about this kind of thing that we would call it post-traumatic stress disorder.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Today um they were, they were lined up in front of the whole squadron, stripped of their chevrons.
WT: That’s right.
BB: And their brevets taken off. Which was very very harsh but it did get the message. And other aircrews I’ve spoken to they were more scared of that happening to them.
WT: That they -
BB: Then facing the Germans.
WT: So that kept them going.
BB: And I suppose that was Harris’ view. You can either be scared of me or you can be scared of them.
WT: Sure.
BB: Make your choice.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Um but it now the Americans had a completely different attitude to it in the 8th air force and they were flying daylight raids.
WT: Ahum.
BB: As you know. So there was a different thing. The other commands, coastal, fighter, transport they had their, it wasn’t so prevalent.
WT: No.
BB: In those commands. But it’s, it’s, it’s an issue that is very interesting academically and the Sheffield thing. So that might be something that might be an aspect of the Bomber Command research.
WT: [?]
BB: No I’m just saying but you knew of it, it happened on your squadron and that was -
WT: That’s it.
BB: Quietly posted away.
WT: Didn’t take no notice of it.
BB: Yes, that’s right. I mean, you know, a very good friend of my father’s, a chap called Musgrave who was a pathfinder, a pre-war fitter when the heavies came in he volunteered to be a flight engineer, went to St Athan, came out with [E] joined his crew at the Heavy Conversion Unit and went on and did his thing but he did ninety three ops at the end and I said to him once, sadly he’s no longer with us but I have his log books and he said, ‘Well, you know we were dead anyway after four,’ four to five ops in that tour no statistically, statistically -
WT: I know. Yes.
BB: Dead. So let’s go.
WT: I’m going to empty that.
BB: Oh I’m sorry. Right.
WT: Are you going to switch it off or not? Whichever you want to do.
BB: No I’ll just.
WT: I’ll run.
BB: No don’t run. Take your time.
WT: No. No.
BB: Take your time.
WT: It’s only two minutes.
BB: Yeah.
[Pause]
BB: Ok.
WT: Sorry about that.
BB: No, don’t be. No, it’s fine.
WT: You can’t stop it you see.
BB: No. I know you can’t. Thank you very much.
WT: You know.
BB: So that’s great.
WT: You know.
BB: That’s great.
That’s great. Sure
BB: We’ve covered why you wanted to join, you joined, you got re-mustered from pilot to bomb aimer sorry NavB er went to Canada for your initial training.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And then came back to the Heavy Conversion Unit. Lancaster finishing school.
WT: Right.
BB: And went to the OTU and got your crew.
WT: Yes. That’s right.
BB: And you did your, you did your trip. Was it twenty nine do you remember? You told me.
WT: We did twenty nine. I always say one was a half.
BB: Ok.
WT: We got out one night and we had an engine go.
BB: A boomerang.
WT: And she wasn’t very, we weren’t very happy but we carried on for a while and then another one started to go sick so we turned -
BB: Now -
WT: So we turned and came back.
BB: Yeah.
WT: That was about -
BB: What mission, what sortie was that?
WT: That was about the 8th of February.
BB: 8th of, yeah.
WT: Politz I think it was called.
BB: 8th of February 45.
WT: Hmmn?
BB: 8th of February 45. Yeah.
WT: Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And er when we got back somebody said, ‘Why didn’t you go on?’ And he had a few rings there and I said, ‘Sir look out on the pan. There’s an aircraft out there. It’s got two good engines. One is alright I think. The other one’s rough.’ I said, ‘There’s seven of us here.’
BB: What did the flight engineer think about it? He must have made the judgement on that?
WT: No, he had -
BB: The captain.
WT: He had to shut it down. It was -
BB: Yeah.
WT: So I said, ‘And you’ve got the seven of us are here are ready to go again.’ I said, ‘We didn’t go over and get a VC and lose your aircraft for you.’ Cause that -
BB: What did he say to that?
WT: So he said, ‘Well forget it.’ I said, ‘just as well [stress] sir.’
BB: Station commander?
WT: Hmmn?
BB: Was that the station commander?
WT: Yeah. No. It was the er -
BB: Squadron commander?
WT: No. It was the station commander. He happened to be there, yes.
BB: Yeah. Station master as they used to call them.
WT: They usually had four rings.
BB: Yeah. Group captain. Yes.
WT: There was the AOC there. He was there. He was great ‘cause I was friendly with his WAAF lady.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I used we used very friendly just chatted and all that and had a drink and I was saying good night to her outside his house one night and suddenly he tapped me on the shoulder, he was coming in. He said, ‘Don’t keep her up all night because she’s got to get me breakfast in the morning.’ He said, ‘This isn’t a -
BB: Yeah, but they knew what was going on.
WT: He knew.
BB: They loved their aircrew. Yeah.
WT: He was happy.
BB: Now -
WT: I’ve done a whole lot screed on me.
BB: I’ll look at that later.
WT: Yeah that’s what I wanted to -
BB: One other thing I wanted to mention to you because -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Bomber Command had a high instance of venereal disease. VD.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And it was, it was a big a big issue because crews were getting sick and having to go to Halton and all these other hospitals and Harris had a view of it that, ‘cause the chief medical officer in Bomber Command went to see him about it, right. Went to see Harris
WT: Ahum.
BB: To, you know, tell him, you know, it’s got to stop and he said, ‘If my old lags want to have a bit of fun let them have it because they could be dead tomorrow. Now get out of my office.’ He said something like that. But I mean did you, were you aware of any of that?
WT: No. No.
BB: Were there any kind of big posters?
WT: No it was -
BB: Or lectures?
WT: No. It was a good squadron as far as that was concerned. No. We had good fun. We had this -
BB: Yeah
WT: We did a lot of that.
BB: Right. But less of the other.
WT: As far as I’m concerned.
BB: Apparently it was a big problem in Bomber Command but probably in certain areas.
WT: We, we were lucky. I was lucky. I think we had a good squadron there.
BB: Yeah.
WT: They really were. I didn’t know all of them or anything.
BB: No. No, of course.
WT: I didn’t get to know them.
BB: No. No. No. You didn’t.
WT: No.
BB: And I suppose there was the usual horror story in the morning when you went in for breakfast and there were blank chairs. Guys didn’t come back.
WT: Yeah but then I mean people weren’t in because I was lucky I was in the mess lower ground floor. All I had to do was come out of my room turn left and right and there was the dining room.
BB: Right.
WT: So I was dead lucky. Well the bar well there was no bar because it was a peacetime mess.
BB: Sure.
WT: I mean we had to go down a little alleyway.
BB: Sure.
WT: And get served in the trap hatch as we called it.
BB: Right.
WT: The [corps?] was very good.
BB: Now inter relationships within the crew between commissioned and non-commissioned crew members? Any, now you flew as a crew and that was it but of course when you landed you went to your separate messes.
WT: Yes well the, Bruce and I were in -
BB: The other mess, officer’s mess.
WT: The other -
BB: Sergeant’s mess.
WT: Five were together in a house.
BB: In a house ok they were billeted in a house.
WT: One of the wartime houses they were in.
BB: Ok. Ok. Right. I’ve heard a lot of stories where they couldn’t mix formally on base so they went to the local pub and the crew got out all together.
WT: Well you couldn’t do it on base.
BB: No. I know.
WT: You couldn’t be walking -
BB: No. I know.
WT: Around chatting.
BB: No but I meant there was the officer’s mess and the sergeants mess.
WT: They couldn’t mix them up. No.
BB: So they went off base to do it. At least that’s what my uncle did.
WT: The only time we, the only time we mixed was the pre-ops meal.
Interview: Yeah.
WT: And usually that was the sergeant’s mess because it was bigger because of their numbers so we could join them there for the meal.
BB: That’s right.
WT: ‘We had our pre-op meal there altogether.
BB: Because you were one of the privileged guys in the Lancasters. PNB pilot/navigator/bombardier. They were the three main crew PNB and they were recruited -
WT: Ahum.
BB: You know as slightly more rigorously selected and recruited more rigorously than let’s say the gunners because you had the, had to have the education to do those jobs.
WT: Oh you did. Yes.
BB: And you had to have the right characteristics.
WT: Yeah.
BB: So -
WT: I had my London General School Certificate.
BB: Well that’s right. That’s right um well that was, that was good. Let’s see, course you came, I mean I’m not, the time you got into the squadron -
WT: Yeah.
BB: It was late ‘43 or early ’44?
WT: Do you know my memory.
BB: Yeah.
WT: It’s the age.
BB: It’s ok.
WT: Alright. My first op was on the 15th of October ‘44.
BB: ’44. So the war was, the war was still there. And -
WT: Oh yes.
BB: Still brutal.
WT: Oh yes.
BB: Bombers were still being lost.
WT: Yes.
BB: Right up to the last day.
WT: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: But was there any feeling of it can’t be long now or did you think it was just going to go on and on until it stopped. I mean did you have any sense that we were winning?
WT: No.
BB: And doing all that stuff?
WT: We were, as I said.
BB: D-day had finished of course.
WT: No, no, yeah it didn’t. D day, D-day, D-day was over, yes.
BB: Yes.
WT: When I was at OTU.
BB: Yeah but there was still, you know -
WT: Yes.
BB: Still the fighting.
WT: Oh yes well we were the old line.
BB: Still bombing.
WT: The line went further -
BB: Yes.
WT: And further back.
BB: Yes, that’s right.
WT: But there was still a line.
BB: Oh a lot of day -
WT: There was.
BB: Yeah. And did you go on any daylights? Because there were a lot of daylight raids coming in
WT: We did, we did the odd daylights. We did one, two, three. About three. No four. I think there were four -
BB: Four daylights and at that stage of the war was the Luftwaffe still effective or were they -.
WT: Hang on. The last one we did was in April.
BB: April.
WT: ‘45.
BB: Ok.
WT: That was at Nordhausen. Wherever that was.
BB: Nordhausen ok but the um but the Luftwaffe by that stage was essentially gone. I mean no fuel, and losses had been high.
WT: They were up in the air.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And I spotted and -
BB: Did you ever see any of the new jets? ME262 or -
WT: I was going to say because I spotted some one night when we were out and we couldn’t understand. We thought they were rockets and they seemed to be going straight up and this happened a couple of times. It was more over Holland.
BB: Oh the V2s coming off.
WT: No. It was, it was the -
BB: Oh the exhaust from the -
WT: New jets.
BB: The new jets. Oh ok.
WT: The new jets no the V2s had finished by that time.
BB: You didn’t, you didn’t
WT: But we, I reported it but didn’t know anything.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I just said I didn’t know what they were.
BB: Yeah ok.
WT: So that was up to them. I, I didn’t know what they were.
BB: No.
WT: Until after the war. I found out.
BB: Yes. Yes and the German night fighters were still around, prowling around um did you, did you at that time they had Junkers 88s and Messerschmitt’s 110s with the Schräge Musik. Upward firing guns.
WT: Yeah. That was yeah.
BB: When they started to appear crews would just see this massive explosion in the sky and -
WT: Ahum.
BB: Thought they’d been hit by flak. They hadn’t, they hadn’t realised that they were getting under the -
WT: No.
BB: The belly and er it took a long time for Bomber Command to actually tell the crews -
WT: Yeah.
BB: About it.
WT: We knew about it.
BB: You knew about it but it, it was a very effective night fighter technique and -
WT: We only, we used to see searchlights in the sky.
BB: Yes.
WT: And there was the old master one.
BB: Yes.
WT: The red one.
BB: Yes and that was the radar and if that locked on to you the radar guided one -
WT: That was radar but one of them was coming towards us and I was screaming to Bruce and he said give me an idea of timing and I said, ‘Now,’ and what we did then we went straight through it.
BB: Yeah.
WT: As quick we could and he went like this and he disappeared.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So in other words he’d he’ll find somebody else.
Instructor: Yeah he’d find somebody else and ‘cause once you’d been combed that was it.
WT: We did it twice.
BB: More or less. Did it twice.
WT: That happened twice.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Ahum.
BB: That was it to get out.
WT: We didn’t get fired at.
BB: Well it happened to my uncle once and he actually put the aircraft straight down the path of the searchlight as best he could.
WT: The front gunner.
BB: With the front gunner blazing like mad.
WT: I would that’s right.
BB: And quick get out of the way and that ‘cause they changed that but it was -
WT: No. But we were, we were lucky.
BB: The [line was still] well ok with the advance of the allies but the German night fighter force went on quite effectively until more or less the end were constrained by fuel at the end and losses.
WT: It was.
BB: And losses of course. But what would between the flak and the night fighters and collisions and all that sort of thing what would you say was the main, the main fear? Night fighters?
WT: I don’t think we had fear.
BB: No.
WT: I’m sorry if -
BB: You put it away.
WT: It sounds big headed but -
BB: No, no, no.
WT: I don’t. I don’t think.
BB: No. I’m not I’m not. Yeah.
WT: We knew we had a job to do. If we didn’t do it -
BB: Ok. I’ll put it -
WT: We were in trouble.
BB: I’ll put it I’ll put it another way.
WT: Yeah. Go on.
BB: When you had the intelligence briefing.
WT: Yeah.
BB: At the brief.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Obviously they briefed you on night fighter tactics
WT: Yeah
Instructor: And where the flak concentrations -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Were and your route was planned.
WT: Yeah.
BB: To avoid these things and you had Window ah Window.
WT: Window.
BB: Were you dropping Window at that stage as a regular thing?
WT: All the way. All the way we could.
BB: And you had Boozer giving you the electronic aid that latched on to the night fighter radar.
WT: I didn’t do anything about that.
BB: Ok. That must have been with the wireless op.
WT: Wireless op had that.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Because he had, he had a little book.
BB: Yeah. That’s right because the Germans countered that by finding the frequency and all the -
WT: That’s right.
Instructor: And all the rest of it.
WT: That’s right.
BB: Everything like that. It went back and forth I think on the -
WT: Yeah he had that on his table.
BB: Yes. Ok. Rebecca and Boozer and all this stuff.
WT: Yeah we had [?]
BB: Yeah but window was quite effective, yeah.
WT: We did that religiously.
BB: Yes.
WT: I was glad to get rid of it mind.
BB: Yes.
WT: Get in the blooming way.
BB: Now the, my uncle’s wireless operator, he was the warmest guy on the Lanc. Everybody else was cold but he was the warmest behind his little curtain.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Um so he was either too hot or too cold but usually hot.
WT: I was happy.
BB: You were alright in your -
WT: I was alright.
BB: Your place.
WT: Where I was.
Instructor: Could you, you were usually you were at the front of course.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah and I mean for take-off you weren’t there you were probably back -
WT: For take-off we had an arrangement. When we were on OTU -
BB: Yeah.
WT: They trained the, what do you call it, to take off with Bruce?
BB: Yeah.
WT: What’s the, God -
BB: Flight engineer.
WT: Flight engineer. Sorry, I’ve got amnesia.
BB: It’s alright.
WT: No the flight engineer he trained, he was trained to take off and land so -
BB: Yes. That’s right.
WT: Fine. Instead of me being down in the nose which was a bad place to be -
BB: Yeah, Yeah.
WT: I’d be sitting on the engineer’s seat and there were two red wheels and those were the fuel.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And they said to me if I ever saw a red light come up.
BB: Scream.
WT: Do that.
BB: Turn it off.
WT: No turn them both off.
Instructor: Yeah.
WT: And that’s what I did until he poked me in the back and he said, ‘I’ve finished Bob, now’ and I’d say, ‘Cheers.’ and I’d go back to my office. We did that. I came up to landing the same way.
BB: Right. Now again I’m sorry to go back again to my uncle’s crew because it’s, it’s not him we’re talking about but they were representative. His bomb aimer, every time they were approaching the target, the whole crew would get on you know well the captain would say, ‘Try and make it one run this time will you?’ ‘Cause you know, ‘Sorry I’ve got to go around again boss. You know it was like it was never did so it was -
WT: Never did one more round. We went in every time.
BB: Excellent. Excellent.
WT: ‘cause I think it was a question of where you were.
BB: Yes, I understand. In the bomber stream. Yes.
WT: You know, in the stream. But I never had to once.
BB: Because you know the Germans were great at having dummy markers and flares.
WT: Sure.
BB: And changing the, trying to get a feel for the aiming point and, you know.
WT: And the whole thing when you worked it out the whole cross wind.
BB: Yes. Yes.
WT: You could pick it up
Instructor: Yes,
WT: Ages before you
BB: Right.
WT: And I’d get Bruce to change so that we had a good direction.
BB: Right. Ok.
WT: And he was very good ‘cause he just used the pedals to to do
BB: [the rudder bar] yes that’s right to correct the [yaw] My uncle’s bomb aimer only went around I think twice on one target but it was, it was, it was an important one. Um ‘cause my uncle went to Peenemunde. He did the Peenemunde raid. Well he was lucky. He was in the first wave. The diversion raids had, there were no night fighters because -
WT: No.
BB: They had, they weren’t there.
WT: They were somewhere else.
BB: They were somewhere else.
WT: Yeah.
BB: But the guys in the third wave-
WT: They copped it didn’t they?
BB: They copped it. Yeah. But of course they weren’t told what it was for.
WT: We were very, very lucky. I really think we were.
BB: I think luck had a big part to play whether you survived your tour or not
WT: I think so.
BB: And that yes as well
WT: Yes.
BB: That and a great crew and a competent crew.
WT: Well our navigator was red hot.
BB: Yeah.
WT: ‘cause one day Bruce said to him, ‘Jack, why don’t you let Bill take over?’ And before I could say anything he said, Bill you don’t mind or Bobs they used to call me. ‘Bobs you don’t mind but I’d rather be responsible myself for what’s happening.’ I said, ‘I’d rather you did.’ And he did. And he didn’t want me to help with the Gee. He did it all himself.
BB: No. Yeah. Yeah.
WT: He wanted to do it all himself. No, he did it all himself.
BB: Yeah. My uncle’s navigator too. He had all these aids.
WT: Yeah.
BB: But he liked to do it himself and used Gee as a backup you know and -
WT: You know Jack was a good navigator.
Instructor: Yeah.
WT: In fact I contacted him after the war. He was over in er, on the east, west coast somewhere and I had a couple of words with him, He got taken ill and died just like that within nine months of my knowing him.
BB: Oh dear.
WT: There’s one of our crew left still here. Harry the rear gunner. He’s down in Yorkshire.
BB: Oh right I must get his -
WT: He’s not a hundred percent.
BB: No.
WT: At the moment.
BB: No.
WT: And we have a reunion of 153 but it’s got that about there’s only about two members.
BB: No.
WT: That go. It’s all the associate members.
BB: I know.
WT: But they meet every year down in err oh down the road -
BB: Scampton oh in Yorkshire. No in -
WT: Lincoln.
BB: Lincoln. Scampton, Waddington.
WT: No. In Lincoln itself.
BB: Oh Lincoln. Ok
WT: In a pub, in a, in a hotel
BB: Yes.
WT: And go to BBMF.
BB: Yes.
WT: And BBMF -
BB: Yes
WT: Bring them in.
BB: Yeah it’s great. I’ve been there.
WT: They are very much with us.
BB: I had the very great privilege of flying in the BBMF Lancaster.
WT: Did you?
BB: Yeah I was on duty as a reservist and briefing and debriefing crews. Modern crews.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And they said do you want, do you want a flight? And I said yeah. They said, ‘There’s Jacko Jackson over there.’
WT: Ah.
BB: ‘He’s the captain.’ He said, ‘Go and see Jacko.’
WT: Yeah.
BB: And he’ll fix you up and I went across and I said, I was a flying officer at the time and I said, ‘Good morning sir.’ And he said, ‘Yeah. I know about you. You’re coming with me on a one hour flip around in the Lanc.’ We were doing a test, air test of something so
WT: Ahum.
BB: It was wonderful and I told him about my uncle and all that and I went to every position except the rear gunner position.
WT: Yeah.
BB: They wouldn’t let you in there but I went mid upper gunner, I went down the bomb aimer and it was the bomb aimer’s place. It was, it was great but you get a sense of how that main spar going across could be a real hindrance if you had to get out.
WT: I’ve got some photographs I don’t know where they are now of our people in that one going over the main spar.
BB: With all the kit on?
WT: No. Well we didn’t have that. We used to throw that down over the top but there’s one of the ladies, she took over as the squadron scribe, association scribe and I still keep in touch with her and there’s one of her looking over the top and all I could see was her backside so it appeared on the thing
Instructor: Yeah.
WT: Guess who?
BB: Guess who. Because you either went out the main door at the back.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Or you went out the bomb aimers hatch at the top.
WT: Hatch.
BB: Yeah and when that, if that’s in a spin or you know it was difficult but it was difficult getting out of the Lancaster but it was quite difficult when those things -
WT: Sure.
BB: When they caught you.
WT: I say, you know, we were so lucky.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So lucky.
BB: Yeah. So did all your crew that you trained with and flew with survive the war?
WT: Yes we all survived.
BB: All survived.
WT: Together yes we all survived together and after that we were dispersed to various place
BB: Of course. Yes.
WT: I went one way, somebody went, Harry funnily enough he was a sergeant he was sent to India and he was in the post office out there somewhere and they dropped him to corporal.
BB: Yeah. That happened a lot.
WT: Terrible that was. I couldn’t understand that.
BB: Wartime temporary. Now you’re a corporal. Yes.
WT: Yeah.
Instructor: That’s right. Yeah. And err in your own case when the war finished when did you actually leave the air force? Was it ‘46 sometime or -
WT: Yeah. I think, ohI can’t remember offhand.
BB: Well just vaguely?
WT: It’s in my in -
BB: Logbook?
WT: No. It’s in my script somewhere.
BB: Oh ok. Well anyway it was most. Most were let loose by 1947.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. Most.
WT: Where did I put my scribe script?
BB: Oh don’t worry about it but where
WT: Oh, here it is in my hand.
BB: What did they have you do in that time?
WT: Oh.
BB: Were you supernumerary somewhere or were you -
WT: No they wanted, wanted us to train as something and I trained as an equipment officer.
BB: Right ok so the whole surplus aircrew thing.
WT: Yes.
BB: Because of the war
WT: Yeah.
Instructor: They said you can go home, you’re a good bloke, you’re commissioned we need you blah blah blah but you got to remuster as something else.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And, and -
WT: And I was told that’s what I was going to be. I did a course for six weeks on equipment. Got sent to RAF Strubby.
BB: Oh I know where -
WT: Which had been -
BB: Strubby is in Lincolnshire.
WT: Coldest place on earth. Was shut down and it was ready to be everything taken out.
BB: Right.
WT: And I had a few bods there to do that and we had trucks coming out
BB: Taking -
WT: Getting rid of stuff and so on.
BB: That’s right
WT: And I had another guy ‘cause I was attached to some maintenance unit over on the coast and they sent a guy to help me Frank Wilkes bless him a brummy and we worked together and we both got our going off together so we, we, we went off down to London to get our -
BB: Right got your demob suit and out you went.
WT: I didn’t want a hat so he put his, he put my hat that I would have on. I took it outside and I gave it to - [laughs]
BB: So, ok. So you were demobbed.
WT: Yeah.
BB: After all of that. Having gone through that having gone through all that with Bomber Command being demobbed, done your trips with all the trials and tribulations and terror of what could have happened. What did you do then?
WT: I went back to my job.
BB: You went back to your job.
WT: It was reserved. I joined the health department of the Cornwall County Council in September ‘39, no August ’39.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So I was there then until I joined up but my job was held for me, my, while I was only on my two bob or whatever it was a week my pay was made up.
BB: Right.
WT: But as soon as I got more that stopped and I had to go in and pay the, pay the difference
BB: And obviously you rebuilt your life.
WT: Yeah.
BB: After that and here we are and well done.
WT: My wife, my wife was -
BB: I was going to ask about that.
WT: She was -
BB: Did you meet her in the RAF?
WT: No I met her in, at work.
BB: At work.
WT: I remember it was -
BB: Post war work.
WT: Yeah. The uniform did it.
BB: Ah the uniform did it.
WT: So what I would -
BB: It still had the pull of the air crew.
WT: Well I always went up in my full uniform.
BB: Of course you did.
WT: And it was funny when we had that grand loop.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I went home on leave. I went up to see somebody and I went in see the boss ‘cause I was his favourite. He was the first boy post boy he’d ever appointed ‘cause he was new.
BB: Ah.
WT: Dr Curnow and
BB: Curnow?
WT: Curnow same as Cornwall
BB: Yeah.
WT: Curnow.
BB: Yeah.
WT: C u r n o w.
BB: Yes I had, one of my medical officers was from Cornwall. His name was Curnow.
WT: Yeah. He, he stayed there all the time. For a long, long time and he said to me, when I’d finished I went back, and there was a brr brr and his secretary said that, ‘Yes he is.’ She said, ‘He says go in.’ He said, ‘Sit down. Have you finished?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Hold your hands out.’ He said, ‘You couldn’t do that last time you were here,’ he said, ‘You had the twitch.‘
BB: I was going to come to that
WT: [?] yeah
BB: This chap Musgrave I was telling you about. The guy that did the ninety three trips. He had a permanent twitch. It was sort of –
WT: Ahum.
BB: Like that.
WT: No. No.
BB: But he had a twitch and everybody knew you know he had been
WT: Yeah.
BB: Bomber command but he was very, not because he was boasting about it they just knew that he got out. He finished the war with DFC, DFM and God knows else what but he’d been a pre-war guy but he had a twitch and I asked him once where he got it. How it started. And he said he’d had a crash and er he survived. One or two guys didn’t and that affected him.
WT: That was, that was from when it started because he had said he hadn’t noticed it before.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He was a good chief was Doc Curnow.
BB: So
WT: I was his boy.
BB: Yeah. So these things did have a knock on, knock on affect.
WT: Sure.
BB: Now, the, and then you had all that post war thing you know getting a job, getting married, a family and all of that. Most of the Bomber Command people that I have met and indeed other wartime aircrew not just Bomber Command they never, ever talked about it for years and years. Never.
WT: I agree.
BB: And some of them really still are reticent to talk um either it’s too painful for them one way or another.
WT: I don’t know.
BB: Or it’s just that was that was a bit of my life I’ve now put it in a cupboard.
WT: That was me.
BB: And get on with life.
WT: For a long, long time.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Until eventually I joined you know the Aircrew Association and so on
BB: Yes. That’s right.
WT: Especially when I came up here.
BB: Well I mean you guys were young and you’d gone through such a lot.
WT: Ahum.
BB: And it was very hectic and life was for today.
WT: Yes.
BB: Tomorrow you didn’t know if it was going to happen.
WT: I was, I was getting, I was married.
BB: Yeah. You had responsibilities.
WT: And we had our -
BB: And other things took priority over all of that.
WT: Yes, there were.
BB: And then of course there was this post war denial about Bomber Command.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And what they did and all the rest of it. How did that make you feel? Did it make you feel angry? Did it make you feel what the hell did we do it all for?
WT: I could have killed Churchill. Easily. You know, without any argument.
BB: Because of what he did.
WT: Because of Bomber Harris.
BB: I mean they called him Butch.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Because you know but he he loved his crews and -
WT: He was, he came to Scampton once and he was great.
BB: And they loved him
WT: Yeah.
BB: Despite you know sending them off every night knowing that x number of Lancaster’s wouldn’t come back or Halifaxes or whatever. But that’s how he got his name Butch, Butcher.
WT: Yes.
BB: Butcher Harris but they seemed to get on with him.
WT: Yeah.
BB: They seemed to like, you know, his manner.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And his we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.
WT: The one person on the squadron the squadron we didn’t like was the four ringer.
BB: The group captain.
WT: The group. He was not a nice fellow at all. We didn’t like him a bit and he used to come in to get his fags so we’d push him to the top of the queue so he could get the hell out.
BB: Did he ever fly? Did he ever go off?
WT: Yes he did a few.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He did one or two.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And he was, fortunately not with us but the AOC was there. He was -
BB: Was that Cochrane? Or Saunby?
WT: I don’t know what he was called.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He was a lovely fellow.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He had his own little [?]
BB: Yeah.
WT: In fact his WAAF
BB: Driver.
WT: No.
BB: His PA.
WT: No. Looked after him.
BB: Oh right.
WT: Looked after him. I got courting with her a bit.
BB: Ahh.
WT: Nothing like, nothing
BB: Nothing like going for the top.
WT: Untoward and one night we were saying goodnight and suddenly there was this tap on my shoulder, ‘Hurry up, don’t keep her up all night. She’s got to get my breakfast in the morning.’
BB: The morning. You said, ‘Yes sir.’
WT: Now who would have said that?
BB: They knew and, they knew and they let the guys get on with it.
WT: I saw her afterwards.
BB: In that respect.
WT: And she said that he laughed his head off.
BB: Oh that’s great. That’s great.
WT: They were a good lot.
BB: And now you’ve got your grandchildren, great grandchildren.
WT: Great grandchildren.
BB: And you’re going to be giving them your logbook and one thing and another.
WT: Paul my grandson. I’ve got a grandson and a granddaughter. Paul is supposed to inherit all my stuff.
BB: Yes.
WT: Which he will do.
BB: Yes. Good.
WT: But in the meantime.
BB: I hope you’ve written that down in a will or something?
WT: I don’t. My son knows.
BB: Ok.
WT: He knows. He’s as good as gold but Paul sorry my oldest grandson, great grandson Jack is very keen on Lancasters ‘cause they live in Lancaster.
BB: Yes of course.
WT: And he knows all about that so Jack has got lots of stuff to do with Lancasters and I said I’ve got all these books I don’t know whether I ought to be getting rid of them sometime. Pete said to me, that’s my son, the other day, ‘Dad don’t do anything until August. Jack’s coming up. He’s mad on the Lancaster’s and things, he’s got stuff all over the place so, in his room.’ so there’s four Lancaster – one, two, three, four, five books.
BB: Yeah.
WT: But you know
BB: Garbett and Goulding books.
WT: Yeah I met him and one other there and he’ll have those whatever happens. What, what about the others in the bottom lot I don’t know ‘cause the top one is all Cornwall but they’re spoken for one way or another.
BB: I have four hundred such books and I do a lot of research and I write occasionally in Flypast and other magazines um and they’re just for my own research. I mean, for example you said you were 153 I went to the books oh yes but now coming back to the controversial issue of medals.
WT: Sorry.
BB: Did you have to apply for your medals or did they come through the post eventually to you?
WT: I had to apply for them.
BB: You had to apply for them. And when did you apply for them
WT: Lord knows. I can’t remember.
BB: Yeah because they ok they had a lot to get through.
WT: No. That’s not true. I, I when I was an equipment officer before while I was still under training a bit with another thing.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I was asked to go up the headquarters somewhere and I took the logbook with me and I went through about my medals then and then I said, ‘Yes but I want the Air Crew Europe.’ ‘Well you can’t have it.’ ‘Well I said I don’t want any more.’ I went to go out and they pushed me back in again and they insisted that I had to have these four.
BB: Right, so now the, I had a very, my father knew another very nice man and his name was Slim Summerville. He had been a pre-war regular but he was a wireless operator I gather on Whitleys the one’s that flew like that -
WT: Ahum.
BB: And he hated them. But then he was shot down in November 1940 in France he made a crash landing. All the crew got out, sorry Holland, all the crew got out still fly, they flew in their number ones. Odd. But anyway they were all sitting around, standing around this aircraft trying to get it to burn and they couldn’t burn it. The Germans came. November ‘40 Battle of Britain had just finished. There they were. This Luftwaffe feldwebel came to them and said, ‘look we’ve got nowhere to put you but this Dutch, this Dutch farmer will look after you, we’ll put one of our guards there promise you won’t try and escape.’ ‘We can’t do that,’ they said but, ‘Never mind you go there.’ A month they were in this farmhouse having a life, they thought this is alright. This is ok. And then things got, they were then they were sent back in to Germany and they were sent towards the east. They were part of the great march but and he finished the war all the rest of it. When he was ill he came, I went to see him and he said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Bruce I never claimed my medals because I didn’t think I’d have very many being a POW but I’d like to pass them on to my grandchild.’ So I said, ‘Well ok.’ He said, ‘I can’t give you my logbook because it was when I was taken prisoner it was all lost and whatever.’ So I had to go to the National Archive in Kew and reconstruct his logbook and I took all this stuff and I said right your entitled to the Aircrew Europe, you’ve done, you’ve done all these missions between the qualifying dates of the -
WT: Yes sure.
BB: Award. Why, they said he wasn’t entitled to it. That he was only going to get the ‘39 to ‘45 star, the defence medal and a war medal. That’s all he was going to get.
WT: Oooh there’s one -
BB: Because he was -
WT: There’s one missing there really.
BB: So -
WT: France and Germany.
BB: Yeah but he was a POW. He wasn’t there.
WT: But did he -
BB: So -
WT: But he’d been doing work.
BB: Yeah but he was captured in 1940. So anyway so I went back and I said no you did x number of missions on the Whitleys you’re entitled to the Air Crew Europe so he said, ‘Well you write. I’ll give you permission and you write.’ So I wrote back to them first to air historical branch then to RAF records and they sent, they said, ‘Yes you’re right.’ So they reissued it. But with, but with the Air Crew Europe and I had them mounted for him and I took them to the hospital to see him in hospital and I pinned them to his pillow and he died three hours later. But he was so happy -
WT: Lovely.
BB: To have got them.
WT: Of course he was.
BB: Yeah. And he said -
WT: I’ve got mine here somewhere.
BB: All the rest was rubbish but Air Crew Europe’s the one so I am going to take your fight up.
WT: No.
BB: If I can do it for him, I can do it for you.
WT: Oh, there’s no point.
BB: Yes there is.
WT: I shouldn’t bother.
BB: Your grandchildren need it. I understand how you feel but if you’re entitled to it why don’t you take it?
WT: I’ve got them somewhere. I thought I had them there.
BB: Let’s have a look. Oh there they are. Right.
WT: They’re a replacement ‘cause I lost mine.
BB: Did you?
WT: And I lost the -
BB: What happened?
WT: Hmmn?
BB: What happened?
WT: I don’t know it was -
BB: They were all issued unnamed.
WT: It was in a move.
BB: They were all issued unnamed.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Now you see if I get you the Air Crew Europe. Right. Just say, let’s just say no this annoys me with the the whole medal thing you did all of that. Now I know you’re very proud and, and, and you don’t particularly want it but you earned it and this parsimonious government took their bloody time in giving you the Bomber Command clasp which I, did you ever claim it?
WT: No.
BB: Right.
WT: Yes I got that.
BB: Right.
WT: Yes.
BB: You need to sew that on.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Now, if I get you the Air Crew Europe if by chance we’re successful they’ll probably give you the Air Crew Europe with the France and Germany clasp.
WT: Ahum.
BB: ‘cause you couldn’t have both.
WT: Ahum.
BB: So you have to give that one back.
WT: I think the other one’s still there ‘cause I always said I can’t sew so
BB: So what I’m saying is they’ll probably take that one probably ask you to return that one.
WT: I’m not fussed about it you know.
BB: I’m just going through the procedure.
WT: I know.
BB: And um they that’s what they would do. Um but it is such a prestigious, it was only it was the only thing of the stars that I’ve talked to with the guys before that meant anything was the Air Crew, Air Crew Europe whether your coastal, bomber or whatever -
WT: Yes. Exactly.
BB: It was. Because they didn’t get a medal. That was only medal they actually got that was you know air force.
WT: I got mine. Those are replacements.
BB: Yes.
WT: Because -
BB: Exactly I’ll take a photo of those later.
WT: In transferring -
BB: Well -
WT: Something got lost and we never found them. I didn’t, I didn’t -
BB: Let me put it this way let me see what I can do and if I can do it you’ll take it. Right? You’ll take it if I can get it for you.
WT: Alright.
BB: Fine. Good.
WT: You’ve won.
BB: I feel very strongly about that ’cause you know medals are very emotive things even today.
WT: I won’t argue with you.
BB: No. Good. Ok well I’m going to stop the interview now. I think we’ve covered all the ground. Is there anything else you’d like to say that I may have forgotten?
WT: No.
BB: To ask?
WT: [If you]
BB: Are these your target pictures?
WT: Target pictures.
BB: Yeah.
WT: We were allowed to have those as the crew, the crew -
BB: Now -
WT: Took some as well.
BB: The other thing that used to get people a bit jumpy, ‘Have you got the flash skip? I’ve got to go around again.’ And, ‘Oh go on then.’
WT: No.
BB: Because a lot of crews were really ‘cause that was flying straight and level for a bit of a time to get that flash picture and if you missed it the first time you had to go back and at debriefing as you know once they processed the film -
WT: [?] that’s right.
BB: You were kind of ticked in the box that it was ok.
WT: The problem was the bottom of those it was -
BB: Yeah.
WT: A job to read
BB: Yeah.
WT: Very difficult to read
BB: It is.
WT: All the stuff.
BB: It is but -
WT: But the one there the first one Fort [Frederick Heindricks].
BB: Yeah.
WT: That was an aiming point.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So I was told.
BB: Right.
WT: You could see the smoke coming away.
BB: How, we hear a lot about the pathfinders and the marking and all these different marking techniques. Were they, were they good? I mean were they -
WT: They were good as far as we were concerned. We would come up and every now and again they would say please you know bomb on so and so -
BB: Yeah they had the master bomber saying forget that that’s a spoof yeah go to -
WT: That’s right.
BB: Bomb on the greens.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Bomb on the greens. That kind of thing.
WT: Yeah. We had that.
BB: Yeah and because so -
WT: And that, that’s they’re all the same
BB: Oh ground zero.
WT: That’s, no that that’s Dresden.
BB: That’s what I’m saying ground zero at Dresden
WT: I wouldn’t know. With, you can see the modern building.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And the one that’s been destroyed.
BB: Yes.
WT: A friend of mine he lives here in Morpeth and they went over to Dresden and he came back he said, ‘Bill I thought I’d take a photograph. This is what you did you B.’
BB: Well yeah tough it was a legitimate target.
WT: Oh yeah as far as I was concerned it was.
BB: Thank you very much. They’re very interesting.
WT: Yes, I, those are, you know, to me, the crew had some you know.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So -
BB: My uncle had some and they used to put them in their logbook.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Because the pilot’s logbooks were different as you know.
WT: Yeah.
BB: They were slightly bigger.
WT: Yeah well they were. That’s why mine is a bit of a mess and just written on. You know, scrolled
BB: I’ll have a look at that later. So I’m going to stop the interview now. Are you happy with that?
WT: Yes you -
BB: Ok.
WT: I don’t know if you saw those. That’s my doings. That’s, that’s how I got to know you.
BB: That’s all the stuff.
WT: And that was the newsletter. Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And that’s, yeah, that’s ok.
BB: And there’s your medals back.
WT: Oh there’s, ok.
BB: Give those back to you there.
Yeah oh don’t worry about that. Oh yes that’s the Bomber Command clasp in there.
BB: Oh yes well let’s have a look, you’ve got to sew that on haven’t you?
WT: Well yes I said my daughter and grand daughter.
BB: Well why don’t you. Is it still in it’s envelope? Let me just take a picture of that ‘cause that’s you. That’s-
WT: You can undo that clip better than I can.
BB: That’s very nice.
WT: That’s what it should be.
BB: About bloody time too.
WT: I think -
BB: I was -
WT: I, I hated the thing actually it should have been a blooming thing like the other people had.
BB: Yeah. I was I was privileged in being selected to be an usher at the Bomber Command memorial opening in London.
WT: Lovely.
BB: And I was in my squadron leader stuff and all my own medals on and it was great and I was given, I was given six, three Australian, three New Zealand, three Australian and three New Zealand air crew to look after. To host.
WT: [?]
BB: Yeah and they were all of your vintage, your age, you know, now.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And they’d come all the way from Australia and New Zealand for free business class with [doorbell] New Zealand sorry
WT: That could be your wife.
BB: Could be my wife.
WT: Oh she’ll be, open the door.
BB: Oh I can get that for you sorry.
WT: No that’s alright. It could be somebody else. Hello.
Other: Hello.
WT: I’ve got someone with me. We thought it was his wife.
Other: Oh a parcel for me.
WT: Oh yes darling.
Other: That’s why I came. That’s very kind of you, Bill.
WT: That’s alright.
Other: Thank you very much indeed.
WT: I’ll keep the sixpence you’ll, I’ll send you the bill.
Other: Sixpence and you’ll send me the bill.
WT: We do things for one another.
BB: Yeah of course you do.
WT: Only around the corner. She’s a dear.
BB: Well done for that.
WT: When I came home last time from hospital I weren’t all that brilliant and she was doing shopping, she was insisting on doing my laundry and all that and I said -
BB: So -
WT: So I took a parcel in for her today.
BB: Right so -
WT: Where’s that going in there wasn’t it
BB: It’s with your medals yeah. Yeah yeah. So I’m with these guys and we’re all sitting them all down and I was getting and it was a pretty hot day and one of the Australians said ‘cause my name’s Bruce you see.
WT: Yeah.
BB: ‘Here, Brucie go and get us a beer mate.’ So I went and got them the beer and they ate this up and, ‘Here, I’m pretty hungry mate. Got any sandwiches?’ And we were going away and they said, ‘Look mate it’s getting hot here when’s this thing going to you know finish?’ I said, ‘Well, you know, the royals are going to be there. The Queen’s going to open it and so on and Prince Charles and Camilla will come and see you.’ ‘Right. Right. Ok.’ So this went on and the RAF BBMF Lancaster flew down and dropped these poppies but it got it wrong got it, slightly, slightly off track and all the poppies ended up in Piccadilly all over the place and -
WT: That’s one of them,
BB: Yes. Yes I know. I recognised that,
WT: Yeah.
BB: And this Australian looked up and he said, ‘Oh Christ the navig, the navs all wrong you know’ and, you know, ‘I suppose you can’t get the people these days’ and all that sort of talk, you know. Anyway I sent one of my little one of my helpers, one of my guys in our squadron, a corporal. I said, ‘Go and pick up as many of those as you can get.’
WT: Sure.
BB: And he met a policemen, this guy, with his helmet -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Just doing this you see and the policeman kept some in his pocket and he gave the rest to this guy so he gave each one of these guys one of the poppies and that was great but this Australian who was really quite vocal, nice bloke but he had with him a group captain Royal Australian Air Force from the embassy must have been the air attaché standing maybe just about there and you’re the guy right and he said, ‘Brucie, look when the royals come down can I ask when I’m going to get my’ dot dot ‘medal because I’m getting old and I’m going to fall of my perch mate and I’d rather like it.’ And I said, ‘Well you could but I don’t think it would be, you know, polite.’ He said, ‘[Dot dot] polite mate I’ve been waiting a long time.’ And then the group captain came across and said, ‘Look I’ve told you about that. That’s my job. Leave that to me.’ You know. Blah. ‘Well you’d better hurry up mate.’ And that was the end of that conversation and of course you get your, get the clasp.
WT: Oh dear.
BB: But it all went it all went it all went very well and every time I’m in London and I’ll be there next week I always get one of those British Legion wooden little wooden crosses.
WT: Yes.
BB: With the poppy on.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And I take my uncle’s crew and -
WT: Put their names down
BB: Just the one name. So my uncle first, then the bomb aimer, then and I put them all down and I look at the little little book they’ve got there.
WT: Yeah
BB: And its people write things down.
WT: Yeah
BB: And there’s obviously flowers. There’s things that gets me is this little one flower and an old plastic see through bag or
WT: Yeah.
BB: Something. With, ‘To Uncle George’ killed blah blah blah blah and you think gosh, you know and it’s such a focus that place for everybody to come and do stuff.
WT: Standing there with tears streaming down my eyes that day
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
WT: I couldn’t even -
BB: And I said to the Ben Fund people
WT: I shouted once, ‘Excuse me I’ve got to go to the toilet. Don’t do anything.’ [laughs]
BB: And I said to the Ben Fund guys who run it you know I hope someone collects all this stuff and takes it away.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Because -
WT: Sure.
BB: You should do a book after five years or something with all the, ‘cause they leave copies of pictures.
WT: Sure.
BB: And crew pictures and -
WT: Yeah.
BB: You know, it’s a great archive there just on its own.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
WT: One of their associate members who’s a bit of a B really but he rang up and said Bill I’ve got a poppy that came falling down. Did you want one? And he sent it up to me.
BB: Oh excellent.
WT: So that’s why I popped it on there.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And it keeps falling down but it fell behind one day so I put it there -
BB: I think -
WT: So it doesn’t go anywhere else.
BB: I think –
And by the way that -
BB: Yes.
WT: Is as good a representation of a lot of us coming off -
BB: Ops.
WT: Off ops yes.
BB: I’ll take a picture of that.
WT: The actual depth of that thing.
BB: Yeah. I’ll take a picture of that but -
WT: It’s terrific.
BB: I think I have at home a programme from that day. I’ll send it to you. From the Bomber memorial.
WT: I was here then.
BB: Yes I know but I’ve got -
WT: Yeah.
BB: You know I think I’ve got a number of spares. I will send it to you.
WT: But I would love to have been there.
BB: Well it was such a privilege.
WT: Two or three of our members were there.
BB: Yeah it was a privilege to be there and, and
WT: ‘cause we had a, I started a help doing it with Johnny [Johns?] on, who by the way has written a lovely book on our stuff. Did I have that out? No I didn’t
BB: That’s ok well I’ve got a feeling -
WT: That is
BB: Ok.
WT: That’s on.
BB: 153.
WT: That is done. Is on the internet somewhere or something.
BB: Is it?
Yeah.
BB: I’ll try and find it when I go back.
WT: Johnny’s done it. He’s got -
BB: When was that written? Let’s have a look
WT: Just inside is by the date its a few years ago. I don’t know if
BB: Oh here we are. April 1998.
WT: Yeah Johnny was one of the pilots that came just after when the war was more or less finished. He started just when we were just finishing the war but he became the chairman of our Association.
BB: Yes. How lovely.
WT: It’s a terrific book because it’s got -
BB: It’s a lovely book.
WT: You know you can see when everybody did everything.
BB: Yeah it was a lovely book. And it’s, it’s -
BB: It’s terrific.
BB: I have one similar for 9 squadron but not in so much detail.
WT: That, that has got every op was done and who was on it and everything else.
BB: Yes.
WT: And about all these tables.
BB: Has anybody got all these for the national -
WT: And the aircraft.
BB: We would have got these for the national archive.
WT: Oh no. No he -
BB: Logbooks.
WT: He was down there. He used to go down and, and -
BB: Yes at the archive.
WT: Yeah, he’d go down there.
BB: Oh I was down. It’s a great place to be it really is.
WT: He lived down in York way.
BB: Yeah.
WT: No he didn’t Salisbury sorry it was Salisbury ‘cause his daughter, one of his daughter is still there.
BB: Yes, That’s lovely.
WT: He used to come regularly to our dos.
BB: And you were on C flight yeah.
WT: Hmmn?
BB: C flight.
WT: No A.
BB: A flight. Ok.
WT: I was A flight. Yeah.
BB: A flight. Ok.
WT: Yeah there was -
BB: Sorry.
WT: You will see our crew there somewhere.
BB: Yes. I’m just looking for it here.
WT: Bruce Potter at the top.
BB: Potter’s crew eh.
WT: Did you not see it?
BB: Yeah hold on.
WT: He was on A flight.
BB: Potter.
WT: Almost where you had your thumb there.
BB: Potter.
WT: Is it over that side somewhere?
BB: Oh here he is. Potter. There we are.
WT: Yeah.
BB: I’ll take a note of that.
WT: His name was Bruce.
10859
BB: Well he’s got an Australian name mate.
WT: Certainly has, yes mate.
BB: Except mine’s more Scottish than Australian. In fact one of my objectives for this when I was down here my uncle who was the Australian he married my mother’s sister ‘cause I was born in Gainsborough which is Bomber Command Hemswell not too far from Hemswell.
WT: Yes, Hemswell. Yeah.
BB: And my brother was born in Newark and my, this Australian pilot was courting my mother’s sister while he was on ops but he wouldn’t marry her while he was on ops ‘cause he didn’t feel, he’d had so many young ladies coming to the mess after their husband’s had died and he wouldn’t do it. He said he would marry her when he’d finished ops but he was killed instructing and they were only married four months but my cousin was born you know shortly thereafter well you know nine months later basically and so he, he was born in the place where I was brought up by my grandmother at Coldstream in Berwickshire and the family claimed, the family claimed the body.
WT: Oh yeah.
BB: And he was brought up by train to Cornhill station and lay overnight in the family house and my grandfather had, was a commander of the local home guard having been an old soldier and he wanted to open the coffin ‘cause it lay in the front room with a flag on it and my mother was a nurse and my mother said I don’t think we should do that ‘cause he was burnt. She knew he had been burnt and so they didn’t do it. They said let’s just remember him.
WT: As we thought he was.
BB: As we was and when the guys came up from, from the RAF station he was at for the funeral his widow, my aunt, said I’d like his watch or his flying jacket please. Sorry all we’ve got is this this and which you’ll get from the committee of adjustment and they’ll send to you and all the rest but so when you go to this little Scottish cemetery you’ll see this Australian AF war grave.
WT: Right.
BB: That’s him.
WT: That’s him. Well I never.
BB: But he was only twenty one and the last time his mother saw him was when he was seventeen and a half to leave, leave Australia to come home come here.
WT: Yeah.
BB: You know.
WT: Yeah.
BB: It was just one of those awful things.
WT: What are you trying to do there?
BB: He had finished his, he had finished his, his ops and was screened and funny you know the crew all got together you know.
WT: Ah huh.
BB: And they said, ‘We’ll go on pathfinders. We’re safer on pathfinders than we are instructing.’ And that was the view and he said, ‘No, I can’t. I’ve got to, I want to get married and I’m not going to that.’ but if he had done that he probably would have been alright.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Exactly.
BB: There we go. It wasn’t to be I suppose. These things are always -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Sad.
WT: Sent to, sent to try us.
BB: They are. Well Bill thanks very much.
WT: That’s alright my friend.
BB: And I’ll be back I’m sure if I’m down this way again. It’s so lovely to talk to you.
WT: Yeah.
BB: There’s all your bits.
WT: Yeah. You’ve got, you’ve got the medals.
BB: I’ve got that picture you leant me and I’ll send that back when I get home tonight and I’ve got -
WT: You didn’t, you didn’t take the medals.
BB: No. No.
WT: No.
BB: No you’ve got them. Better check I don’t want you to, there they are in the bag
WT: That’s alright, they’re in the bag.
BB: They are in your just check please just check. No, no, no I haven’t got them. There they are
WT: I don’t know why, yeah they’re there such as they are.
BB: Well we’ll try and change that.
WT: I’m never bothered about medals.
BB: No. Well a lot of people don’t but the gran
WT: I’m not a medal man.
BB: No. A lot of people weren’t but you know there’s things like grandchildren who, who -
WT: Well. Paul -
BB: You’ve got, you’ve got your grandchildren now.
WT: My grandson.
BB: Who you would obviously like.
WT: They’re down in Salisbury at the moment I’m hoping they’re going to move a bit nearer but he’s interested but his nephew bless him is he’s only seven and a half at the moment.
BB: Yeah.
WT: But there’s a photograph of him up there. Jack. He’s very, very keen on it. Very keen.
BB: Well so he should be. It’s a great honour that you’ve done this.
WT: There’s the office.
BB: There’s the office, that’s right.
WT: These were, these were taken from the just, what is she called the one over, Just Jane over there in, we used to go down there a lot to the Panton Brothers where they’ve got the aircraft that taxies around.
BB: Yeah. Ok what have I got to do here now?
WT: [yawn] excuse me. This is all to do with the Lincolnshire arrangement that going, the spire’s gone up hasn’t it?
BB: Not yet. No, no, no, not -
WT: Oh I thought they’d already lifted it because our lot were down on oh a month and a half ago to their, to the reunion and that was the day when it was going to be delivered. They moved, had to move away because time was going on they’d only just got down the road and they saw it going back up.
BB: Right.
WT: Just coming. So they couldn’t do anything about it.
BB: No.
WT: I thought they said they put it up that night. Erected it.
BB: What? The spire?
WT: Yeah.
BB: In Lincoln?
WT: Yeah.
BB: Well to tell you the truth it might have done but I haven’t heard of it yet but -
WT: Well I thought that’s what they it had happened. They brought that in and the lorries or whatever was carrying it were going to get it upright for them to to anchor it down or whatever. I don’t know. Because they are going to build a great big wall around it aren’t t they with the name of the people who died
BB: Yes
WT: Or were killed. So [they’ll have old Giffords?] down on that one bless him. My room-mate.
BB: Oh God. There’s more bumph here.
WT: Cost you more money now.
BB: Yeah. Yeah. Right so we’d better get on with the paperwork. Let me just have a look at it
WT: Oh I thought you’d done it.
BB: No I’ve just been reading it here so we’ll better get on with it. Won’t be a minute. I think I’ll just call my wife up I’m a bit worried about her. See where she is
WT: I was going to say from my bedroom you can probably see the car.
BB: So when’s your next medical people coming in. When, when do they come in, every day to see you?
WT: No. No. No Wednesday is the day when everything normally happens.
BB: Yeah.
WT: At the moment I’ve got ear trouble but I’m off for another week but on Wednesday they come in to change your leg bag and do all kinds of things so I have to watch it but I’m alright I’m off for the next week or two I’m not doing too badly.
BB: Hi Jeannie. It’s me. I’m finished with Bill. I wonder if you could come back to to look at this documentation. It might need a witness. I’m not sure. Ok I’ll call you later. Or you can give me a call now. Thanks bye.
WT: Oh you’ve left her a message have you?
BB: Yeah she’s -
WT: Oh.
BB: She’s probably walking the dog.
WT: Stay where you are I think I can see the car from here.
BB: Ok thanks.
From the bedroom.
[pause]
WT: No the trees are in the way. I said the tree is in the way.
BB: Oh its William [Headley] Thomas isn’t it?
WT: [Headley].
BB: Oh that’s worth, that’s worthy of a photograph.
WT: Oh I don’t know I was just going to show you that. They were taken more or less the same time. You see what she’s wearing?
BB: Yes.
WT: A new pair of wings.
BB: Oh that’s lovely. May I take a picture of that one?
WT: Oh, go on. You don’t want that man.
BB: Yes I do. You’re, now that, now that you’ve been interviewed my dear boy you are now part of the national archive.
WT: Don’t.
BB: You are going to be in the Bomber Command archive.
WT: Am I?
BB: Yeah, you are.
WT: I thought, I thought it was the Lincolnshire.
BB: Yeah but it’s going to the University of Lincoln.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Yeah.
BB: But that’s why we’ve got to sign this other stuff.
WT: While you’re doing that it’s happened again this damned bag.
BB: Oh I’m sorry.
WT: No it’s alright ‘cause it just happens like that I have a big bag to put on the end of it at night thank God.
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 Bill Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Bill had joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps and Air Training Corps. He volunteered as a pilot in the Royal Air Force and flew Tiger Moths at RAF Sywell but was re-mustered as a navigator. Bill went to Canada as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, where he did bomb aiming, gunnery and navigation training. He was offered a commission and did some special training on Prince Edward Island before going to the holding unit at Moncton.
Bill returned to Scotland and converted to bomb aiming. He crewed up at RAF Castle Donington and went to RAF Sandtoft and RAF Hemswell to the Lancaster Finishing School. Bill was transferred to 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington, flying Lancasters. They then went to RAF Scampton as 153 Squadron. Bill conducted 29 operations and one which was aborted because of engine problems. Bill then trained as an equipment officer, being sent to RAF Strubby. He then demobilised and returned to his job in local government.
The interview discusses relationships between commissioned and non-commissioned crew, Bill’s thoughts on Dresden, Bomber Command and Arthur Harris, and the awarding of medals.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AThomasWH150711
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
Canada
Alberta
Ontario
Ontario--Toronto
Prince Edward Island
Québec
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Harrogate
England--Hastings
England--Lancashire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Manchester
England--Northamptonshire
England--Redruth
England--Sussex
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtown
Wales--Aberystwyth
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
United States
New York (State)
New York (State)--New York
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
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2015-07-11
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Creator
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Bruce Blanche
Format
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01:19:53 audio recording
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
153 Squadron
166 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crewing up
ground personnel
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
memorial
observer
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
promotion
RAF Bicester
RAF Castle Donington
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Scampton
RAF Strubby
RAF Sywell
target photograph
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/302/3459/PLambAM1702.2.jpg
5bb20bc0ccac9b450bc8f96ec8e8496b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/302/3459/AMcPhersonLambA150726.1.mp3
5e35283fa31ed4090662324faaffc571
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
Lamb, Alexander
Alexander McPherson Lamb
Alexander M Lamb
Alexander Lamb
A M Lamb
A Lamb
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with Alexander McPherson Lamb (b. 1925, 1827673 Royal Air Force), his decorations, album and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 15 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alexander Lamb and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-25
2017-08-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lamb
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BB: Good morning Alistair, and thank you for letting me come into your home. I am representing the International Bomber Command Centre at Lincoln and we’re doing an oral history of Bomber Command veterans. So this interview is being held with Mr Alexander McPherson Lamb in his home in Stirling. Would you like to tell us your story? Thank you.
AML: Well, I joined the RAF in — I think it was March. I’m not quite sure now unclear] I think it was March. And I volunteered for aircrew. I was a junior clerk in the civil service. War Department. And I joined the RAF in, I think it was March. March ’44 I think it would be. I can’t remember.
[background chat]
BB: Sorry Alistair.
AML: That’s alright. You start again? Or is it alright?
BB: No. Just carry on.
AML: You’ve stopped it.
BB: Yeah. Just carry on. Yeah.
AML: And I think it was March ’44. And I volunteered as an air gunner. Had my attestation and medical and whatnot initially in Edinburgh prior to that. And I think I actually joined in March ’44. Yeah. March ’44 was when I actually joined. Went down to London to Aircrew Reception Centre in London where we were sort of needles stuck in us and examined and —
BB: Was that the one in St John’s Wood?
AML: Pardon?
BB: St John’s Wood.
AML: St John’s Wood. Yes. St John’s Wood. Then we went from there overnight by train to Bridgnorth.
BB: In Wales.
AML: I can’t remember the number of the OTU. Of the thing it was. Bridgnorth anyway. I can’t remember where, what it was actually called. It would be RAF. I can’t remember what Bridgnorth was. I’ve got it somewhere. Maybe get it in my logbook.
BB: Ok. We’ll look at that later.
AML: And then did our initial training there. March, gunnery, various things. Air force law. The usual jazz that you get when you join up first of all. And after that we were then [pause] I can’t remember how long we were there. I’d need to look up my logbook again. We then went to gunnery school which was at Stormy Down in Wales.
BB: Right.
AML: Number 7.
BB: That’s right. Number 7 Air Gunner’s School.
AML: At Stormy Down’s in Wales. Near, near Porthcawl. A lovely — it was a good station and I enjoyed it very much. We flew in Ansons there.
BB: Yeah.
AML: We did our gunnery in Ansons there. We passed out. It would be in 28th I think. 28th of July or June, I’m not quite sure, ’44. And then came home on leave. From that we went back to Market Harborough. OTU. 14 OTU Market Harborough.
BB: Yeah.
AML: Where we spent the first three weeks more or less meeting people. Knowing about, meeting guys. All the crews that were there. And you were allowed a month, a fortnight or three weeks to what was called crew up. There was no compunction. You picked your own crew over a period of time and that. Then you went in a huge hangar and I don’t know who it would be, the CO or somebody said, ‘Who are the people who have got full crews?’ And they all went to one side. The last of us were left. If you didn’t have a full crew you were then left and there would be other spare people left as well.
BB: Right.
AML: And they would then say, ‘Well here’s a spare pilot.’ ‘Here’s a spare navigator.’ ‘Here’s a spare gunner.’ Would you all like to, ‘Would you like to crew up?’ And basically that’s how you crewed up.
BB: Which was all very sensible really because you got to know people that you could trust and you liked and you got on well with.
AML: That’s right. That’s right.
BB: So there was method in their madness.
AML: Oh there was. The usual thing as you do in all these things when you join up first. There’s always somebody who knows something about everything. And they said, ‘Oh look for a warrant officer pilot because he’ll have a lot of flying experience. Don’t look for a young flying officer who’s got none.’ Or a young sergeant pilot. A general thing.
BB: Very sensible.
AML: It didn’t matter. You just picked who you found. You took a like to somebody even before you know their qualifications. If you liked them you liked them you know.
BB: Yes.
AML: We picked a warrant officer pilot and when we went in to be crewed up we were told well he’s been posted somewhere else. We were then left standing until this lone sergeant pilot arrived. We didn’t know he was French and they said, ‘Well here’s a pilot needing somebody. What about a crew?’ And I must have been looked at and he said, ‘What would you like to ask?’ I said, ‘Well we’ll take up then.’ So that’s how we got crewed up.
BB: So you had this French, a French airman.
AML: Very very much French actually.
BB: French pilot.
AML: Yeah.
BB: Who was kind of left.
AML: That’s right.
BB: Was he in the French Air Force or was he in the RAF?
AML: He was in the French Air Force initially I think.
BB: Right.
AML: He came from — maybe this is more or less rubbish to you.
BB: No. No. Carry on.
AML: He came from France when the Germans invaded. I forget where it was. It was down in the south of France. Not as far as they were but it was quite far down. Near Bordeaux I think he was.
BB: Right. Southern France. In Vichy France.
AML: Aye. And he escaped and came back to this country and because he had very little English at that time he was put in a reserved occupation building aircraft. He was punching wing ribs out for an Auster aircraft in Leicester.
BB: Oh I see. Right.
AML: That’s where he was sent to. And he got so fed up with it he said the only way you could get out of a reserved occupation during the war was if you were volunteered for submarines or aircrew.
BB: I see. Right. They were so short on both.
AML: So he volunteered for aircrew and did his training, I understand with the French Air Force and the French training him. Probably the RAF but under the auspices of the French.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
AML: And then in the usual way the wheels worked somebody said, ‘What’s this guy with a Scottish, with an English name doing in the French Air Force?’ Jack was then humped out of one into the other and we got him at OTU. His language was quite a problem for a while but we got to know about it. We then went on to Wellingtons at OTU at Market Harborough. And, I don’t know, I can’t remember the dates at Market Harborough. I need to look up my logbook.
BB: That’s ok.
AML: But you can fill them in after. I think we went to Market Harborough in ’44 some time. I can’t remember when. August ’44. I need to look at my logbook. You’ll see it in the logbook.
BB: Yes.
AML: ’44. Market Harborough I think. And we left there and when we did our stint we did a hundred and ten, about a hundred and ten hours on Wellingtons at Market Harborough. The reason we did so many is another story I wouldn’t bore you with. Anyway, and we then went home on leave and came back as a crew to — what did I say it was? Heavy conversion. 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit.
BB: 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit at Wigsley.
AML: Wigsley. Wiglsey.
BB: Yes.
AML: Flying Stirlings.
BB: Yes. How did you find the Stirling?
AML: I liked the Stirling very much indeed. I was very taken with the Stirling. Very very strong aircraft. Very robust aircraft. Plenty of room in it. Because you know how tremendous.
BB: Yes.
AML: I got extra flying time. We used to carry on till the [unclear] you see.
BB: It was a long way off the ground. I remember. And I see you have a model here too which shows the size of it.
AML: That’s right.
BB: Compared to the same scale.
AML: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: That you have a Wellington or a Lancaster.
AML: Aye. It was wingspan. You know the story. The wingspans were reduced to get it in to the hangar.
BB: Yes. That’s right.
AML: Which didn’t do it any good at all.
BB: No. Not good at all. No.
AML: It was literally a Sunderland wing.
BB: Yeah. Oh I see.
AML: You see.
BB: Made by Short’s of course.
AML: But ninety nine feet which made it very manoeuvrable but it couldn’t get much higher than —
BB: Couldn’t get the height.
AML: Sixteen thousand and there.
BB: Which made it very vulnerable to flak and fighters.
AML: Very vulnerable to flak. Yeah. Yeah. Same types of turret I had in the Lanc of course. Exactly the same. Anyway —
BB: Yes. Frazer and Nash turret.
AML: Went from there to the same OTU, same conversion. We went to, joined Lancs at that unit. We were then, we went over to Lancs at the same place. 14 OTU.
BB: 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit.
AML: Conversion Unit.
BB: Yeah.
AML: We went on to —
BB: 15 Squadron.
AML: No. Not at that time.
BB: Ok.
AML: We were then posted when we finished that course. I forget how long. I don’t remember how long. It wasn’t terribly long. We then went to 15 Squadron at Mildenhall in March ’45.
BB: That’s right.
AML: More or less a year after we joined. March. I joined a year ’45. And the first thing we did when we got there we were sent to Feltwell to do a GH bombing course.
BB: Gosh that must have been interesting.
AML: It was only about a fortnight’s course I think. A beautiful little airfield. I think it was Harvards they had there. It was a fighter. I think. I can’t remember.
BB: Yeah.
AML: But it was a very nice peacetime ‘drome. A lovely place. I liked Feltwell for the short time we were there.
BB: So that was fighter affiliation.
AML: No. We simply did GH bombing training.
BB: Just bombing training. Ok.
AML: For the navigator’s really.
BB: Yeah.
AML: The navigators and bomb aimers. This type of GH bombing. I can’t remember.
BB: Yes. That would meant that you would have two yellow stripes on your tail when you qualified to be a bombing leader.
AML: Aye. GH leader. Some of —
BB: Yeah.
AML: Some of the aircraft had yellow striped on the tail.
BB: Yeah. That’s right.
AML: Some hadn’t. It was a means of identification.
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: Then we came back from there just more or less overnight to RAF Mildenhall itself. Where we were originally. And we were there at RAF Mildenhall until we left in — when would it be? When did we leave Mildenhall?
BB: Mildenhall.
AML: ’46 I think we left Mildenhall.
BB: 20th of August ’46 I think you mentioned before.
AML: Yeah. They moved. They moved to Wyton. The squadron moved to Wyton.
BB: Did you go with them to Wyton?
AML: We went to Wyton. Yeah.
BB: Yeah. Ok.
AML: And the crew, the whole crew went to it. That was the last trip my skipper did. He was then posted as an instructor.
BB: Right. He was screened.
AML: Aye.
BB: And went off to an OTU.
AML: Aye and of course by that time everybody was getting broken up because ’46 the demobbing was taking its toll and people were coming and going. And new people were coming in and sort of general get togethers what was disappearing quickly because you were losing people left, right and middle. And as I say I was fortunate. I stayed flying until I was demobbed which was quite lucky for me.
BB: Yes. Yes. That’s right.
AML: Because 15 was a peacetime squadron. So that’s why I think.
BB: Yes. So with that pretty well organised.
AML: Pre-war squadron.
BB: Yes.
AML: That’s why we were probably kept as such. 44 and 15 and some of the others, 7 were all peacetime squadrons.
BB: All the wartime squadrons were disbanded.
AML: That’s right. Yeah. Were all disbanded.
BB: The peacetime squadrons were re-kept.
AML: Yeah.
BB: And some of the wartime ones were re-kept.
AML: Yeah well —
BB: Like 617 for example.
AML: We had Tuddenham. We talked about Tuddenham.
BB: Tuddenham. Yes.
AML: Just across the road from us.
BB: Yeah. Yes.
AML: A case of wheels up, wheels down, landing.
BB: Yes.
AML: Then we stayed there until we were posted. As I say we were posted to Wyton. Wyton, a beautiful station. A peacetime.
BB: Yes. I’ve been to Wyton. Yes.
AML: A very modern peacetime station.
BB: Yes.
AML: A lovely station. And I was there until I was demobbed.
BB: Yes.
AML: We did a lot of stuff after the war. Immediately after the war, before the war actually ended in Japan. We brought liberated prisoners of war back. We did supply dropping to the Dutch.
BB: Yes.
AML: I got a medal from the Dutch government for that. We did three trips of supply dropping to the Dutch and I think we did three trips for bringing prisoners of war back but I think we came in to —
BB: Yeah.
AML: Westcott.
BB: Westcott. Yes.
AML: I think so.
BB: In Bucks.
AML: Oh my memory’s not as good as it used to be I’m afraid.
BB: So — that’s ok. So how many actual operations did you do? You came in late in the war.
AML: I came in very late. I didn’t join —
BB: Did you do six or five or —?
AML: I did, I did, the crew did six and I did five.
BB: Ok.
AML: I took food poisoning.
BB: Oh right. So you did your five ops. And —
AML: Four daylights and one. Four daylights and one night.
BB: Ok.
AML: Kiel was a night op. And I understand that the war was still on this time — these supply drops trips and prisoner of war would have been turn ups. I don’t think they were actually given as that.
BB: No.
AML: And somebody said to us, ‘Oh you could, in a push, count them as ops,’ but I never ever did that.
BB: No. No.
AML: I didn’t do. But that was —
BB: No.
AML: That was on.
BB: But in terms of bombing German or French targets. Yes. Yes.
AML: Actual bombing Germany itself.
BB: Yes. As target. Yes. Yes.
AML: I did four daylights.
BB: Four daylights.
AML: Munster, Bocholt, Heligoland, Kiel and Bremen.
BB: And Bremen. And Bremen was your last one.
AML: Last one we did.
BB: Yeah. And did you, did you drop — did you have a chance to drop those big bombs?
AML: No. Not at that time.
BB: The Tallboys. No.
AML: 15 Squadron wasn’t doing that.
BB: No. No.
AML: It was a specialised.
BB: Yes. 617. Yeah. Yeah.
AML: 617.
BB: Yes.
AML: Was a specialised squadron for that.
BB: So you dropped the normal, you had a normal cookie and the normal other ones. Yeah.
AML: That’s right. A normal cookie.
BB: Normal load. Yeah.
AML: Or an eight thousand pounder double cookie sometimes.
BB: Right.
AML: And I’ve got to know, I think about a fourteen thousand pounds was about the standard bomb load we had.
BB: Bomb load. Right.
AML: Sixteen hundred gallons of gas. Fuel.
BB: Yeah.
AML: It’s in my logbook. You’ll see it there. Yes. Then 15 Squadron became a sort of — well we were doing a lot of training. Long range navigation exercises. Things like that. Then we started to convert to get the Lancaster ones, the ones they were using for the ten ton bomb.
BB: Yes.
AML: I forget why it was. Like B1 specials I think they were called.
BB: B1 specials. They took the nose turret off and —
AML: The top turret off.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And bomb doors off.
BB: And the bomb doors off to take the Tallboys.
AML: That’s right.
BB: Yes.
AML: We dropped those. We called it Operation Farge I think it was called. We did the dropping of these bombs on the U-boat pens at Farge.
BB: Yeah. Ok.
AML: Because they didn’t know when the war ended exactly what damage was being done with the Halifax that did this. Then we did — oh what was the operation? There was a point but I can’t remember. Where we bombed [pause] ships in the English Channel to see what would happen to bombs.
BB: Oh to see what the damage —
AML: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. Would be —
AML: We flew then at a certain height and we dropped a stick of bombs. I think they were five hundred pounders. And then if and when we went to hit a boat [laughs] It was HMS Firefly. I think it was. It was an ex-mine sweeper. They then stopped the bombing and the navy went aboard the board and put a real bomb in where our bomb had struck or where somebody’s bomb had struck.
BB: Yes.
AML: And then detonated that bomb from a launch so they could then say that an aircraft at eighteen thousand feet dropped a five hundred pound bomb going into number two engine room would do X amount of damage.
BB: X amount of damage. Yes.
AML: This is what we did. We did some research on that.
BB: It was to see what the actual damage was.
AML: That’s right. That’s right.
BB: To a vessel being hit by a bomb of that kind.
AML: That’s right. That was to give them —
BB: So they could either improve the munition.
AML: Yeah.
BB: Or just to see the damage.
AML: It was to give them a general – they didn’t physically know, you know, but now they could actually do it. So we did quite a bit of that.
BB: Right.
AML: And then we got, we were lucky enough to get a trip to Italy.
BB: You went to Italy to bring back POWs.
AML: No. To bring back guys on leave as well.
BB: Oh ok. Right.
AML: I think it was a reward. The squadron got a reward. The squadrons got a reward.
BB: A chance to go and get some oranges and stuff like that.
AML: That’s right.
BB: From Italy. Yes.
AML: Yeah.
BB: And some wine no doubt.
AML: Yeah.
BB: Excellent.
AML: I think we landed at Blackbushe.
BB: Blackbushe right.
AML: Coming back. Aye.
BB: And did your crew all survive the war?
AML: Yes. Yes.
BB: Do you keep in touch with them at all?
No. They’re all away now. My skipper died. I’ve been to see my skipper. My navigator and I went to see my skipper in Australia. I went on my own once and he came with me the next time.
BB: Right.
AML: And he’d been over here. Funnily enough I’ve just had a phone call from Australia saying they’re coming across for my eightieth — for my ninetieth birthday.
BB: Oh that’s nice. That’s good. That’s very nice. Now just to remind me. When were born again. What’s your date of birth?
AML: 1925.
BB: Pardon?
AML: 5.9 ’25.
BB: 5.9 ’25. And that was in Stirling.
AML: Stirling.
BB: Yeah.
AML: In this house.
BB: In this house. Right. Ok.
AML: I’ve lived here ever since.
BB: So you’ve lived in here.
AML: Ever since.
BB: Ever since.
AML: No desire to move.
BB: No. And you were with the civil service before you —
AML: Yeah.
BB: Before you went and when you came back from the war that’s what you did.
AML: I was —what do you call that? I worked in the War Department as a boy messenger initially.
BB: Ok.
AML: For a few months until I then got a junior clerks job. And when I left I was a clerk. What they called temporary clerks because there was no establishment at that time, I understand. During the war.
BB: And that was in —
AML: Stirling.
BB: In Stirling.
AML: [unclear] in Stirling.
BB: Oh in the military side of it there.
AML: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: Ok. Ok. And so they didn’t [pause] was that a reserved occupation in that sense?
AML: Probably it might have been. I don’t think so. Anyway —
BB: Because you volunteered for air crew.
AML: Aye.
BB: Yeah.
AML: But what happened then I understand. I don’t know maybe you shouldn’t quote this but I think, I think the people who had gone out had to get their jobs back. You know, after the war.
BB: Yes. They had to be kept for them yeah.
AML: And I went back in. And realise there would be no things like that. I then transferred to what were called the Department of Health and Social Security I think we called it.
BB: Ok.
AML: National Insurance, I think. In Stirling. I was still a temporary clerk.
BB: After, after the war.
AML: Yeah. After the war.
BB: Ok.
AML: And I was there when I had to sit the civil service exam.
BB: Right.
AML: If I wanted to become established. That was the only way you could keep it.
BB: Yeah.
AML: So I sat the civil service exam, passed it and was posted on a permanent, as a permanent civil servant to Elgin.
BB: Elgin. Right.
AML: Elgin. And I was in Elgin for seven — nine months. Then I got back to Stirling. Well I got back to Alloa.
BB: Yes.
AML: And then I got from Alloa to Stirling.
BB: Right.
AML: I was in Stirling until I was demobbed.
BB: Right.
AML: And became a HEO, acting HEO and I was that until I came out. Where did I come out? ’48. Would it have been 1984 ’85 ’86? I can’t remember.
BB: That’s when you retired.
AML: When I was sixty.
BB: Sixty.
AML: In my grade, at that time, you had to go. At your age.
BB: Right. You couldn’t, you couldn’t negotiate.
AML: You couldn’t stay on. Now you can go on forever I understand.
BB: Right. Ok. And you went to school in Stirling.
AML: Went to school.
BB: What? The High school?
AML: Riverside.
BB: Riverside. And that’s where you, did you get your school certificate there?
AML: Yeah. Well I got — I left at fourteen.
BB: Yeah.
AML: As most people did in those days. .
BB: Yeah.
AML: I think I got what they called was it a day school or—? I can’t remember actually.
BB: Yeah. But you had, but you had enough to qualify for aircrew.
AML: Well, I don’t think it really mattered what scholastic abilities you had if you passed.
BB: Passed their test.
AML: The sort of general assessment test.
BB: Yeah. Yeah. Well there were –
AML: Yeah — there were quite a few lads, that’s the wrong word, who were plumbers or joiners who had, you know.
BB: Done apprenticeships the same.
AML: That’s right.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And they went too. Yeah.
BB: Right. Ok. And your mother. Your parents lived in this house.
AML: Yeah.
BB: And obviously that was a great worry to your mother. Going off flying bombers.
AML: Yeah. Yeah. My father died.
BB: Rear gunners position in the bomber at that. The most dangerous position in the aircraft.
AML: My father died. I think in ’40. 1940.
BB: Oh right. Ok.
AML: He was a regular serving soldier prior to that.
BB: What? In the army.
AML: Yeah.
BB: Ok.
AML: A twenty eight year man I think he was.
BB: Did he die in the war? Or did he —?
AML: No. No. He was out of the war. He came out the forces in 1924.
BB: Oh. Ok. So must have been a boy soldier and worked his way up and all that.
AML: Yeah. He joined the Seaforth Highlanders when he was eighteen.
BB: Ok.
AML: I think.
BB: Ok. And these are his medals on the wall.
AML: That’s right. Then after, after the Sudan campaign. Kitchener’s Sudan campaign.
BB: Yeah.
AML: He came back to Egypt.
BB: Right.
AML: In fact I’ve got a letter there written when he was in Egypt. He lost a sister during the terrible flu epidemic. I remember that was in the letter.
BB: I see he’s got the Egyptian Medal.
AML: That’s right.
BB: And the First World War.
AML: Yeah.
BB: War and Victory Medal and looks like —
AML: He’s got a Long Service Meritorious Medal.
BB: Long Service Medals and Meritorious Medal. Yes.
AML: He also has the Russian Order of Saint Stanislaus as well.
BB: Oh right. Ok. Interesting. So he served in the first, he had been a combat soldier.
AML: A regular serving soldier.
BB: In those campaigns.
AML: He was —
BB: How much did his military service influence you in, you know in going into the RAF?
AML: No. I don’t think so. Terribly much.
BB: No. No.
AML: I was never really army orientated.
BB: No. I didn’t mean the army. Just the whole military culture was in the family.
AML: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
BB: Yeah. That’s good.
AML: My cousin was killed at Dunkirk.
BB: Was he? Yes. What was he in?
AML: He was in the Royal Artillery.
BB: Royal Artillery. So he’s buried in France.
AML: Somewhere in France.
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: I don’t know where.
BB: Exactly where. No. Oh dear. Ok.
AML: Research to that.
BB: Right.
AML: And all my other cousins were in the forces during the war.
BB: Yes.
AML: You know. In various bits.
BB: Yes. But no brothers and sisters.
AML: No.
BB: No.
BB: But you remember your cousins were in the armed forces during the war. Did you ever meet up in Stirling? On leave and things.
AML: No.
BB: No.
AML: I never met them at all.
BB: Never met them at all.
AML: No. It just so happened that, you know —
BB: What was leave like? Did you get regular leave or did it — haphazard? Or —
AML: When you were flying on operations you got I think every seventh week was a leave week. I can’t really remember.
BB: Right.
AML: You got quite a bit of leave. We were quite fortunate. I think, I think it was every seventh week. I can’t remember to be quite —
BB: Yeah. But you did get regular leave.
AML: We got regular leave. Better than most people.
BB: Yes.
AML: Better than most people. Yes.
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: Yes we did. Aye. Aye.
BB: I’ve heard that before from other veterans.
AML: Yeah. And we always got our [unclear], you know. Of course. I’m talking from an NCO point of view.
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: I don’t know remember what the officers got. They would get the same as us.
BB: Right.
AML: But that’s, that’s their —
BB: Were you made up to flight sergeant before?
AML: After a year I was —
BB: You were a warrant officer weren’t you?
AML: I was, after a year I got my flight sergeant.
BB: Yeah. You went in as a, sorry, you must have joined as an LAC.
AML: Oh I think I was an AC2. I don’t know —
BB: Sorry, AC2.
AML: An AC2 I think.
BB: And then gone through your training.
AML: Training.
BB: And then you would have got your sergeant’s stripes.
AML: Sergeant. That’s right and then I got my flight sergeant.
BB: Now, was that before you went to OUT? Sergeant. To be sergeant.
AML: Yes.
BB: Yeah.
AML: Ah huh. When everybody went to OTU they were all aircrew by that.
BB: Yes.
AML: They were all qualified aircrew.
BB: Ok. Ok. So once you got your wings you made a sergeant.
AML: That’s right.
BB: And then you got your flight sergeant.
AML: Yes.
BB: And then you got your warrant officer.
AML: Warrant yeah.
BB: That’s very good.
AML: I got my warrant officer last. I told you. After nine months.
BB: Yes.
AML: You could take, you could take your flight sergeant after nine months.
BB: Yes.
AML: And your W after a year.
BB: Yes.
AML: But Tom said, ‘Oh no you should do it the other way around. You get more money.’ But you don’t get it you know.
BB: And was that was that on a selection basis or a board?
AML: No. It was automatic.
BB: Was it automatic?
AML: Yeah.
BB: Oh I see.
AML: Unless you really had been a bad boy or something.
BB: A bad boy. That’s right.
AML: As far as I can understand it virtually just came through on station, a station order, you know.
BB: Routine orders. Yes. That’s it.
AML: Follow through on flight sergeants.
BB: Right.
AML: In fact I’ve got the papers of my father.
BB: Right.
AML: The same way.
BB: Yes.
AML: In the army way back.
BB: So it was, it was on a good record and on time.
AML: That’s right. Yeah.
BB: Ok. That’s fine.
AML: And I got my warrant officer the same way.
BB: Yes.
AML: The warrant officer was slightly different. I can remember. I think you went in front of the CO.
BB: Yes.
AML: Or your squadron CO.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And he asked you a few questions. Blah blah blah. He knew of you. He knew of you of course by this time anyway.
BB: Yes, of course he did.
AML: And he would say ok.
BB: And he would have had your flight commander’s report and all the rest of it. Yeah.
AML: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
BB: And so you got your Tate and Lyle’s on your, on your sleeve.
AML: Aye. I’ve got a picture. Over there.
BB: Yes.
AML: Over there.
BB: Yes. Yeah. Got your Tate and Lyle’s.
AML: My Tate and Lyle’s. Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
AML: Yeah.
BB: That’s great. Now tell me about, tell me about, I’m going to ask you certain aspects of Bomber Command and you can say well did you know about these things or not. There was a lot of, there was a lot of problem with venereal disease in Bomber Command. So much so that the Bomber Command chief medical officer went to see Bomber Harris and —
AML: In his book yes. It’s in the book. Aye.
BB: Was there any instances of that on your squadron that you knew? I mean it’s not something that somebody would brag, talk about.
AML: No. No. I don’t think, I don’t remember.
BB: No.
AML: I don’t remember.
BB: The medical officer didn’t give the talks and all that kind of thing.
AML: No.
BB: No.
AML: No. We got a very terrible talk. A horrible talk at ITW. At —
BB: Initial Training Wing. Right.
AML: At Aircrew Reception Centre.
BB: Oh right.
AML: Most of us didn’t know the first thing they were talking about. That’s how innocent we all were.
BB: So naive and young then.
AML: Oh absolutely. People don’t believe it. We were really.
BB: Yes.
AML: You got an odd guy who’d been a bit of a man of the world sort of style.
BB: Aye. No.
AML: But the rest of us we knew what women were and all the rest of it.
BB: Ok.
AML: But that was it.
BB: Alright. That’s fine.
AML: No it was —
BB: No. It was fine.
AML: It was a sort of movie. I mean they actually, you know.
BB: You grew up very quickly no doubt.
AML: Yeah. It was an American made movie.
BB: Right.
AML: About how they met and this guy goes with this lassie and all the rest of it.
BB: Right.
AML: And then graphic pictures of your [laughs]
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: Thingummy.
BB: All the aftermath of all of that yeah.
AML: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: But to scare you as well and to give you information.
AML: Aye. It did. I never ever met anyone to my knowledge.
BB: No. No. Ok. Well as I said it’s nothing you would sort of say, hey. You know. But the other thing I want to talk about is LMF. Lack of moral fibre. Did you have any knowledge or —
AML: I never met anybody of LMF.
BB: No. Anybody on your squadron or the station that —
AML: Our first navigator.
BB: That you know.
AML: Our first navigator. We’d had a long protracted training at OTU because we kept losing people.
BB: Right.
AML: We lost two navigators at OTU.
BB: What? They were scrubbed?
AML: Aye. Scrubbed.
BB: Yeah.
AML: The first one just suddenly packed up his nav bag one night and said, ‘I’m not having any more of this.’ And disappeared. That’s the last we saw of him.
BB: Right.
AML: I don’t think it was LMF. It was just a case of —
BB: Just got out of it.
AML: I mean he was fully qualified to be a navigator.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
AML: And then the next thing what happened to me was much the same. Two navigators on the trot and of course —
BB: That would have delayed you graduating from OTU.
AML: Yeah. Of course the pundits said to us, ‘Oh you’ll get a lot of hours in Wellingtons you’ll finish up in the Far East in Wellingtons.’ This sort of thing. You know. That’s what happened to us. That’s why we were held up first of all.
BB: Right. Ok. And the other and the other issue was morale generally. Because at your time with, in Bomber Command it was towards the end. Was morale fairly high?
AML: Oh aye. Very high. Yeah. Yeah.
BB: Yeah. I mean the losses had, the losses in Bomber Command were horrendous.
AML: Oh aye I’d be the first to admit that. It was unfortunate of course. People getting killed the last day of the war.
BB: Yes.
AML: That happened.
BB: Yes.
AML: But we didn’t have the colossal losses they had in —
BB: 1943.
AML: 1943/44.
BB: 1944. Early ’44. Yeah.
AML: Oh No. No. No.
BB: The Battle of the Ruhr. The Battle of Berlin.
AML: That’s right. That’s right. That’s when the chop rate—
BB: Were more or less gone
AML: That’s when the chop rate were really something to —
BB: But German night fighters were still flying.
AML: Oh yeah.
BB: When they got the fuel.
AML: Yeah.
BB: And the flak was just –
AML: Yeah. Flak was, your biggest worry was flak.
BB: Did you ever get to see any of the German jets?
AML: Yes.
BB: The Luftwaffe jets.
AML: Yes. I saw a 163 in actual action. It’s all in my logbook.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
AML: And we went to [pause] the last raid of the war we did. I saw a 163 way below us [schwoooo noise]
BB: That was the Bremen. Bremen.
AML: Bremen.
BB: Yes.
AML: Aye. Aye. Aye. But no —
BB: It didn’t, it didn’t attack or —
AML: No. It had come up — I think 5 Group went to Hamburg the same day.
BB: Right.
AML: And —
BB: Of course you were in 4 Group.
AML: I was in 3 Group.
BB: Sorry. 3 Group.
AML: Some of the things I’m telling you now is on reflection. I mean I would need to really, you know think what exactly it was what it was on reflection I can remember.
BB: Right.
AML: Because I don’t want to line shoot to you under any circumstance. No. That was, that was, I saw a 16. I saw, I saw 262s in Germany after the war.
BB: After the war. On the ground.
AML: We were over in France.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And I saw them there.
BB: Yeah.
AML: They were certainly a very terrible aeroplane. Wonderful.
BB: Right. Now. Dropping the food parcels and other things to the Dutch. That must have been very rewarding.
AML: Oh very. Great. Great.
BB: Because the Dutch were starving at that stage.
AML: The great thing about it was you were allowed to fly low.
BB: Yes.
AML: Down to two hundred or less. Three hundred feet. In fact lower. My skipper took us down to about twenty eight feet some of the time. We were so low. Because he wanted to low fly and I used to say I’m getting water in to the tail turret [laughs] We flew low over —
BB: You did three of those you said.
AML: Pardon?
BB: You did three trips.
AML: We did three trips.
BB: Yeah.
AML: Yeah. Yeah
BB: And then the other humanitarian thing was bringing the POWs back.
AML: That’s correct. Bringing prisoners of war back. Yeah.
BB: From Italy and Germany.
AML: Yeah. The Americans were flying them from either lower or upper Silesia and we were picking them up at Juvincourt.
BB: Right.
AML: And I can remember I think the station was run by Germans as far as I can remember. Nearly all the German people seemed to be able to do the menial tasks there.
BB: Yes. Right.
AML: And then we, the Japanese war was still on of course.
BB: Yes. Of course.
AML: We were bringing them back from Germany at that time. Yeah.
BB: And they, they were obviously very pleased to get, be getting home.
AML: Oh yeah. Yeah.
BB: How many could you get in a Lancaster?
AML: I think I can remember off hand. It was either thirty or twenty six. I can’t honestly remember.
BB: And they all sat on the floor.
AML: Yeah.
BB: Or wherever they could.
AML: Yeah. They used to say in the air force you know this is a rubbish and that’s rubbish. I never saw organisation so wonderful as supply dropping and the prisoners of war. When we, when we went out to bring the prisoners of war back I can remember I was given a bag and in it was discs. And on the disc was a stencilled number one, two, three, four, five, six.
BB: Yeah. Whatever yeah.
AML: And on the fuselage someone had stencilled numbers inside the fuselage. And the idea was that I gave you a number five disc and you went in and the other gunner would say, ‘There’s number five. Sit there.’ And he sat on the floor.
BB: Yeah. Ok.
AML: At number five.
BB: So it was like a boarding, a boarding pass today.
AML: It was really.
BB: Yes.
AML: A very highly organised.
BB: Everybody had their place they had to sit.
AML: That’s right.
BB: And this would have been worked on a centre of gravity basis in the aircraft presumably.
AML: It must have been. Although it was some of the, some of the crew wanted to see land and of course they moved about, you know.
BB: Right.
AML: And I said, ‘Now don’t move about.’ You know.
BB: And did you ever go on any Cook’s Tours as well to look at the German cities that had been bombed.
AML: Yes. I did the Cook’s Tours as well. Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
AML: You’ll see the places we went to.
BB: Yes. That must have been quite sobering.
AML: We took, we took ground crew with us.
BB: Yes. Yes. Ground crew and the ground crew and the people from ops and the WAAFs.
AML: That’s right. Aye.
BB: And so on. Yeah.
AML: Took them with us. Aye.
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: I forget where we went.
BB: Ok.
AML: You’ll see it.
BB: Did bomber Harris ever come to see you at the station?
AML: I think he did. As I told you, I think, yesterday.
BB: Yes.
AML: I can’t honestly remember but I’m almost certain somebody told me he did — I can’t, I would be wrong to tell you.
BB: No. No. He did go around.
AML: I’d be wrong to tell you. Yeah.
BB: How was he perceived by the guys on the squadron? Was he just, was he just Harris and that was it or –
AML: Oh aye. He was —
BB: Or did they actually —
AML: He was a good leader.
BB: Yeah.
AML: He did a lot for aircrew. He, again this is all —
BB: Yes.
AML: Sort of —
BB: Your own opinion. Yes.
AML: General talk.
BB: Right. Right.
AML: I don’t know how true or how bad it is.
BB: Right.
AML: But I understand he was the person who wanted every aircrew be commissioned. Or everybody LACs.
BB: Right.
AML: And I mean no different. He wanted all crews to be the same because they were all taking the same risks.
BB: Right.
AML: It couldn’t have worked that way.
BB: No.
AML: But that was the idea.
BB: Yeah.
AML: Most pilots of four engine aircraft were commissioned.
BB: Yeah. Or warrant officers.
AML: Or some —
BB: Yeah.
AML: We had two ome sergeant pilots.
BB: Yeah. A lot of sergeant pilots.
AML: They blotted their copy book but were so good they stayed as they were.
BB: Yeah.
AML: If you came on a squadron it was possible to be still a sergeant. Might have been a flight sergeant by the time he got to bomber, to thingummybob.
BB: Yeah.
AML: But there was. You’ll see on the crew list there.
BB: Yeah. Sergeants.
AML: Sergeants. Aye.
BB: And and and then you came out – what in ’47.
AML: I came out in ’47. I think it was ’47.
BB: ’47. You know the war had been finished a while so you had all that civilian.
AML: Flying.
BB: Flying. And you had obviously bringing back prisoners of war still at that time.
AML: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: Some weren’t being released until late.
AML: Yeah. Yeah. We converted on to Lincolns before I came out.
BB: That’s right. Because they were —
AML: Tiger Force.
BB: Tiger Force. That’s right, they’re the ones that were going to go to Japan but didn’t happen because they dropped the atomic bomb.
AML: No. Just as well.
BB: Yes. And so you didn’t consider staying in as a regular? Transferring to the regular air force after the war.
AML: Yes and no. But then somebody said, ‘Well, ok you stay in.’ Who the hell wants a gunner when the war’s finished? I’d have to re-muster probably.
BB: Well it had them in the Lincolns so you would have been a very experienced air gunner if you’d stayed on the Lincolns.
AML: Ah. No. I mean they were on the Lincolns. Ok
BB: They’d probably give you a job on ops or something like that.
AML: I didn’t – Unless I was flying I wasn’t interested.
BB: No. Ok. So you weren’t tempted. One because you had this very good job in Civvy Street which was being held for you.
AML: Well that’s right.
BB: Yeah.
AML: At that time it wasn’t such a good job. Just a normal clerk’s job.
BB: But it was a regular job.
AML: But I had a job to come back to.
BB: It was a regular job.
AML: Plus the fact my mother was living alone.
BB: Yes. Exactly. Here.
AML: Here.
BB: Right.
AML: And I thought well what am I going to do?
BB: Yeah. That’s right.
AML: Funnily enough I met quite a few chaps who I’d served with in the squadron who had stayed on and signed on and finished up at Lossiemouth.
BB: Oh yes.
AML: And when I went to Elgin. My first posting with the civil service at Elgin.
BB: That’s very close to Lossiemouth.
AML: I met one of these guys, one or two guys in the pub. They said, ‘You should go back in again. The money’s good.’ And I half thought of going back.
BB: Yeah. Because you could have re-mustered.
AML: Oh well.
BB: Because they, you were, once they awarded your brevet.
AML: Yeah.
BB: You wore it forever.
AML: You wore it. Yeah.
BB: Unless you did something really wrong.
AML: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: And they took it away from you.
AML: Yeah. Oh no.
BB: But you know I —
AML: They couldn’t take your brevet off you.
BB: But when I was a reservist I was one for thirty three years. When I first joined as APO, acting pilot officer up at Kinloss and other stations you had these old hairies as we used to call them. Who still had their —
AML: That’s right.
BB: You know, wartime brevets on.
AML: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
BB: But they’d been re-mustered as ops clerks.
AML: Did you never, did you never fly at all Bruce?
BB: In Nimrods.
AML: Oh Nimrods.
BB: I used to fly in the Nimrods.
AML: What as? Not as aircrew though.
BB: No. I was —
AML: I thought you said the technical. Aye.
BB: Well I was in intelligence so I was there to look at things. Yeah. Yeah.
AML: No. I never thought much about that.
BB: No. No. But they were a great bunch. And of course the Nimrod is a multi crew aircraft.
AML: That’s right.
BB: So it had kinships to Bomber Command.
AML: Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s right.
BB: You know. You had your crew.
AML: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: And you know everybody stuck together and —
AML: Oh you could read each other like a book.
BB: Oh yes. And of course we had to brief those crews much the same. And it hasn’t changed. You know, they’d all come to briefing. They’d sit down. The wing commander would stand up. Or the group captain would stand up. The curtains would be drawn.
AML: That’s it.
BB: Just like that.
AML: Aye.
BB: And they would either go [groan] another Atlantic trip or another Mediterranean trip or wherever it was. And all the plot would be up there. Where everything was.
AML: Isn’t it funny that you found out about your crew in many ways? Our wireless operator thought he was the greatest wireless operator in the world.
BB: And was he?
AML: I don’t know. But anyway we had an exercise we did occasionally to go out to the North Sea or out to the Atlantic to — navigation really .
BB: Yeah. Nav ex.
AML: To find a weather ship.
BB: A weather ship.
AML: Or a destroyer. Or something.
BB: Yeah.
AML: I can’t remember all the details. And you had to signal and of course he was in the astrodome and of course aldis they had in the Navy you see —
BB: The aldis lamp.
AML: Aye.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And I always remember he couldn’t read so he said to send up, ‘Please send slowly.’ [laughs] He couldn’t read the navy. You know, they were, they were tremendous. You know.
BB: Yeah, that’s right.
AML: I’ll always remember that.
BB: That’s right.
AML: And my skipper. He hated, he didn’t like landing in the half light and it used to annoy my navigator furiously because you were coming back and I’ m talking about, this is basically after the war. Of course during the war you were restricted what you could and couldn’t do. A long cross country you know.
BB: Yeah.
AML: Our navigator was a great one for food. He was desperate for food. And he would say, ‘I’ve packed up my nav bag. You’re alright. You’ll be over the fields in ten minutes.’ And Jack would say, ‘I want a dog leg.’ And he would get a fury, ‘What the hell are you on about?’
BB: I want to eat my sandwiches.
AML: ‘I want to land in the dark.’ And I said why do you like landing in the dark?’ He said, ‘What I can’t see doesn’t bother me.’ [laughs]
BB: Yeah. Well that’s very true.
AML: Yeah. That was him.
BB: Yeah.
AML: He liked to land in the dark. Yeah.
BB: That’s good. That’s right. And then of course when they came back from their trips in the Nimrod, just like in Bomber Command, we would sit down and debrief them.
AML: That’s right.
BB: And they used to hate that.
AML: Aye. Aye.
BB: Because they wanted to get away to their bed or get their breakfast.
AML: That’s right.
BB: Or whatever.
AML: The trouble with that was with your egg. We got an egg with everything.
BB: Yeah. But you really had to be very strict with them and say, ‘No. Let’s get this done and then you can go.’
AML: You had to get an egg with everything.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And the favourite was, ‘I’ll have his egg if he’s not coming back’
BB: if you’re not coming back.
AML: This sort of thing.
BB: And of course you must have seen even even at that late stage of the war, bomber offensive, you must have seen vacant chairs at breakfast and —
AML: Aye well —
BB: Guys that didn’t, that went out and didn’t come back.
AML: Funny. We were very fortunate on 15. I don’t think the time I was on it we had a very heavy —
BB: Casualty rate.
AML: Casualty rate. Funnily enough one of the chaps in the Aircrew Association was on 15. A hell of a nice bloke. He was shot down in France. I didn’t know him in the squadron but he was shot down in France. Had quite a rough time getting out. Eventually captured and became a prisoner of war.
BB: Right.
AML: And was on The Long March.
BB: Right. Ok.
AML: He was on the same squadron as I was. 15.
BB: Right. That must have been.
AML: Quite a lucky squadron. 15.
BB: That wasn’t great.
AML: I don’t think we had colossal losses on 15. I don’t know why or how. I don’t remember saying oh —
BB: What about, what about losses at OTU? HCU. There must have been crashes there.
AML: They were quite high. Yeah. Those. Somebody said to me after, of course, please understand I’m talking fifty sixty years ago.
BB: Yeah. I understand.
AML: Somebody said there was almost a crash every day at OTU. Now, I couldn’t ascertain that or confirm that. I don’t know.
BB: Well —
AML: But there were certainly one or two crashes when we were at OTU.
BB: I know that my late uncle was killed as an OTU. Instructing.
AML: Yeah.
BB: At Westcott. Number 11 OTU.
AML: Yeah. And we had one or two hairy do’s at OTU.
BB: And we paid, we paid tribute to him a couple years ago and all the guys at OTUs. And I did my research and something like eight thousand aircrew killed at OTU in Bomber Command. And just in Bomber Command.
AML: Probably would be. Well the chop —
BB: From collisions or bad landings.
AML: The chop rate on Wellingtons was quite high.
BB: Yeah. One in ten.
AML: They were second hand aircraft at OTU.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
AML: I mean they weren’t, aircraft had been sent to OTU. You know.
BB: Yes.
AML: So we understand. I don’t know.
BB: And they went didn’t they? Yeah. Well there were, yeah. Well you take the Whitleys. They were front line aircraft.
AML: That’s right.
They were relegated to the OTUs.
AML: That’s right. Yeah.
BB: You know you went on the Whitleys.
AML: Well, they certainly were.
BB: And the Wellingtons as well.
AML: Wellingtons at OTU.
BB: And the Stirlings of course at the Heavy Conversion Unit.
AML: Aye. Heavy Conversion. Stirlings. Aye. Aye.
BB: Because they didn’t, they —
AML: They took them off.
BB: You either went to a Heavy Conversion and then on to a Lancaster Finishing School but you —
AML: I don’t know why we did that.
BB: Didn’t do that.
AML: This is the thing. Quite a lot of people — had to believe, hard to believe I was on Stirlings. Most of them went from OTU to Lanc Finishing School.
BB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AML: And that was it. I don’t know why we went on. I don’t know. Just the way the system worked.
BB: The system worked. Yeah.
AML: We went, they went on to to that and we weren’t really long on Stirlings.
BB: No.
AML: But we were on Stirlings anyway.
BB: But it gave the heavy, it gave you the heavy, it gave the crew the sort of heavy experience that they needed.
AML: Aye. I liked the Stirling very much indeed.
BB: It looked a very roomy aircraft.
AML: It was a very roomy aircraft. Just like a big Sunderland.
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: Really is.
BB: Yes.
AML: And I liked it.
BB: A Sunderland with wheels.
AML: Yeah. I didn’t care much for the Lincoln.
BB: Well it was a kind of a hybrid wasn’t it? You know.
AML: A hybrid. I didn’t care much for Lincolns.
BB: We’ll add a bit of this and add a bit of that.
AML: We had a twenty millimetre cannon on a Lincoln.
BB: Yes. Yes.
AML: And a lot of trouble with them and a lot of trouble —
BB: They used them in, against the terrorists in Malaysia.
AML: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: The Australian Lincolns anyway.
AML: We never did that and I think latterly the two turrets that took the twenty millimetres out the turrets. I can’t remember honestly but I flew in the tail of a Lincoln all the time. I flew first, initially I flew as an air gunner instructor and for a while the rule was flying that when we first got Lincolns they were nearly all ex-instructors that were in the top turrets.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
AML: Because the bloody cannon recoiled across your head. If you moved out the road the, rotated, you could get your head taken off easily.
BB: Right. Right.
AML: These are things you remember yet you couldn’t put down on paper and say this is the God’s truth. You know.
BB: No. No. No. No. I know.
AML: It’s just the things I remember. It’s difficult.
BB: Well Alistair thank you very much for for telling us your story and we do appreciate it very much. And I’ll now terminate the interview. And I’ll have a look at your logbooks and other bits and pieces if I may.
AML: Aye. Aye. Sure. Sure.
BB: Yeah. Thank you.
AML: A lot of that stuff of course you’ll probably be able to edit out. You won’t use it all will you?
BB: No. No I don’t think so.
AML: No.
BB: And also thank you for signing the sheets and the other forms that I’ve asked you to sign. Thank you very much. So —
AML: Aye. Aye. Aye.
BB: So —
AML: I think you’ll find that most aircrew don’t really talk very much about it to other people unless it’s aircrew people.
BB: Right.
AML: And you can always find out somebody immediately they start saying, for example that I was told to bale out, and the crew – the nineteen crew baled out, you know someone makes a mistake.
BB: Yeah.
AML: You know right away that they’re actually line shooters. Ahat they said, you know.
BB: Yeah.
AML: You can’t really.
BB: No.
AML: Well we never did that, you know. Like on our squadrons, we cleaned our guns, well a lot – we didn’t do that on our squadron. I depended on the gunnery.
BB: The armourers used to do that.
AML: Yeah.
BB: But mind you had to be able to clear blockages in the aircraft.
AML: Oh yeah. Sit down, blindfold, sit down blindfold.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
AML: And all that sort of thing.
BB: Right.
AML: But each squadron had its own different thing that depended how the CO looked at a particular item.
BB: Right.
AML: He might say, ‘Well I want you to do this,’ and you did it.
BB: What about dinghy drills and things like that.
AML: We did that as well. Yeah.
BB: Was that a regular thing?
AML: I don’t think so. No. We went to [pause] now where did we go? When we were at OTU we went to the Leicester Baths.
BB: Yes.
AML: And the baths were blacked out.
BB: Sure.
AML: And you got in first of all and they said, ‘Right this is your dinghy drill.’ There were RAF instructors I’m sure there. We all went up in one of these big huge big gareys. These big trucks they had with maybe four or five crews. Or three crews anyway. And we wondered why these guys were all dashing to go in such a hurry, you and saying, ‘You’re bloody keen,’ but we didn’t realise that if you went in first you got dry flying kit. If you went in second you put a dirty, you put a wet flying kit on.
BB: Ok right.
AML: You put the flying kit on you see.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And you had to use this and you had to jump in the dinghy with the lights out.
BB: Yeah.
AML: That’s why you had a whistle.
BB: Sure. Because it was dark. Simulating Bomber Command.
AML: The whistle was supposed to, aye. That’s why the aircrew used whistles.
BB: Whistles.
AML: Every aircrew whistled you know.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And you did this. Then they turned the dinghy upside down.
BB: You had to right it.
AML: You’ve got to right the dinghy again.
BB: Right.
AML: Exactly.
BB: And it was a five man dinghy. Or a seven man dinghy.
AML: Five man dinghy. Something like that.
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
AML: These are the sort of things you remember. That was one of the things. Why were they in such a hurry to get in? Because that was —
BB: What about using the parachute? Did you have any training?
AML: No.
BB: On how to do that?
AML: No. Never had any training on the parachute training at all.
BB: It was just there it is. Count. One. Two. Three. And pull the string.
AML: That’s right. That’s right. I think basically the reason would be that if you had to do a parachute jump and something had happened you wouldn’t jump in an emergency.
BB: No.
AML: You know you may be frightened to do that.
BB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. And that’s very good wisdom. Yes. Because —
AML: I think probably. I don’t know.
BB: If it’s your first time to go anyway.
AML: These are things that have come up in reflection when you were talking to a pupil.
BB: Yeah.
AML: Maybe that’s the reason why we didn’t do that.
BB: Yeah.
AML: You know.
BB: Ok.
AML: I don’t think there was any sort of written down about that. But we did do a bit of, of what I can remember now, we were in a hangar and we seemed to get a harness on.
BB: Oh yeah and swing a bit.
AML: And you jumped and you swung down and landed.
BB: Yeah. Just tell you how to land.
AML: Close your knees and this sort of thing, you know.
BB: Yeah. And what about parades and drills? Did you do squadron parades?
AML: Air crew are notorious for not wanting drills you know.
BB: Yeah.
AML: We really were a rough shower. I mean we were really were. I mean we got away with murder. I mean I must admit.
BB: Well I can assure you they haven’t changed.
AML: Yeah. If we could get away with it we got away with it.
BB: Yeah.
AML: I’m not going to bore you to tears of course, I hope.
BB: No.
AML: One of the great things you would probably know — after the war things changed of course dramatically as you can well imagine. And they had, I think it was a Friday. I can’t remember. The whole airfield shut down. And you had to participate in organised games.
BB: Oh yes.
AML: The whole station. WAAF. Everybody had to go on organised games. And it was organised in as much as they came around the gunnery section and said, ‘Right. Who’s all going to be play football?’ ‘Who’s all going to play rugby?’ ‘Who’s all going to play netball?’ You know. This sort of thing. It was all down. Your name was put down.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And I, when you’re out in your —
BB: Your PT kit.
AML: Your PT kit and your fancy [unclear] You went down to the front of the hangars and somebody would, I can’t remember, maybe the station would detail all the crews. Who’s going to be?’ And I hated sport. I hated sport. I never was fit. My father was a football referee and all that. I had no time for sport. I still don’t have time for sport. Anyway, I thought well this is bloody terrible.
BB: So what did you do? How did you get out of that?
AML: Well —
BB: Stay in the goal and hope nobody came near it.
AML: No. Well it was quite regular. You had to be back at a certain time. And I thought how can I bloody get out of this thing and I happened to hear one day to hear oh he said there’s flying. I said how do you get in to Waddington, or how do you get to so and so. Oh we’re flying. And I thought so I said to skipper, ‘Did you hear that?’ Because he hated sport too. And I said, ‘Can you no volunteer us to fly crews up?’ And he always wanted somebody in the tail, we all, so that would be a good idea. We got away with that for, however, we didn’t get away, they said right. I said, ‘Well what’s the least supervised job you could get?’ Cross country running.
BB: Go away and hide somewhere.
AML: So we used to run in to the pub [laughs] we used to put a pound note in our shoe.
BB: Yeah.
AML: And around the nearest pub and sit in the pub and then come running back.
BB: Running back. I see.
AML: We got caught out because when the squadron sports came on.
BB: Yeah.
AML: They couldn’t get relay through. The three mile relay run. They couldn’t get, the skipper said, well the CO said, ‘All those who did cross country running can do it.’ We nearly got killed doing this ruddy thing after. You know.
BB: Never mind. Ok.
AML: We were found out, you know.
BB: Right.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AMcPhersonLambA150726
Title
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Interview with Alexander Lamb. One
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:47:13 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Bruce Blanche
Date
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2015-07-26
Description
An account of the resource
Alexander Lamb grew up in Scotland and worked in the civil service before he joined the Royal Air Force. He flew five operations as an air gunner with 15 Squadron.
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--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Wales--Bridgend
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
11 OTU
14 OTU
15 Squadron
1654 HCU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Gee
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Feltwell
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wyton
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1970/33693/ECollierCWakefieldHE441018-0002.2.jpg
df949bcbe8d4a83bee5841f00ce8c992
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1970/33693/ECollierCWakefieldHE441018-0003.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1970/33693/ECollierCWakefieldHE441018-0001.2.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
A name given to the resource
Wakefield, Harold Ernest
H E Wakefield
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-16
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Wakefield, HE
Description
An account of the resource
93 items. The collection concerns Harold Ernest Wakefield DFC (1923 - 1986, 1582185 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, training publications, decorations and badges, training notebooks, correspondence, newspaper cuttings, photographs and parachute D ring.
He flew operations as a flight engineer with 51 and 617 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jeremy Wakefield and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] 10 [/underlined] Wakerley Road,
Leicester.
Oct. 18th 44
My dear [underlined] Harold [/underlined],
All of us send you our congratulations & are very pleased that the things which you have done so quietly in true Duggie Wakefield fashion have been noticed by those in authority, & that full appreciation has been made to you by giving you a decoration which in years to come will undoubtedly be one of your most treasured possessions. Not only will you be proud to wear it but it will always remind you of the good fellowship that can be created by sharing good times as well as dangerous ones with boys who you will
[page break]
always remember.
We were just as proud on reading the news as if you had been our own boy & were so overcome with pride & pleasure as your own Mother & Father were.
We phoned them as soon as we read it & were greatly surprised to hear from your Father that they like us had only just read it. They are very proud of you & were overcome with joy.
I guess Gordon will be writing to you as we have of course told him the news in our letter to him to-day.
This 'Honour' will be a great help to you now you are training others to carry on where you left off & we hope you are content.
Very best of luck.
Yours E & C Collier.
[page break]
[postmark, Leicester 19 Oct 1944]
[postage stamps]
P/O. H.E. Wakefield (174040)
Officers Mess.
Royal Air Force.
Marston Moor.
Yorkshire.
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 Harold Wakefield from C Collier
Description
An account of the resource
Congratulates him receiving a well deserved award. Writes of passing on the news and talking to his parents.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
C Collier
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-10-18
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-10-18
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Leicester
England--Yorkshire
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
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
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Two page handwritten letter and envelope
Identifier
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ECollierCWakefieldHE441018
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
RAF Marston Moor
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1477/30532/MDyerJH1217992-160108-01.2.pdf
c4f20bb39d2d50bcbbba08b2cca2b56d
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
Dyer, John
J H Dyer
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
2016-01-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Dyer, JH
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Dyer (1217992 Royal Air Force) who was a wireless operator on Lancaster with 106 Squadron and was killed on operations 2 January 1944. Collection contains an account of operation and crew newspaper cuttings and photographs of his crew. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Christopher Dyer and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on John Dyer is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/106752/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
T Sgt John Dyer from his niece Christine Dyer Lancaster MK3 JB645 ZN‐F left Metheringham in the early hours of the 2nd January 1944 on an operation to Berlin, the take‐off time having been delayed for some 4‐5 hours due to poor weather. They were part of a 421 strong force of Lancasters from No's 1,3, 5, 6 and 8 group. The aircraft was lost and all the crew killed. In 1948 Dyer’s parents were contacted by the Missing Research and Enquiry Service to inform them that his remains had been found, along with the rest of the crew, having been buried by the villagers of Nudow in the local cemetery. The aircraft had come down near the village which lies about eight miles south west of Berlin. The crew’s remains were re‐ interred to the British Military Cemetery in Berlin. Pilot Officer Edward Holbourn was the pilot. He was 27 years old and from Worthing in West Sussex. He was married to Hilda May Holbourn. Sgt Edward Burton was the Navigator. He was 20 years old and from Folkestone in Kent. He was the son of Ralph Withers and Kate Burton. Sgt Herbert Walmsley was the Flight Engineer. He was 21 years old and from Morecambe in Lancashire the son of Thomas and Martha Anne Walmesley. Flight Sgt Stanley Mattick DFM was the Rear Gunner. His age and home town are unknown. He was awarded the DFM in 1943 while serving with 61 Squadron, the award was gazetted on 15th of October 1943. Sgt Thomas Powell was the Bomb Aimer. He was 21 the son of Thomas and Marjorie Powell from Woodside Surrey. Sgt Thomas Mallet was the Mid Upper Gunner. He was 20 years old and from Sunderland Co Durham the son of Elizabeth Mallet and step-son of Alexander Clark. Sgt John Dyer was the Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. He was 21 years old from Stahern near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. He was the son of Harold and Nellie Dyer and brother of Maurice
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
T Sgt John Dyer
Description
An account of the resource
Note from his niece which gives outline of operation to Berlin on 2 January 1944. Mentions that Missing Research and Enquiry Service contacted his parents with news that his remains had been found and he and rest of crew were buried in the village of Nudow near where their aircraft came down. Gives details of all the crew.
Creator
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C Dyer
Format
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One page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
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MDyerJH1217992-160108-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Kent
England--Folkestone
England--Lancashire
England--Croydon
England--Durham (County)
England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear)
England--Leicestershire
England--Melton Mowbray
Germany--Ludwigsfelde Region
England--Morecambe
England--Sussex
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-02
1943-10-15
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
61 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
final resting place
flight engineer
killed in action
Lancaster
navigator
pilot
RAF Metheringham
wireless operator
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/279/3432/AJamesHGW170412.1.mp3
9d1d8c09fc266f63e0a189b1e0d8ad09
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
James, Harry George William
Harry George William James
Harry G W James
Harry James
H G W James
H James
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Harry George William James (b. 1923, 133759 Royal Air Force) and two photographs. Harry James served as a rear gunner with 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
James, HGW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 12th of April 2017 and I am in Newbury with Harold George William James who was a rear gunner and we’re going to talk about his life. What are your earliest memories, Harry?
HJ: My first memory is, I was born in a two bedroomed thatched cottage, at West Street, Burghclere, and my first memory is sitting on a step there when we moved about fifty yards further down West Street into a three bedroomed house. Now the people that moved out of the three bedroomed house, their names were Ball, Mr and Mrs Ball, and they, Mr Ball was a retired as a farm worker, my father was a farm worker and retired as a farm worker, and I was sitting on the steps at this house we were moving from to ‘cause I thought they was still living there, and my first memory is sitting on the step crying! And then moving on into the three bedroomed cottage, which incidentally at one time or another was a workhouse! [Laughter]. It dated back quite a long way. Yup, and then my next really clear memory is when I was five years old, I started school and I was dragged to school by my eldest sister. I was kicking her, sitting in the ditch, [laughter] that is my clear, clear memory and then of course, then of course it was schooling, then. My mother was born in Herefordshire and her father, funnily enough her father lived into his eighties, early eighties, my mother died at eighty nine. But I was a bad traveller, now, funnily enough, apart from flying, I’ve always been a bad traveller. I can travel quite comfortably in a car while I’m driving, but as, I haven’t held a licence now for twenty years. When I was seventy three I had a, something go wrong in my eye and it sort of threw a curtain up in front of me and I, retinue [sic] of the eye, and I decided then had I been driving and not walking, could have caused an accident, so those days – I don’t know what they do nowadays – but those days you renewed your licence every three years, so when the three years was up on me seventy third birthday, I haven’t held a licence since.
CB: So where did you go to school, Harry?
HJ: Hmm?
CB: Where did you go to school?
HJ: Where did I go to school? Primary, from five until eleven, Burghclere Infants School, [pause] eleven ‘till fourteen, Newbury Modern. That school’s not there now, it got bombed during the war. [Laughter] It was up, it was up by St John’s Road, or near St John’s Road, in Station Road actually, overlooking the railway.
CB: Oh right.
HJ: But it got bombed during the war. Sold it to the church, which is now St John’s Church, that was further up New Town Road, the old one. But I suppose, where’d I get to?
CB: You say left school at fourteen.
HJ: I left school at fourteen, yep. Now, getting away from that for a moment, there was a funny thing about when I was at school. When I was at school, eleven to fourteen, I sat next to a lad named Brookes, and he is still alive – he’s ninety two – his birthday is in June, he’ll be ninety three in June, and he lives, [laugh] I don’t know the exact number but I know where he lives, in that block!
CB: In the other block?
HJ: Downstairs.
CB: Is he really. Amazing.
HJ: But we’ve knocked into one another on and off for all our lives, but I’ve lived here for what, I think I’m in my twenty ninth year, you know – it was brand new when I come in. He’s lived there, from June ’89, I came, no, he’s lived there, I came here in May ’89, and he’s lived there about six months after me.
CB: Extraordinary, yes. Just in another block, nearby.
HJ: Another block, yeah. And he’s the only tenant there. We’re the two oldest tenants here [laughs]. Well I left school at fourteen and immediately moved to an uncle and aunt living in Hinckley, Leicestershire. My fourteenth birthday was of course on the 27th of December that year and I started work in the January, as a mate to a plumber. The idea was, if I was suitable, I would get an apprenticeship six months after, but that never worked out quite because the war turned up, or was a racing certainty, but the reason I didn’t get the apprenticeship, was I was on ten shillings week as a plumber’s mate, but I was called an improver after six months and I went on to eight pee an hour which was over, over two pounds a week [laughter] whereas I would have still been on ten shillings, plus the fact, plus the fact that if you were working away from home you never knew what time you could get back home! Actually when I was fifteen I appeared as a witness at Leicester Assizes, purely through work.
CB: Leicester Assizes?
HJ: Yeah. It, I worked for, my original employer was “Ewan H, Jones, 182 Coventry Road, Hinckley, Leicester for Dependability, Service and Satisfaction.” [Laugh] Well he was a comparatively young bloke in his middle twenties. He had a Diamond T wagon that was done out in red and gold and this is where the slogan came. But we, the plumber I was mate to, we were working at Chocolate Box, the Oadby Road, in Leicestershire, doing a bathroom conversion and er, we were taken there by the guv’nor in his car and then we were collected whatever time he had in the evening. This was on a Monday and it was really cold, it was January, and it was really cold, and we were still working, you just carried on work ‘till you were picked up and the woman we were doing the conversion for, she came upstairs and said, told us to pack up and come down by the fire. And that’s when there was a programme on the wireless “Monday Night at Eight O’clock” I think it was called, something like that. I know that, I was at Leicester Assizes, I was asked which came first, which came second and which came third on a programme. The bloke had a, the QC that was asking me, had a Radio Times in front of him, I hadn’t a clue which came, but the reason for this was on this particular Monday night we didn’t get picked up ‘till after eight o’clock and we then stopped at a place called the Red Cow on the way home and we didn’t get home ‘till ten o’clock, but the guv’nor had recently completed a job at Foldsworth Mill, in Leicestershire, about six miles out of Hinckley and there was some lovely timber there as didn’t belong to him and he set back that Monday night and picked the timber up. So he got accused of stealing the timber by the owner of the mill and he cross-sued the owner of the mill for defamation of character, so we had three days at Leicester Assizes on that and he finished up getting awarded five hundred pounds against the mill owner in the end, and had the timber as well, and that’s as true as I’m sat in this chair! [Laughter]
CB: No wonder he was successful.
HJ: So, then as I say, things, it was a racing certainty in ‘38 that we were going to war, it was a racing certainty, it was only a matter of, it was only a matter of time. So, as you well know war broke out in the September wasn’t it, 3rd of September ’39 wasn’t it, yeah, hmm. So, not long after my seventeenth birthday, well about the April after my seventeenth birthday, I knew I was going to have to sign up on the dotted line and I decided that a I didn’t want to carry a pack on me back, b I couldn’t swim so I didn’t want to go in the Navy. I saw an advert for gunners in Bomber Command so I took a day off work and went to the Recruiting Office which was then in the London Road, Reading and signed on the dotted line and then, then I got, a while after that, I think in the Oct, I got notification from recruitment that I had to go to Uxbridge for three days for medicals and educational purposes and that, and I was selected for aircrew duties there and eventually I joined the Air Force and got sent to South Africa for training. And then I became a gunner, and I always favoured the rear turret, I never flew in anything else bar the rear. I did thirty three trips for 166 Squadron off Kirmington in Lincolnshire. We had our ups and downs, we wrote off three aircraft, that was [indecipherable] and when I was screened after thirty three, you could be compelled to do two tours, one of thirty and one of twenty but I went into, when I, the screening period, you had six months screening definitely, I went into drogue towing at a place called Aberporth in South Wales. I could write a book about that, if I was capable of writing a book, oh dear, but that was a hilarious time [much laughter]. Oh dear. I came off like with a bit of ear trouble, and the, mind you by then I had the old Tate and Lyle on the sleeve [laughter].
CB: Warrant Officer you mean. Yes.
HJ: But, there was a, Aberporth was just a grass ‘drome. I believe it has a runway on it now, but the catering officer was a warrant officer and he’d been called back, he’d just retired when the war started, he’d been called back, they wanted, he, he was naturally first one out, and as I was a warrant officer, by then, I got told to do catering officer, [laughter] that was an hilarious time, I’d sit trying to get the books up to date in a [indecipherable] with a couple of dozen bottles of Guinness by the side of me. Once a month I would have two girls come up from [indecipherable] Swansea, and sort the bloody books out. Until the, all the unit transferred to Fairwood Common, I was the catering officer, what knew I do about catering [much laughter] was only [indecipherable]. It was hilarious. You could only get it in the Air Force.
CB: Yes, yes.
HJ: Yeah, but every Monday I used to get a, have to get the necessary paperwork and get a three ton harry, driven by a corporal WAAF, to take me to get bread for the week and then to have a request to get booze for the two messes, Roberts Brewery and Hancock’s Warehouse; [laugh] it was hilarious like, down there. I eventually got demobbed, again at Uxbridge, in October 1946, and then owing to the fact that you had to get a green card to get a job immediately after the war, and then into the fifties, I had a job lined up and they wouldn’t give me a green card for it. They said I had to take a six month course so I took a six month course and then became a plumber, a government course on plumbing, and I went to work for, and travel with, cor blimey, I’ve forgot the name of it [pause].
CB: Was it a big plumbing company, was it? He’s just looking up his notes.
HJ: Oh, I’ve forgotten the name.
CB: Well we’ll put it in in a bit. What were you doing for that company?
HJ: Hmm?
CB: What were you doing?
HJ: What was I doing?
CB: With this company?
HJ: As a plumber?
CB: Yes.
HJ: Just working on the tools, normal plumbing work, you know, lead work, and lead piping, and rolled joints, and then, then I got invited into the local government, to run the works section for water. In other words I was Water Foreman to start with, and I had so many men under me that did the mains and up to the stop cock, put in new connections, run new mains round housing estates and that sort of thing. Then I became, in 1960 I became the first Area Superintendent for the Thames Valley Water Board, at Newbury and took on first Lambourne, then Hungerford. I had, I had the Newbury area which included Thatcham and Bucklebury Common, and I worked at that for a number of years and then 1960, my wife was seriously ill, and before they could do, she had a heart operation before they could do open surgery, so she was operated on through the rib cage and she had a cut right round, a hundred and eighty stitches inside and a hundred and eighty outside! So I gave up, er I don’t know, about ’62 I suppose I come out of the public water supply and went in to, partly looking after me wife and partly doing some work, more or less self employed. And then, of all things, I got divorced. Twenty nine years ago this November [laughs]. So I’ve been here twenty nine years, I came here when I was sixty five, sixty five and about four months I think and I’ve been here ever since. And I was a very fortunate man as far as illness is concerned. I went virtually sixty years without an illness. Well I had one illness, in sixty years, I had flu once and believe you me, I’ve only ever had flu once in my life and it put me in bed for a fortnight with doctor the first three days the doctor came in twice a day.
CB: Amazing!
HJ: But, um, I haven’t worked since I’ve been here. Well, I say I haven’t worked, I did a bit part time work, you know, what you do. I am on income support by the way.
CB: Right.
HJ: But two to three years ago, my luck ran out as far as illness is concerned. I forget what, I was in hospital for two weeks about three years ago, I forget what that was about, but since then I’ve had three mini strokes, the last one was last July, that’s why I’m a bit on a, the, I can’t walk very well since the third one, it affected me knees and I, if I’m not careful, I get a bit of a [indecipherable]. I am not, I am not registered as alcoholic but I am registered as a very heavy drinker.
CB: What kind of lemonade do you like best? What type of lemonade do you like best?
HJ: Whisky! [Laugh]
CB: Oh, there’s a bottle down beside the chair. That’s nearly empty.
HJ: I’ve got another two! [Laugh]
CB: It’s always good to have a supply, isn’t it, yes.
HJ: Mind you, I don’t drink a bottle a day now, [chuckle] a litre will keep me going for three to four days!
CB: Right. Well you’ve got to have some, you’ve got to do something in your life, haven’t you. Shall we just take a break there for a moment, stop just for a moment. So after joining and medical at Uxbridge, what did you do?
HJ: When I was called up, forget the exact date of that now, but it would be in ’41, late ’41 I think, the first place I went to was flats in London that’d been taken over by the Air Force. Viceroy Court was where I was first at, that was Regent’s Park, and you walk from, across from Regent’s Park Canal up to the zoo and you fed at the zoo [laugh]. The Air Force took over the bottom part of the, it was the catering side of the zoo, but, as their kitchen, so you, if you wanted breakfast you had about half a mile to go: so you didn’t have breakfast. But and then I had a bit of eye trouble – lazy eye they called it those days – in the right eye, I think it was the right eye, and I had to have some eye training. This eye training was you’d look in to, you’d have two lenses to look in to and in one would be a cage and in the other a lion, you had to put the lion in the cage. And there was a girl sat opposite you looking at the, the, oh, anyway she’d take notes and once your eyes were back to normal then you, and then it was out to South Africa.
CB: Before you went to South Africa, you must have gone to Initial Training Wing.
HJ: Hmm?
CB: Before you went to South Africa, you went to an Initial Training Wing, where was that?
HJ: The initial training was six weeks at Viceroy Court.
CB: Oh.
HJ: That was, after that, being as you were going to be trained into aircrew, you went from AC2 to LAC, and I was only an AC2 for six weeks, I was then LAC until I passed out as a gunner.
CB: Where did you go?
HJ: To, it was known as Rhodesia those days, buggered if I know what it’s called now, but still, Southern Rhodesia, I was originally at a place called Hillside, which is just outside Bulawayo, and I actually trained at a place just outside Gwelo, which is half way to Salisbury, which is Zimbabwe now i’n it, or something like that named after the bloody [telephone ringing] ruins.
CB: So what training were you doing there, what training were you doing?
HJ: I was, originally I had to try and train as a pilot but I wasn’t, hmm, and then they wanted me to go as a navigator but I failed the, but I wouldn’t, I wanted to get back to England before the war ended, so I took a shorter course of training as a gunner and I became a rear gunner and back, back to this country and then you, in this country, when you come back to this country you had to go through further training and then OTU and all that.
CB: Where did you do your gunnery training?
HJ: In this country? Er, let’s see, when I came back to this country, first I went to Hixon, oh, then from Hixon, up to, to Seighford in Staffordshire [coughing] [pause].
CB: So you went to Hixon.
HJ: That was on Wimpeys.
CB: Yup. Where was the OTU?
HJ: Hmm?
CB: Where was the OTU?
HJ: What was?
CB: Where was the OTU? [Throat clearing]
HJ: OTU. [Pause] In Staffordshire, I know it was.
CB: Okay.
HJ: Partly, probably partly at Seighford. The, and then Heavy Conversion, two to four engines.
CB: Where was that?
HJ: Somewhere in that area, I don’t know. And then it was to 166 Squadron in Lincolnshire – oh the Heavy Conversion was somewhere in Lincolnshire too. Mm. I forget where that was. But er.
CB: On to Lancasters.
HJ: Hmm?
CB: On to Lancasters.
HJ: Oh, from the Wellingtons onto Lancasters. We did one papering trip on, dropping leaflets on Paris, in the old Wellington [coughing] [laugh]. Five of us went and four of us came back [cough], one got shot down, fortunately all the crew baled out, buggered if they weren’t back. They were picked up by the French Underground and took out through Spain and they were back in England in about six weeks.
CB: Were they really?
HJ: But as I say that was a, dropping leaflets on Paris.
CB: Crazy.
HJ: But I did drop a leaflet, [laugh] through the back of the turret. You know what a clear vision panel is, fuck all there [laugh] in the rear turret. When on point threes, you had two point threes on your right hand side, two point threes on your left hand side and then you had two more at your feet with your clear vision panel you could bale out, provided you remembered to open the door and get the parachute from behind you, you could have baled out.
CB: Because you weren’t wearing the parachute were you?
HJ: But, that’s where you had to dress up. Do you know what the normal dress was?
CB: So what were you wearing?
HJ: Hmm?
CB: So, what were you wearing – clothes – what clothes did you wear?
HJ: I was just going to tell you: on your feet you had silk, woollen socks and then flying boots. On your gloves you had silk woollen gauntlet, three gloves, and then you had silk vest and whatever you wanted put on in between and then your battle dress blouse and then you had a kapok suit, a waterproof suit and then your Mae West and then your parachute harness: and that was your dress. So you could sweat like hell or freeze like hell in the air [laugh]. But, ‘cause, almost always, from briefing you had quite a period before you actually, you went directly from briefing to your own aircraft but you waited at your aircraft until you got the signal to get on, get into the aircraft and then the signal to taxi out and you taxied out in, let’s see, most of the time I was on P, so O P, O P Q was three dispersal with their own ground crew doing the three kites. Well, you start off A B C, C, D, E and that, and that was P it was P – Peter those days, it’s er, I don’t think it’s that now, God knows what it is now, but it was O -Orange and that sort of thing.
CB: P – Papa, it’s now P-Papa.
HJ: But yeah, so as I say, that’s more or less.
CB: So when you went, you did thirty three ops, you did thirty three ops but you haven’t got your log books so, tell us about the ops you went on. The ops, you did thirty three, you did thirty three ops
HJ: I did thirty three, yup. The reason for the odd three was that, I was, funnily enough I flew mostly with colonials. When I was at 166 for instance, the skipper, the navigator and the bomb aimer were Canadians; the wireless op, Frank Perkins, was Australian; the mid upper gunner was Newfoundland, rear gunner was me of course, and then when we took on with Lancs, and we took on a flight engineer and he was English. So that was the seven of us. Three Canadians, one Newfoundland and one Australian and two English, I think that adds up to seven. Actually, mind you, all this time I was single, I didn’t get married until, well, after I was demobbed. But I shouldn’t ever have got married, but there again I wouldn’t have the family I have got now [laughs]. I’ve got one daughter, she’ll be seventy in December, I’ve got two grandsons, the youngest is forty, he was forty a week ago, the oldest is forty three I think, and then I’ve got three great grandsons and one great granddaughter, the granddaughter is the oldest at eleven. The eldest of the grandsons was eight last week, the second grandson, which is that one, he’ll be eight next month, and the youngest grandson is five. Great-grandsons I mean, great grandsons.
CB: Stopping just for a moment. So crewing up.
HJ: To get together as a crew [microphone thumps] you’re just a given number of each each trade in a crew were just thrown together and you walked round and round chatting, and you gradually made a crew, yeah. First and foremost you, first and foremost you, when you were walking around there could have been, for the sake of argument twenty pilots, now they would start making their crew, they’d pick navigator, you just kept walking round and chatting and gradually discovered you’re in a crew! But hmm, as I say, my skipper that I did most of the trips with, was a Canadian, Shorty Blake, he was a short-arsed bugger [laughter] when we were on Wimpeys he had to have blocks put on the pedals [laughter].
CB: On the rudder bar, he means, yes, blocks on the rudder bar.
HJ: He was a, when I first knew him he was a sergeant and we got on quite well, and then they decided that all pilots would have to be commissioned. So, when you were flying you used to get five days leave every six weeks, not necessarily in that order, you could go ten weeks, but you always [emphasis] got the, provided you lived of course, you always got the equivalent of five days every six weeks. Believe this or not but it’s absolutely true, when Shorty Blake was getting his commission, his wages automatically stopped until he actually was commissioned and then his commission dated back to when his wages were stopped, and we had five days leave coming up and we’d already agreed that he and I would go and have leave together and we were going to stop with his great aunt and his uncle at Wood Green, and he had, he had no money so I drew every penny I could get, and I finished up with ninety eight pounds something, for five days. After three days we were broke, [laugh] we were coming home from the West End, of London, when his uncle was going to work in the morning, having about four hours in bed, and that was supposed to be five days rent [laugh]. Mind you, you always worked it so you got a weekend in and made it seven. So he decides to go to Canadian Pay Accounts. We totalled up how much money we had between us, and we had enough for a pint of bitter, so I sat in the pub with a pint of beer [laughs] while he was at Canadian Pay Accounts, and he managed to draw a hundred pounds. We still had, still had a few days, three days of our leave. We got back to camp and we had about two or three buttons between us, we’d worked our way through nearly two hundreds pounds! Oh dear!
CB: Huge amount of money in those days!
HJ: Mind you, a lot of that went on women. [Laugh] It was bloody hilarious. What you’ve got to bear in mind is, you didn’t know how long you’d got – if I’d have known I was gonna live ‘till ninety three! [Laugh] I doubt it though. I remember on that particular leave I remember we picked up a couple of bloody girls one evening and we went home with them and they opened up a bloody shop and sub post office [laughs] we walked in the back, behind, and we’d only met them what, a couple or hours or so before or three hours before we could have hit ‘em over the head with a bloody [indecipherable] for all they knew!
CB: It was their shop was it? It was their shop?
HJ: Yes, well it was one of their shop, yes, one was, sub post, what they call a sub post office, yes, she opened it, but this bloody, yeah, you wouldn’t believe it really, we could, it was a, they were probably.
CB: What ages were they?
HJ: Twenty eight to thirty and we were down around twenty one! [Laughs]
CB: Tales of the unexpected!
HJ: But I say, you didn’t know whether you were going to be alive the following bloody week or not, so you didn’t kid. I was going to say you just didn’t care, but naturally you did care to a certain extent, but you took your enjoyment as and when you’d get it. Oh dear. It was crazy, life those days.
CB: Where did you meet the women? Where? Where did you meet them?
HJ: We used to go, it could have been anywhere, Baker Street or Oxford Street, or somewhere that. We spent the evenings -
CB: In pubs.
HJ: In pubs, yes, by and large. Well, it was blackout and all that, you know; there was no street lighting, if there was a lamp post on the pavement it was likely to walk into one, ‘cause it was full blackout, during the war. So, by and large if you wanted go to pictures, they turned out by about half nine, so from that on it was pub, but I’ve never, to be quite honest with you, I’ve, the last time I went to the pictures, my daughter was about seven years old and I took her to see “The Dambusters”, and my daughter in December will be seventy, [laugh] so I say about sixty three years ago! I’ve got a television in the corner, and the only reason I, don’t worry it doesn’t work. I had it converted, but I had so many worries running, so I just use it to put me fruit on! But I’ve never been one for watching telly and I haven’t got a wireless, but I have got books; I do quite a lot of reading. I enjoy reading, but I don’t do much now because I’ve got double vision, and when you’ve got double vision there’s no cure for it.
CB: No. Just stopping for a mo. Where did you go on the ops?
HJ: Well, first and foremost, the majority, the majority of bombing ops were to the Ruhr Valley [paper turning] – Happy Valley – that includes what, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Cologne, is it Cologne? Yeah, I think, Bochum, those sort of places, but as far as we were concerned it was the Happy Valley, well depending where you were bombing there you could get fired at half hour in, and half hour out. In other words, a good hour [laugh]. Mind you, of course, anti-aircraft fire wasn’t particularly accurate. It’s fired visually, but the shell has to be set at a given height to go off, at a given height or else it’d explode back there, and to get the given heights which wasn’t all that accurate, particularly at night, because Bomber Command never flew in formation, they always streamed. You do, either do a three flight raid or a five flight raid. You, most of the time they always called it a thousand bomber raid on the BBC and that. But I’m not saying the very first one because they checked, the very first thousand bomber was probably a thousand bombers because they put everything they could get into the air on that one, but after that so-called thousand bomber raid was no more than about seven hundred, thereabouts. When you consider a two flight squadron could only put twenty aircraft into the air, so for a hundred aircraft you’d want five squadrons, for a thousand you’d want fifty and I’m bloody sure there wasn’t fifty in the RAF, but a three flight squadron you could put thirty into the air. 166 was a three flight squadron, A, B, and C. I was in B flight, which included three on our dispersals, O P Q, and we were P. I can still remember the names of most of the crew.
CB: Who were, who were they?
HJ: Skipper – Shorty Blake.
CB: Nav?
HJ: Do you know, do you know, I don’t think I ever called him anything other than Shorty. But the navigator, Canadian, Frank Fish. His father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Canadian Army, doing this medical effort, you know, when putting masks on, that was his job in Canada, the navigator’s father.
CB: Gas masks.
HJ: But let’s see, I’ve got to the navigator. Frank Russell was the bomb aimer, Canadian. [Pause] Er, Frank Perkins, Australian, was wireless op. Johnny Cole was mid upper gunner – a Newfoundland. [Pause] No, the flight engineer, his surname was Stewart, for the life of me I can’t think of his first name now, but his surname was Stewart. And then of course there was me, in the tail turret. I think that’s seven, isn’t it.
CB: How often did you shoot at aircraft?
HJ: How often did you fly?
CB: How often did you use your guns?
HJ: Now what you’ve got to bear in mind is, a rear gunner’s job was not to shoot down enemy aircraft, it was to bring your own aircraft back home if humanly possible. One of the reasons for it is a Browning 303 would fire one thousand one hundred rounds a minute and you only had a thousand rounds to each gun. So you only had a, if you fired you had to be more or less certain that you’ll, there was no other way. Normally, you’d, when you were on Lancs, normally you would pick up a fighter and watch him. If he knew you were watching him, they rarely ever, they’d look for something bit easier. But almost always you’d, the fighter would be either on your starboard or port wing at approximately five hundred yards perhaps, and you, it was as safe as houses until he turned and looked at you and then went over and they’d skid behind you. But with the Lanc, as soon as he started to go into his firing position you automatically ordered the pilot to go into a corkscrew. Well it was originally a dive towards the aircraft. If the aircraft was on the starboard side the corkscrew was dive starboard, roll, dive port, roll, climb port, climb, you know starboard, climb port, roll, and climb and theoretically you’re more or less back on the course you set off on. [Pause] But once you ordered the pilot to corkscrew, he immediately threw the aircraft into the original dive, whether it was port or starboard, and then of course the pilot was in complete control. Up until that point - when you’d spotted a fighter - the gunner was more or less in control, the pilot obeyed whatever the pilot, gunner wanted him to do, but the second you said ‘Go!’ then he was in full control and naturally he was in control when he levelled off which theoretically on the old course and he’d consult the navigator and that was it, so it was an adjustment of course, navigator would give him alter course three or four degrees port or couple of degrees starboard and between then the gunner only, to all intents and purposes, the rear gunner’d gone to sleep, [chuckle] but he didn’t.
CB: Why did you always want to be a rear gunner? Why did you always want to be the rear gunner?
HJ: I never, ever had a fancy for the mid upper, I’ve only ever stood in the mid upper position when the kite’s been on the ground. I never, ever, the mid upper gunner was virtually surplus. ‘Cause as I say you never, well it would be once in a blue moon that you had somebody diving on you, ‘cause they prefer to be more or less on a level with you. But, it wasn’t a bad life.
CB: How often did the plane get damaged?
HJ: Ah, now, you were lucky not to pick up a hole or two each time you flew. Probably we, out of the thirty three, possibly about three with no damage at all. The second you landed and taxied to your dispersal, the second you were in dispersal and switched off, the ground crew were there and they would go over and if you didn’t have a hole or two in you they reckoned you’d only gone as far as the North Sea!
CB: Never been to the target.
HJ: And if you had quite a bit of damage they’d moan like hell ‘cause they had to repair it! But provided you treated your ground crew right, the ground crew were exceptional. I wouldn’t be at all surprised that if you got the back of the ground crew up, you didn’t last. I’m not saying they did, they, I’m not saying they did it deliberate but I’m convinced that there was more than one kite went down because they skimped on the maintenance and they’d do it deliberate if you were bloody minded to them. They’d do the maintenance, but they wouldn’t do it as thorough as they’d do it normal. But that’s something which is impossible to prove one way or the other. But it wouldn’t surprise me. But if you looked after ‘em, in other words when you got a bit of spare time, take them out for an evening out, all expenses paid by the crew. No more, if you did the complete tour, which was minimum of thirty from the first, you wouldn’t take them out more than about four times during the third, you know, three or four times, but providing you give them a good night out now and again, they’d look after you. But if, if you were a bit toffee-nosed with ‘em, whether they would be as thorough, I don’t think so. Of course you know the Air Force suffered more losses than any other, such as Army battalion or Navy.
CB: In relation to the numbers, yes.
HJ: Somewhere around about fifty odd thousand I think, aircrew were lost, every man a volunteer, aircrew rules, every man was always a volunteer: there was no conscription, but there was never any shortage.
CB: What about the morale of the crew? How was that?
HJ: Morale was, now morale was top class, there’s no doubt about that. Even when we became, when I was on 166, we became what was known as a crack squad, a crack crew and we did quite a lot of sea mining at Skattegat and Stettin Bay. Stettin Bay was a bloody long haul: ten hours thirty. But when you were on, only five crews used to go on the mining effort but by and large they would try and give you top cover. For instance, if you were mine laying, well if I say we were one of five on mine laying, you always took off half an hour before the main force. If you were going to do, if you were going to the Baltic, they put on a thousand bomber raid to Stettin, well, they called it, well it was called, as I told you, about seven hundred made up the so called thousand, but it was always announced as a thousand bomber raid by the BBC, but, but er, [sigh] only once did I ever know somebody that nerve broke, and the way they get treated, or the way he got treated, you wouldn’t do it. He was, because his nerve broke and he wouldn’t, wouldn’t fly again he was cashiered and drummed out of the service. If it, if it was a sergeant his tapes were taken off and just one stitch back and then gets dropped, and that was before the whole of the squadron. All of the squadron was paraded to see it. I only ever saw one. There was no excuse for that sort of thing, because it’s just human nature broke him, not everyone had the temperament to – you had to be miserable bloody fool like me, see.
CB: So that was in 166 was it? That was in 166. In 166, in your squadron. The LMF man was in your squadron was he? [Rumbling sounds]
HJ: Yup.
CB: And what was he? Just thinking.
HJ: I think he was a bomb aimer to be quite honest with you, he was in the front. Certainly he wasn’t the skipper and certainly it wasn’t the navigator, I think it was the bomb aimer. But by and large you only, you were only really close to the three, three crews that was on your dispersal. ‘Cause you were dispersed into woods and all sorts of things. It was nothing to have half, three quarter of a mile to walk to the mess. So by and large, you were only on nodding terms to quite a lot of the actual squadron, but to the three on dispersal, you were all good friends, ‘cause the next dispersal site might be half a mile from you. So you, you only stuck and once you finished you weren’t kept on the squadron, you were within forty eight hours you were moved to a dispersal or a permanent posting dispersal. I went drogue towing, down in Aberporth.
CB: Just going back to this experience of the man. What was the reaction of the squadron in the parade?
HJ: What was the?
CB: What was the reaction of the members of the squadron?
HJ: What was the reaction? [Pause] I’m really not, you only knew the reaction of more or less the ones that you were close to on dispersal. Course what you’ve got to bear in mind is, like when I was at 166 originally, there was, of the original crew, when it crewed, before any operation there was only two commissioned. That was, they were both Canadian, the bomb aimer and the navigator, the skipper was Canadian, he was only a sergeant, and then the rest of us were non-commissioned. [Tearing sound] But then they commissioned all pilots so we actually had three commissioned and four non-commissioned. There was talk at one time, which was silly really, that they would commission all aircrew. That never worked out, never, it wouldn’t have worked, I mean it would have put too many in the officers mess. Well by and large they would have had to enlarge the officers mess. If you were a three flight you would have a minimum of about three hundred and thirty crew members ‘cause you always had a couple of spare, but if we were all commissioned, with seven man crew, you take seven times, for the sake of argument, seven times thirty two. Plus there would be the ground officers. It worked the way it worked.
CB: What sort of damage did you see of other aircraft?
HJ: You could have, now, I’ll give you two incidences on the aircraft I flew. In one instance we had a starboard, whatever, engine taken out by a bomb, in the second instance we had a five hundred pound delay come into the cabin, from an aircraft above!
CB: Whereabouts? Where?
HJ: It came in behind the navigator, between the navigator and the mid upper, but all it needed -
CB: By the main spar.
HJ: Mind you, it was a five hour delay anyway, you could have, if the old propeller had wound out, but the propeller was on a spindle like that, and the little propeller and it didn’t come live until that was completely out. So all you did was you wind the bugger back in! [Laughs] There was hopes that [indecipherable]. But, er, no, we brought that bugger back, ground crew well. [Laugh] But when you were on sea mining, once the mines were on the aircraft they’d never take ‘em back off, they, the ground crew, wouldn’t have that. So if something wasn’t quite right where you were gonna mine, you could wait about two or three weeks to do a trip. But you usually dropped a mine from about eight thousand feet, check so as that the parachute opened immediately and it’d go down and as I say most of the mining we did was into the bloody Baltic, Stettin Bay. But course there, the, Stettin was only just inside the Baltic so the travelling was, wasn’t like the Atlantic or something like that, it was comparatively narrow, perhaps no more than, well most of the mining was done probably no more than three four hundred feet. But the mines that were dropped on parachute, the first ship over activated them over, the second ship over – bang! [Laughs] That was a bit dodgy, the ship [indecipherable]. ‘Cause if they were in, following one another, sees the first ship goes in no trouble at all, everything’s all right, the second one goes bang!
CB: These were acoustic mines, yeah.
HJ: But on a bombing raid we always carried a four thousand pounder, and mostly [emphasis] all the rest was incendiary, four pound incendiary, incendiary containers and they would, the incendiary containers were rigged so that they’d open about a thousand foot up and scatter so that they covered a, and then you had the, but from a bombing point of view, the, when you had markers put down, they were TIs, either red, green or various coloured.
CB: Target Indicators.
HJ: And the Master Bomber or his deputy or Master Bomber on the second would, you’d pick him up on the radio when you were nearing there and bomb the reds and yellows or bomb the yellows or he’d tell you what colour to bomb. But the object of bombing was not to bomb a particular place, but do as much damage as could be.
CB: To the whole area.
HJ: Yeah. In other words if you could blow the whole of the town up while you’re there, various bombs [indecipherable]. It was, but of course poor old Bomber Harris, he, course Bomber Command got blamed for everything immediately after the war and it’s only comparatively recent that they’ve come out of the dog house. It’s only comparatively recent that they’ve built the Bomber’s Memorial, Green Park I think it is.
CB: Yes. You’ve got your Bomber Clasp, haven’t you, you’ve got your Clasp. You’ve got that.
HJ: When that came. Yeah. I’ve got a Clasp. The Clasp is, where the medals are, it’s on the right one up there.
CB: So your crew was a mixture of commissioned and non-commissioned.
HJ: Well, all, all went together, not a problem, no problem. To be quite honest with you, towards the end, the Australian wireless op, Frank Perkins, he bought a clapped out bloody car! Mind you, that was run on Air Force petrol [laugh]. But they could trace that, ‘cause the, it was the colour, but it was a clapped out old car going on a hundred octane.
CB: So that blew the engine.
HJ: So prior to that, we could go a bit further afield but aircrew had to walk, ground crew had bicycles! [Laugh] Aircrew weren’t trusted with a bicycle [indecipherable] [laugh]. That’s the, the Clasp.
CB: The campaign medal, yes.
HJ: But no, aircrew weren’t, we had a sergeant who was in charge of the ground crew for the three aircraft. He used to go out on the tiddly most nights. He used to ride a bike out and ride the bike back and where he come off the bike he spent the night, the rest of the night, and it was nothing to see him coming cycling in about eight o’clock in the morning. [Laugh] He come off, he come off where he was, bit of a strong thing there coming up, but they had Special Police as much as ordinary Police Forces and this was, the Special in that particular area was a small bloke, and he, partly deformed, he come across this ground crew sergeant passed out in the middle of the road and he told him after, he could only roll him onto the side of the road. He said if he could have carried him he would have carried him to the Police Station! If he could’ve got him to ride, brought him around and but he said for safety’s sake he rolled him to the kerb, well to the grass verge.
CB: Now there were always a lot of WAAFs on the airfield.
HJ: Hmm?
CB: There were always a lot of WAAFs on the airfield. How did you liaise with them?
HJ: Now, we had a, [pause] the, as far as squadron life was concerned, the WAAFs you really came into contact with was in the Parachute Section and they had the job of packing chutes. Mind you, at least once during the tour you had to pull your parachute and pack it yourself, but I’ve never seen a man that didn’t pull it twice after they’d packed their own chute, pull the bugger [indecipherable] they didn’t trust their own packing, that’s for sure! I know I never did! But it worked where they had these little sandbags, you know, they fetch ‘em out and hauled them over but when you consider how much silk there is, well they weren’t a hundred percent silk, they were only a part silk, you know, a mixture of cotton and silk I suppose, but when you consider how much there was and it finished up as no more than what. But when I was at Aberporth, that’s when you really came into contact with the WAAFs. Now in the sergeant’s Mess at Aberporth there was a particular WAAF girl, cook, she was about, no more than twenty, I know I took her out once or twice, she had the biggest breasts I’ve ever seen – they were colossal! Whoar! She had, you know these white foldover doings cooks had, she’d have nothing else on and every now and again when she was bending down, one or the other of these colossal tits would pop out. [Laugh] I stood behind her time to tuck it back in! [Laugh]
CB: So not only did you get two black eyes but you couldn’t hear anything either!
HJ: Oh gawd, you know she loved this [indecipherable]. Mind you, [pause] I must admit that to my certain knowledge, I put at least one WAAF into the family way, because the son by me has seen both my daughter and my late wife, but I was always out.
CB: Where did you meet your wife? Where did you meet your wife?
HJ: Where did I?
CB: Where did you meet your wife?
HJ: One I got pregnant in Aberporth, she was a corporal, Joyce Humphries her name was, she lived at Ystradygnlais, six miles out of Swansea. She was at Aberporth and she drove the Monday delivery wagon that I used when I joined in the catering office, I’d take to get the bread and get the booze, so we’d spend more or less all day Monday together, either in the summer sat out on the hills or on the way back having a swig out of a, out of a glass of stout. Wife.
CB: Where did you meet her, your wife?
HJ: Probably, in Newbury, yes. Got tired, I got tired running I think, just, I’d known her quite some time, on and off, and I suppose after, I suppose really speaking, I eventually got her pregnant and decided to make an honest woman of her. Hmm, yes. My daughter was born in December and we were married in June. [Laugh] But in 1960 she had her operation, but had this valve put in her heart and she lived another forty years after that. She died, I think she’s been dead somewhere in the region of sixteen years. Mind you, we divorced twenty nine years ago this November. I don’t know why, I don’t know why she divorced me, probably get me money, cost me a fair bit.
CB: After the assessment.
HJ: If the war had continued, I would almost certainly have gone back for a second tour. You could be forced on to your second tour by them just calling you in, from whatever you were doing. For instance, when your tour was finished, I went to, oh, near Aviemore, in Scotland, yes, near Nairn I think, and from there you chose what you wanted to do, on what was available. So they, If you wanted to go into office work, you could go and if office work was available and you were suitable for it then, but I decided to go on to drogue towing and I got posted, originally for a short time, to Valley and I was only at Valley for no more than three weeks, and from there I went to a little place also on Anglesey, called Bodorgan I think it was. And from Bodorgan I went, I was only at Bodorgan about a month and then I went direct to Aberporth, and I was at Aberporth to within a couple of months of getting demobbed. From Aberporth I went to somewhere in Worcestershire. I got demobbed from, I got demobbed at Uxbridge but I went from this place in Worcestershire to Uxbridge, to get demobbed, that’s when me number came up. I was on a, aircrew were on special release, they were on G Reserve, not paid Reserve. But I was on G Reserve, possible that, if necessary they could call you up, but if, if a war had broken out, serious war broke out, anything up to perhaps ten years after I was demobbed, they could call me up on this G Reserve without me having to, without waiting for the number to come up.
CB: Okay. When you got to Aberporth –
HJ: Well, now it was a lazy life: you didn’t start ‘till nine in the morning. You just go to flight and by half past nine, ten o’clock you knew whether the, either the Army or the Navy wanted a drogue towing. Nine times out of ten they didn’t so you had the rest of the day off. You just caught bus and go into town [laughs].
CB: But what was your job?
HJ: What was? [Bumping on microphone]
CB: You were in a Martinet there?
HJ: Was a Naval aircraft, single engine –
CB: It was a Martinet.
HJ: Martinet, that’s it. Your position was immediately behind the pilot and you had a square out the bottom and you just threw the drogue out through the square and it had sufficient cable on it to clear the tail by a few feet before it, and it drove itself, probably about ten foot long, when it was fully adrift, and then you just let out a thousand foot of cable, and then you had a little propeller outside to bring it back in and you wound the propeller down into wind so it, and that would bring it back in and you’d wait ‘till the connection and that, it had a cord connection from the cable to the drogue cable, and then you cut that with a knife when you flew over where they, skipper’d take it down to about forty, fifty feet perhaps bit lower, and then you’d cut it right in front of the arrow doors and it dropped on the apron.
CB: Of the airfield.
HJ: But the only part that was damaged was this bit of cord, and of course that’s no problem at all, probably no more than six inches when it was, of cord, and that’s no problem, not that way, but it was sort of doubled for when you would, pull it. But oh, at Aberporth there was an Army camp - Artillery I suppose - and also a private, not private, a government development attached to the Army camp, and I expect you’ve heard of this, they were doing a nose instantaneous job to go with Blue Streak, I expect you’ve heard about Blue Streak.
CB: The rocket.
HJ: Well I actually dropped fifty of these nose instantaneous efforts; they were about this high.
CB: Couple of feet.
HJ: ‘Bout so big round.
CB: Four inches.
HJ: The skipper’d line the wing of the aircraft up against the headland, put his thumb up and I had let it go through the [indecipherable] these scientists were watching, [laugh] taking photos of it and nine times out of ten the bugger went straight into the sea [laugh] and didn’t explode. And we did fifty of those, about twenty five drops, ten, but you should have seen it. They were brought by armoured personnel and they jumped out of the back of the wagon and stood, rifles on guard, just handed them over to me and we just sort of sort of walk off, no guard at all! It was, but it never come of anything, Blue Streak, I don’t think.
CB: No.
HJ: Instantaneous. The pressure built up on the nose as it fell, that was the idea of it. Pressure building on the nose.
CB: And explode above the water.
HJ: And the pressure, nine times out of ten they went straight in. [Indecipherable] probably eight out of ten the people were [indecipherable]. They could, they could explode almost as soon as you dropped on the water. And you were dropping them off, I, probably from six thousand feet.
CB: Oh, as high as that!
HJ: Yes, ‘cause theoretically you’re not allowed to fly under six thousand feet, so could have been, didn’t matter the height you dropped ‘em from, could have been eight thousand, ‘cause as I say they were only supposed to go off hundred feet above the water.
CB: Right. In 166 three aircraft were written off. What was that?
HJ: One was written off, let’s see, one was written off because we lost a bit of the wing, and the wing was, a bomb caught the outer side of the wing, took about six foot off and put the wing as a whole out of alignment, so that became a write off. Then there was excessive damage between the rear turret and mid upper turret on another one, bloody great hole in the side of the kite, so that caused, well, as far as we were concerned it was written off, whether they got round to repairing it, was a major repair based on that, but as far as the squadron was concerned it was written off. And the other was a tailplane, aileron damage. That was, it was written off as far as the squadron was concerned, it could have been taken but a lot of these, a lot of the Lancs were made in Canada, women used to fly them, via Iceland, no, yeah, Iceland wasn’t it, and they’d refuel there and fly them into wherever they were needed in England. Whats’er name lost her life on that, didn’t she. Before the war she did long distance.
CB: Amy Johnson.
HJ: Amy somebody.
CB: Johnson.
HJ: Johnson. She lost her life and they never did find what happened to her.
CB: No.
HJ: I don’t know whether it was a Lanc, could have been anything she was flying it from north to south.
CB: What caused this aileron damage? What caused the aileron damage?
HJ: Usually aircraft fire, anti-aircraft usually ground fire.
CB: Flak?
HJ: Yeah, but if it caused enough damage that it couldn’t be repaired by, immediately by the ground crew, it was virtually, as far as the squadron was concerned it was taken out of action and transported wherever they wanted it, going for scrap, transported for scrap.
CB: Okay, what was the most memorable thing about being in the Air Force in the war?
HJ: What a nice lazy life it was, I suppose! It was a lazy life, I tell you that. You could only commit one crime, well, oh, I don’t think you’d get away with murder, but I think you’d have got away with almost anything else. The major crime was if you refused to fly and then of course you got court martialled and out of the service. But [pause] I think, I think really, the camaraderie of the crew. You see every man in the crew trusted all the others. There was no, you were all convinced each crew member could do its own job. You didn’t, certainly was no criticism of anything, you were just, just admired one another I suppose, as whatever their job was. God help, God help anybody that said, said that your, for the sake of argument, wireless operator was no good, ‘cause as far as you were concerned he were the best, I say wireless operator but we had a lazy bugger! He’d often go to sleep. [laugh] He kept, course as far as the wireless operator was concerned, he was supposed to take both, two broadcasts an hour, Group broadcast and some other broadcast, but this Australian we had, Frank Perkins, he’d put his feet up and go to sleep and crib off another fellow after landing, [laughter] you could see him writing up his log at the debriefing!
CB: How many, did you keep in touch with your crew after the end?
HJ: By and large you, I only kept in touch with the wireless op. By and large, once you’d finished, you preferred to let it go – you knew you wouldn’t be seeing them again. Oh God. As I say, I was always with colonials, I mean except, as I say, when we took on a flight engineer, he was the only other Englishman. So you knew full well, by and large, that you wouldn’t see them again, so there was no point really, plus the fact you didn’t know how long the war was going to go on, what you’d be doing. But whereas English could be forced to a second tour, a second tour was always a minimum of twenty, the first was a minimum of thirty. And as I say, I got three extra in, simply because on three occasions I was there and it was required. The reason I got spares often was because we was sea mining and quite often, as I say, anything up to three weeks were standing, I think three weeks was the longest we went between actually having the mines put on the aircraft and going on a mining job, but it, it wasn’t really. But as I say, you had the utmost of respect for all your crew members and God help anybody who criticised them. But oh, Frank Fish, who was the navigator, never ever flew without being airsick. He always carried a little bucket with him, and he was always airsick.
CB: Do you know why?
HJ: Hmm?
CB: Do you know why? Was it nerves?
HJ: He wasn’t continuously sick, you know, he just, but almost always, even if you only went cross country, he was just as likely to be sick, but once he’d been sick he was all right again. As I say he had his little bucket.
CB: Amazing.
HJ: Which he kept down by the side of him.
CB: The HCU was in Lincolnshire. The HCU.
HJ: The heavy conversion, that was done in Lincolnshire, just prior to joining the squadron.
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AJamesHGW170412
Title
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Interview with Harry James
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:09:38 audio recording
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2017-04-12
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Harry James grew up in Berkshire and after school began training as a plumber. He joined the RAF and carried out thirty three operations as a rear gunner with 166 squadron. He discusses his crew, who were of different nationalities, of how the majority of their bombing operations were to the Ruhr Valley and his duties as a rear gunner. He tells of his family, early life, his many escapades at various places in the RAF, as well as his crew and the relationship between aircrew and ground crew, and the WAAFs he worked with during the war. After the war Harry returned to plumbing in Berkshire.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Zimbabwe
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
Poland--Szczecin
Zimbabwe--Gweru
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1941
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Carolyn Emery
166 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
dispersal
ground crew
ground personnel
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
love and romance
Martinet
RAF Kirmington
RAF Uxbridge
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/524/8758/AAn00202-150907.2.mp3
3a51154e9d6d6fcbea96557bce0d714b
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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A Navigator from 101 Squadron
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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An00202
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with a leader navigator from 101 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: So it’s rolling now and my name is Chris Brockbank and I’m conducting an interview with [name redacted] and he wishes to remain anonymous when the recording is lodged, and we are at his home which is near Scunthorpe and we’re going to talk about his career in general but specifically the wartime activities and today is the 7th of September 2015. [redacted] could you start by saying where you come from and what your early life was and how you came to join the RAF, and then your history from there please?
AN: I was born in London and after education I spent a time in the city of London as a clerk cum secretary initially to a Lloyds underwriter, and after that to a shipping company and from there I volunteered for the RAF. Didn’t like the idea of the army or the navy but as a Londoner I wanted to get into the war having experienced the Blitz. I was taken on, on the PNB scheme and went first of all to America for pilot training with the United States Air Force, which I failed as many people did, and I was given the option to re-muster to navigator. I went to Portage La Prairie west of Winnipeg and when we started there we were told the important thing for a navigator was to remain on track and we were also told that one important aim, rather one important aid, was astro-navigation using a sextant. I did the course at Portage La Prairie which I passed, came back to England having done a little astro-navigation in the air but on the ground we were required to take hundreds of shots and plot them out for the instructors to check to make sure we hadn’t cooked them and then after that I came back to England, went to RAF Melham? where I did more flying once again no astro-navigation because as newcomers to this aid we had to be precise and this took time, and if you’re flying around the UK it’s short legs, it’s short legs and you haven’t got time to do astro-navigation and so I had my course at Melham? and then with a lot of other newly qualified aircrew I went to Wymeswold where one important thing we were told was that a good aircrew was a good team and we then went into a big room where we were told ‘crew up’ and so we stood around whilst the pilots picked us out and Rusty picked me and then together we picked our bomb aimer, our wireless operator and a gunner. We did our flying from Wymeswold and Castle Donington and then after that we [loud crackling noise].
CB: Just dropped it, we’re okay.
AN: After this we proceeded to Blyton where we converted from the Wellington which we’d trained on at Wymeswold to the Lancaster, at the same time we also picked up an engineer and a second gunner so we were now a crew of seven. Having done our course, once again including night flying but very little navigation we were then posted to 101 Squadron. We knew nothing about the squadron and we arrived to find that instead of getting H2S, a map reading radar to help with the navigation, instead we’d picked up an eighth crew member who spoke German and so was able to jam the German instructions to their night fighters. Also, once again it was stressed to us about staying on track, there being safety in numbers, also the question of timing. Bomber Harris didn’t want aids to be, the bombing to be in bits he wanted a complete termination of the target if you like and so we had to keep to timing that we were given and at the same time this meant that we had, we were spaced throughout the attack and this gave coverage to every, the whole Bomber Force against the night fighters or so it was thought. The other thing we found was that while we were at Wymeswold and Blyton we were introduced to a lovely aid called Gee, where you counted blips on a screen and converted this on special charts to latitude and longitude, but when we got to 101 Squadron we found the Germans had found Gee equipment on crashed aircraft and they were jamming the signals so our last Gee signal, our last reliable fix, was going to be round about the French coast, so we needed to get to height as soon as possible so we got a chance of getting a reliable wind because when we went to briefing, the navigation briefing for an operation we were given the forecast weather, the forecast winds, but bear in mind the forecast winds were based on what the meteorologists knew about the weather in the UK plus information sent back by Coastal Command from the North Atlantic patrols which [laughs] didn’t give you much. So it meant that once we got flying and got past the Gee stage where we had long legs we had time to practise, to use astro- navigation. If there was cloud cover and we couldn’t use astro then the next fix we were going to get would be when the bomb aimer said ‘Bombs gone’ so we needed if possible to get a fix in between to get some idea most importantly of whether we were on track and secondly that things were, we were also on time. So it meant that when we got into the bombing area and the bomb aimer said ‘Bombs gone’ I had to work quick to reset my equipment to get an accurate wind to use on the way back. Now there is a funny story goes with this. As I say I was kept busy but on our first trip the skipper asked me to come up front to have a look at the target to see, and so I saw all these bomb flashes and the flak and everything and my comment was ‘Bloody hell’ and I went back into my office and I never came out to look at a bombing, as a target, until my last trip. The other job I also had to do was that the captain would report to me when he saw an aircraft being shot down which I recorded, and I think that all these reports were combined after the war to ascertain as far as possible where aircraft were lost. I’ll have to stop and think for a minute, yes, I’ve already said to you I don’t look upon myself as a hero, I was doing a job. These are my thoughts, also why did we survive a tour when other crews didn’t? Well I like to think my navigation helped but in all honesty we got through because of luck. We had an in-flight collision, we survived the other crew didn’t. Also we lost an engine on one occasion and Rusty had to decide whether or not we should go on. This is where we had a bit of a hiccup, at Blyton we picked up an engineer. When we flew round the UK he seemed okay, but he couldn’t cope with operational flying and on the occasion when we lost an engine instead of being able to give Rusty advice on whether we could carry on to the target or not he was lying on the floor and it was a case we had to get rid of him, and in his place we got a very good engineer which also helped. In the same way we survived fighter attacks, we had good gunners, the thing is we were a crew but we were a team. We relied on each other and we trusted each other. In the year that I flew with Rusty never once did he ever query a heading I gave him or a change of speed I gave him, he trusted me implicitly and this is how our crew operated, we relied on each other and this plus luck is why we were able to finish a tour. Right, after I finished my tour I went instructing back at Wymeswold and whilst I was there Wymeswold was taken over by Transport Command and I spent a lot of my years until I retired in Transport Command. I became an A category navigator which meant that I was qualified for up to royalty. I carried, in my capacity as a navigator, various persons like Field Marshal Montgomery, I was part of a back-up crew when the Duke of Edinburgh visited Borneo, this was it, I enjoyed Transport Command, it was hard work you did a lot of flying but you saw a lot of the world in bits. I say in bits because if you went somewhere you were allowed twelve hours on the ground which included sleeping, eating, briefing. Didn’t have time to see anywhere but when on Britannias we slipped crews so therefore you had about a twenty-four hour gap between legs so then if you wanted to you could go into the local area. Apart from my transport work I obviously had ground appointments like adjutants and things like that and also I finished up at Scampton where I was involved in the training of radar navigators for the Vulcan and also for, oh dear, the coastal fighter. Anyway can’t think what it was but we were training radar navigators and that’s where I finished my RAF career.
CB: Did you fly in the Nimrod?
AN: No, no, no it was the Buccaneer.
CB: The Buccaneer yes right, okay, we’ll pause for a moment.
AN: After the air force I spent six months playing golf then I got bored then I became a civil servant for ten years.
CB: Doing what?
AN: Clerical work and then I retired again. I think I’ve covered everything in a nutshell.
CB: You’ve covered it really well thank you. So shall we cover one or two other bits?
AN: Yes certainly.
CB: This business of LMF.
AN: Um hum.
CB: And the navigator, what happened to people, well first of all in the case of the navigator, what happened to him? I didn’t mean the navigator, I meant the flight engineer, your flight engineer what happened to him as a result of that?
AN: We never saw him again. He was off the station very quickly. I mean we don’t think he was LMF we think it was medical.
CB: Right.
AN: Now because if he’d been LMF, now I was, it was after I left the squadron, my wife told me about it the LMF parade where the person concerned is, marches on and his stripes are torn off his uniform and then he’s off the station. LMF, were they LMF? Who can tell? I mean that in all honesty I don’t think I ever worried about what would happen to us until I started going out with my wife. Then I had a reason for wanting to survive but until then, I can’t, I can’t speak for other crew members because that’s something you keep to yourself. We all, well I say all, we had little mascots, I had a little doll I had in my inside pocket of my battledress, you got, you got very, very, very how can I explain it, you, you, you things had to happen, people might fly in a silk scarf, these things went on. Now our Canadian rear gunner he always took two beer bottles with him so he could bomb the target himself. Now one night, the station commander used to come round and wish us all luck and the Canadian rear gunner told him he hadn’t got his beer bottles so the station commander went back to the mess and brought him two beer bottles so he went on the raid happy that he could bomb Germany.
CB: These little snippets are classic aren’t they but people were handling stress in different ways?
AN: Um.
CB: I think that the LMF bit one doesn’t want to overstate at the same time it is important to understand it and some people as you say perhaps had, weren’t feeling very well, and would react in a particular way and it wasn’t actually lacking moral fibre.
AN: Yes. You see, I mean in my case as a navigator, I was busy, I was busy all the time. I mean if I was in the middle of taking, I mean it was three astro sights to a fix. If I was in the middle of that and we hit bumpy weather or we were attacked by a fighter that was wasted time, had to start all over again so I was kept pretty busy, then had, I mean I hoped that when I took my three shots it would meet exactly in the middle, never happened you got a cocked hat. Provided this cocked hat wasn’t too large you could say ‘Right I’ll go for the middle of that cocked hat and I can trust that’ but I mean you had to take each case on its merits.
CB: But occasionally there would be a very high cloud top cover so what did you do then?
AN: Oh yes true, then all you could do was just hope.
CB: Um.
AN: You couldn’t do anything, and because I had no aids.
CB: But you were clearly skilled at using the equipment.
AN: Dead reckoning.
CB: Yes.
AN: But that was based on the winds the met office, the met can’t forecast weather now so. And of course one other thing when we talk about luck we were on the Nuremberg raid, the ninety-three aircraft.
CB: Yes.
AN: Well we lost a quarter of the squadron on that and amongst us the quarter of the squadron we lost was our most senior crew on their twenty-ninth or thirtieth trip. And how were they lost? They were shot down by a gunner in a Halifax aircraft who mistook the Lancaster for a night fighter.
CB: Crikey.
AN: Now the thing is.
CB: Savage irony.
AN: We were taught, right from the word go, that if the night fighter, if you saw a night fighter, if he wasn’t attacking you, ignore him, because if you fire on him you’re giving away your position.
CB: Yes.
AN: This is another bit of luck.
CB: Um, um. What happened to the crew in that case?
AN: They were all, one escaped, one evaded but the rest were killed.
CB: Um. Okay, now as I understand it from Rusty you had a curious experience of an explosion beneath the aircraft?
AN: Oh this was at Mailly-le-Camp.
CB: Yes. So that put you inverted?
AN: Well, I think Rusty is a little bit incorrect there.
CB: Right.
AN: Because if we had been upside down, or doing a slow roll I think he terms it, he tells everybody this, and I keep quiet. If we had inverted my sextant in its box would have been at the side of me. If he’d inverted the box would have gone up in the air and come down and clobbered me. I don’t recall a sextant clobbering me.
CB: Okay.
AN: That’s all I can say.
CB: Yes, okay. Now fighters chase you and the rear gunner says ‘Corkscrew’.
AN: Yes.
CB: How did you manage that situation as a navigator?
AN: Well as navigator I mean i just sat there and waited for all clear. I mean the thing is we had a, we had a number of attacks but only one where it persisted and we felt that the normal night fighter pilot he could have been new and if we took the correct action he’d go and find somebody else who was asleep. This particular one continued the attack and our gunner shot him down. [Chuckling] luck.
CB: Um. So you’re a special ops squadron, what was going on with your German speaker crew member?
AN: In what way?
CB: Well he sitting in the back?
AN: Yes.
CB: What was he actually doing and did you link in with it?
AN: Well the, as I say, our operators, who were ABC operators were spaced throughout the attack and I think they were given certain frequencies each to monitor. We didn’t know much about this because we only saw our special at briefing, he didn’t live with the rest of us, they were kept away from us in case they said if they talked in their sleep.
CB: Yes.
AN: And gave away secrets.
CB: Yes.
AN: So we knew nothing really of what he did, but he like me was lucky when we talk about being afraid. He, like me, was kept busy. The wireless operator was kept busy but all the rest were spending all their time looking out for fighters and seeing people shot down. I didn’t experience that, our special didn’t, the wireless operator didn’t ‘cause we were all kept busy doing our jobs and we were fortunate in that respect.
CB: And what was the wireless operator doing linking in with you?
AN: Well that he couldn’t help me as such but he was, he was listening out for, there were broadcasts at certain times, we had a classic case where it was, well Rusty was in London getting his uniform and we went to Berlin with the squadron commander, and this particular one we were going, we were coming in to Berlin from the north, from Denmark. The forecast wind was something like sixty-five miles an hour. They’d started then, certain aircraft were given the job of giving broadcast winds, which they were giving to us and so we were given something like eighty-five when I got a pinpoint on the Danish coast I reckoned it was a hundred and thirty, and we were coming into Berlin with the wind right behind us, and I had to say to the wing commander, ‘Do an orbit’, he did an orbit, I said ‘Flaps down, undercarriage down’, now normally speaking we had a system, when the bomber aimer said ‘Bombs gone’ the bomb doors were closed, Rusty put the nose down and we got the hell out of there. I had planned, I planned that, I loved that because it was a short run out of the target before you turned west. Too far, too short and you’re off track. In this instance the wing commander he was sitting down in his cockpit on instruments and we’re going through with nothing on the clock and I said to people afterwards, ‘How do I say to a wing commander for Pete’s sake let’s get the hell out of here?’ A bit of, looking back on it funny.
CB: Yes.
AN: But not at the time.
CB: No quite, because there’s a strict hierarchy?
AN: Um.
CB: So bombs have gone, then there’s the delay while you wait for the picture to be taken?
AN: For the picture to be taken yes.
CB: What was that like?
AN: It seemed a lot longer than it was but the thing is we had this short distance to run which took that into account, as I say and then we turned and by then hopefully I would have worked out a wind and the first thing I do, no sooner turned on a course, I’d give Rusty a new one to allow for where we were and what the wind was, or what I thought it was.
CB: So you’re over the target, you’ve dropped the bombs, the flash has gone and you’ve taken the picture. There are lots of planes around you so how do you take a new heading when there are so many, so close, how long before you change heading?
AN: Well, we wouldn’t change, we’d change heading when we got to the end of that particular leg out of the target.
CB: Right.
AN: It was a case in the same way we had our collision, it happened. Who’s to say how many aircraft collided with each other, and why did they? I mean the thing is this, that at night you can’t see much, this is what we relied on for our safety, the fact we were in the dark.
CB: Sure. Now you went on ops to do your thirty?
AN: Um.
CB: But you didn’t fly every night, so what did you do on the nights when you weren’t on operations?
AN: Well.
CB: And in the days?
AN: Well, the thing is first of all I mean we’d flown by night and we’ve come back at dawn, we’re ready for sleeping. It would all depend, I mean it might well be we were down for fighter affiliation or an air test or something, it could vary in the same way we might get back and they’d say ‘You’re on ops again tonight’ because being the special squadron we sometimes flew not with, we were 1 Group, but we might be flying with 5 Group, covering 5 Group from the fighters.
CB: So the attrition rate on your squadron was higher than the average of others?
AN: Yes, because I mean the thing is that we did our first op in November and finished our last op 4th June and in that we did thirty trips.
CB: Um. So in then extending, so when you were flying with the others then you’re doing a higher rate of ops?
AN: Yes.
CB: How did that go down with the aircrew?
AN: I don’t think we ever, we ever talked about it really. I mean we had a spell where the Bomber Command in its wisdom said ‘Oh, getting ready for the invasion we’re doing the French targets’ and because they’re French targets they’ll be a third of an op which would have taken us longer, but after Mailly-le-Camp where we lost a lot of aircraft they changed their minds. So all of a sudden we suddenly found we’d done more ops than we thought.
CB: [Laughter] Right.
AN: But once again my attitude changed when I started going out with my wife. Before then, before then it was the case that if there were no ops then right it was down to the village pub with our ground crew. We were very fortunate with our ground crew, we had a corporal in charge of our aircraft, he’s dead now unfortunately, but he lived in Scotland just near Perth, and if any of us were up in Perth area we’d always pop and see him and his wife, and he was a corporal he stayed a corporal he wouldn’t take promotion ‘cause he would be going away from his aircraft. He had a radio at dispersal and he heard us coming back, he was ready for us, and if we were going on an op I’d get in the aircraft and I’d unpack my stuff ready, my chart, and if one of the ground crew was coming up front he’d say ‘I’m coming up front cover your chart up’. Never asked us until we got back then they’d ask us where we’d been. In the same way that after we’d had our collision and the aircraft was a write off we came in the next day, not only did we have a new aircraft we had a new insignia, the insignia that’s on that picture there, ‘Our Willy’.
CB: So there was, in your case there was a very close liaison with the ground crew, what about other aircrew when their?
AN: Well this is the thing that the loss rate was so high you didn’t get to know people. I mean you knew the odd people for different reasons, I mean I didn’t even know all the navigators because I mean you go into briefing, you see we had a nav briefing then there was the crew briefing when we could see peoples’ faces when they saw what the target was, we’d already had that shock we’d got over it but it was the briefing and then after I’d finished, I’d finished doing my calculations I’m back as a crew member again, I’ve ceased to be an individual.
CB: Yeah.
AN: And so you did, I mean I’ve had people say to me ‘Did you remember so-and-so?’ I’d say ‘No, never heard of him’ whereas on the other, yesterday I was able to say to Rusty ‘Yes the aircraft next to us was x squared and the captain was McKenna’ why I don’t know I remember that but it’s, people change so much.
CB: When you took off you had to form up?
AN: Well.
CB: How place?
AN: Well not, no not necessarily, what we had, we had a beam and we would fly up and down the beam climbing and then once we reached a certain height we would then set off bearing in mind I wanted us to get to operating height so I had time to calculate a wind.
CB: Was the beam radio or was it a searchlight?
AN: No it was a radio.
CB: Right, and anyway you were interspersed in the stream?
AN: Oh yes, yes.
CB: So actually you didn’t go as a squadron?
AN: The ones going, the ones in our area would be from Knutford?
CB: Yeah.
AN: Wickenby would have their own system I assume.
CB: Right, okay. Now in the day time and you’re not sleeping after an op what are you doing?
AN: Well, it might be fighter affiliation.
CB: Could you just describe what fighter affiliation involved?
AN: Well fighter affiliation.
CB: How it works?
AN: It would be arranged that we would go to a certain point somewhere and a fighter would suddenly arrive and our job was to take evasive action the way we would have done if it were a German night fighter. It was just to make sure that the two gunners were on the ball and the reaction by the pilot was okay.
CB: Okay. Going back to crew and operations, the air bomber is up front doing in the run-in, how did you link with him?
AN: Well, the link with him is as we were getting near the coast I’d say to him ‘Can you give me a pin point?’ and I got the same answer every time, ‘I can’t give you a pin point but we’re dead on track.’ That was my link with him. His job before we got to the target was throwing out Window strips but you see the thing is that, as I said to you, we were told ‘A crew is a team.’ Now think of the composition of our crew. Pilot a Geordie, engineer Lancashire, bomb aimer Birmingham, I’m from London, wireless operator from Wales, mid upper gunner from Lancashire, special operator from Norfolk, rear gunner from Canada, there’s a mixture for you, but we clicked as a team in the same way that if we go back that when the squadron association was formed in 1977 for about two or three years we were unique we had eight crew members at the reunion, as time went on some of them didn’t make it but at the moment we still have five out of eight.
CB: Um. Your special ops man was Ted Manners?
AN: Ted Manners yes.
CB: After the war he could meet with you could he and tell you what he was doing? Or did you not get into that conversation?
AN: I met Ted in northern Italy when he was an intelligence officer.
CB: Still in the RAF, he was?
AN: Still in the RAF, yes.
CB: Right.
AN: I met Rusty at Cranwell in 1951 when he had taken some Canadian cadets to the graduation at Cranwell when Princess Elizabeth was the, the⸻
CB: Reviewing?
AN: Reviewing officer.
CB: Yes.
AN: Talking of that incidentally who is coming on the 2nd of October to bless the?
CB: Can I come back to that in a mo?
AN: Yeah.
CB: Yes, thank you, thank you. Now on the, there are some things that are less palatable to discuss but they were, they were the reality of life and it still is today in a different way but with aircrew there was a contentious different approach perhaps and that’s the sexually transmitted diseases challenge, how did you see that?
AN: I, I would say it would depend on the individual. I mean on the book about our crew they talk about Norman Westby, our bomb aimer, being taken to Grimsby by some of our crew where he met Luscious Lil [chuckling]. But, but, but we, apart from the nights when we went drinking to a degree we went our own ways. I mean if you weren’t going to the pub it was the case you got the bus into Louth you could go to the pictures, come out of the pictures, get your fish ‘n’ chips and get the bus back.
CB: Um. I was thinking of other crews and just in the RAF in general because you, it’s the sort of thing that isn’t a secret so.
AN: Well see once again we didn’t mix with other crews.
CB: No?
AN: We were our own little environment.
CB: Right, and I think that’s the point, yeah.
AN: But you see I mean the thing is that, that we have got this, I have got this connection with the rest of the crew. I, after the war I flew with many crews.
CB: Yeah.
AN: With many units but I never went to the associations, to other squadron’s associations meetings, it’s only 101. I spent the least time on 101 but it was the time when we were fighting for our lives.
CB: Um.
AN: And I think it’s a different attitude in the same way as I say that Rusty never once queried a heading. Now I had a case where I was flying with a flight sergeant and I was what’s known as the wing navigator, I was an examiner, and I was flying in the Middle East and I gave him an alteration of heading and he queried it. When eventually the beacon came up and we were dead ahead. Did he apologise? Not bloody likely, and that’s the difference. I mean I don’t know what was going through Rusty’s mind, he may have told you when I gave him an alteration, we had the joke in that I would tell him off for being one degree off, because if you’re going at sixty miles an hour every sixty miles you’re one mile off for a degree, but I mean this was it, it was a joke. Certain things we treated as a joke.
CB: Just going to pause there for a moment.
AN: Yes sure.
CB: Thank you.
AN: Now can I offer you⸻
CB: We’re on again now and just going to recap on one point which was the raid in France on the tank training school so what was the background to that then Jumbo?
AN: Well, the school was in two parts, the accommodation and the technical side. I can’t remember which was which but 5 Group went in first and we were told to orbit until we got permission to bomb and while this was going on aircraft were being shot down while they were orbiting, and Rusty said ‘Oh we’re not having any more of this’ and he moved away from the orbiting until we got permission to bomb, then we went in. But we had this flash and the tail went up in the air, the nose went down, what it was I don’t know but it put us into a steep dive and as far as I recall it was Rusty and the engineer were pulling at the control column to get the aircraft back on an even keel.
CB: Um.
AN: As far as I can recall.
CB: Um.
AN: Because the thing is things were going on but you see the great thing with our crew, Rusty maintained that only people who needed to talk on the intercom talked, and if for example we were being attacked then anybody else talking shuts up. On the bombing run Norman’s in charge.
CB: Um.
AN: And this seemed to work very well, I mean most of the time our intercom was quiet, now compare that with the intercom on the American aircraft.
CB: Um, V17?
AN: Yeah, on the film.
CB: Memphis Belle?
AN: Memphis Belle. The noise on that intercom, the yakking going on.
CB: Um.
AN: I mean you can only listen to one person and that didn’t happen in the Memphis Belle at all.
CB: Um. Now part of the challenge with the raid you’ve just talked about was interference, radio interference so what was that?
AN: Well it was an American forces network, dance music, which seemed to be on the same frequency. I don’t know the technicalities of it at all, how it happened, why it happened, but this was the case that er, and it’s responsible. I mean we lost four or five crews on that which is a lot.
CB: Um.
AN: Not as bad as Nuremberg but still enough.
CB: Um. Was the high attrition rate due to the fact that the Germans were able to lock onto your special ops operator?
AN: Well, well, all I know is what I’ve read is the fact that the Germans developed a new system in that they had pockets where the fighters would patrol and they covered certain areas and that way they cut down the amount of fuel that was being used and so I think to a large degree the ABC became superfluous.
CB: Okay.
AN: Only an opinion.
CB: Yeah. Now what about Scarecrow?
AN: Scarecrow, well you see once again, Scarecrow was a form of flak. I mean in fact on the Mailly one I put in my logbook ‘a scarecrow up the flare shoot.’ I don’t know.
CB: Because the notion is, or was, that Scarecrow was actually a spoof to overcome the fact that the RAF could do nothing about the upward firing guns in the night fighters.
AN: Well do you know?
CB: Causing blow-up.
AN: We never knew about the upward firing guns.
CB: Oh really.
AN: And I mean I read about it somewhere and I said to Rusty ‘Did you know about it?’ and he said ‘No’. So we were flying in blissful ignorance.
CB: Um, ‘cause the notion was that the explosion wasn’t a special type of shell called Scarecrow but was the explosion as a result of the Schrage Musik.
AN: You wouldn’t be able to tell unless you were close to the explosion.
CB: Quite.
AN: Because I mean, the thing is that it was, the flak was going on all around you.
CB: Yeah.
AN: I mean, the thing is that, I remember on one trip we did we went to Aachen two nights running. The first night we did at normal altitude, the second night we descended and dropped the bombs in the descent as I recall and our special said afterwards that he heard the Germans giving our height just as we passed it, so the stuff was going off above us not below us. But that’s only what I was told at the time.
CB: Yeah sure. Now after the war, the war comes, you finish your tour, you then go to instruction. What were you instructing on then?
AN: Well it was navigating, either self-navigation equipment or DR, dead reckoning navigation or flying as a screen with them.
CB: In what type of aeroplane?
AN: Well it was a Wellington.
CB: So this is OTU?
AN: At the OTU at Wymeswold. I went back to Wymeswold.
CB: Um.
AN: And as I say Wymeswold was taken over by Transport Command and I suddenly found myself navigating Dakotas.
CB: Oh right. So when did that start?
AN: Well that would be have been at the end of, at the end of, probably about the end of ’44.
CB: Right.
AN: Then at the end of the war I went overseas on ground appointments and then I came back and eventually I came back onto Transport Command again.
CB: What did you do overseas?
AN: I was a briefing officer or an adjutant. I was an adjutant at Treviso, unit adjutant Treviso, station adjutant at Udine and a wing adjutant at [indistinct]. Then I came home and did the staff navigation course.
CB: Right. What was the OTU number that you were at when you were training at Wymeswold?
AN: I think it was either 93 or 108.
CB: And then when you went back again same people were there were they?
AN: It had a different number then I think. That may be why I’m thinking of two numbers. Well I mean actually what happened was I was there at Wymeswold some people were posted out, new people posted in and I had to do the course that a trainee would do, because it was my first time I learnt about trigonometry.
CB: Which was important for Dakotas?
AN: [Laughter] Well it’s like the same thing that people say you’ve got to be a mathematician to be a navigator, that’s a load of rubbish. As long as you can get two and two makes four.
CB: What was the ACU number at Blyton?
AN: Dear me, now you’re asking something.
CB: Doesn’t matter. Okay so then after the war and you’ve finished your adjt job, what happened then as a sequence until when you gave up flying?
AN: Oh no, I didn’t give up. No, I came back from Austria and then I then went onto a reserve centre, teaching reservists’ navigation and then I went onto Hastings and did a few years at Hastings, then I spent a spell as an examiner of navigators, and then, that included tour in Singapore, then I came home from Singapore, um let me think, oh I did more examining and then after that I went to training command for a spell and then I went out to Borneo with the army, I was at the brigade headquarters. And I came home from that and I was on Britannia’s. After Britannia’s I was station navigation officer at Manby and then I went onto training radar navigators at Lindholme and then at Scampton.
CB: And those two were Vulcans or did you do Victors as well?
AN: No, no I did Vulcans because we were at a Vulcan station. But before then I did the navy, the navy, the Buccaneers.
CB: And why nav radar rather than the navigator?
AN: Well because the, the navigators used nav radar and it was a case that, it’s difficult to explain, if you can imagine that you’re flying along and you’ve got a hill coming towards you, you can get the, you can see that as a hill, but as you get closer to it the picture changes, and I don’t know what instruction they had because what happened was that we would take off in the Hastings with the radar navigator at the back with an instructor and they, the trainee, he would do the navigating but we were the safety crew, and I mean it was very interesting flying at five hundred feet.
CB: In a Hastings?
AN: In a Hastings. [Laughs]. And of course while we were doing that we also had a spell where we used to go round the, fly round the, oil-rigs to make sure they were okay. We then relieved the Nimrods periodically to do the Cold War patrols, so it was very interesting one way and another.
CB: Yeah. In the V Bombers there are three people at the back, so one’s the navigator, the other’s the nav radar and the third one’s the AEO?
AN: Yes.
CB: So how was the division of labour organised?
AN: I don’t know because I never flew in, I never flew in the Vulcan. The Vulcan chap flew with us because we had the equipment.
CB: So it’s purely dealing with the radar aspects of navigation?
AN: Yes, yes.
CB: Because he was also the air bomber?
AN: Yes.
CB: So then you give up doing that, then what?
AN: Well that was when I retired from the RAF in 1977.
CB: Aged 55? Close? Then what did you do? You did your time off?
AN: I played golf for six months.
CB: And how did you then get into a new career?
AN: Well I saw, well when before I retired from the RAF I went on a course and became associate member of the Institute of Administrative Management. I also took the Civil Service entrance exam and after six months of playing golf and getting bored I saw an advertisement in the paper that they were looking for people, civil servants. So I applied and I spent ten years, most of it at Kirton Lindsay.
CB: Oh right. On things we can’t talk about?
AN: Oh no, no. This was the Environment Ministry but we looked after military and public buildings and married quarters. And then after that when that, they then moved me from Kirton Lindsay to Scampton back where I used to be.
CB: And then you retired?
AN: I retired yes completely.
CB: Okay good, thank you very much. [Pause]. So how did, you were shut away in your office as you said how did you feel about the effect of what you were doing with your bombing, the effect on the ground?
AN: Well I mean we were told, no we were given bits of information about trips we’d done, about whether it was a success or not, um but to me bombing in Germany we were bombing the enemy. I was a Londoner, I lost relatives, not close relatives but I lost relatives. As far as I was concerned I, I had no feelings really about the poor Germans, to me at that time the Germans were our enemy. Now as far as I’m concerned that I could meet someone today and he’s a German, so what the war’s over. I mean the price has been paid and this is the way I think it should be but I mean I didn’t have any feelings about poor Germans at all because it’s no different, we were doing the same as two armies fighting each other. This was, we were one army and the civilians were the other army. Unfortunately reading books since the war a lot of the people who got lost achieved nothing, their lives were wasted.
CB: Um, um.
AN: In case of, as in the Nuremberg raid, I mean as Rusty would say ‘On the Nuremberg raid, we lost more people than the whole of the Battle of Britain’.
CB: We did, yeah.
AN: And I’m afraid I for one, I mean they did a wonderful job in the Battle of Britain, but I for one feel it’s about time we had our turn. I mean every time an aircraft was lost it was seven or eight people.
CB: Yeah, absolutely.
AN: But then that’s life.
CB: You’d given up operations by the, towards the end of the war so did the Dresden raid, were you aware of that?
AN: Well as far as I’m concerned the result of the Dresden raid made me have second thoughts about Winston Churchill because I feel that he did the dirty on us, that on what I’ve read about the Dresden raid it was asked for by the Russians because the troops were passing through Dresden. That is what I have read other people say it’s a lie but to me it was spite in particular that Bomber Harris didn’t get the decoration that the other service chiefs got, and that was small minded I feel.
CB: Um.
AN: But once again Dresden was in the war area. It was unfortunate.
CB: As was Chemnitz down the road? Okay thank you very much.
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Interview with a navigator from 101 Squadron
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-09-07
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Sound
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AAn00202-150907
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
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01:00:24 audio recording
Description
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He was born in London and worked for some time as a clerk until joined up the Royal Air Force. He did not like the idea of serving in the Army or in the Navy but - as a Londoner - he was keen to take part in the war having experienced the Blitz. He trained in America as pilot, but failed and re-mustered as a navigator at Portage la Prairie, west of Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) where he learned astro navigation. Back in England, he crewed up RAF Wymeswold, then trained on Lancasters at RAF Blyton before being posted to 101 Squadron. They were joined by an additional crew member who spoke German and could disrupt night fighters radio communication. During his first operation he saw the target with all bomb flashes and exclaimed: 'bloody hell' - he never left his post to see the effects of a bombing until his last trip. One of his tasks was to note every aircraft shot down, as communicated by the pilot: these pieces of intelligence were then combined as to ascertain where the aircraft were lost. He remembered how they survived a mid-air collision, but the other crew did not; and another incident in which they lost an engine and his pilot, had to decide whether or not they should go on. Retells how the Germans salvaged Gee equipment from crashed aircraft and were able to jam it; the last reliable Gee signal was picked up near the French coast. He recollects that a flight engineer couldn’t cope with pressure when they lost the engine: he panicked and laid on the floor for the whole time. They had to replace him with another one. He ascribed survival to both camaraderie and sheer luck, which includes mascots. He had a little doll inside his battledress, and their Canadian rear gunner used to bring two beer bottles so that he could ‘bomb’ the target himself. One time, since he did not have the beer bottles, the station commander himself went back to the mess so that he could have his beer bottles with him, and he was happy that he could bomb Germany. He said that some reacted in different ways to operations: even if the opertions took a heavy toll on them, this did not automatically equate to lack of moral fibre. Their flight engineer wasn’t a case of that, if he was, he would have had his stripes torn off his uniform while being marched away. He himself, the German speaker special operator, and the wireless operator felt less stressed, being busy all the time inside the aircraft. On the contrary, the rest of the crew could see the operation unfold in front of their eyes. He mentioned an operation to Nuremberg in which they lost a quarter of the squadron. They lost the most experienced crews, who were at their twenty-ninth or thirtieth trip, because of friendly fire. He recollects a corporal serving as ground crew: he was very close to him and to the rest of the crew. He never wanted to be promoted as this would have meant being separated from ‘his’ aircraft. Losses were so high that he could not afford the luxury of befriending other crews. He stressed that he was ‘an individual only when he was attending briefings’, then he became part of his crew. While not on operational flights he took part in fighter affiliation exercises in which they simulate combat situations. He points out the sense of belonging despite individual differences: the pilot a ‘Geordie’, the engineer from Lancashire, the bomb aimer from Birmingham, he himself from London, the wireless operator from Wales, the mid upper gunner from Lancashire, the special operator from Norfolk and the rear gunner from Canada. He did not consider himself a hero, but merely did his job in an impersonal way - bombing Germany was bombing the enemy. Despite having lost relatives during the Blitz, he did not have hatred: that was war. In a total war, the distinction between civilians and combatants fades. After the war, he realised how many people achieved nothing and wasted their lives.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Scotland--Perth and Kinross
England--London
Canada
Manitoba
Manitoba--Portage la Prairie
Germany
Germany--Nuremberg
France
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Adalberto Di Corato
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
101 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
briefing
C-47
coping mechanism
flight engineer
Gee
ground crew
ground personnel
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
mid-air collision
military ethos
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Blyton
RAF Wymeswold
Scarecrow
shot down
superstition
training
Wellington
wireless operator
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828f411fd5d597dfada38965fb175eb1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/571/8839/AFraserDK161104.1.mp3
fee1470852ea916db2fe36f9a192f8dd
Dublin Core
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Title
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Fraser, Donald Keith
D K Fraser
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Fraser, DK
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Donald Keith Fraser DFM (1924 - 2022, 1566621 Royal Air Force), a memoir, his log book, photographs and service material. The collection also contains an interview with Sylvia Fraser, his wife. He flew a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 101 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Donald Keith Fraser and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2016-11-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 the fourth of November two thousand and sixteen and we’re with Donald Fraser in Whitchurch in Shropshire to talk about his life and times particularly in the RAF. So, Donald what are the first things that you remember in life?
DF: I was born on the twenty fourth of August 1923, at a small place in Fifeshire called Kincardine-on-Forth. We stayed there, my Father was a gamekeeper along with two of his brothers who had come through the First World War and they took on game keeping as their career afterwards. We were there for two years and moved from there, he got, he had head keepers in an estate in Fifeshire, Moray estates, in order to earn more money and he was head forester there. Unfortunately, he was killed by lightning and I was six-year-old, the family at that time was, I had an older brother and sister and the younger two sisters, so there was five in the family, and he was killed on January the tenth, roundabout there, it be 1911 or something, which meant that, it was sad for the family because at that time there wasn’t the same facilities to get at that time. So, Moray estates were very good, they gave my Mother a house in Aberdour, and she stayed there all her life, but it meant [emphasis] that at the age of eight I used to deliver milk in the mornings [laughs] horse, horse and cart and the same in the evenings, in the summer time, and then when I became eleven, I could no longer do that by the same horse and cart, so I joined the cooperative who delivered the milk at half past six in the morning, so I still had time to do delivery before we went to school, and at weekends we used to do delivering groceries and that for the coop, they also, it was interesting because we were in the, the scouts at that time, and the scout leader was a Mr Fisk who had a large house in Aberdour, and he used to invite some of the scouts to go down in the evenings and weekends to do work in his garden. We got four pence an hour it was in old money, four pence an hour and we got that when we’d enough money to make a pound, which took about sixty hours to get a pound. [laughs] So, I joined school going to Aberdour school, and then at the age of eleven, it was two schools, there was Dunfermline school which if you were taking languages you went there, if not you went to tech log school at Burntisland, one was seven miles away to the west and then it was four miles to the east, so we went there and that. I enjoyed school, school was good and I was usually first or second in the class on maths and technical subjects all the time I was at school, however the school people wanted us to go onto university but that wasn’t on [unclear] so I applied, the situation at that time was very similar to it is now, there wasn’t many applications, there wasn’t many jobs available but I was interested in forestry and trees, and also in mechanics, so I applied to a company in Kirkcaldy to see if there was a vacancy in mechanics, there wasn’t, but I also applied to Moray estates and there was a vacancy as a forestry personnel on the estate, so I took that up and of course I stayed there until I joined the RAF. It was interesting and just what I wanted to do and the staff there was two older men who had a lot of knowledge in forestry and they gave us a good insight onto what was happening, and Moray estates it was just on the south, [laughs] north side of the Firth of Forth, and there they had Donibristle House which was always kept fully organised in case they ever wanted to come back there, they only came once or twice a year but all the staff was there all the time, St Colme’s House where all the information was kept on the estate, and in Aberdour opposite the only really good hotel was the large entrance to the [pause] driveway into the estate itself, marvellous entrance for that and it still stands today and that, so that was that
[Tascam noise]
DF: My, because of my age I was a little bit in front of the other people and I went to school that sort of, almost a year earlier which meant that to join the forces, all the ones I was with, was leaving early because I was that little bit, my brother was eighteen months older than me and I was in the same class as him, and so the time came and we were all leaving to go to the forces whatever it was and people used to start asking, ‘why aren’t you going?’ you know, [laughs] not realising we were younger at the time. So, I volunteered for flying duties with the RAF and had the usual examinations and such, I was given the opportunity to start training as a flight engineer because of my, what I said, my mechanical interests, and that was in 19, July 1942. Again, we, our first call on joining was Blackpool, we went to Blackpool and there we stayed for almost a year because we done the mechanics course and then we carried on to be a fitter’s course. Blackpool was a marvellous place to be, really is, the tower was still open and so was the Winter Gardens they were still open at that time, and lower floors not the top floors and so it was interesting to be there. We used to have bath nights twice a year, I think there was about ten thousand RAF people there at the time, and twice a week you had to come in the evenings and join up to go in for a bath or it was a shower in fact, and that happened twice a week from all the different site places in there, and to get to the baths, and it was one of these quick things, in and out [laughs] and that, and we were stationed Montague Street which was in the south, south shore, and we used to do our training at the [pause]
SF: Amusement, amusement park
DF: At the amusement park which is still there today, and we used to do all the training in there, and we used to go by buses from there, out to a small airfield south of Blackpool, which had been [unclear] been turned into areas for training, and we done our training there, and we used to be run back morning and night, on buses, and the landlady was foreign in our house, and she had to supply our breakfast and an evening meal and they were very good, and they used to make me with the same landlady for a year, so we must have done something right. [pause] After Blackpool we went to St Athans to do our flight engineers course, which was supposed to be a six weeks course. When we got there, we were told it was a two weeks course because they were so short of engineers, they had to put us through, so we were doing a twelve-hour day, and it only took a fortnight to get through that, but and then we went to Lindholme, and when we reached Lindholme there were only one aircraft and that wasn’t a Lancaster it was a Halifax, that’s the only time we’d seen or been inside the aircraft. So, we reached Lindholme our crew was already there and they’d been there for quite some time, to go through the usual rules and regulations to be able to fly the heavy aircraft, and we were crewed up with a WL Evans crew, and I remember him, a way of obtaining these people, engineers and all that was everybody was put in a room and there was the pilots there because it was the engineers they were looking for, and the engineers was a case of, you like me and such like, well it must have been that their eyes met and I think that was how [laughs] we joined their crew, in fact he said that he was given instructions from his crew that he had to be back but he had to be bringing a Scottish person back [laughs] and then we done, I had done five hours, five hours flying time when we reached the squadron, 101 Squadron and that was mid-July 1943. Unfortunately, on the way between the, there was two crews with the name of Evans going to the 101 Squadron at the same time, there were sixty crews going but two of them had the name of Evans, AH Evans and WL Evans, and when we reached the squadron, I for some unknown reason was crewed with AH Evans instead of WL, and they asked what we wanted to do and we hadn’t done any flying so it didn’t matter, after a little we said we’ll just leave it and we’ll go with AH Evans, but the other pilot Wally Evans said, ‘no that’s not your, you’re our crew, and you are going to be flying with us,’ so that’s changing all the paperwork, and that’s what happened
[laughter]
DF: We went on our first and second operation the two, the two crews together and the third one we came back but they didn’t, [pause] and that was more or less, I don’t know how you, how you take that, but it was luck or what it was but we are still here today and the other crew, that was how close it was you know, these days, and we stayed on at Ludford, it took us from July forty three until March forty four to do our tour of ops, thirty operations. Now, do you want anything on, on the operations itself?
CB: Yes, what, the useful thing is to know how the crew gelled?
DF: Oh yeah
CB: How you worked and what ever happened on your operations, because thirty is a lot of operations to have done
DF: It is a lot yeah, but well, somehow we were a very good crew, we all gelled together and I never had a glass of beer all the time I was on the station, I said, I not gonna drink at all until we’re finished, funny enough our bomb aimer was the same, he said he wouldn’t drink, so the two of us, the two of us were non-drinkers, but we decided that if we were going to get through we had to work as a team and a certain thing in any team, you’ve got your medal man, whatever you want to call them, and we decided that we should have somebody that could take over the pilots job, somebody could take over the engineer’s and the wireless operator was the difficult one because it was one of these ones that you didn’t get many people who knew the wireless operators job anyway. So, it was decided that the inflight engineer, I would do as far as I could get training, and that’s where we’re talking about the link training, get training on that and so we could fly the aircraft and bring it in if necessary, only, the bomb aimer had started as a navigator but he was ill for a time so he come off that and he came back in as a bomb aimer, so he had the basic treatment and that, on navigation somewhere, he decided that he’d be the one that would take over the navigation. The gunners that didn’t partake as far as the flying the aircraft, well they were surplus to requirement, [laughs] and the bomb aimer also took over the engineer’s job if necessary so we had a people who could switch from one to the other, to keep the, as far as possible, and it worked, it worked very well really, we done a lot of training, I don’t know what the training is, done training and that and everybody, we done what was necessary, we used to when we went to the briefing, we normally, we went there and after the briefing the navigator and that went to do their necessary things, but asked that we went along with them so as we knew the route, and if it was possible on a very clear night, if there’s any objects that we could give as information to, to the crews, there was a navigator such as a right bend on the river was at an angle, something that was obvious you could find out, you used to say well we are just passing so and so now which gave a little bit in the occasion we were on line, where we were and that helped us I think. The other thing was, we decided that we were not there to shoot down fighters, our job was to get to the target and back again, so our gunners was not to fire unless they were being fired on, and during a complete tour never once did our gunners fire at anything for all the thirty operations. We had some narrow escapes, I think the, which we would call part trips which meant we got them back again without any difficulty and we had probably half a dozen raids, other ones would probably get shot up going over, actually we done twelve operations to Berlin out of thirty so we had a good go at the Germans on this, and to most people that was the most dangerous target to be on, especially for the time and all that, but we found that if we could keep putting in the middle of the formation we were safe, it was the stragglers that got out to the side were surely caught by the fighters or the Ack Ack. On many occasions we had one or two big holes in us but not to do a lot of damage, I think it was on our twelfth operation and we ended up in a large thunderstorm and of course you had to go through them, you couldn’t dive out from it and that, you had to go straight through, and at one time we were at twenty thousand feet, the next minute we were down to about four thousand that was how the, the affected us, and round the, inside the aircraft was all the little electric jumping across from side to side and that, and it was quite difficult the fact that it took the two of us, myself and the pilot, to pull us out of the dive we got in, but we managed it about four thousand feet, that was one of the not so nice times. On our twenty first, again to Berlin, we got hit just going into the target by Ack Ack, we had a fire in our starboard inner engine and all our communications went. One of my jobs was to always look out, out for the gunners and if you’re looking back through the aircraft you could see if the guns were working or not, and this time the mid upper guns wasn’t, it was just silent and just lying in the one situation, so I decided after I looked over at the engines, switched off the engine and that, to go back and see what was happening. So, on the way through I collected a portable oxygen bottle and my torch, went back and as I went past the navigator, not the navigator, the wireless operator, I gave him a touch and pointed back, he came back with us and as we reached the middle of the aircraft, here was our upper gunner just get his hands on the rear door, he was just going out without any parachute or any at all, so it seemed to make a lot of sense and took the two of us up all our time to manage to stop him so, getting the door open, however we did and we got him onto the rest bed in the aircraft and he was okay after that, although he was off ops the next morning, he just disappeared from the station, that was one of the bad nights. The other, very bad one I think was, we were caught, it was the seventeenth of December 1943, it was again [laughs] Berlin and this was supposed to be the easiest flight that we’d ever have, [unclear] the weather was just right, there was a heavy fog over the Netherlands, and when we got to Berlin there was just a nice opening where we could drop bombs, turn and come straight back, so it was a straight in and straight out, which meant of course you only got fuel to do that, so it was I think it was a six inch, six hour trip, which meant thirteen, fourteen gallons of fuel, they hadn’t given you any leeway at all. Anyway, when we started off, when we got to the Dutch coast it was bright moonlight
CB: Ah
DF: And instead of fighters, the air fighters mainly on the ground, were all flying, and I think going out to Berlin there was about fifty aircraft that was shot down, we got to, near Berlin and the weather was thick, completely different to what we’d been told, anyway we bombed and on the way back we had a contact from base saying, ‘we were under thick fog, all United Kingdom, east coast was under thick fog, make your way north to Hull,’ didn’t tell us where to go in Hull, just make your way north to Hull, which we did, and the, as we were going along the bomb aimer shouted out, ‘look out I just passed a barrage balloon.’ So, we thought at first that they’d forgot to take them down, so we decided we’d better go inland off the coast in case there’s any more high up still on the coast line, so we turned round and luckily these beacons, controlled beacons, there was two in that area and one of them came on and said, ‘we’ve found you, we know where you are but we can’t see you,’ and the other one said, ‘well, you must be very close to us because you’re very loud, do you want us to put up a searchlight?’ We reported and said, ‘that would be good,’ which they did, but instead of going up in the air it went along the ground, and the first thing the pilot and myself saw was a double storied farm building just in front of us and it must have been just one of these things that happened. So, the, it meant that we were in a few feet of the ground, so it was, in fact it took the two of us to pull, luckily, we were running with a control booster on, normally you wouldn’t if you’re trying to save fuel you wouldn’t, but for some unknown reason I had it on and the aircraft didn’t splutter it just gradually went up and we managed it just like taking a horse over a high jump, managed to just get it over, and the report from the, the rear gunner and this was afterwards not at the time, he had written for some other booklet they was, but he saw, because he was looking back instead of above, what he saw was chickens running from the coop [laughs] in the farmyard [laughs]
[laughter]
DF: And he was pressed over his guns because of the building up [laughter] and we caught our rear wheel on the gate as we were, [laughs] we went through so we decided that we knew then how high we were
[laughter]
DF: So, we decided we’d go back to base rather than play around because we’d probably pick up some better information there, probably get a lucky break, so we went back again and as we’re going along the bomb aimer shouted out, ‘oh I’ve found a, I’ve found the café that we usually go for a coffee in the mornings,’ so that was good, they said well your just, just below us, so we thought well if we turn we’ll get on to the outer ring of the lights, you know, about three miles out we were of the outer ring and airfield, so we got there but flying then about two, two hundred feet but there, the airfield was so close that they were overlapping
CB: Yeah, yeah
DF: So, we came round here thinking we were going to go into our own airfield, somehow we missed that and we kept on and the, we landed in the end at Wickenby, so we landed, we couldn’t ask permission to land, we landed, we thought we were on our own field, the people said, ‘you haven’t landed here where are you?’ You know, so we both looked at each other and thought we’re on the ground aren’t we, [laughs] and then we heard a second voice come on saying, ’this is Wickenby we think somethings landed on our airfield, we can’t see you the fogs so thick, stay where you are and we’ll be with you sometime when we can pick you up,’ and about half an hour later they came and we were on their ground, we got a nights, had some, what do you call it? [pause] meal at that time and we stayed the night there.
[paper rustling]
DF: In the morning [inaudible] tea, got mess there or something. We had a few holes but not too bad so we decided we’d be alright and safe to take it home to Ludford, anyway we tried to start the engines up, they did, they started up, they ran for about anything from two or three minutes and then they all one by one they faded away that was
[unclear whispering]
DF: End up there, [unclear] anyway that was the worst one I think, after that I don’t think we had many bad ones but the case may as you say we had good ones but in that case some bad ones. So, we finished our tour of operations in March 1944 and we’d done our thirty operations, in fact we’d done thirty-one, one was taken as an abortion but we had dropped our bombs on an air plant in Belgium and after when I looked at our operations I decided that would count as one, so if we hadn’t have been counted we had to make the thirty up, we’d have been on the Nuremburg one the following night, so we were lucky. [pause] The crews just, we just parted at that time and until the end of the war we hadn’t any contact with each other at all, but that’s another story, we did find out for some of the crew the time afterwards. But, anyway I was posted to Lindholme to do instructing, but before starting that I went on an instructors course and got an A1 pass, and I went back there, and that were just before D Day and at that time we didn’t know what was happening, but all the, these aircraft that were used for training on was bombed up, but there was only two people as a crew, pilot and engineer, we didn’t know what it was about, and the two of us that was on the crew was, we found out afterwards, that if anything had gone wrong on the landings, that these aircraft would have been used to drop their bombs on whatever was necessary at that time and it was said that we’d have to drop out, bail out before any plane whatever it was necessary, and coming out before it hit the ground, obviously I don’t think we’d have survived, anyway, you wouldn’t survive at two thousand feet, but that was what was happening at that time, luckily it wasn’t necessary, so we didn’t, didn’t go, the bomb was unloaded later on. And, then we, then moved from Lindholme to Cottesmore, no sorry, Bottesford, Bottesford first, and this was August 1943, and as I said before, I was twenty one on the twenty first of August, and we’d just been there for a week and this was our first night out, we decided to have a run round and see what the countryside was like and there was three of us who went that time there was a Jack Molton who up until a few years ago, we were still met each other up, and another person from Scotland he was Jock, Jock Wright, and when we got to Bottesford we were just on, just off the A1 road, and when we got down to, on the main road we decided to, instead of going left to Newark where you go right to Sleaford it took us, so we travelled along there for three or four miles and there was a sign to Marston on the left hand side, well there wasn’t a sign it was just a road in there, and we decided to go down there, and that’s where we made it down to a little place called Marston and there was a pub just on the corner, and that was the first drink I had from joining the RAF, [pause] and after that we seemed to make that our common meeting place. Bottesford was a nice easy going place compared with what we had just been through, and enjoyed our time there training up the other people coming through, and of course VE Day came at the same time we were there, and I was at Buckingham Palace on VE day in London receiving a medal, it was, went down on, my Mother and sister, and my sister Jane they, they came down from Scotland, I met them on the train at Grantham and we went into London, and I think I remember eleven o’clock was the time when we, it was the King at that time of course and everything was over by, just after lunchtime, but my first time in London was [laughs] all in happy moods and that, and my Mother and them stayed in London because we were booked in for that night and I came home on the train late, must have been early evening, back to Grantham and Sylvie was going to meet me there on a bike, but what, what happened is that Marston was a mile off the main road and then you had the main A1 road to London, London that way and north that way, and she was going to bring the bike and pick me up at the end of the lane, anyway she’d asked somebody who worked in Grantham if they had seen an airman walking, and they said no, there wasn’t any airman, and she’d seen one of the lorries with the back open and quite a lot of airmen on it and when they passed her they gave her a normal wave and all this, you know, so she thought that I had got the transport to road end was going home to Bottesford to change and then come back down again, so she came back home, but half an hour, three quarters of an hour after that, her sister get when she was looking out the window said, ‘oh Jock’s,’ I was Jock at that time, ‘Jocks coming down the road there, Sylvie, Jocks coming down the road there,’ and she said, ‘no [emphasis] he can’t be,’ it was, I’d walked all the way from Grantham. [laughs] That was VE day
CB: Right, let’s stop there for a mo.
[interview paused]
CB: Now Donald as you were 101 Squadron, then you were the eighth, you had the eighth man, so who was he and what did he do and how did you link with him?
DF: Yes, our eighth man was part of the crew, he joined us on the first night that ABC was being used, I’ll have to come back to his name
CB: Yeah
DF: But he, he sat just behind the navigator on the Lanc where normally would be the bed for people getting injured and that, and his place was there, and he worked from there, he was just one of the crew, that’s all, we, we had using his [pause]
CB: So, ABC stood for?
DF: ABC
CB: Airborne Cigar
DF: Airborne Cigar
CB: Yeah
DF: Yes, that’s right and
CB: His job, what was his role?
DF: His role was to jam the German night fighters from contact with the ground with instructions, and he done this by jamming on a certain band, outside on the Lancaster was two long spikes, down the way, one in front of the aircraft and one halfway down, and this was his means of contact, and he jammed night fighters, he could speak a little bit of German but he could understand German, and he just jammed the night fighters from that. Unfortunately, by doing that he left the aircraft, the one he was on, the aircraft so they could be contacted by the German fighters that wasn’t involved in that time, and I would, probably the heaviest losses of Bomber Command
CB: Because, in essence, his transmission created a magnet for the night fighter
DF: That’s right
CB: Which was able to lock onto it, was that right?
DF: Yes, they could lock on to us, but we, we were, say on a squadron with twenty-one aircraft on that night, and got the time going through the clouds, save us twenty minutes would be all going well, on 101 Squadron, every minute along the route of covering
CB: Oh right
DF: Of covering the band going to the target, didn’t always work that way because you can’t get people to navigate to that degree in that night, but that was the obvious thing, it was to cover the whole time that they were in the air, and afterwards of course, the squad er, Bomber Command didn’t fly without 101 being there, so we, we had to do a lot more raids and operations than the other squadrons to keep that
CB: And, it was because it was so easy to detect a 101 Squadron Lancaster, that the losses were higher, is that what you’re saying?
DF: That’s right
CB: Right
DF: Much higher than
CB: Now, what did he actually do?
DF: What did he do?
CB: Hmm
DF: He listened for the German ground crews contacting their air fighters, and he jammed that by using the noise from the engines to do it, and he just jammed the
CB: So, there was a microphone in one of the engines, which one was that?
DF: The starboard inner I think it was, and that’s, so that’s what happened, [laughs] but it worked very well for a time and then of course like everything else it, well [emphasis] it was used throughout the war even on VE Day and all that was used, but generally speaking it done some good at times
CB: So, as the flight engineer, you had other things to look after that were electronic, what about your rear scanning detector Monica, how, what did that do and what did you do about it?
DF: Well, we didn’t have Monica on 101, they talked about it and decided that it wasn’t for 101 they would rather be without it, rightly or wrongly but that was, we had the usual, the others, the usual ones that, what do you call it? the little six-inch strips of metal
CB: Oh yeah
DF: [inaudible]
CB: Oh yeah so you had Window
DF: We had Window
CB: And you had H2S or not?
DF: We had H2S, yes
CB: But no other detectors?
DF: No, not really
CB: Right, because Monica had the same problem
DF: That’s right
CB: Of identifying you and that’s why they didn’t want it, was it?
DF: That’s why we didn’t have enough to carry on with
CB: So, just quickly with your special ops man, how, where, was, how did he integrate with the crew and where was he accommodated?
DF: He was accommodated in a little cubby, coming down here, that’s your navigator, here was the wireless operator, he was the next one down there just in there, same as they had, just a desk and that in there, and that was where, on most of the aircraft, was the bed, the, what do you call the bed now?
CB: Yeah
DF: The resting bed
CB: The resting bed
DF: Was there, so it was taken out and his little cubby hole was put in there
CB: Right. And on the ground, was he in your nissen hut or was he somewhere else?
DF: No, he wasn’t in a nissen hut he was somewhere else
CB: And why was that?
DF: I don’t know, they seemed to keep them apart
CB: Hmm, one suggestion was that if they talked in their sleep
DF: Well, I was going to say, one suggestion was that, if they talked in their sleep it might cause some problems, but we had, we didn’t change our one, we had the same person all the time
CB: So, in a social context when you went out as a crew, did he join you?
DF: He joined us at times, yep, which was, I think better than helped to gel the crew together
CB: And what were the ranks in the crew? Were there all NCO’s or was there an officer?
DF: To start with all NCO’s, after about probably seven or eight, the pilot was upgraded to [pause] pilot officer and such like, and I think he was, no he wasn’t squadron leader, he was lieutenant when the crew was finished
CB: At the end of the tour?
DF: End of the tour, yes, he was the only one
CB: Okay
DF: That was commissioned in that time. We were asked afterwards but I went to fly in the RAF not to sit at a desk and such like
CB: So, how did your ranking go during the war time?
DF: The ranking, I came in as a warrant officer, so ended up as a sergeant, flight sergeant, warrant officer and I remember having an interview with the CO of the, what do you call it?, North Luff, Luffenham airfield just before you were demobbed, wondering if we wanted to stay in the RAF, and he gave us some indication of what could happen, at that time they were very short of engineers, ground engineers and funny enough during the time when I was at Cottesmore and that, I had plenty free time so I took on doing the ground engineer’s exam, and I was probably the only aircrew personnel that ever took it, and I got a rating of eighty one percent, so when I came for an interview, whether wanted to stay on or leave, he bought this up and of course I still said I wanted to go back to civvy street, but they promised probably lieutenant or squadron leader or eventually, or another thing we were interested in was the flying and the, the business side of it, the British Airways which at that time was only from Assyria to India somewhere like, which was not much [unclear] so we decided to come out and take up forestry again
CB: Fast backwards to your Berlin raid, there were all sorts of challenges on the battle of Berlin, er, what about searchlights, how often did you and was there any particular incident that was noteworthy?
DF: There was only one as I say, the blue searchlights that was the one that was the main, we had been caught once or twice with other searchlights, they didn’t cause us much damage
CB: So, what happened on this occasion?
DF: Well, as I was saying, we were caught in searchlights, and if you are caught, there’s three of them usually at a time, if you run out of this one the next one caught you and so on, so you were just held in it all the time, and as I say, rays worked in conjunction with the Ack Ack’s, if you were held long enough the guns could pick you off, and that’s what happened to quite a lot of people, we were lucky that somebody below us took
CB: So, what happened, instead of you what else happened?
DF: It was a Halifax aircraft, it was travelling below us, they never reached the same elevation as Lancasters, and all of a sudden it just blew out the sky, it was caught by, we think was [unclear]
CB: What were the relative heights that day?
DF: They would have been about eighteen thousand, we probably about twenty, twenty-one, the distance in travel on two aircraft
CB: And how many of the crew actually saw that incident?
DF: The gunners, myself, that would be all I think, yeah
CB: Right
DF: We reported it on of course on our debriefing afterwards
CB: You talked about the end of the operation, you were awarded the DFM, how was that communicated to you and how did you feel about it?
DF: I don’t think it was communicated to us, I think the first we knew about it was
[Tascam noise]
DF: When we got it in writing saying you had received it, the DFM and would we go to Buckingham Palace on the date, we didn’t know of course it was VE Day at that time, but that was the first, I was quite pleased with what was happening with, we didn’t even know at that time whether the whole crew had got it or not until later on
CB: So, this, this wasn’t at the end of your operational tour at all?
DF: No, no, it came
CB: How much later was that? Where were you at the time?
DF: I think we were at Cottesmore, it must be about, must have been about six months later anyway, at least that
CB: So, you finished your tour erm, in forty-four, middle of forty-four
DF: Yeah, yeah
CB: Then you went to Lindholme
DF: Yeah
CB: Then you went to Bottesford
DF: That’s right
CB: So, how was that working, that at Lindholme you went to Bottesford
DF: Yes, Lindholme
CB: For what reason?
DF: Well, the tour doing [unclear] at Bottesford, as I say went to Lindholme and from there I did this instructor’s course, and then was posted straight when we came back from that to Bottesford. Bottesford before that had been a Lancaster airfield, but it had also been used on D Day by the Americans, and it was in such a mess, it was windows out and all the holes of the firing through the roof and all that sort of thing, I think it was just them they bought and went
CB: What before they left they?
DF: Before they left
CB: So, what were they using the airfield for exactly?
DF: A holding point for the Americans before they went on the D Day landings
CB: The troops?
DF: The troops, yeah
CB: Right
DF: Yeah
CB: So, that was a bit disruptive?
DF: It was
CB: And the crews who you were training at Bottesford, where did they go next?
DF: They went to wherever the casualties were
CB: It was a, it was an OTU was it?
DF: It was a heavy
CB: Conversion
DF: Conversion, yes
CB: Heavy Conversion Unit, right okay
DF: So, they went to the squadrons which were, was requiring aircraft
CB: Right, okay, good. So, you were there until after the, after VE Day?
DF: Yes, and then we went to, after that we went to Cottesmore
CB: Hmm, hmm. What did you go there for?
DF: The same thing, it was just more or less, seemed to be a transfer, Bottesford was a wartime drome, it was closing down
CB: Yeah
DF: So, we went in Bottesford, went to Cottesmore
CB: Yeah
DF: Which was a, which was a
CB: An expansion period airfield
DF: Yeah
CB: Yeah
DF: And after that we went to North Luffenham
CB: Hmm
DF: Didn’t, time, didn’t spend much time at Cottesmore, then we moved on to Luffenham
CB: Another expansion period airfield
DF: That’s right where ever this, was demobbed from there in 19, end of 1946 that was
CB: So, where were you actually demobbed from?
DF: From, some place in London, [pause] somewhere near Paddington, I can’t remember, but it was a London address, I can’t remember
CB: Okay. Right, so you knew you were going to be demobbed in, well in advance, how much notice did you have?
DF: Well, we didn’t have a lot of notice, say, probably knew about a month beforehand, but prior to that what we had been crewed up to go to the Far East with
CB: Tiger Force
DF: Tiger Force, and we were getting ready for going on the week it was VE Day
CB: VJ Day
DF: It was cancelled
CB: Hmm
DF: So, we didn’t go
CB: Right
DF: Luckily. We’d done our training, we used to train on the, on the Trent, going down with a below the levels, but the Lancaster, below the lower levels that are the size of the Trent
CB: What planes were you training on then?
DF: Still Lancasters
CB: Still Lancasters
DF: But we could get it below the levels, bank levels [laughs]
CB: Yeah
DF: It was just flight engineer and the pilot, just the two
CB: Oh right, just the two?
DF: Yeah, I think it was a bit of
CB: Bravado, was it?
DF: [laughs]
CB: Needed a bit of excitement after everything else?
DF: I think, I think that’s true, but it was also a good way of training for what we might be up against with going out there, nothing about it
CB: So, after VJ day, it’s, that’s still some time before you were demobbed, so what did you do then?
DF: We were still doing training, training was kept going but the, the length of training was, well it was just a five-day week at that time, but what we did was to keep the students employed, we had one old aircraft and we, it was working, the engine was working, so we got the students to dismantle the four engines, I think there was about twenty students, there was five on each, dismantled the engine and had to put it back again, they had to run with [unclear] and that was just kept them going for another month or so, extended the time they were on the unit
CB: So, you had the opportunity of staying on
DF: Yes
CB: And er, what was the offer?
DF: The offer was if we stayed on, we could go in as, we’d get a commission and eventually we could possibly reach the grade of squadron leader, I think that what was said
CB: But, you wanted to do what?
DF: I wanted to go back to forestry. So, we demobbed and we went back to our home in Aberdour, we didn’t, it was only for about a fortnight, before that I had been in contact with the, prior to going into the forces when I was eighteen, I’d been in touch with the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, to see about becoming a probationer however, the probationers then was only for gardeners sons, and they could become a probationer, and then they done the full course that you do in the university better then on time, they usually do it in the evening, classes and that it, it’s different from going to university and they done the work in the botanics during the day, but they wouldn’t take me because I wasn’t a son of a gardener, however after the war we tried again and by this time we had some very good friends, one who was the scout master as I said, but he was also in the Scottish, Scottish office during the war, he spent a lot of time in Edinburgh, and he got to know one of the professors in the botanic gardens, and I asked him if he could do anything to help us, which he did, and after being demobbed, for, I think about three weeks, we joined the Royal Botanic Gardens as a probationer. [laughs] One of the highlights of that was, at this time, it’s coming off this altogether, but there was a tree forgotten tree, a lost tree Metasequoia, which botanists from China in 1939 had found just the remains of this tree, had been lost for a century or something like that, and he was going to go back out again and see if he could find anymore but the Chinese, he was Chinese, Chinese obviously during the wartime didn’t have any money or anything to do, so he had said he’d seen it in 1939. In 1944, the Americans decided that they would put, give them money to go out back again to see if he could find it, which they did, and he found the tree and collected seeds from it, the seeds went as normally to various botanic gardens throughout the world, and then the UK, twelve seeds came to Edinburgh University, twelve to Cambridge and twelve to Kew, and I was at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh at that time and I got the opportunity to sow these twelve seeds, and now there’s millions of the trees growing, they were propagated afterwards from cuttings and that, so that was one of the major things I think in that [laughs]
CB: So, that’s in Edinburgh
DF: That’s in Edinburgh
CB: Where you were a probationer
DF: Yeah
CB: How long did you do that?
DF: We, we, the idea was to be a probationer and then either go to the rubber or the tea plantations abroad, or if there was any good jobs going in the UK, take that on, the difficulty in that, that the colonies didn’t want the British people after the war, they were doing it all themselves, so that sort of fell through. In the meantime, the Forestry Commission research branch, and it was a mister [pause]
SF: Edwards, was it?
DF: No, [pause] the one before that [pause] anyway he, he was Scottish research officer for the Forestry Commission, and he came in to the botanics one day when I was there, and when you started botanics you had to do a project, the project that I took to do, I had been looking at [unclear] books from the forestry on that and the Christmas trees at that time were in demand, but they had a problem because it was Norway spruce they used, and generally speaking in the spring, those trees got frost damage which spoiled them, but I found it was two different types of trees, one that flushed early and one that flushed later, and what I done when I got to the botanics, I got two thousand cuttings from each type of tree and planted them in pots, and it was when he came there he saw all these pots lying there and said, ‘what’s going on here?’
[phone rings]
DF: He said, ‘oh let’s [inaudible]
[interview paused]
CB: Story there, so you, you were interrupted by the phone
DF: Yeah
CB: Yeah
DF: So, we had these ready cuttings all in
CB: In pots, yeah
SF: [talking on phone]
DF: He came along and said, ‘what’s going on here?’ and one of the other probationers said, ‘well you’d better ask Donald, he’s across there, he’ll tell you,’ so I told him what we were doing, you know, and said, ‘well, do you want to go into research?’ I said, ‘well, I’ll have to think about it,’ he said, ‘well, we’re at the moment looking for people to come and into the Forestry Commission research, we want to increase it after, we done it after the first World War, and the second World War we are going to [unclear] going to increase the whole policy in forestry, we are going to build up more planting then,’ and I said, ‘well give me time to think,’ so we did take another three month and he came in again and said, ‘well if you wish you can start with us anytime you want,’ I said, ‘what’s the duty like?’ ‘good,’ so we left the botanics and joined them, and the first job I was then, was on the [unclear] department, which was travelling the country picking out various plantations of trees, different ages, measuring them up and getting a volume, which was going to be used for all the tables for the future
SF: [inaudible whispering]
DF: So, we measured all the trees up, we used to do that in the summer and then in the winter we used to go back to the office and work out all this, and these tables are still used today
[background noise, cups rattling]
DF: And, about the cuttings, they were sufficient survived and they were by the Forestry Commission and they were planted in a forest in south Scotland, and last I heard about
[loud cup rattling]
CB: [whispers] I’ll do it
DF: Was that
CB: [whispers] Keep talking
[cups rattling]
DF: In 1995
[loud crash and smash]
DF: They were growing and had reached the height of a hundred feet
[loud footsteps]
SF: Thank you
DF: They’d been planted in twenty-five groups, like a chequer board, twenty-five trees in each group, and the last I heard was as I say, in 1995 was still growing, you could still see the chequered in the air in the south forest
[kettle boiling]
CB: So, this was a beginning of a glittering career for you?
DF: It was
CB: So, where did you move from? In the Forestry Commission they moved you about, to where?
DF: In the Forestry Commission, they well, we didn’t move very far, in the Forestry, this I done forty seven, forty eight until we, as I said, we married in 1948, August seven 1948, and after that I asked for a transfer back to a base, and I was given Tulliallan, now Tulliallan is the same place as where I was born I was born in Tulliallan in some, in 1923, and also at that time the manager of Tulliallan nursery was a Mr Simpson and he bought the chickens and hens that my Father sold to him before he left there to go into Fife, now it becomes rather personal this because eventually, we went back to Tulliallan and then
[phone rings continually]
DF: Mr Simpson had been manager of this nursery and acres nursery when he came out the first World War, now at that time
[laughter]
[phone ceases ringing]
DF: The research, here Mr Simpson was the old type of person and he didn’t think that people should have been not in the war at all, his, his son was an objector to it, so when anybody came round there, all his junior staff was people who hadn’t been during the war, in forestry itself was people that had never been, so when research started there, when they went to ask him for something, he just said, no you can’t do this, I’m not going to do that, I don’t think you are the right people to do that. Anyway, I went there and at that time it was a, Ferguson was the name of the research forest at that time, and we had a meeting with him, ‘what do you want to do?’ so I said, ‘I want to do research on nurseries,’ and he’d got it all here. He says, ‘I don’t think you’ll manage to do that,’ and I said, ‘why?’, so, ‘Mr Simpson won’t give us any land, he’s just dead against us,’ and I said, ‘whys that?’, and he said, ‘I don’t know I think it’s probably because we’ve never been to the war,’ so I said, ‘well I’ve never been let down by anybody before, I’ll go and see him.’ So, the research people had been there probably six months and I went to see Mr Simpson and went into his office and he said, ‘I suppose you’re another one of these people,’ I said, ‘what people?’ ‘who’ve never been to the war,’ I said, ‘well I am, I have been it was hard,’ ‘what were you doing in the war?’ ‘flying Lancasters,’ and he jumped off his seat, came round and shook our hand [laughs] and he said, ‘I remember a Mr Fraser, twenty odd years ago being in a lodge down there,’ I said, ‘that was my Father,’ and he said, ‘yeah, I bought his chickens from him,’ [laughs] and I went back to, [unclear sentence] I went back to the research people and said, ‘look we can do anything we want and [unclear] go through with it Mr Simpson,’ ‘how did you manage that?’ I said, ‘just by talking to him,’ and that, and we became great friends and he’d never been on holiday since he went there, and this year, that was the year we were there, he wanted to go away for three weeks, and believe it or not, Sylvie and I went into his house, and looked after his house while he took three weeks holiday, they, they couldn’t think at that without, and we were even there, oh we used to go round and see him and after we left there, you know, that on the way to go round from Fife to Edinburgh, if it was very bad weather, was round the road and across the Kincardine Bridge and back round the other side and that, and we used to go round that way and see him. And, this night, what 1970s, we called round and his missus said, [unclear] ‘Arthur is, he’s had a stroke but he won’t allow me to get the doctor,’ she said, ‘I knew you were coming tonight,’ so I said, well we weren’t, we just because we couldn’t get back to [unclear] ‘I knew you were coming,’ so I said, ‘that’s alright I’ll sort him out, so I went down, got the keys for the office, phoned the doctor and then he went to stay in one of the new towns near Kirkcaldy in Fife, and we saw him until the end. After he died, it must have been 1980 odd, we went to see her when she went back to the west of Scotland with her son, was this time but he was still a known objector to the war, so that was that, a funny situation
CB: You’ve raised a really interesting point here, that the business of LMF, which we’ll come back to, but here you have the situation of a conscientious objector
DF: Yes
CB: And the effect on his father. So, what was his father’s attitude to his son?
DF: Not very good, he didn’t, he didn’t go and
CB: Did he disown him or did he simply
DF: Well, he ignored him
CB: Have nothing to do with him?
DF: But, as I say, after we went, that same year he went to see his son and he spent three weeks with him
CB: And he did what?
DF: He spent three weeks with him on holiday
CB: Oh, I see, with him
DF: With him
CB: Yes
DF: Yeah, so we had sort of sorted that out
CB: The reconciliation took place because of your?
DF: Yes
CB: Very touching
DF: It is very touching
CB: Hmm
DF: There we are. So, so anyway we joined the team at Tulliallan, we done the experiments there on various things within the nursery itself on, weed control was one of the main things, the cost of weed control was enormous because you had people sitting on seed beds, months and months in the summer, just pulling up weeds, so we tried different chemicals and that until we got the right one that would do that we also wanted to make sure that we grew a seedling large enough in one year to transplant, line out, transplant it out after one year, at the moment, at that time it was taking three years instead of one year, so we’d get a plant fit for a forest planting, because the Forestry Commission was going to increase a lot. As a one, a two-year-old plant and believe it or not, after so many years we managed it and they cut, well the chemicals and that helped to cut down the whole system and that
CB: Did you then do cross fertilisation how did you manage to?
DF: Well, the cross fertilisation was another part of it, from then I stayed there until we got a house there in 1950, stayed there until 52 and then the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh where I’d been previously, they decided they wanted to do experiments for students on forestry, so this landed me very well, and the Edinburgh university, the university bought a small estate outside Edinburgh, south of Edinburgh called Bush estate, and there was the land where they were bringing all their outside interests together, the veterinary college. The potato industry they were doing [unclear] about potatoes, the horticulture, bee keeping, all the departments at the university had an external department out there, and this forestry also wanted, the university wanted a forestry section there to, so I was posted there as a research forester for south east Scotland, and covered the botanic gardens and the Edinburgh university at the same time. We used to teach the students how to grow trees during the summer and Easter holidays and that, they all had to do so much practical work at that time before you could be, take the course, and then built up relations there, I was there for, too 1971, that’s a long time from 53 to 71. We built up a complete structure of research in that area of south Scotland, as you know south Scotland had probably more
[loud bang]
DF: Dukes and Earls and that, then anywhere in the UK across the borders and that, and they got all them interested in the forestry, and so much so, I think you’re talking about cross pollination and that, one of the things we did during the fifties and sixties was select the best trees in the UK
[sound of footsteps]
DF: And we called them plus trees [pause]
[background noise]
CB: We are just going to pause for a mo.
DF: Bills and all that
AM: Yeah
DF: So, they wouldn’t accept that, funny enough, after time, I used to lecture to the schools
AM: Yeah
DF: [laughs] on forestry and tree breeding and that but they wouldn’t accept
[loud stirring of cups]
DF: The Forestry Commission at our house
[loud bang]
DF: Was down in the New Forest
AM: Yeah
DF: And they used to run courses there every year, and one of the courses was on nursery technique to cover the trade and the Forestry Commission nurseries
[background noise]
DF: And who took the courses? But, me [laughs]
CB: But they didn’t accept you because you didn’t have a university degree?
DF: That’s right
CB: Right, there’s obviously a logic in that, but we don’t know what it is [laughs]
AM: You’re not switched on, are you?
CB: Yes
AM: You’re not switched on?
CB: Yeah, we are
AM: Sorry
CB: Right
DF: So, yes, we went to Bush as we said, it was a covered the whole of
CB: Whole of the UK
DF: The UK
CB: Hmm
DF: And, we had selection for plus trees as we called them, that was the tree which was ten percent
[crockery noise]
DF: Better than the trees round about it in any plantation, the straightness of stem can make it a perfect tree to be ten percent better than the others, and we selected these and put a yellow band around them and then we went back later and collected
[crockery noise]
DF: [unclear] material for grafting from these trees, we grafted these trees onto other plants
Unknown female: [inaudible whispering]
DF: Where we, all this as done for the north of England and that was at Bush nursery, I think, Sylvie helped us and with that, that we used to do a whole day grafting and that, on the nursery, four thousand a year we used to do, and this applied for seed orchards being planted within the UK, but all that grafting was done, and I done the whole lot
CB: Fantastic. Just a final one before we pause again. How did you come to move to the south from Edinburgh?
DF: Well, this is later on. I left the Forestry Commission in 1971.
CB: Yeah
DF: For the same reason as you just said, I wasn’t a UK graduate
CB: Right
DF: And I joined the economic forestry group
CB: Right
DF: Which was the
CB: This er
DF: Largest forester group in Europe as their nursery director
CB: Right, right we’ll stop there now
CB: Because that was a commercial enterprise
DF: That’s right, yeah
CB: Yeah. Okay I’m stopping now
[interview paused]
CB: So, we’re talking about change to a commercial world
DF: Yeah
CB: What was the name of the organisation and how did you come to join that?
DF: The economic forestry group was the name of the organisation [pause]
CB: Yeah, and what did you do? Why did you go there?
[paper rustling]
DF: I fell out with the Forestry Commission research branch after all these years, and the same thing as you were talking about before, not being a university graduate. The northern research station was built in the area of Bush and it was finished in 1969. Now, I’d been running the forestry research in east Scotland for twenty odd years, and people just used to call in as they’re going into Edinburgh if they were wanting any advice and that, and just saw me and went to me again, and the research station came and they bought in all the different people on, what er, entomology, pathology, and bought all these heads of department in and they all had offices in there, but, and the people were coming up from the service when they were meant to research. Reception said, ‘oh can I see Donald,’ and the girl in there said, ‘oh no, but you can see doctor so and so,’ ‘oh I don’t want to see him, when will Donald be in?’
[laughter]
DF: ‘oh he’ll be in tonight,’ you know, ‘oh I’ll give him a ring tonight.’ [laughs] And this happened, and they got so fed up with it in there that, and I also had an office in there, and I had a secretary also, they all had to put the, all their requirements through the, this pool doing the typing and all that, [unclear] so I was getting preferential treatment from everybody, and the head was, was in charge of research at that time and he collared me one day and said, ‘look Don we’ve got a problem here, you are being posted to Perthshire,’ I said, ‘I’m not, what reason? Because I says, ‘there’s no research there,’ ‘no it’s to a unit,’ I said, ‘no I’m not,’ I said, ‘well, I joined the Forestry Commission research branch, I’ve got a note to that effect from JB McDonald when we started, you can’t do that,’ ‘well that’s what’s going to happen,’ and I said, ‘well, if that’s what’s going to happen there’s my resignation there now,’ and I left like that, [laughs] so they didn’t even [laughs]
AM: Bit of a shock
SF: Well it was because Brian was only three, I think it was, and I thought, hmm this is going to be interesting [laughs]
DF: So, anyway the forester group had an office in Edinburgh and we’d been dealing with planning with plants anyway, and we knew them quite well, and I was up there on an interview to become one of their managers, area managers, and we were having this interview and the phone went, and this was their headquarters saying did I know they had a vacancy for a nurseryman to take over their nurseries, running the nurseries, I said, ‘no I hadn’t heard anything about it,’ so they said would you like to
SF: Have an interview for that
DF: Interview on that, and I said, ‘yeah,’ and they said, ‘can you go down to,’ where was it? Just outside
SF: Farnham
DF: No, just below Oxford. I said, ‘yeah, I’ll go down tomorrow,’ so I went down
SF: Oh yes
DF: And had the interview, two days later I got the job and that was the start of it, yeah, but it was a, it was a challenging job because economic forestry group at that time, was doing all the planting, you know you could get grants for planting and all this, and a grant for good one thing was ninety percent of that and
SF: Tax
DF: Tax was more or less you were paying ten p in the pound for your forestry and that, and that’s a lot of people doing it and that, but when I joined them they had all different people growing the plants for them which, we were going to be responsible for giving them the best quality plants at the right price, we had to control all that ourselves, so
[phone rings]
CB: Hang on
DF: So, if we were going to control all
SF: [on phone] Hello, yes
DF: The quality we had we had to have it all in our own hands
SF: [on phone] Yes, I’m here
DF: At that time, they had
SF: [on phone] can you hear me now? Yes, I can hear you
DF: Getting, growing procedures to various nurseries throughout, throughout the country, in the north and Northern Ireland, used to grow seven million for them and the various small companies used to supply them with plants, but to me that wasn’t good enough, we were going to be responsible for that, so within two years, at that time we had two nurseries running forestry, one in Scotland in a little mill just outside Perth and one a mile from here just up the road, and that was the two nurseries that belonged to economic forestry group, then another two that was down in Devizes and then Cambridge, which was used for high quality trees and shrubs for the different markets, so we decided that to stop all the contracts we had with Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland decided to take me to court for breaking contracts, which I said, you can’t have no money so [laughs] that, anyway they dropped that so that was seven million we dropped that to sell. Nurses in the north of Scotland was also growing for us, and we cut all these, increased our own volume in our own nurseries, doubled the size of both nurseries and in the end we were growing, the company was using forty million trees a year and I decided we didn’t want to grow forty million and we grew twenty percent less, so we started growing two million of our own stock which gave us a market still market in the [unclear] if it was a bad year for one species we would still be in the market to get that species from other people, and the, that worked very well. The people that didn’t join us afterwards, used to come to say, ‘what provenances of pine do you want?’, I would say, ‘so and so’, ‘oh’, ‘the next time I orders I’ll get that in case you want them,’ ‘so we will probably want them,’ and when it started before that I used to go to the nurseries and say, ‘have you got any Scots pine?,’ ‘yes,’ ‘what origin?’ [laughs] ‘er what origin do you want?’ and I would say, ‘oh [unclear] for the north west,’ ‘oh that’s what they are,’ ‘come off it, can I see your books?’ [laughs] many times it wasn’t the book they give you the sort you wanted, so afterwards we got known as the person that if you wanted anything, contact me, and it was a responsible thing, because we were responsible for the whole of the UK more or less, had we chosen the wrong provenance or anything of these things it would have been disastrous for the private sector and that, because we were selling plants that were planted by our company for their future, you know, but it worked out well. The only time I used to have to, had the possibility of stopping any planting that was being done, if I didn’t think it was the right provenance for that site, which meant a lot of travelling, we used to do fifty thousand miles a year looking at different sites to make sure that the right species and the right provenance was going on. Scot erm, [unclear] spruce was the main species and that was the one that needed all the rain, but it gave the best quality tree in the end, but there was a range of that available from Oregon up to Alaska, right down the west coast of America which meant that if you got, say trees from Washington, half way up, they were very fast growing, but they couldn’t stand the winter frosts on certain sites, on the other hand if you wanted to, to put them on a high elevation to increase your level of trees, get them from Alaska, and you could plant them there, and of course people at that time, didn’t want to have different species but one species on the site, so they could all get off together, so we used to, at the bottom of the valley, probably only put in plants from Washington, and as you go further up Queen Charlotte Islands and at the top just to get the next twenty feet of growth, these high ones from Alaska and that’s what made the difference between these people making a profit and not making a profit. On the other hand, there’s of course, that once they were selected and that, initially the seed was producing something like fifteen, sixteen percent of quality trees per thousand, after the selections were done, and I was talking about plus trees and all that, but that quality went up to sixty percent, and then when the seed orders came in it went up to eighty percent, so eighty percent of the plants planted on the hillside was becoming timber size instead of sixteen percent a few years back, and that’s what saved the UK
CB: Amazing
DF: It is
CB: The erm, you worked on continuously did you or did you, until what age?
DF: I worked on until, I was still working when I was eighty, eighty odd
CB: Right
DF: And even when I retired I joined Booker, who was in agriculture and forestry and became their advisor on forestry for, until they pulled out in two hundred, two thousand and two, I think it was
CB: During your long career in forestry, what papers or books did you produce in support of the cause?
DF: None in that really, no, it’s all just making profits for the company
CB: Yeah. Can we go back now to the wartime? Your experiences include twelve raids on Berlin which at that time was a very difficult time
DF: Yeah, it used to
CB: How did you, how did you feel about those raids?
DF: Well, it was always said at a few, and this came from an office, used to say us, when you joined them, I think they used to say, ‘what do you intend doing?’ and said, ‘flying for thirty ops,’ and said, ‘you’ll be lucky,’ so I said, ‘why?’ he said, ‘well the normal time here is five weeks,’ I said, ‘oh that’s a lot of nonsense, surely,’ so he said, ‘well, we’ll wait and see, but you’re on Berlin tonight,’ and I said, ‘yeah that’s all alright, you know,’ ‘well, if you do Berlin once, you’ve done alright, if you do it twice, you’ve done very good, you won’t do a third time,’ I said, ‘why?’ ‘nobody’s done a third time,’ I said, ‘well I’ll proper show you,’ and that’s the attitude we took. I, I knew, and that in fairness, but if I could get that airplane off the ground with five or six tons of bombs on board, and standing on that in the aircraft with two hundred gallons of fuel in your wings, if we could get off the ground, we’d come back again, and that happened
CB: You were clearly hit by flak quite a number of times?
DF: Yes, oh we were
CB: Did you get engine out more than once?
DF: We had engines out, two, yeah, I would have to look up the book but probably three or four times, once we had two out on the same side, on the starboard side, but we managed to get down and that, and once our undercarriage got hit and it wouldn’t come down but just by doing that, quite a high pull up, it came down, it locked and that allowed us. These things you [unclear] as you went along
CB: Sure. What were the ways of getting the undercarriage down if the hydraulics didn’t do it?
DF: There was a hand, hand
CB: Was that a pneumatic pump or was it a?
DF: It was a hand, yeah you just pumped it back and forwards and that, it wasn’t a very good way of doing it, but I think we all knew how to use it once and other times
CB: One other time?
DF: Yeah
CB: So what sort of damage, other damage did you get to the aircraft?
DF: Well, we often had our communications cut off, but somehow on three or four occasions I managed to get our intercom going again which was the main thing, because even if our oxygen was gone we could come down to ten, ten thousand feet and cope without oxygen so that was alright, you knew you could, the cables were running inside the aircraft, so you, you could sometimes spot where you could do it, and I always carried extra, whatever we could get, bits of string and wires and all that, very good, join up things and that
CB: So, what sort of repairs did you have to do when you were in the aircraft on, on sorties?
DF: It was only small things like that, you could only do, it means sometimes you would see where there was a break in the pipeline, as long as you knew where the pipes were running and that, that’s one thing we studied correct a lot or the heating to your different persons, I mean the, all the heating went into the, underneath the navigator’s seat, it all came from ducts in the engines to there, and he of course would occasionally turn it off because he got too hot, and the other [laughs] members suffered because of that, but the main thing was the mid upper and rear gunner was to, suffered, because temperatures of minus forty, if their suits didn’t work there was a problem
CB: The heated suits?
DF: The heated suits, yeah
CB: As the engineer, what was your, the aircraft is ready to go, brakes off, gathering speed on the runway, what are you doing as the engineer during that period
DF: Well
CB: As you get airborne?
DF: We, we split that up between the pilot and myself
CB: Hmm, hmm
DF: The pilot revved up the engines, as soon as they were at their peak I took over the four throttles
CB: The throttles? Right
DF: And he took, because that was a, took hold of the steering
CB: Hmm, hmm
DF: And he looked after that, I looked after the engines and the programme to push up there, the throttles, and if we was up we weren’t going to get off on time, I would put it through the gate up to the, which I didn’t like doing because it didn’t do any good to your engines
CB: Right, okay
DF: But occasionally
CB: So, this is an important point really because here you are going along needing to get airborne, how soon did you take the throttles after you started rolling?
DF: Just as soon as it started rolling
CB: You did
DF: Yeah
CB: Right, and so you would advance them slowly?
DF: I’d advance them, and advancing the starboard, that little bit
CB: Starboard outer?
DF: Yes, the starboard
CB: To avoid swing?
DF: To avoid a swing
CB: Hmm
DF: And keep it going like that
CB: And then all of them would be level?
DF: That’s right
CB: So, could you take off without going through the gate?
DF: Occasionally, yes if
CB: If you were fully loaded?
DF: Yes, if we weren’t going too far
CB: Hmm
DF: You know
CB: Oh right, so lighter fuel load? Okay. So, when you say going through the gate, what does that actually mean? In terms of, to the engines?
DF: It meant it was going through, up to a different level of speed, the engines were going up, the
CB: So is this
DF: Screaming, screaming at you
CB: Is this purely throttle or have you got a super charger coming in?
DF: Super, it was a super charger coming in
CB: Hmm
DF: Yeah, but I didn’t like doing that
CB: No. So, in practical terms you can get off with that, how soon would you return to ordinary engine power?
DF: When we were off the ground, the next thing we’d be together round the garage shop
CB: Right
DF: And, as soon as that was up then we’d pull our engines back, just too sufficient to keep travelling up to a certain height at the speed which the navigator wanted us to be
CB: Right
DF: You know
CB: So, you take off, you’re out of the gate, what are you doing about engine synchronisation, how are you dealing with that?
DF: Yes, that, that was one of the things that caused a lot of problems, you couldn’t get them synchronised, it took sometimes a little bit of working on them, one and the other to get them, but once you got them synchronised
CB: How do you do synchronising?
DF: Just by listening to the engines, just
CB: And you were adjusting the pitch?
DF: Yeah, a little bit but just touching your throttle now and again, just watching them, yeah, you were level or the noise was acceptable
CB: Hmm,
[unknown coughing]
CB: Because in practical terms, synchronising is avoiding vibration
DF: Yeah, yeah, that’s right
CB: Hmm
DF: But, it could, it was done correct, but going well
CB: You talked about erm, the mid upper gunner in one situation, so what was that? Could you just describe the event and what happened?
DF: Yes, the mid upper gunner, that’s when we lost him, that was, that was a trip to Berlin, I think we were probably half an hour away from the big city itself
CB: On the way there?
DF: And, on the way there, yes
CB: Right
DF: And, we were hit by flak
CB: Hmm, hmm
DF: We lost the starboard inner engine, it went on fire, and we lost all the communication in the aircraft itself, and the, nobody could hear anything at all, and that, so as I said before, I used to take on the job of watching the gunners, because you was looking out the side window and that, you could see the turrets swinging
CB: Yep
DF: Backward and forward, and this day his wasn’t, it was just steady and not moving, so after sorting out the engine problems and that, cutting off the engine, I decided as I said, to go back and have a look and see if he was alright, I thought he’d just hadn’t any communication and he was just wondering what to do, you know, and was sitting in the turret waiting for things to happen, so, as I say when we got back I tapped the wireless operator and he came back with us, and we met him just going out the back door you know, his hand was still just on that, opening the door, which I managed to, well, the way we done it was, I hit him over the arms, was the oxygen bottle I think, otherwise I think he would have beat us you know, and then we got him back onto the bed and that was it
CB: What was his composure or lack of it, what did it look like?
DF: [sighs] A man that was determined to get out, that’s what it appeared to be, and I think what happened, he must have thought that, he had seen the engine on fire, he’d heard nothing throughout the aircraft itself, I think he thought that the orders had been given to abandon the aircraft, but because he probably thought he was the only one that was cut off from the, not hearing, and he was going to make himself out, but he forgot to take his parachute
CB: Hmm, so you and the wireless operator grabbed him, what did you then do?
DF: We, we bought him back to the middle of the aircraft
CB: To the couch?
DF: To the couch
CB: Hmm
DF: And put him there and if I remember right, we put a strap round him just to keep him on the couch and that, and of course we, it had to be reported when we came down, and that was
CB: Right, so when you got down, what did you do first then?
DF: First down, we, we asked for an ambulance and that took him to the
CB: Sick quarters
DF: Sick quarters
CB: Hmm, hmm
DF: And, as I say we didn’t see him after that
CB: Right
DF: We just reported it. The, the, one thing, he’d been taken to hospital and that was the end then
CB: What was the reaction of the rest of the crew, including the pilot?
DF: Not very good, we didn’t think it was necessary, we thought he should be back maybe after two days or something like that, but then we were told that he wouldn’t be back and we weren’t very happy about it but there’s nothing much you can, you can do
CB: No
DF: He’d done twenty-one ops, so I think he was, there couldn’t be much wrong with him if he’d done twenty-one, it wasn’t as if he’d only done one, you know, but there we are that’s how it goes [pause]
CB: And er, to what extent did you as a crew, know what happened to people who were classified LMF?
DF: We didn’t know at all, and I don’t think, somehow, I don’t think we wanted to know
CB: No
DF: To be honest. We, I don’t think we took in what we saw in the morning when we went in for breakfast, when all the empty tables
CB: Empty seat
DF: Empty seats, I don’t think we really took in that was another, well it was two crews, three crews, four crews probably, but for ages that would two men, later two people like yourselves, you know, I don’t think we took that in, probably didn’t want to take it in
CB: No. So, it was a topic that was discussed later or not?
DF: It was one that was never discussed
CB: Right
DF: No, and even when we landed at Wickenby after that, the only two people that knew, a few of us alone was myself and the pilot, we didn’t tell the rest of the crew, but no we never discussed that at all
CB: The [pause] remaining ten ops, you had other people come in, was it ten different people, was it
DF: No, it
CB: Only a small number and how did they integrate?
DF: They integrated very well, there was one came in for four or five, he was just finishing his tour, and then another one, I think on the same situation and I think about two to finish off the tour between them, and it got
CB: How would people like that be on their own?
DF: Probably they were sick the night the aircraft went out and the aircraft was lost
CB: Ah
DF: With a different gunner on or whatever he was, yeah
CB: Right
DF: And that’s why we wouldn’t fly, leaving one of our, without our whole crew
CB: Yeah
DF: Or giving a crew member to another crew
CB: Right
DF: We’d rather all go and that, that was the same situation, but we didn’t get that, so good
CB: But erm, in terms of background knowledge of what happened to LMF people, what did you understand was their fate?
DF: [pause] Something I’ve never thought very much about, but I knew they were taken off operations, I didn’t know what happened to them after that, I probably didn’t want to know [pause]
CB: Okay. Thank you very much
[interview paused]
CB: So, we talked about a huge range of things and one of the points is that you mentioned is that as soon as operations finished, the crew was dispersed, so during war time you didn’t actually meet up at all, but after the war and with the formation of the 101 association, what links did you have with former members of the crew?
DF: Well, the first one was with [pause] the wireless operator. I’d written a small article for the association booklet and his son phoned us up the following week, and said, ‘was I the Donald Fraser who flew with my Father during the war?’ and I said, ‘yes I was,’ and he said to me, ‘well, he’s not very well at the moment but if you’re ever down this way,’ that was to Exeter, ‘call in, and if he’s in good health, we’ll go and see him,’ and I said, ‘well yes, if we come down to Woolacombe,’ that’s just who the lady was on the phone, Sylvie was talking to her, and we said, ‘yes, if we come down we’ll call in,’ which we did, and he was in reasonably good health, and we went to see him and saw him at home, and his wife, and we stayed there about two, two and a half hours and it was an unusual meeting and that, because we hadn’t seen him for probably seventy years, and then we met him the following year, and the year after that his son phoned us to say his father had died, so we went to his funeral and represented the squadron at his funeral
CB: And in those conversations with him, did you open the hangar doors or were you talking about other things in life?
DF: I think we were talking about other things in life
CB: Rather than your war time experiences?
DF: Yeah
SF: I think so, I don’t think you really touched on
DF: No, no. Then funnily enough, some weekends we’d go to a small airfield just outside Shrewsbury here
SF: Sleap
DF: Known as Sleap
CB: Oh, Sleap yes
DF: Yes, and this time, just about Christmas because I was showing them what the Christmas lunch was like during 1943, and I showed them, then this other person that was there said, ‘can I have a look at that?’ I said, ‘yes you can,’ which he did and he said
SF: Yes, but it was because all your crew had signed
DF: Yeah, I was going to say
SF: That
DF: They’d all signed
SF: The brochure or didn’t
DF: The menu
CB: Yes
DF: And they said did they all sign that?’ and I said, ‘yes,’ and he said, ‘well, that one there, Grant, he’s one of our family,’ I said, ‘how do you know that?’ ‘because the way he writes his w and his g’s, ’the whole family used to give him problems at schooling on not using the correct way of writing,’ so it worked out
[paper rustling]
DF: That
CB: That’s Jimmy Grant
DF: That’s Jimmy Grant
CB: Yes
DF: Worked out that the person we see here was, Jimmy Grant was his uncle, and he was [laughs]
CB: Amazing
DF: And we saw him last weekend
CB: Did you? [laughs]
SF: Yes
DF: [laughs] He comes and does a lot of the work within the small, we’ve got a small
SF: Museum
DF: Museum there, he does a lot of work within the museum, framing up things and putting things in [unclear] and all that sort of work, so [laughs]
CB: Perhaps a final question, you said that at the end of your tour, you didn’t know that you had all been awarded DFM’s
DF: No
CB: And, it wasn’t until later that you had a notification, so the first question is, how did that get communicated to you?
DF: Well, it was only to me the one, I didn’t know the whole crew had got it
CB: Right
DF: Until this day, I would never have known, if it hadn’t been, since then we’ve met up with these crews and looking at the photograph of our rear gunner, Len Brooks, who is in there, he told us what happened, when we came, was near to the ground and that, about the chickens and that
CB: Yes
DF: He was in another book and his photograph was there along with one or two others, and I saw the DFM
CB: DFM
DF: Was on
CB: Right
DF: His tunic, so I knew he’d got it also
CB: So then, fast forward to when you went to the palace. What was the process that you went through in order, because this is VE Day?
DF: Yes
CB: And, you go to the palace before the
DF: That’s right
CB: Decoration has been made
DF: Yes, absolutely
CB: So how did that unfold as a day?
DF: As a day, we got the, well I got the train from Grantham, my Mother and sister and that was on it before that, and we got into London about nine o’clock in the morning, and we had to be at Buckingham Palace at just before eleven, which we took a taxi obviously to there, we were there in plenty of time, and there was rows and rows of people taken into a large room, and sat there for a time, and then just on eleven o’clock, the King himself came into the front of the room, and they started then, started to call out names, and we went forward and met him, the usual thing, handshake and ‘what did you do, which squadron were you with?’ I replied, ‘well, 101,’ you know, ‘good, a good squadron,’ something else he said but I can’t remember, just [unclear] and then we got it pinned on and that was it, you know. We, after that, I think, must have been half past twelve or one o’clock, something like that, we left there and I took my sister and Mother to the hotel where they were staying overnight, and I made my way to the station to catch the train back to Grantham and I got there, I suppose early evening didn’t I [laughs] and had to walk
SF: Ooh, no, it was the middle of the afternoon
DF: Was it? Oh, I must have got an earlier train probably a train at three o’clock or something
CB: Did they give you a, how many people were there and were they mixed forces or only airforce, in your batch?
DF: No, all airforce
CB: Oh
DF: No, they were all airforce
CB: Did they give you refreshments afterwards or just say that’s it?
DF: As far I, I can’t, I don’t think we did get any refreshments at all, I think we just did that for a small time, whether that changed because it was VE day or not, I don’t know, but London was wild with
CB: And when you walked out of the palace, then what was the reception?
DF: It was a wild place and there was people everywhere just, mostly just having a good time and that, and of course it got worse as the day went on, well, well we didn’t go back to squadron for I think two days after that
CB: Oh. So, you walk out of the palace, how did you feel about that?
DF: Oh, a little bit of excitement, but quite pleased, I can’t remember much
CB: The pride of Mother and sister
DF: Hmm
SF: And your aunt
DF: Hmm
CB: Thank you
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Donald Keith Fraser, One
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
2016-11-04
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFraserDK161104
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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.
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berlin
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Fraser grew up in Fifeshire, and worked in forestry until he volunteered into the RAF in 1942, aged eighteen. He trained as a flight engineer and completed a tour of operations with 101 Squadron. He recalls operations to Berlin, being hit by anti-aircraft fire, how the mid upper gunner tried to jump from the aircraft, and landing in the wrong airfield in the fog. After he completed his tour he became an instructor, and before he was demobbed he was offered a commission but decided to return to forestry work. He talks extensively about his career working in forestry until his retirement in his eighties and about meeting up with some of his crew seventy years after the war.
Format
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01:59:40 audio recording
101 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Distinguished Flying Medal
flight engineer
Lancaster
RAF Bottesford
RAF Lindholme
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF St Athan
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/607/8876/AMaywoodRM151109.2.mp3
773cbbdec73ec1fb4e55919303593c37
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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Maywood, Dick
Richard M Maywood
R M Maywood
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Maywood, RM
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard 'Dick' Maywood (1923 -2016, 1623169 Royal Air Force), his log book and a certificate. He flew operations as a navigator with 608 and 692 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-11-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: This was the, this was the interview with Mr Richard ‘Dick’ Maywood at xxxx and he was a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator.
[Recording resumes]
RM: Above the main bomber stream. Twenty eight thousand. We carried one cookie.
CB: Four thousand pounder.
RM: Four thousand pounder.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And we had the Mosquitoes with the bulged belly. Now a lot of those — that was the B16. A lot of those appeared in the film, “633 Squadron.” Now, that film was the biggest load of bullshit you ever came across. It was so ridiculous that a lot of people would believe it. The bombs which they showed being loaded up on these, for the operation, were cookies. The four thousand pounder bombs that we carried with the peculiar tail fin added and they were supposed to drop these bombs so that they hit the base of the rock and bring it down. Now, with the four thousand pounder we were told safety height above one of those is five thousand feet or more. They wouldn’t have been more than five hundred feet away from that rock. So, the best part of that film as I was concerned was the theme song. The theme music.
CB: Yes. Exciting.
RM: Which I intend to have played at the end of my funeral service.
CB: Oh right.
RM: Because I’m gone.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The other Mosquito film they made. “Mosquito Squadron.” Again. That was largely, sort of, bull but there was one interesting point there which is true and that is the point where they had Mosquitoes practicing dropping bombs or lobbing bombs in to tunnels and that actually did occur. And one of the Polish squadrons. I think it was 305 was involved in that but other than that away we go. The Amiens raid which was a true one.
CB: Pickard. Yeah.
RM: That formed the basis of Mosquito squadrons attack. So, in actual fact “Mosquito Squadron” in spite of the American CO and all that sort of nonsense did contain certain aspects which were very true. Curiously enough, as I say, most of the light night striking force operations were either nuisance raids to divert fighter aircraft from the main bomber stream and were raids in their own right or they were on the same targets but about a mile higher than the main stream. So, some of them, the runs, were particularly with Berlin. They used to call that the Milk Run.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So how did that work?
RM: In exactly the same way as an ordinary raid would be set out. You’d be given the route. You’d plot the route. And you’d be given the Met winds which the weather people had found and were vital because A — you needed it for navigation in the days of steam navigation. And you also needed it as the only setting to be put on the Mark 14 bomb sight. And that was the gyroscopically controlled one. I can tell you a story about that too. I shared a bombing range with a B17 on one occasion at Boxmoor near Oxford. We’re at twenty five thousand feet. We had six practice bombs. It was a NFT. And I was sharing a range with a B17 and he could not have been more than fifteen thousand feet. With the bomb and the pickle barrel from thirty thousand feet. Norden bomb sight. His bombing error was twice mine. I was knocking up around about sixty, seventy yards and he was around about the, probably a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty yards and as I say he was probably ten thousand feet below me. Two miles below me. So much for the American bomb sight. And that Bomb sight the bombardier had to take it out of the aircraft every time he flew and put it back in to safe keeping and then draw it out because they didn’t want the Germans to get it. But what they’d overlooked was the fact that the Germans had hacked down quite a lot of B17s and knew everything about the bombsight. But there we go. I’m afraid that you are probably going to think that I am very biased against the Americans. I’m very biased against the American navy. And I’m not particularly, sort of enthusiastic about their air force either. Any air force which bombed in daylight, in formation. Well, at a steady height. Steady speed. Nearest approach to suicide you could get. The B17 crews, I must admit, were very very brave people. Very brave people. But in those days as I say we hadn’t got much reference for them because most of the big B17 stations were around here. in this area. Northamptonshire.
CB: Near Peterborough.
RM: Peterborough and that area.
CB: Yeah.
CB: And all that area. And George, my pilot, if we were coming off a night flying test he’d look around for one of these and he’d formate on a B17 and sort of drop his undercarriage and put the flaps down and sort of follow on its wingtips and then when he’d had enough of that he’d go clean. Both engines. And then he’d fly in a circle around them as they went along because I mean we could do a hundred and ninety knots quite comfortably on one engine. But to give you some idea. On one occasion, on an authorised low flying exercise an American B, a P47, the Mustang — formated on us. “Air Police” written along it’s side and he was going like this. More or less telling us to get up. I gave him the washout sign. I said to George my pilot, I said, ‘We’ve got a visitor.’ ‘What’s that?’ He looked, ‘Oh him,’ he said. He said, ‘Let’s teach him a lesson.’ And he just took both engines through the gate and we left.
CB: Left him standing.
RM: Within a minute he was a dot. He could have beaten us at low level because of course our B16s that we were flying at that time, although it’s low level, really didn’t get into their own until we were at twenty one thousand feet or over. But going through the gate gave us that little bit extra. And that was it. Because we used to — from Downham Market we exited down between the old and new Bedford Levels right down to Royston. That was our route out. Incidentally, after VE day they said, ‘You’re coming off high level bombing. You’re going low level daylight in the far east and map reading.’ Now, that is the equivalent of going off an HGV on to formula one practically. Now, a lot of people don’t believe this but I can assure you, hand on heart, that it’s true. We were told, ‘Now, when you go to low level that is fifteen to twenty five feet.’ And we did it. Fortunately, my pilot, when he was an instructor in Canada at Estevan on Oxfords had four instances of collecting rubbish from the undercarriage of his Oxfords. Low level. Unauthorised. But he was very very good at it [laughs] and we had quite an amusing incident to do with that but if we go back to the light night striking force. As I say that was part of 8 Group which was given the permission to put eight, in brackets, PFF force. Group rather. Pathfinder force. Because each station in 8 Group had one Mosquito which was mainly light night striking force and one squadron of Lancs which were again associated with the Pathfinder force and they were equipped with H2S which gave you the map. And of course H2S was the result of quite a lot of Lancs being shot down because the night fighters, German night fighters could tune in. Home in on them and bang. And then again, the Germans had a very nasty idea called Schrage Musik which you’ve probably heard of. The upward firing guns. So, they’d home in underneath an unsuspecting Lanc and bang. That was it. But once they got wind of this then they put the Mosquito night fighters in with the bombers and that did reduce the losses a little because it upset the Germans. Now, is there any aspect that I could fill you in on? Because I don’t exactly know what you’re after you see.
CB: That’s alright. So, what I’d like to suggest is that we start with your earliest recollections of your life. What you did at school? Where you were born? And then after school what did you do?
RM: Yeah.
CB: And how did you come to join the RAF?
RM: Yeah.
CB: I’m just going to stop for a mo.
RM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Hang on. Let me just get it started again. So now we’re restarting with the early days, Dick.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So, where you were you born and —
RM: I was born —
CB: Just up the road.
RM: Just around the corner.
CB: In Peterborough.
RM: In Peterborough yes. I went to the local school which is about a hundred and fifty yards around the corner from here as an infant. From five to seven. They had the junior section then from seven to eleven and when I was eleven I got a scholarship to the local grammar school which was called Deacon’s School. Peterborough had two grammar schools. Deacon’s and King’s, of which, of course, there was very considerable a rivalry between the two [laughs] as you can imagine. Now, with King’s School it didn’t matter so much about passing the school cert exam. Eleven plus equal. With King’s School you had to be able to sing because that was the Cathedral School. And curiously enough at the service yesterday at the Peterborough Cathedral I remarked on the fact that we must be getting old because the choirboys looked smaller and smaller. I was actually in school to hear war declared. I’d reached the sixth form. And we were actually called in during the holiday to the sixth form to deal with the evacuees from London. Now they, that started on a Friday. The evacuees came into the school and we were there to separate these various children and give them to the groups to which they’d been allocated so that they could be taken to their future homes. And about half past ten, quarter to eleven on the Sunday morning the headmaster came around and said, ‘Forget about the evacuees. All of you assemble in the music room because Neville Chamberlain is going to speak to the nation at 11 o’clock.’ So, we went in there and we heard the war declared and that was that. Now, I came to the conclusion then that instead of staying on to go, say to do my A levels and go to university if that would be interrupted by war service. Now, I’d always been, from the age of about nine when I’d got a book called the Boy’s Book of Aircraft for a Christmas present I’d always been interested in the flying aspect. Biggles and all that sort of thing. And I developed quite an interest in flying from the reading point of view and from the model aircraft point of view. And I thought well why not volunteer for the air force. So as soon as I was eighteen, that was in 1941, I nipped up to Cambridge because at eighteen if I volunteered for the air force I wouldn’t be called up for the army or the navy. And so, I volunteered. I was accepted for further investigation. That was in 1941 and then in December ‘41 was called to Cardington where I had my aircrew medicals and aptitude tests and was accepted as future aircrew. And much to my annoyance, that was December ’41, I was actually called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground August bank holiday Monday 1942. I hopped off one foot on to the other. I thought that was a dirty trick [laughs] Anyway, we were assailed with needles and vaccinations and boots to be cleaned and uniforms. Paraded up and down Earl’s Court and so on and went to the zoo for meals. From there I eventually went to Number 6 ITW at Aberystwyth. I’d only been there about six weeks on a ten weeks course when I had to report sick on the Tuesday. I’d got a swollen throat and what not. Sore throat. Went to the sick quarters and the MO there sort of looked, ‘Ah, Mist Expect three times a day for three days. Come again on Friday.’ Well, this Mist Expect was a brown lotion. Yuck. Which was very evil tasting. Anyway, by the Friday morning I more or less managed to crawl up to the sick quarters and they said, ‘Strange. We’ll have you upstairs under observation.’ And that was on the Friday. On the Sunday morning I developed the classic male symptoms of mumps. Now, as soon as they realised this they whipped me off to the local isolation hospital called Tanybwlch where I was the only patient and I distinctly remember it. There were five Nurse Williams’ and one Nurse Prodigan there. I lived like a lord but the interesting thing was that I was there for a week and at the end of the week they said, ‘Right. You’ll be going home Monday. Fourteen days sick leave.’ Now, before the Monday, on the Friday, about twelve of the people who were in my flight at ITW reported in to Tanybwlch with mumps. And what they were going to do to me was nobody’s business until I mentioned fourteen days sick leave. I was the flavour of the month after that. Anyway, from there, after a week, a few weeks due to bad weather I finished up as Desford Leicester, grading school where I did my twelve hours on Tigers. Selected for further pilot training. The interesting thing was there the instructor that I had was a Sergeant Collinson. He was an ex-bank manager and three weeks after I’d finished and gone to Heaton Park word filtered through that he’d had a pupil who’d frozen on the controls and killed them both. And a nicer bloke you couldn’t have wished for. He was the exact opposite to the American instructor which I had at Grosse Ile. Anyway, as I say, we did this grading school and then from there we went to Heaton Park which of course was the centre from which all aircrew to Canada, America — the USA, South Africa were sent simply because there was no room in the sky to have UT pilots barging about and getting in the way even though the Tigers were painted yellow. But, and as I say from there I volunteered for the Flying Boat course which was rather ill fated. I did get about thirty — thirty five hours solo on Stearman N2S4s which I thought was a beautiful aircraft. It really handled superbly. The sort of one that the wing walkers are using now. Much nicer aircraft to fly then the Tiger. Had twice as much power and on Tiger if you came on the approach five miles an hour too fast you nearly floated across the airfield. You didn’t get down. With the Stearman N2S4 you came in and as soon as you got the right attitude closed the throttle, stick back and it would go down on a three pointer and stick. Much nicer. Also, had brakes which helped you to stop and manoeuvre because with the tiger they had to come out and take your wing tip.
CB: Now where was this? In the states. Where?
RM: This. Grosse Ile, Detroit.
CB: Grosse Ile.
RM: Yes. And the French Grosse Ile. And that was American navy. The only British officers that we had there were one RAF and one Royal Navy officer acting as liaison because of course not only did the RAF send pilots there but of course Fleet Air Arm. And it was the Fleet Air Arm course really. With carrier work and then Flying Boats because they had to be versatile with both but I could never understand why we were subjected to the first part of the course but it was a good thing in actual fact. But I couldn’t see it at the time. Because I couldn’t understand anybody would try landing a Catalina on a Flying Boat. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs to be. Anyway, from there, as I say, I was sent back to Canada. To Windsor, Ontario and had a re-selection board. Was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. The navigators could either be pure navigators, NavBs, NavWs nav wireless or Nav radio and in each case, it depended on the type of aircraft that they would be going on to for their training and radio mostly on fighters for instance. The day and night fighters. The —
CB: Can I just go — can I interrupt? Go back a bit? Why was it that you gave up the flying? The pilot training with the US navy.
RM: Why? I was washed off. Yes. I was washed off the course. They had a field. The main fields. Grosse Ile had several satellite airfields. Much more. And one of these was a square field on the edge of Lake Michigan and in the middle of the field was a hundred foot diameter circle. Now, it gets rather technical here because to explain it I’ve got to be technical. Imagine that there’s a line through the circle with the wind. Wind line. And this wind line when on the afternoon that I was taking my tests was at right angles to the shore of the lake. Now, this field was probably no more than four hundred yards long and the circle would be probably about eight or ninety yards in because you had to, sort of, do a touch down and off again. The afternoon, it was in August, the ambient air temperature was eighty five Fahrenheit. Now, you came down wind parallel to the wind line like a normal left hand circuit. Eight hundred feet. When your wings were opposite the circle you cut the engine and the rest was a glide. Now, you had to glide down across the wind line at between ninety and forty five degrees. Continue the left hand turn and make a right hand turn onto the wind line and in and drop. Because, of course with a lot of aircraft you’ve got no forward, fighter aircraft particularly, no forward vision. So they had to adopt this and they still do I believe. I’m not sure. Now, as soon as on the right hand turn, as soon as I crossed the shoreline I gained about fifty feet. Thermals. I’ve never done any gliding or known anything about it and I didn’t know what a thermal was. So I overshot. The next time. The second run. I came a little bit lower. I still overshot. And we had to get three out of six in the circle. The third shot. I came around and I still touched down just beyond the circle. So I knew that I’d failed but I opened up and ignored the instructor who was sitting by the side of the circle watching. Ignored his signals [laughs] I thought I will bloody well put one in and the fourth one in I actually undershot. But in order to do that my right hand wingtip on the right turn was almost in the water. It was that low. And as I say as soon as I muffed that third one I knew that I’d failed so it didn’t bother me much. Now, one difference between the RAF training aircraft and the American training aircraft was that with the Tiger Moth you had a two way Gosport system so you could talk to the pilot. With the Stearman N2S4s, both army and navy, they had one way Gosport. The pilot could talk to you but you couldn’t talk back. The other fact is that all of the instructors, army and navy instructors on pilot training in the States were usually first generation nationalised Americans. Now, they were not allowed to go to the actual warzones just in case they were spies and nasty types. So, you can imagine that these instructors had quite a bone to pick. You know. They were very bitter about being singled out for this and they took it out on us. Now, on one occasion I’d already upset my instructor. You know, before these circles landing. And if you had a high level emergency which usually occurred at two thousand feet you were supposed to glide round, selecting a field and then make this sort of approach. And we were stooging along on one exercise just before these circles and he suddenly cut the motor and said, ‘Right. High level emergency.’ And one of the satellite fields was just down there so, I gave it full left stick, full right rudder, organised a side slip and brought it right down in one go in to this field. Settled and did a three pointer. And I sat there and I thought bloody marvellous Maywood. The remarks that came over the Gosport were not printable. Definitely not printable. I had disobeyed every rule in their book. Disobeyed them. I was worthless. I was useless. He didn’t speak to me for a couple of days afterwards. He just took me up. But on the way back after the side slip he cut the visit short because we flew for an hour and a half at a time. We’d been flying for about a half an hour. He said, ‘Right. We’re going back to base.’ And he did flick rolls left right left right and obviously to try and upset me. And they had a mirror up in the centre section where they could see us and as he did these, the more he did it, you know, sort of thumbs-up which made him even worse. As I say for two days he would just take me out to the aircraft. We’d do what we had to do until this circle business and not a word was said. Now, after washing off this course, as I say, we had a re-selection board in Windsor, Ontario. It’s just across the water from Detroit and I was selected as a NavB. I had to do six months general duties work. Three months in Toronto manning depot. That was quite an interesting, mostly sweeping the floor but on one occasion. Two occasions. Two successive days. We had to, you know, two of us, another washed off pilot and myself chummed up and we were picked for guard duty in the detention barracks there. When we reported to the flight sergeant MP first thing in the morning we were handed side arms. 45 revolvers. And the SP said, ‘Now, the only thing I’m going to tell you,’ he said, ‘Is never ever let one of the prisoners get within shovel distance of you.’ Shovel distance. What’s that? He said, ‘Remember that.’ He said. ‘If they look like getting there,’ he said, ‘Shoot them because it might be the last thing you do.’ He said, ‘We won’t ask questions.’ Anyway, we went into this detention barracks and we were ushered in to a building which was about thirty feet wide. Probably ninety feet long and normal height of a shed. Say perhaps ten, twelve feet. Across the centre of the room there was a black line. Two inch black line that ran down the walls, across the floor and up the other wall. Now, you can imagine. You walk in there and you see this. At one end there was probably about fifty, sixty tonnes of small coal. The other end absolutely pristine walls and floor. Whitewashed. The prisoners had wheelbarrows and shovels and it was their job to shift this coal from one end to the other and then when they’d done that they scrubbed the floor and the walls. Whitewashed them. And then did the job again. Now, they were doing this probably for two or three months and they were, it was described as being stir happy. And this was the reason. They’d had one or two of the guards had been attacked with these shovels and had been seriously injured or killed and that was the reason why we were told. Now, we only had that for two days fortunately because we more or less stood back to back [laughs] watching each other’s backs and then back to the old sweeping routine. And that was for three months. Then from there I was sent out to a place called Goderich which is right on the borders. Western border of Ontario. That was a training station for twin-engined aircraft for Royal Canadian Air Force cadets. Spent three months there and then onto a place called Mountain View in Ontario to do the bombing and gunnery school. The flying was done on Mark 2 Ansons. You’ve probably seen pictures of those. And the gunnery was done with the Bollingbroke which was the Canadian version of the Blenheim 4. The turret. Have you ever seen the Blenheim gun turret?
Other: No.
RM: Most peculiar arrangement. Vertical column. And a beam pivoted on this vertical column. At one end of the beam is a seat. At the other end are two Browning pop guns. 303s. And handlebars. So when you — to operate the turret to elevate the guns or depress them you turn the handlebars like twist grips. And to turn the turret you steer it like a pushbike. So, if you were firing at aircraft up there your bottom was right down here and you’re looking up there. You’re not sitting in the chair and looking all over like did with the Fraser Nash and the other turrets. The locking ones. Anyway, we were quite interested because the first exercise that we did it was really a chastener. We had two hundred rounds each to fire. Now, what they did with the two Brownings — they put three hundred pounds in each with a dummy round of two hundred in each gun. So, the first person in to the turret, you flew in threes, first used the left hand gun. Two hundred rounds. Left it. The next person going in two hundred rounds from the right hand gun. And then the third one cleared both guns and a hundred from each. Now, the actual bullets — the tips were dipped in paint. So that when they went through the drogue, which was the target, you could see from the colour as to who hit and how many. The drogue was roughly in size a bit bigger say than the fuselage of a Hurricane or a Spit so you can see it was quite large. The first exercise was what was known as a beam target where the towing aircraft had towed the drogue on your beam two hundred yards distance. Steady. In other words you were firing at a static object. No lead necessary either way. And of course we just blazed away with these in short bursts and when we got down after the first exercise. This exercise. They gave us the number of hits. Now, believe it or believe it not at two hundred yards, steady target, no more than probably being on the gun boats — an extraordinarily good result was five percent hits. The average? Three percent. Which is amazing isn’t it? The reason? Vibration. The rigidity of the gun mountings of course allowed the guns to spray and this is one of the things where modern films and pre-modern films of aircraft fights where you see a nice line of holes being stitched across the fuselage — absolute bullshit. You were lucky if you get it off, peppered them. That was the gunnery and then we did sort of quarter cross overs and all that sort of thing. Mostly then with cameras attached to the guns. They took Cinefilms. They wouldn’t let us use live ammunition against [laughs] their aircraft. The bombing was done with Mark 2 Ansons. A very slow aircraft. And using the old fashioned Mark 9 bomb sight which was quite a Heath Robinson contraption really but it worked after a fashion. But it was designed to operate when aircraft were sort of doing their bombing runs at probably a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty miles an hour with very little relationship to the forthcoming four-engined aircraft. And for that reason they devised the Mark 14 bomb sight which was gyroscope labourised and it was a beautiful piece of work. But going back to what I was saying about the weather, aircraft and wind finding. With the Mark 14 bomb sight you had to put the wind velocity in. Feed it in manually. And the only other manual thing you did was fit the bomb type. Select the bomb type and it worked out the trajectory and everything. Not only that but with the plate glass, sight glass, you had the red cross with the sword and that was stabilised horizontally. So that it would, in actual fact, give you accurate bombing up to about ten degrees of bank. Whereas with a Mark 9 you couldn’t. You had to be absolutely spot on and running the thing accurately.
CB: Straight and level.
RM: Straight and level. Yes. So that was an advantage with it. And that was bombing and gunnery school. Then nav school, as I say, was at Charlottetown, PEI. Prince Edward Island. And it was there I had my first really narrow squeak. In training of all things. Now, the nav school at that time lasted for twenty weeks. At the end of ten weeks you got a seventy two hour pass. From the Friday night to the Sunday which you couldn’t do much about because by the time you got from Charlottetown on to the mainland it was time to come back again. Right out in the sticks there. You were in the boon docks. Anyway, because we had bad night flying weather in the first eight weeks of our course they decided that instead of us flying on the tenth week we would fly on our twelfth week and the next course — 97. Behind us. Two weeks behind us would fly in our place. Now, you can appreciate this obviously. We were, a group of us, were going into the local cinema and it was just getting dark. Nice bright moon. No wind. Not worth talking about. Beautiful night. When we came out of the cinema three hours later there was a forty five knot gale blowing. Now, I can visualise what I understood and if I was in the same position I might have made the same mistake. In fact, almost certainly would but the Met forecast for the whole of their four hours was light and variable winds. Now, a sprog navigator. They’d only done ten weeks. They were only half way through the course. You still, over there, only had radio bearings. Visual sightings. More or less. And astro compass. The old bubble sextant which I could never get on with to navigate with. And the first leg out probably — of course you see navigation in those, steam navigation the vital part was wind finding, direction of the wind because that meant that you would get to where you wanted to go to. Probably find wind— sort of ten knots. Well, that falls within the flight plan. Get on the next leg and then you suddenly find wind fifteen, twenty knots. Must be something wrong so you backtrack. Check all your doings and in the meantime still maintaining the same course. And eventually you think well the only thing to do is to go back to ten knots. So, you re-plot for ten knots. Come to the next turning point as you thought, make your turn and say ,with four legs ultimately, you’ll probably be getting, or getting readings of thirty knots, thirty five knots. Can’t be right. Must go back to flight plan. And at the end of the flight when you should have been back at Charlottetown if you’d sort of ignored the truth you were probably fifty, sixty nautical miles northeast of Charlottetown. Right over the main Gulf of St Lawrence. Well as I say when we came out of the cinema there was this forty five knot wind blowing. When we got back to the camp they said, ‘Course 96 report to briefing room first light.’ And they made sure that we were there at first light because they sent people around to get us up. And we were given a very quick course on how to conduct line square searches. And every available aircraft and staff pilot who were available flew us so that we did these searches over the Gulf looking for missing aircraft. Never did see any. I believe that just after we’d finished the course. Twenty weeks. And being on our way back that they found one empty dinghy out there. And I believe that in actual fact they found the wreckage of one on the coast of Labrador which is just across the other side. How many went missing we were never told. But I did find out from the archives of the Empire Air Training Scheme in Brandon near Winnipeg — that I think three crews were absolutely lost. But anyway, we measured that and as I say we came back to this country. We did, before they would turn us lose on anything, they said, ‘Right you’ve got your navigation brevets in Canada. From Charlottetown. Over the Maritimes. Where one road or one railway is a land mark. Now, you may find flying over Britain and the continent a bit different. So, before you do anything we’re going to give you three weeks intensive training on map reading.’ And we were actually posted to a lovely little station just outside Carlisle. I think it was called Longton, where we were piled in the back seats of Tiger Moths. They only had about eight of these Tigers with staff pilots there. So, as I say it was quite a small grass field and we did quite a lot of map reading and target spotting over the Midlands and the Lake District. And that was good fun actually. On one occasion we, I actually flew with a pilot. One of the staff pilots who was a little more daring than others and it was a very windy day and he said, ‘I fancy doing a trip. Do you want to come?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ So, we took off and we were plotting our way around and the biggest rift that I calculated on that was fifty four degrees. And when we came over the airfield boundary at three hundred feet we actually landed ten feet inside the fence because the wind speed was virtually the approach speed of the Tiger. Yeah. That was quite interesting that was. Anyway, from there we went to AFU, Advanced Flying Unit and that was at Wigtown in Scotland. Halfway between Dumfries and Stranraer and that was on Ansons. Again, that was just generally getting used to flying over Britain. And then from AFU of course, straight on to OTU at Upper Heyford where we flew in Oxfords and we, more or less, we were [pause] our technique with Gee was a Gee fix every three minutes. DR after six. Six minutes. New course and again every three minutes. Every three minutes. And this was anything up to four hours. Which of course is the sort of navigation that we would be doing with the Mossies at night. And we also, we weren’t introduced to Loran until OTU and the snag there you see was the Gee would only be useful up to the Continent’s coast line. After that there was so much interference by the Germans. So much, what we called grass, that you couldn’t pick out the signal so we had to use LORAN which, curiously enough, they never did jam. It worked quite well and it worked out well over the Atlantic. Coastal command used it quite considerably. And as I say the last OTU trip we demolished a Mossie by going through the hedge and into trees on the way back with a single engine landing. Then, as I say, I’d only just started a tour before VE Day came. Just after VE Day the first thing we did were Cook’s Tours. We had two Mosquitos from each of the stations. 8 Group stations. Took off at one hour intervals during the day so that there was a route which went across northern Germany, the Ruhr valley then out more or less through the Danish border and back to home. And this was ostensibly to give us a picture of the damage which Bomber Command had done but if you bear in mind that these flights were every hour through daylight I reckon that the idea was a standing patrol just to tell the Germans we were still about. Now, at the risk of boring you here we were told that these Cook’s Tours would be a thousand feet. That’s a thousand feet above ground level obviously but George sort of took it upon himself to fly at a thousand feet. Now, the Ruhr valley is above sea level. About three hundred feet if I remember rightly. So, we were probably about seven hundred feet. Now, as I say the place was absolute rubble with steel structures. Just odd bits sticking up. Odd bits of concrete. Just like Hiroshima. And the Germans had bulldozed roads through this rubble so that they could get their troops. We were stooging along one of these roads. Sort of just ambling along at about a hundred and ninety knots. And we could see in the distance a chap ambling along with his stick and he heard us and he turned around. He recognised what we were and shook his stick at us. So, George said, ‘I’ll teach him a lesson.’ So, he sort of pulled up into a stalled turn and as he did he opened the bomb doors. Now on the B16 the bomb doors are big. Four thousand pound bomb size and from the front you can’t miss them. And this chappy, you could see, he sort of looked. Up went the stick and he was legging it down the road like mad, much to our amusement. Yeah. When it comes to low level flying though as I say our height was fifteen, twenty five feet. Clipping the grass almost. And on one occasion we were going across Wales, went down the valley and then up the other side. Big wide valley. Half way up this valley was a farmhouse and we were climbing up the slope and there was a woman pegging washing out. She obviously heard us and we could see her looking. Saw we were there and then she decided to look down and she could see us coming up and she legged it through this farmhouse. We could see her. And she ran out the other side as went over the top. Again, in those days our sense of humour was different to what it is now and as you probably [unclear] it was quite interesting. But fortunately for us — just after this 608 Squadron, the one we were on, was disbanded and we were posted to another 8 Group unit. 692 Squadron at Gransden Lodge which is just to the west of Cambridge and we, in actual fact, did one or two trips there and 692 was disbanded which meant that we were redundant aircrew. So we were sent first of all up to Blyton in Lincolnshire for re-selection board and I eventually finished up, although I’d opted for something different, on a flight mechanic engines course at Hereford. Credenhill. But there I learned all of the intricacies of the Merlin and the Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp engine. And having finished that course I was posted to 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham in Norfolk. Langham, now, I believe is famous for its glass factory there which I think is on the old airfield where I became the flight tractor driver. And that’s what I stayed until I was demobbed. Now, they [pause] I could have opted to sign on with the air force. Not necessarily guaranteeing that I would fly as a navigator again but there was a pretty good chance. But in those days you had to do twenty one years for a pension which would have taken me from the age of nineteen when I joined up to forty. But you were too old to fly at thirty two. Now, as you probably appreciate after being grounded you don’t know what sort of job you’re going to get. General dogsbody usually. And the thought of eight years as dogsbody to get a pension didn’t appeal to me so I came out and I eventually finished up at teacher training college where I spent five years with a secondary mod trying to teach maths and science. And at the end of five years — because in the period between school and joining the air force I’d become an electrical trainee at the local power station so I’d got quite a good working knowledge of turbines, pumps and all that. Generators and so on. A good mechanical background. I managed to get a job as a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the local technical college on a one term temporary contract in 1954 and I was like old Bill in World War One. Unless you can find a better hole there’s no point in moving. And I eventually spent twenty eight years there and retired. Well, took voluntary redundancy in ‘82. And I’ve been a pensioner ever since. I think the Ministry of Education are busy making little plasticine models of me and sticking pins in because I’m quite expensive. Yeah. But that is that sad story of my life.
CB: Fascinating. Thank you very much. I suggest we have a break now.
RM: Yes.
CB: So, I’ll turn off.
[recording paused]
CB: So. Ken. We’ve just talked about Ken O’Dell being at Edith Weston near North Luffenham because he was also trained in America.
RM: Yeah. Now, if he was trained in America he wouldn’t necessarily be going to Grosse Ile because –
CB: He didn’t. No.
RM: He went under what was known as the Arnold Scheme and that would be usually around about Texas or somewhere like that. To one of the flying schools there with the American army and he would become an army pilot. Now, of course there would be some relevance there because the first part of their course would be for fighter aircraft. Fighter training. Single seat fighters. And this is probably where he went.
CB: Yes.
RM: Under the Arnold Scheme.
CB: His instructors were civilians.
RM: Yes. Yeah. And that did apply but not with the navy. The navy were all genuine navy types. For example, the chief petty officer who took charge of all the morning parades and what not — he had been in the American navy for eighteen years and he’d never seen the sea. Mind you, the Great Lakes, when it does get rough you do get thirty foot waves on it so it’s as good as the sea. And we can prove that because a group of us Fleet Air Arm and RAF types we hired one of these paddle steamers one Saturday night to go out on the lakes. You know, for an outing. This chief petty officer came with us. Now, admittedly it was a bit choppy but he spent all evening draped over the rail. Much to our delight. Much to our delight. Yes. Yes, he was not popular. The Americans for instance. The American navy have a very queer discipline which didn’t go with us. Very rigid. Whereas with the RAF you get a certain amount of latitude and humour. But not the Americans and for any minor misdemeanour the sort of punishment you got you went before the mast, you see and you were awarded this punishment. And that was known as square eating. Have you ever come across it?
Other: No.
RM: Ever heard of it?
Other: No.
CB: Never.
RM: Right. Now, at mealtimes because you were condemned to this you had to do a square eating. In other words [pause] that. That was square eating.
CB: So, lifting it up vertically and then pulling it, eating it horizontally.
RM: Yes. Horizontally. To eat.
CB: Into your mouth. With both knife and fork.
RM: Yes. Oh no. Usually with the fork because the Americans of course chop up their stuff.
CB: Of course. Yes.
RM: With a fork even. But if you did use the knife.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It had to be like. Now can you imagine anything more stupid? And that was the sort of typical sort of thing that you got. But the Americans, bless them, they weathered it so — good luck.
CB: Tell us about the accommodation. What did that they have?
RM: Oh, the accommodation was superb. These twin, these blocks that you see in the films. Two story blocks. Everything beautifully polished. Wood floors. The interesting thing is they had showers there and toilets. You had a single bed which was made up every morning. You know. Bullshit. And the interesting thing was the actual loos. Now, the loos were just like ordinary loos except there were no partitions [laughs] yeah. And we thought that strange. But they say you can get used to anything and it is so. Yeah.
CB: How many people? Were they, were you in dormitories?
RM: It was a dormitory. Yes. It would be about twenty — probably twenty four people. Twenty four cadets. Two sides. Twelves. Just like the dormitories you see on the films. The wartime films of the Americans. The American army of course were a bit more spartan than the navy. But everything was nice. The food though was good. Rather like the curate’s egg though. Good in parts. And you had very strange things like plum jelly with chopped celery in it and that would be a vegetable. Things like that. It was ingenious. Let’s put it that way. As I say, the discipline was very very good. If you heard the trumpet sound for the flag being lowered at the end of the day wherever you were and whatever you were doing you had to stand to attention, face the flag and salute whilst the trumpet blew. We did, in fact, there was one big navy battle that was conducted whilst I was there and I can’t for the life of me think what it was. I think it was Leyte Gulf but I’m not sure. On this particular occasion all flying stopped on this day. We were all assembled in one of the big hangars. All RAF. And five hundred of us all together. Fleet Air Arm types. All the officers there. The band. And the flags and banners and what not and we were given a very very stirring speech by the commanding officer on how good the American navy was and how brave they were and what a victory this had been. All this, that and the other. If you’d listened carefully at the back particularly with Royal Navy types, Fleet Air Arm types a series of raspberries. Yeah. Then having gone through all this marshall music we were all marched out again and continued. I remember that quite clearly.
CB: What time did you get up in the morning?
RM: Usually around about half six.
CB: And breakfast?
RM: Breakfast. Yes. You wandered over to the mess. That was one thing you didn’t parade for. You only paraded after breakfast. You know.
CB: Yeah. And what time did you go to breakfast?
RM: Usually around about half seven.
CB: And then you went for your parade. What time?
RM: About quarter past eight or so. From there disbursed to the actual flying field which — now this was quite interesting in actual fact. The main airfield at Grosse Ile didn’t have runways but it did have a huge circular patch of concrete about six hundred yards diameter so that you could land in any direction and you could land two or three aircraft side by side. Now, that was clear. All you had was hangars in the distance. And then beyond the hangars there was one vertical radio mast which was clearly visible. Now, that radio mast subtended a fraction of one degree from the field. So, you think nobody’s going to hit it. Wrong. Just before we got there some character flying solo. Chop. And the mast came down and hit the, fortunately the American seamen’s mess not the British mess and did grievous bodily damage to several of them. But nobody shed a tear from the British contingent for that. As you can gather I’m not terribly impressed with the Americans.
CB: Were the Americans training their people in similar numbers to yours or what was the situation?
RM: I don’t know what the navy situation was because this was the American navy base. And it was only RAF and Royal Navy.
CB: Oh was it? Training.
RM: Training.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. So, they must have had other bases. Probably in California and on the coast and so on. But we didn’t know anything about those and didn’t want to know anything about those.
CB: No. Tell us a bit more about these people who were first generation Americans. What sort of people were they and what was their attitude to the war?
RM: The one. My instructor and I only came across him really was a chappy who was a naturalised Dutchman with the rather curious name of Nieswander. Not spelt exactly as we’d pronounce it. N I E S W A N D E R. Now, he was, as a say, a naturalised Dutchman. First generation. And about six feet two, physique rather like a beanpole and of course like all of these other characters he had a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to be a fighter pilot. He was going to be a fighter pilot. Bugger this job sort of business. And he was, I suppose, fairly interested in teaching people to fly but you could sense and even it was expressed sort of rather obliquely to you by him that he wanted to go into the war zone but he was not allowed to.
CB: No.
RM: All of the pilots and this, of course, I think this also applied to the army pilots that they were not allowed to go into the warzone so they could either go on to training but curiously enough — transport. Cargo and all that sort of thing. And some of these cargo flights actually took them into the war zone. But they weren’t equipped with guns and what not so they couldn’t fight. Yeah.
CB: And what ranks were these people who were your instructors?
RM: Oh, practically all lieutenants. Junior grade.
CB: Right.
RM: Which would be equivalent to our POs. Pilot officers. Now, the interesting thing was there that in the RAF of course with commissioned and non-commissioned ranks you got upgrading in rank at given periods of time with aircrew and what not. Not so with the Americans. And I daresay that I was there, what, 1943. I daresay that in 1945 when the war finished he would still be a lieutenant. General. GJ. Lieutenant junior grade.
CB: And what rank were you at that time? An LAC were you?
RM: An LAC yes. Got, oh — Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where I got y brevet. The Wings Parade there. Now that was in July. And we were all drawn up. We’d finished our training satisfactorily and I was assigned the rank of sergeant. We did get about three or four commissions straight away but mostly sergeant rank. And we were drawn up 2.30 in the afternoon on the parade ground there at Charlottetown and we were addressed by the Governor General of Prince Edward Island after we’d been given our brevets. And this gentleman to us, at that time, we estimated his age at eighty. He was old anyway. He was quite short and apparently, he was deaf. His aide de camp was an army type, lieutenant, who stood about six feet two and this Governor General was making a speech which lasted in total about fifteen minutes. And in the speech, he congratulated us on being — becoming pilots with the Royal Air Force. Went on in this vein and his aide de camp, his aid, was nudging him. Almost to tell him. You know, we could see it happening but he ploughed on and at the end of it the aide de camp had a real chat with him. Now we were standing to attention. Blazing sun.
CB: July. Yes.
RM: And by this time our tunics were turning black with perspiration. And what does the silly old bugger do? Once he’d been told that we were navigators he went through exactly the same speech and substituted the word navigators.
CB: Yes.
RM: Now, if any of us had had a gun we’d have shot him. Without any doubt. He was definitely not the flavour of the month. I had, I have never ever been so hot because of course the Canadians had the lightweight summer gear. Khaki. Like the Americans. What did we have? Blue serge. We never had any and those blue serge uniforms were quite warm. Yeah. We could have shot him quite cheerfully.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But –
CB: Now the Canadians. Excuse me. I’m going to stop a mo.
[Recording paused]
CB: So, let’s just talk about the Canadians.
RM: The Canadians except for the French Canadians in Quebec were charming people. Now, as far as the Americans are concerned — individually very charming. We had individual hospitality through their USOs where you go and have a weekend with a family and so on. Superb hospitality. But when you get them in a group you’re on a different planet. Terry Thomas had the best description of a group of Americans. Remember his –?
Other: No. I remember him but not –
RM: Described an absolute shower. Yeah. And we found that afterwards actually when my first wife and I went across to the Continent in the early 60s. On the ferry we bumped into a bunch of Americans. Loud mouthed. Uncouth. But if you separated them they were quite charming to talk to. Now, the Canadians — much more reserved but just as genuine and I made quite a few friends there except at Charlottetown. Which — there’s a joke about Charlottetown actually which was very true at that time and the joke goes like — that in summer they raise potatoes and in winter children. Now, they still had prohibition there when we were there. That would be in late ’43, early ‘44. And apparently, prohibition stopped only perhaps twenty years ago so consequently the local inhabitants made their own alcoholic drinks by filtering off brasso and stuff like that or using rubbing alcohol. And the weekend before we got there. Two of the erks off the station because there were RAF aircrew there had purloined from the stores a quart of glycol, mixed it with orange juice and two of the local popsies and these two had a beano at the weekend. On the Monday morning the two popsies were dead, one of the erks was in sick quarters blind and the other one was rather non compos mentis. And both of them by the time we got there at the next weekend were on the boat home to Britain. That’s the sort of thing they got up to. As far as I can remember with Charlottetown you had large numbers of children who did the same sort of thing as a lot of the children you see where troops are concerned, and where the Americans are concerned. You know. Chocolates. They wanted chocolates and sweets or whatever and I was not impressed. Nothing would tempt me to go back there again even though it has changed apparently. The Maritimes, the western provinces, New Brunswick and so on — very sparsely populated and very uninterested. The only thing with them is trees, more trees and even more trees with roads, odd roads going through. Nah.
CB: Now when you were flying in Canada —
RM: Yeah.
CB: Were the instructors all Canadians? Were they British? What were they?
RM: A lot of them were RAF seconded over there. What happened, say take twin engine aircraft. You get the RAF sent over there — say to Estevan. He would do his course. The few people at the top of the course, the really high flyers would be retained.
CB: The creamies.
RM: As instructors and would do a full tour. Now, this has a bearing actually on George, my pilot and 8 Group. Now, all 8 Group Mossie pilots had to have at least a thousand hours on twin engines and the twin engines were mostly of course Oxfords which handled apparently rather like a Mossie. Either that or they were tour expired Lancasters. But you didn’t get anybody who just got his wings becoming a Mosquito pilot. Now that was just 8 Group. I don’t know what happened with 5 Group or 2 Group which were the other two groups that I remember being a part of Bomber Command. And it worked. It worked quite well. There were Canadian instructors obviously. RCAF. That is, if they hadn’t been posted to Britain which they were. I mean, they were coming over. When it comes to going over to Canada and the States I travelled on the Queen Elizabeth and it was like a mill pond and of course the Lizzie and the Mary were run by the Americans. They were handed over to the Americans and based at New York. And typically from New York they would come across to Glasgow — Greenock, with a division of American troops. Eighteen to twenty thousand troops on. They would unload them. They would then load returning Americans or returning Canadians and all RAF aircrew that were going for training. Royal Navy and so on. Roughly about five thousand at a time. And they would go to Halifax. At Halifax they would discharge and pick up a Canadian division. Bring those back and then you’d have aircrew that were going to the United States on the Arnold Scheme and people like that. Returning Americans going back to New York. And that’s how they did it. Now, going over there the actual mess deck had tables for twelve diners. Twelve people. And the cooks cooked in batches of twelve and you had, each day, one person went from the table to the mess. The cooks collected a tray say, of twelve steaks. Twelve chops. Now, when I say steaks — American steaks. Not British steaks which were postage stamp sized. But these were genuine. Genuine pork chops. Sausages. Those twelve helpings came to the table. Now, we got on to the QE in Greenock at midnight. The engines were running. There was a bit of vibration there. We sailed on the first tide which was about 6 o’clock in the morning. Just breaking day. We had to go to breakfast around about 7.30 again. And of course, we collected this tray. There were only four of us on the table. The other, sorry, six of us on the table. The other six were in their bunks seasick and we hadn’t even hit the Atlantic. Anyway, we got out onto the Atlantic and it was like a mill pond. There were six the first day, six missing the second day, four missing the third day. And we ate like lords. You know, God, we thought, you know, this is marvellous. We really ate. And these steaks and that were beautiful. Couldn’t grumble at that. And on the last morning they did manage to come down for breakfast before we disembarked. But one interesting thing. Each of us was given a job. The job that I was given was to go from the main stores with one of the American seamen to actually re-store or re-stock the canteens. Chocolate and so on. Which was quite a — not a very onerous job. Over and done with in an hour and that was it. But this American seaman I was with he said, ‘Have you got any currency you want changing?’ So I said, ‘Well, you’re not allowed to bring any currency out. Only ten pounds.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Supposing you got a bit more than that?’ He said, ‘Would you like it changed?’ He said. So I said, ‘Changed to what?’ He said, ‘Dollars. American.’ Now in 1939 the pound was worth four dollars American and four forty dollars.
CB: Canadian.
RM: To the Canadian. So you had this ten percent difference. So, I said, ‘Well, what’s your exchange rate?’ He said, ‘Well. For you it’ll be four dollars to the pound.’ So I said, ‘Well, it so happens,’ I said, ‘I’ve been a bit naughty. I’ve brought an extra tenner out. Twenty. I got twenty pounds changed into American dollars which, interestingly of course if you spent them in Canada which they were spendable — for ten dollars you’d pay the American ten dollars and get a dollar change. So, it worked out quite well. But the — I was talking to this seaman and I said, ‘We seem to be going at a fair old lick.’ I said, ‘What’s it doing?’ He said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t tell you.’ He said, ‘It’s more than my job’s worth.’ So, I said, ‘Go on. Nobody’s listening.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’re cruising at twenty nine knots.’ But one night I woke up. It was only about 2 o’clock in the morning and the boat, you could tell from the vibration that they’d definitely sort of upped the steam but when we went to breakfast we were back to the twenty nine knots. So, I said to this chap, I said, ‘What happened last night?’ ‘Nothing very much,’ he said. So I said, ‘Go on,’ ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ I said, ‘You were going a lot faster.’ I said, ‘What speed were you doing?’ He said, ‘Thirty four knots,’ he said, ‘There was a sub scare.’ Now, of course the two Queens were unescorted but imagine this. A six inch gun fore and aft on the bow and the stern. On the main deck — Bofors and three inch guns. On the deck above you had Oerlikon cannons.
CB: Twenty millimetre.
RM: Yeah. Twenty millimetre. And on the roof you actually had two rocket launchers. So, as far as aircraft were concerned which of course would be the main thing they would have given them a very rough time. And on the second day they tried the guns out, you know, just to make sure they were working. And they did them one side and then the other. A big rocket flare went up, parachute flare, and they all opened up on this and it was quite deafening. Except the big six inch guns. They didn’t. But everything else —
CB: How many days did it take to get over?
RM: Four days and eight hours. As I say we lived like lords. Coming back. We came back on one of the old Empress boats. It was the Empress of Japan but it had been re-named the Empress of Scotland for obviously patriotic reasons. That took six days and a half. And on that they only had two meals a day. Not three. Now, you can believe this or believe it not. Going out the canteen had run dry so there was nothing on the way back. The first morning, I forget exactly which way around it was but this was the sort of thing. We had smoked haddock for breakfast. The evening meal — wiener sausages. Then for a change wiener sausages for breakfast. Smoked haddock. And we had that for six days. There was no sweets. No fruit available. And we were not in a happy mood. And then when we got into Liverpool Bay the boat had to anchor there for twelve hours before we could dock. And we could see the shoreline. People moving about. There would be restaurants there. And there we were. Stuck. We were not a happy crew. Funnily enough when we came back we had a full customs inspection. And you were allowed two hundred cigarettes, a bottle of Scotch say, or a spirit and a bottle of wine. The chappy in front of me, customs bloke ‘cause we were all queuing up, customs said to the chap. ‘Any cigarettes?’ Expecting two hundreds. The chappy in front said, ‘Six hundred.’ The customs officer looked at him and he said, ‘Surely you mean two hundred?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got six hundred.’ ‘Oh. Well, that’ll bloody well cost you then.’ [laughs] I mean how thick can you get? Dear. Oh, it was. I must say that in spite of our, got one, two or three near squeaks I can look back on my war service and it’s quite interesting. Very varied. And I met some jolly nice people.
CB: How many of those did you keep in contact with after the war?
RM: I kept in contact with my pilot up to a time and then I lost contact with him. The chappy that I was at the Toronto manning depot with we split up but I traced him afterwards. After we’d become civilians. And found out that he’d actually joined the Toronto Metropolitan Police. Been with them for ten years and then he’d left there and joined the Pinkertons.
CB: Right. In America.
RM: Now, I always thought that the Pinkertons was a mythical organisation and I was put severely in my place when Gordon — eventually I went over there in ‘86 and stayed with him and his wife. When I said that I thought it was mythical he said, ‘We’re international,’ he said, ‘We’re interested, more or less in industrial espionage and things like that,’ he said. ‘We’re not interested in police work.’ So, I was really put in my place there. Yeah. And my pilot. He died. Had a heart attack around about 1982 if I remember rightly going on a fishing trip from Vancouver to Nanaimo. Vancouver Island. And he died on the ferry. Had a heart attack.
CB: Was he a Canadian?
RM: No. He was a Londoner. But he had gone across to the States — to Canada. Done his pilot training, become an instructor at Estevan and while he was there he met his wife who was the daughter of a newspaper owner in Langley which is just outside Vancouver. And of course as soon as he was demobbed he shot off to Canada because he got free passage there. Free ticket back home. Yeah.
CB: I’ll stop there for a bit. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re now re-starting after a short break and we’re with Dick Maywood and talking now about LMF.
RM: LMF. Lack of moral fibre which was a euphemistic way of referring to cowardice. It was not unknown with, particularly Bomber Command crews that some of them lost their nerve. In fact it’s a wonder that they didn’t all lost their nerves on heavies. Anyway, if they were accused and if they did succumb to lack of moral fibre they more or less had a courts martial and were almost certainly stripped of all rank.
CB: Physically.
RM: Yes. And –
CB: In front of — sorry go on –
RM: They were also treated to so many months in the Glasshouse which was at Sheffield. And everybody knew. All their crew knew of Sheffield and what it entailed. And fortunately, from my point of view I mean flying in the Mossie was safe. I mean not like the heavies. Because the chop rate even in 1944/45 on heavies was still quite considerable. But on Mossies I think it worked out, on 8 Group Mossies something like about half a percent. But one thing that did strike me with that ‘casue in the Mossie, being wood, low thermal conductivity. Radiators between the engines and the fuselage on both sides with air bleeds. Sealed cockpits. We flew in battle dress. No gloves. But we did have the escape boots just in case we had to escape. That was it. And we had our own sidearms. In my case a .38 revolver and it was only about three years ago it that it suddenly dawned on me. Twenty five thousand feet. If we had been hit and had had to bale out we would have been dead. Lack of oxygen and cold because, I mean, the outside air temperature was around about minus sixty. Minus seventy. And apparently about thirty six seconds of that and its good night nurse. It was a good job we didn’t think about that otherwise we might have gone LMF. But no, I have the utmost sympathy because one or two of my friends I know have had a very sticky patch. One I was with yesterday he is ex-Bomber Command Lanc and he was telling a friend that on one occasion they had a twenty millimetre shell, or, no, it couldn’t have been twenty millimetre. It must have been bigger than that. Go in to the Lanc and lodge in the ironmongery and not explode. And Dennis said that they sort of fished this thing out and dropped it out. And the chap who was talking to him and said, yeah, ‘Didn’t it explode then?’ And Dennis said words to the effect, ‘You’re rather stupid. If it had exploded I wouldn’t be here.’ How silly can people get? It’s, but it’s surprising really. When it comes to the old Mossie they talk about the wooden wonder. They’ve heard of the wooded wonder vaguely. No idea what it did really. Couldn’t be very interesting because it’s made of wood. And when you consider it was the first RAF multi role combat aircraft. You had your weather versions. You had the oboe versions. You had the PR Unit versions. Night fighter units. You had the Coastal Command Banff Wing which for a time had those Tsetse Mosquitoes with the 57 millimetre gun and I know one or two of the 247 Squadron even now who flew in those. And one in particular and he said that every time one of those guns went off you lost twenty knots airspeed with the recoil. But they didn’t last long because they found that a battery of eight rockets, sixty pound rockets was a better bet than the Tsetse gun. That was known as the Banff wing. There was 235 and 247 Squadrons in the Banff Wing. Anti-shipping. You had second TAF who flew fighter bombers. That’s guns, cannons and two bombs in each and that would probably be either on interdiction, road transport, railways and what not. You had the night intruders. Now, had the war had gone on longer it would have satisfied my sense of humour to get on night intruders. Because I loved the idea of sort of just dropping an odd bomb on the runway as they were about to land or shooting the buggers down. Pardon my broken English. Shooting them down. It would have appealed to my sense of humour but no. No. But there we are.
CB: So, you talked about flying at very low level.
RM: Yes.
CB: Tell to us a little more about that. I mean we’re talking about being low indeed.
RM: Yeah.
CB: However you look at it. And what about the excitement and the danger? Or the other way around.
RM: Well excitement. Yes. Particularly when we were doing low level bombing because I’d be prone in the bomb bay looking out the window. The Mark 14 bomb sight was useless because it was a high level job. And they hadn’t got a low level bombsight so it was all done with Mark 1 eyeballs. Now we had a bombing range out at Whittlesea. Well, just the other side of Whittlesea. And flying PPL I often had a scout around there to find out where the field was and I couldn’t find it but this was a big square field with the target in the centre. Now, literally to go we were flying over trees and down again. That was, we were sort of doing. The reason for it was quite simple. We were told the lower — you were going out to the Far East. A lot of jungle. Clearings. The lower you fly the less time you’ll be a target for ground gunners. So, the closer you can get to the treetops and the ground the safer you’ll be. And as I say, fortunately George was extremely good at low flying. Quite interesting actually. If we were bombing on east west run we’d come in low level and then at the end of the run we’d do a slow climb up to about fifteen hundred feet and then do a turn, reciprocal, back down to height again and bomb in the reverse direction and when we were on that run. On the east west run. Our turn to go reciprocal was always over Peterborough Town Bridge. It was super you know. Sort of down there. Yes. Home.
CB: Now, what about navigating when you’re — because your vista is very restricted when you’re flying low. So how did you deal with the navigation in that context?
RM: That was extremely difficult because as you say your range of vision is restricted so you have to absolutely do the correct thing. You look out and you see on the map where you are. The common mistake with map reading is to look at the map and say, ‘Oh that must be it,’ Because as you are probably well aware it is in actual fact, it’s very easy to do that. To convince yourself but I’ve been ferried over the last two or three years on what was known as Project Propeller. And I have, I’ve had a variety of pilots and I’ve flown as passenger with them and quite interestingly I am deadly against wind — so called wind turbines. And I cannot convince the BBC or the papers just what a waste of money they are. But these wind farms shown on air maps are extremely accurate.
CB: Are they?
RM: And they make bloody good landmarks because they actually show the arrangement of them.
CB: Oh right.
RM: So, you can see an arrangement and you can look at the map. Well we must be there. But of course in those days we didn’t. And again, you see, over the jungle as far as I can make out fortunately we were three weeks from going out to the east with the B35s.
CB: Oh.
RM: Which was the later version of the B16. We were within three weeks and VJ day came. Now I cannot stand hot humid weather. Whether it’s a throwback to the Wings Parade with the Governor General or not I do not know but I just cannot stand it and the thought of going out there. I would have been a grease spot.
CB: Yeah.
RM: A grease spot. Yeah.
CB: Just picking up on the navigation.
RM: But it would be with maps.
CB: Yes but —
RM: And dead reckoning.
CB: Yes. Well, I was going to say you use IPs. identification points. Would you put more of those in?
RM: Oh yes. You’d put them on the map because you’d probably, you’d be looking for them on the course. And as I say you take the ground on to the map not the map to the ground. Yeah.
CB: Now, going back to what you were talking about before we started taping you talked about the three mishaps that you had. So, what were they?
RM: Right. The first one was at Navigation School at Charlottetown and that was the fact that due to bad weather we missed the bad weather which was not forecast for the people who flew in our place. So, they got lost and I’m pretty sure that if we had flown on that night and we’d been given that Met forecast — winds light and variable which would take as zero for navigation purposes. It might have been a case of there but by the God go.
CB: Yes. You might also have vanished.
RM: Yes. Yes.
CB: Yeah. In the Great Lake.
RM: No. The Gulf of St Lawrence.
CB: Oh, in the Gulf of St Lawrence sorry. Ok. Next one.
RM: That was the first one.
CB: Ok.
RM: Then at OTU on the return trip from France where we had to land on one engine. They put us on the shortest runway with no wind and of course we vanished through the hedge with rather dire consequences to the Mossie. But — and then the third narrow squeak we had was of course the first time we took off with a four thousand pound live bomb and we got off ten knots slower than we should have done.
CB: Now, the Mossie could take four thousand pounds.
RM: Yes.
CB: But it was just in this particular case. What happened?
RM: Well, we, we — it took us longer to maintain, to achieve height than it should have done. Let’s put it that way. There was considerable chance that if the engines had even stuttered under those conditions on take-off we would have wiped out half of Downham Market.
CB: Was it because of the wind? You took off with the wind? Or what was it that caused it?
RM: Oh, we always took off in to wind.
CB: I know but in this particular case why was it?
RM: George didn’t say very much but I think the engines were not producing as much as he expected or the flaps were not right or something like that but I was too busy then actually during take-off. Getting all the charts ready and getting ready to —
CB: Where were you going that day?
RM: We were going to a place called Eggbeck which was one of the satellite airfields for Kiel. The Kiel Canal in Denmark. And it must have been the name of an airfield because I’ve looked and I’ve actually been in that area. Motored in that area for quite some distance and never found a place called Eggbeck. But it must have been one of the fields which was known as that. Yeah. And that was the one and only.
CB: Right.
RM: I’m afraid. Much to my annoyance. I was really savage when VE day came along, you know.
CB: Yeah. I imagine.
RM: I wanted to get my teeth into the Germans. But these things happen. But as I say afterwards we did the Cook’s Tour. We did quite a few what were known as Bullseyes. Have you come across those?
CB: Yes. Would you like to describe that?
RM: Yeah. Bullseyes were exactly the same conditions you would fly an actual operation. The only difference was at the target area e didn’t drop a bomb. We took a photograph to prove that we were there and we got there on time. Now, to give you an idea of the difference because as I say we had the Lancaster squadron. 635 Squadron at Downham Market and on bullseyes we both did the same route. Now, the Lancaster chaps would go in for their evening meal, would go to briefing and would be taking off as we were getting ready to go to the mess for our evening meal. Our evening meal, briefing, take off. Fly the same route. Be on target at the same time. On the way back we would land, be debriefed and would be having our breakfast when the Lancs were coming in. So two hour difference. Solely due to speed. But here I can give you something which is even more interesting. The American B17, the Flying Fortress. Nine crew. Fourteen guns. Four engines. Bomb load to Berlin four thousand pounds exactly. Out and return nine hours. Now, our Mossies on 608 Squadron, 692 and the other ones on the, what we called the Milk Run. The Berlin run. Out and return time four and a half hours. Now, admittedly with the American the B17s there was time taken up getting into formation and breaking formation on the way back but a lot of people don’t realise with the Americans in daylight, they couldn’t fly at night. They couldn’t navigate. They didn’t know how. They flew in daylight. Formation. Now, they carried a master navigator and a master bomber and I think usually two deputies just in case. They’re in formation. When the lead aircraft dropped his bombs they all dropped theirs. So, what they were doing in actual fact was carpet bombing. Admittedly they’d blanket the target. They would hit the target but that would be covering an area. Now, of course Bomber Command was specific on target markers. You bombed a target and all of the aircraft bombed that target. Not just one or two. So, as I say the American B17 crews were very brave. Much braver than I’d be, I think, under those circumstances to fly in daylight, level thirty thousand feet. Fighter fodder. No doubt. Yeah. Whereas the old Mossie. You couldn’t describe [pause] they did, the Germans did do us an honour. I think it was the Henschel 219 but I’m not sure where it was designed as a two engine night fighter specifically to counter Mosquitoes.
CB: Was it really?
RM: And that was the biggest compliment they could pay us. Then of course the jets came along and that was a different matter. They could sort of commit mayhem. But the interesting thing was that on the raid that we were doing on Eggbeck we were going out and near the target one of the aircraft called out, ‘Snappers,’ and that was the code name for the fact that 262s were about.
CB: Right.
RM: But nobody got lost that night. So –
CB: Messerschmitt 262 jets.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
RM: I mean they were serious opponents those. The 30 millimetre cannon for a start. I mean you don’t argue with those. Yeah.
CB: What was your operating speed?
RM: Our normal cruising airspeed out was around about two hundred and thirty knots. But that was indicated air speed. I mean at twenty five thousand feet the true airspeed would probably be somewhere in the region of three hundred knots which was covering the ground fairly well. If we went flat out the highest ground speed that I ever recorded was four hundred and ten miles an hours. And that was without trying.
CB: Now, what was the pattern of your operation? Because you were much faster than the Lancasters so you took off late but you had to be there first so how did you do that?
RM: Well the oboe aircraft had to be first. And then the Mosquitoes that carried additional marker bombs would be on target more or less at the same time and they would be listening to the oboe.
CB: Which was the master bomber.
RM: Or the ground. Master bomber. Advising them where to drop their new flares.
CB: Right.
RM: Whether they’d drop them short, long, east or west and so on to correct the error. And then of course by this time the main force Lancs and Mossies would be coming up on the scene but in a lot of cases with 8 Group the light night striking force actually operated on different targets. These targets were designed to be diversionary to lure night fighters away so that they didn’t know whether to go for the Lancs or us and in that case you’d probably get about anything from forty to fifty Mossies attacking quite a valuable target. Yeah.
CB: Now, you talked about twenty five thousand feet. Was that your normal operating height?
RM: Yes. That was normal.
CB: Or did it vary much?
RM: It didn’t vary much. Anything from twenty five — twenty eight thousand. The oboe Mossies, of course, they went up to thirty seven thousand feet.
CB: Oh did they. Right.
RM: Because of course the radio waves were line of sight and at that height they could just get the Ruhr. And of course, the Ruhr was the main complex of the German war industry and after, in ’43 onwards it was systematically demolished with oboe and and with precision bombing. Yeah. As I say the whole area was completely derelict. There was nothing there.
CB: What was your most abiding memory of your experience in the war?
RM: Well, it may sound silly to you but the thing which stuck in my throat more than anything was catching mumps. I mean it was so demeaning. Orchitis. Which, of course is the classic symptoms of that. It’s not pretty and it’s painful and to catch that at nineteen years of age. It was a chance complaint and that, that really stuck with me more than anything. Yes. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
CB: Yes.
RM: I suppose in a way what with that and the fact that I got washed off pilots case and the fact we hit bad weather at Nav School. With the time I lost. If it hadn’t been for that I might not be here.
CB: But you might have done all sorts of other things. Operationally.
RM: I might have finished up on heavies with a much heavier chop rate. Yeah.
CB: Just going back to the American training experience. In essence it was to train for flying boats so that –
RM: Yes.
CB: What aircraft did they have in that area working on the lake?
RM: They didn’t. The Grosse Ile was the aircraft carrier part of the navy.
CB: Ah right.
RM: And once they’d completed that you then went down to Pensacola.
CB: Right.
RM: And the Gulf of Florida and converted on to Catalinas.
CB: Right.
RM: Now the interesting thing is that for many years RAF — the RAF Museum at Cosford encapsulated my wartime flying experience very very neatly. They had Canso, which was a Canadian built Catalina because it had a retractable undercarriage whereas the Catalina didn’t. And alongside it was a Mossie B35 which, to all intents and purposes, apart from an astro dome was the same, exactly the same as our B16s. And these were side by side. Now, nobody knew about me there so it was purely chance but I gather now that last year that they actually split them up into two different hangars. Which is a shame.
CB: Changing the subject a bit —
RM: Yes.
CB: A Mosquito is very cramped inside. Or is it? For the navigator? And how did you operate?
RM: Well, I was a lot slimmer than I am now. The amount of room we had. My seat was about that wide. In front of me we had a dashboard with a dropdown table for the maps and what not on. We were actually sitting on the main spar and the pilot’s seat was just in front of the main spar. Now, just here —
CB: In front of you.
RM: In front of me and to the left hand side would be the console with the undercarriage and flaps.
CB: Throttles.
RM: And throttles. For the pilot. Right handed. In front of me, underneath the dashboard would be the opening which I would go through to get into the bomb bay.
CB: Go in legs first.
RM: No. Head first.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. Because you had to be facing the front. Yeah. You could only go in head first. There was no room to do a hundred and eighty.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It’s very cosy. The pilot –he had roughly the same amount of room and all the gubbins in front of him and to his left. We were both slimmer and we could both get in. Now, the B, the bomber versions — you went in underneath. It had a floor entry. Like the prototype in South Mimms Museum. The fighter bomber versions had a side exit or entry and that was just aft of the propellers. About nine to twelve inches behind the propellers and in the event of getting out you had to go in. Go out head first facing the rear to make sure you didn’t get mixed up and come out as mincemeat. Yeah. They had a ladder which stowed in the aircraft that you climbed up. You went in facing backwards and then turned around. The pilot went in first, of course to get into his seat. Now, he would have a seat type parachute. We had just the harness and we had the parachute stowed down by the right hand side so that if we had to get out we could just pick it up, clip it on and out.
CB: So, if you had to get out are you going to go out through the canopy or through the floor?
RM: Oh you didn’t go out through the canopy except as we did when we crash landed at [unclear] when it was stationary. If you went out through the canopy you had a jolly good chance of being chopped in half with the rudder. So, you always went out the escape hatch at the bottom. Yes. It would be a very foolhardy thing to go out the top. Yeah. That was quite interesting now you’ve come to mention it. When we were at Gransden Lodge we were doing, going up on an air test actually and we got up to about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden there was a hell of a bang and a lot of rubbish and what not flying about and George said, ‘Get ready to jump.’ So, I sort of put the parachute on and he said, ‘Oh.’ he said, ‘The aircraft seems to be flying all right,’ he said, ‘I thought the front had gone in.’ You know, the nose, with all the rubbish and what not. We were looking around. Couldn’t see anything wrong. And then we looked up and we found that the top hatch had blown off. And of course the vacuum, the sort of [unclear] effect too place all the rubbish in the bomb bay had come out and he said just said, just tried it and he said, ‘The chances are it’s probably altered the stalling speed a bit.’ So instead of carrying on with the climb he played about and found out exactly how the aircraft handled at a hundred and twenty knots which was the normal approach speed and he found it was probably about a hundred and thirty knots with the extra drag. And so, we aborted and came back and landed. There was quite a hullabaloo, you know. ‘How come you lost that hatch?’ Well, one of those things. Yeah. They didn’t charge us for it [laughs] 664B. I take it you know what 664B was.
CB: No. Tell us. Tell us for the tape.
RM: 664B action was to re-claim from your wages.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The money for whatever it was that you’d lost, stolen or strayed. Yeah. A lot of people for instance lost their wristwatches and went on 664B because you could get a Rolex for around about six pounds ten shillings. The Longines. I had actually had a Longines wristwatch. We were issued with watches. I don’t know whether you realise this or not but we had, were equipped with aircrew watches and we had to rate them and adjust them so that they lost no more or gained no more than two seconds a day. Now, that stems from the vital necessity of having exact time to the second when you’re doing astro shots. Because one second in time can mean about a quarter of a mile in position. And for instance Coastal Command types. The Catalinas and the old Flying Boats.
CB: The Sunderlands.
RM: The Sunderland. If they were returning and they had very poor radio signals. Very few Astra shots. And could not be absolutely certain of their landfall because of the astro shots and wrong time. A few seconds. I mean a quarter of a mile could mean the difference between getting into a fjord or a bay or hitting the land at the side of it. So it was vitally important that you got the time down to a second. It wouldn’t have mattered now because course cards. So accurate. But of course with the spring you actually had to adjust them. Now, the first watch I had we were equipped with these at navigation school at Charlottetown. The first one I had was a Waltham. An American which was quite well thought of. But I just could not get it closer than about five seconds no matter how I tried. And after two weeks they said, ‘Right. That’s no use.’ So, I took it back and got a Longines and within a week I’d got that sorted out and it worked quite well. And kept that right the way through and stupidly I handed that in when I was demobbed. Because as I said 664B I could have had it for six pounds fifty. Six pounds.
CB: Even in those days.
RM: Another thing. Another thing too which I bitterly resent or regret handing in was my sunglasses. Now, they were Ray-Ban. Green. They were superb for sun. want a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses now. Ninety quid. Ridiculous isn’t it? They would have cost about three pounds.
Other: Yeah.
RM: On 664B.
CB: You talked about astro shots. You talked about astro shots so where would you put the sextant. Could you hang it on the —?
RM: Yes, you hung it in the astro dome.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Now, you can turn this off because I’m going to be in trouble.
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 Dick Maywood
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
2015-11-09
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMaywoodRM151109
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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02:21:54 audio recording
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Herefordshire
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Scotland--Aberdeenshire
England--Leicestershire
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Goderich
Alberta
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island--Charlottetown
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Ontario--Belleville
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
1945-05-08
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Description
An account of the resource
Dick was born in Peterborough and volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941. He was called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground in 1942. Dick went to No. 6 Initial Training Wing at Aberystwyth. He then went to RAF Desford, flying Tiger Moths and was selected for further pilot training. After Heaton Park, Dick volunteered for the flying boat course and flew on Stearman N254s at Grosse Isle in the United States. He returned to Canada, initially to Windsor where he was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. He was sent to Goderich and then Mountain View to the bombing and gunnery school on Mark 2 Ansons and the Bolingbroke. He gained his brevet at Navigation School in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island.
Dick underwent intensive map training on his return and went to the Advanced Flying Unit in Wigtown on Ansons. He proceeded to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Upper Heyford on Oxfords, where he was introduced to Loran. He had just started a tour as a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator before VE Day. He describes the aircraft, Oboe, and the pattern of their operations. Dick participated in Cook’s Tours to the Ruhr Valley. He was in 608 Squadron but it was disbanded and so he was posted to 692 Squadron, another Group 8 unit, at RAF Gransden Lodge. This was also disbanded, and Dick was sent to RAF Blyton for a re-selection board where he was sent on a flight mechanic engines course at RAF Credenhill. He was posted to the 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham until he was demobilised.
608 Squadron
692 Squadron
8 Group
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
B-17
Beaufighter
Bolingbroke
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Gee
Initial Training Wing
Master Bomber
Me 262
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Oxford
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Banff
RAF Blyton
RAF Credenhill
RAF Desford
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Upper Heyford
sanitation
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1023/11394/AMatherR171229.1.mp3
ed4181335c0bd7c49d58457351627ba9
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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Mather, Ronald
R Mather
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Ron Mather (1817930 Royal Air Force), and five photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 49 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ron Mather and Darren Middleton and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-12-29
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Mather, R
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 29th of December 2017 and we’re in Nottingham talking to Ron Mather who was a signaller about his life and times. So, Ron what’s the earliest recollections you have of your life?
RM: I went to Radford Boulevard Junior School and we had quite a few, it was a good school and it was a very good educational school. And I went from there to Forster Street and then from Forster Street my mother and father moved to Aspley. And I went from there to William Crane School. I passed my eleven plus and I could have gone to Secondary School but my mother said no. From there I went to [pause] when I left school at fourteen I went to a pawnbroker and I was a couple of years as a pawnbroker’s assistant and I used to write about a thousand pledges on a Monday with people coming in from the Windmill Road which was a poor selection, section of Nottingham and it ruined my handwriting I’ve no doubt [laughs] And then from there my mother got me a job at the butcher’s shop opposite where we lived in Aspley and I stayed there as a butcher until I volunteered for the RAF.
CB: What did your father do as a job?
RM: He was a baker.
CB: So why —
RM: A good baker.
CB: Why —
RM: One of the best in Nottingham.
CB: Right. So why didn’t you go into his business?
RM: Because my mother got me a job. In them days your mother, your mother told you what you was doing. And it was rather convenient because I was here and the butcher’s shop was just across the road. So as I say I stayed there until I volunteered for the RAF.
CB: So, what prompted you to volunteer for the RAF?
RM: I volunteered for the RAF because my brother volunteered for the RAF and he became a wireless operator air gunner. And unfortunately, he was killed after, on his second op.
CB: So what was he like?
RM: Took some, he was brilliant. He was very very very clever. When he left school he went to work at Pickford’s and they made him the manager after he’d only been there for four months.
CB: And he was —
RM: So that was the sort of thing I had to, I’m not saying that I am not intelligent because I am reasonably intelligent but nothing like he was. And then of course I joined the RAF at eighteen in April the 5th 1943.
CB: Ok. And where was that?
RM: I joined at St Johns Wood in London.
CB: And what happened when you were there? What did you do?
RM: Well, it was just a reception area and from there I went to ITW for training. Military training and discipline. Learning the discipline and then from there I went to Radio School in Yatesbury in Wiltshire.
CB: So what sort of things did you do in your initial training?
RM: Morse Code. Fortunately, I was very good at Morse Code and I could do up to thirty words a minute. So I thought that when I was, when I left the RAF I was going to take that as a job but I didn’t. I went as a baker.
CB: Ok.
RM: So I got to work with my father [laughs]
CB: Yeah.
RM: When I left the RAF.
CB: Secure job.
RM: Yeah. I went to, he was canteen manager at Chilwell COD and he worked the canteen. He was in charge of the canteen. So I became the baker.
CB: Right.
RM: And I went to radio, to the school, the University at Nottingham and got my City and Guilds in Food Technology.
CB: Right.
RM: And became a manager.
CB: Right.
RM: Later on.
CB: So back to your early days in the RAF.
RM: Yeah.
CB: You did your initial training at ITW.
RM: Yes. And then —
CB: And you did Morse Code there. What other things would you have to do?
RM: Well, it was more or less discipline than anything and keep getting you fit. It’s teaching you discipline and fitness which I was pretty, well because I played football [laughs] so I was pretty fit anyway and of course I wanted to be as good as my brother which I suppose I succeeded in the end. Better than him because I managed to survive.
CB: What influence do you think your brother had on you?
RM: Pardon?
CB: What influence did your brother have on you?
RM: He had a hell of an influence. I wanted to be him. He was very, as I said he was very clever so I wanted to be clever. I wasn’t. I was nowhere near as clever as him but I wanted to be like him. Yeah. So of course, when he got killed, when he went in the RAF I volunteered and I was lucky enough to get in the RAF because they wanted them at that time, aircrew at that time because that’s when they really started to build up the Bomber Command.
CB: So what, when was he killed on his second op? When was that?
RM: Just a minute.
[pause]
CB: I’ll just pause for a mo.
[recording paused]
RM: Same as —
CB: I think I think an interesting point if I may just go back to it is this. You said that both your brother and you —
RM: Yeah.
CB: Passed the eleven plus.
RM: Yeah.
CB: But your mother didn’t want you to go on to further —
RM: No. No. We didn’t go to either.
CB: The next level of education. Why was that?
RM: Because she wanted the money. She was a, she was like that I’m afraid. Very much so.
CB: So how did your brother and you feel about not going on to the next level of education?
RM: Not very happy actually. Especially him. But then again he went to Pickford’s and within a month —
CB: This is the removals people.
RM: Yeah, it’s a removals firm. They realised how clever he was and they made him a manager at about he must have been only about sixteen.
CB: Yeah. Right.
RM: I wasn’t as lucky [laughs] I was a butcher. But nevertheless I went to and got City and Guilds in Food Technology.
CB: Later on.
RM: And art as well.
CB: Yeah. So just exploring the family situation here your father was a baker.
RM: Correct.
CB: He had his own business from baking?
RM: No. No.
CB: He worked for other people.
RM: He worked, he went as in charge of the bakery at the COD Chilwell.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then when I came out the RAF the firm wanted to send me out of Nottingham as a baker.
CB: Yes.
RM: So my dad turned around to me and he said, ‘You come and work for me. With me in Chilwell COD.’ So I went and I worked seven and half years in Chilwell COD and while I was there as I say I went to Technical College and Art College and got my degrees.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then I became manager of the firms.
CB: And what did COD stand for? Ordnance depot was it?
RM: Yes. Ordnance. Civilian Ordnance Depot.
CB: Ordnance Depot. Right. So the family house. What was that? Was it detached?
RM: Similar to this.
CB: In a terrace or —
RM: No. Similar to this.
CB: Similar to this. Semi-detached.
RM: Yes. It was, it’s just up the road. Not far up the road.
CB: Right.
RM: It was a similar house to that.
CB: To the ones over there.
RM: You see that.
CB: With tile hung on the walls.
RM: Yeah. It’s like this, yeah.
CB: What, what sort of facilities did you have in the house?
RM: Everything.
CB: Except?
RM: Everything.
CB: Was the toilet in the house or in the garden?
RM: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
CB: It was.
RM: We had everything there.
CB: So you had everything there.
RM: Don’t forget now we’re talking about 1946.
CB: I’m talking about, I’m talking about when you were at school.
RM: When I was at school we lived in a terrace house and the toilet was outside. And it was the gasman cometh. And as I said we had the radio on the floor and the family that lived just near the bottom of us was Sillitoe. The writer. And as I say I went to Radford Boulevard. Then I went to [unclear] Street then from there I went up to this one.
CB: To the one at the top of the road.
RM: Right.
CB: You said the radio was on the floor.
RM: In the basin.
CB: Yes. So why was that?
RM: Because it was 1924.
CB: Right.
RM: There weren’t such a thing as radios then. This [laughs] this was a radio with a —
CB: Sort of —
RM: What do you call it? A battery.
CB: A crystal set.
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: And the effect of putting it in a steel basin was to amplify the sound.
RM: Yeah. And we sat around it.
CB: Right.
RM: That was the way it went.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Not for long of course because then of course the old-fashioned wireless came out.
CB: Ok. So that’s really useful for background. Thank you very much. We’ve talked about you joining the RAF. You went to the Radio School at Yatesbury.
RM: Yeah.
CB: What did you, what was the training at Yatesbury? What did it comprise?
RM: Well, they taught us the Morse Code. Taught us to operate that thing.
CB: Which is a radio.
RM: The 1155.
CB: Radio. Yes.
RM: And the 1154 which was a transmitter. And discipline of course to a certain extent. Not a lot. It was, it was quite good as well. I really enjoyed Radio School.
CB: What were the other people like who were with you?
RM: Very good. They were all, we were all mates. Of course, when I passed out at Radio School I became a sergeant then.
CB: While you were training you were what rank?
RM: Cadet. I just had that. Same as that photograph of Reg.
CB: Yes.
RM: With a white —
CB: So a forage cap with a white flash.
RM: I had a forage cap with a white thing in it that showed that I was trainee aircrew.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah. It was marvellous when I went to the Palais de Dance. I could get some women I’ll tell you. Being a short ass it didn’t help matters but being aircrew in Nottingham it was something because they had Syerston and we had an awful lot of airmen come in to Nottingham in the 1940s.
CB: So what, the code for short ass —
RM: Yeah.
CB: Means vertically challenged.
RM: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.
CB: In other words you were shorter than some people.
RM: Five foot one I was when I went into the RAF.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Five foot one. And I’ve got a grandson that’s six foot five. How does that happen?
CB: Obviously been fed well in his early years. So, at the Radio School then what sort of opportunities were they telling you you would have next? So you were being trained as aircrew.
RM: We were being trained by Morse Code and how to signal, how to take signals, how to transmit, how to receive and how to look after, to a certain extent the 1155 and the 1154.
CB: We’ve got one of those in the room with us. That’s why we raised it.
RM: I know you have. I saw it. It’s in the [toilet]. Yeah.
CB: Just for the tape. This is the early days of radar so to what extent did you touch on that? H2S I’m thinking of particularly.
RM: We, I’m just trying to think when we started Monica. That didn’t come ‘til later.
CB: So Monica is a tail warning radar receiver.
RM: Yeah. That’s right. And that was at OTU.
CB: Right.
RM: So we didn’t get that at Yatesbury because it wasn’t even invented.
CB: No. So you come to the end of the course at Yatesbury which was how long roughly?
RM: Well [pause] I joined in April the 5th. I went to what’s the name and then I went there so it must be about six months I would say.
CB: Yeah. And what was the passing out parade like?
RM: We didn’t have one. It was Christmas. We never had a passing out parade. But we did get the brevet.
CB: So who put the brevet on?
RM: And now we were the first ones to have the S brevet because normally all they had was the sparks on here and an AG badge.
CB: Yes.
RM: But I didn’t take firing a —
CB: You didn’t do gunnery at all.
RM: I didn’t do gunnery at all.
CB: No.
RM: Because they’d started this radar system.
CB: And it —
RM: And they knew we was going to come in to that and have to operate the radar system [unclear]
CB: They expanded the syllabus.
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: They expanded the syllabus to take on these other items.
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right. Ok. So how did, how did your course end in terms of putting the brevet on to your tunic? Was there any formalised putting that on or —
RM: No.
CB: You sewed it on yourself.
RM: I came in. We came back from a meal and it was underneath. You know how you used to have your blankets?
CB: Yeah.
RM: All set out.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
RM: Then your hat. My brevet was underneath my hat. That’s how I got it.
CB: Right.
RM: Because of course it was Boxing, it was Christmas Day.
CB: Just coming up. Yeah.
RM: Yeah. So they were more bothered about Christmas than that.
CB: Of course. What about your sergeant’s stripes? Were they also there?
RM: That was there. They were with it.
CB: In the pile as well.
RM: That’s it. That’s how I got. I didn’t get presented.
CB: Right.
RM: We didn’t have a passing out parade.
CB: No.
RM: No.
CB: And at what stage did you know your posting? Did they tell you there or did they get it later?
RM: No. No. They said I could go on four weeks leave [pause] on a fortnights leave, I beg your pardon and we would be notified as to where I was going.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then we got notification that I was going to Bishops Court in Northern Ireland and that I had to make my way up to Lossiemouth in Scotland. And you can imagine a eighteen and a half year old man going up there on his own. Somewhere he’d never even been and my, let’s put it this way. My travels were limited. I went to Skegness perhaps once or twice. So it was quite, and then to go across to Ireland and then getting in Ireland and then going to Bishops Court where I hadn’t even got a clue where it was. But it, was an education.
CB: What did you mean about Lossiemouth because that’s in Scotland so how did you come to go there?
RM: Well, we had to. I had to go up to Lossiemouth in Scotland.
CB: First.
RM: Go over to Belfast on the ferry. And then from the ferry at Belfast go to Bishops Court.
CB: Ok. I think, ok, we need to clarify the geography on that. Yeah. Right. Ok. So Bishops Court. What were you doing there? It’s an OTU.
RM: That’s when we started flying.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And in Proctors I think.
CB: Oh right. How did you feel?
RM: Eh?
CB: How did you feel about that?
RM: Marvellous. I did. Thought it was marvellous. But then there’s only one trouble is that at that time there was trouble with the, the Irish factions.
CB: Yeah. The IRA.
RM: The IRA.
CB: Yeah.
RM: So there was places we couldn’t go in.
CB: Right.
RM: Because if you went in there we’d get beat up.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Because there was, and that’s how it was at that time.
CB: So what was the nearest big town to Bishops Court?
RM: Oh, God. What was it?
CB: Was it up by Londonderry?
RM: Oh dear. I don’t, I can’t remember the name.
CB: Ok.
RM: But we used to go in the pub and I had, my mate was six foot two so he’d go in first. And the bar was long like that. RAF, ordinary Irish and IRA. This is true. And before the night was finished one lot was fighting the other. Sometimes it was the IRA and the RAF or sometimes it was the IRA and their own people but that’s how it was in them days believe it or not.
CB: And you kept going back because you liked the action.
RM: Oh of course. He used to carry me on his shoulders [laughs] He was a Scotsman. MacMillan his name was.
CB: Macmillan. Yeah.
RM: As I say he was about six foot two he was, and I was five foot one don’t forget [laughs] And then we went from there to, when I was at Bishops Court we was flying over the Atlantic. No. Over the Irish Sea. We were in a Proctor which is a smaller, a real small —
CB: A single engine. Yeah. Gipsy engine.
RM: And all of a sudden we had anti-aircraft fire all around us and we looked down and there was the Queen Mary and we was getting too near it so they fired at us. Yeah. When you come to think of it it’s, you can understand why because I mean they didn’t have anything did they?
CB: No.
RM: They had a couple of guns on one end of it.
CB: Yeah. Well, it relied on speed.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And that’s if you got too near. They didn’t aim at you.
CB: Right.
RM: But they did fire at, fire and let you know you’re too close.
CB: The shells were bursting.
RM: But of course, there would be thousand of troops in that. In the Queen Mary.
CB: Right. So Bishops Court was flying these small Proctors.
RM: Smaller aircraft. Yeah.
CB: And from there —?
RM: We went to Husbands Bosworth.
CB: Yeah.
RM: In Warwickshire. And there we went in to the Blenheims.
CB: Right.
RM: No. Anson.
CB: Right.
RM: Ansons. Not Blenheims. Ansons. Two. Two engines.
CB: Small. Yeah.
RM: From there we learned to send signals.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And receive signals.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Then you had to pass out there. I managed to pass out first there.
CB: Right. So did they have, did you go to a bigger aircraft there or did you have to move somewhere else?
RM: As I say went to a two engine Anson.
CB: No. No. From the Anson.
RM: From the Anson we went to —
CB: Did you go to Wellingtons there or did you go to somewhere else?
RM: No. We went to Wellingtons.
CB: Yes. Was it on that?
RM: Husbands Bosworth.
CB: It was at the same place.
RM: No. It was a subsidiary of Husbands Bosworth.
CB: Right.
RM: You know. There was two.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then we went on to Wellingtons where we got straight into the 1154 and the 1155.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then from the Wellingtons we went to Newark to go on to the Stirling.
CB: To Winthorpe.
RM: And then from Stirlings we went to Number 5 Radio School at Syerston to go from Stirlings to the Lancaster.
CB: Yes. On the Lancaster Finishing School.
RM: It was —
CB: How did you feel about that?
RM: Fantastic. It was marvellous. It was. It was. I went, I can always remember the first time when they had these air shows. The starting of the air shows. So I went. I was probably fifty at the time and I thought God how big that is and yet I hadn’t thought it was big when I was flying in it.
CB: Yeah. Years later you’re talking about.
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So from the Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston.
RM: We went to a place. To Scampton —
CB: Right.
RM: For a fortnight while we was designated our squadrons.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then it was either 44 Squadron which was a Rhodesian squadron or 49 Squadron which was the one I went to at a place called, was it Snitterfield?
CB: Right.
RM: I can’t remember. Then we went there and within two days we was on ops.
CB: So going back to Winthorpe, sorry to Husbands Bosworth you’re then crewing up. So you’ve done your specialist training in the smaller planes.
RM: Oh yes.
CB: The Anson.
RM: I beg your pardon. At Husbands Bosworth we crewed up.
CB: Right.
RM: Right.
CB: So how did that work?
RM: This fella, I was operating a set, you know and this fella walks in. He said, ‘Would you like to belong to my crew?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Righto. Ok.’ And that’s how, that’s how it happened. And then later on of course we met the whole crew.
CB: So he was the pilot was he? The captain.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Who came in.
RM: Yes. He was the pilot. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Willie. Willie.
CB: Yeah. Right. So he, Willie Williams, yeah he had —
RM: Jay. Jay. His name. His name must have been John I think but we called him Willie. Everybody called him Willie. So —
CB: And he was a flight lieutenant at that time.
RM: He was. Yeah.
CB: So he’d already been around a bit.
RM: No. I think —
CB: Was he?
RM: No. He was, he was a flying officer.
CB: Right.
RM: He got his flight lieutenant when we was actually on the squadron at Fiskerton.
CB: Right. Ok. At Fiskerton.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Right.
RM: That’s where we started our ops. Fiskerton.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And from Fiskerton we went to Fulbeck. And then from Fulbeck we went to Syerston and I finished my tour at Syerston.
CB: Ok. So what did you do after your tour ended?
RM: They said, right, I went to a place near Stratford upon Avon as the station warrant officer which was the absolute it was, it was nothing because it’s only a little one. It was all German prisoners of war and things like that. So that’s what I was looking after. And I stayed there until I left.
CB: When? When were you demobbed?
RM: December. Everything [laughs] everything finished up in December.
CB: Fantastic.
RM: Yeah.
CB: ‘45 or ’46?
RM: December ’45. And I got three months leave.
CB: But it was your demob.
RM: That was my demob. I did sign on. I thought about signing on actually because they said that we’d be able to continue flying. But they’d got too many so I didn’t get it.
CB: Oh. You applied but they didn’t select you.
RM: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RM: I didn’t get it because there was too many lordships around and there was, that was definitely a fact. That if you were an ordinary person the officers got preference.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Naturally. Because that was the RAF in the old days wasn’t it? And I suppose it still is now. I don’t know.
CB: So you were the SWO at the prisoner of war camp. Just to explain that.
RM: Yeah.
CB: SWO is the Station Warrant Officer.
RM: Station warrant officer. Yeah.
CB: At what point had you been appointed to warrant officer?
RM: Every year I got higher.
CB: Yeah. It was a staged process.
RM: It was a staged process. I went from sergeant. And then sergeant to flight sergeant. And then from flight sergeant to warrant officer.
CB: Right.
RM: And then while I was at [pause] SWO.
CB: Yeah. At Stratford upon Avon.
RM: I became a sergeant. They demoted me to sergeant and I finished up as a sergeant.
CB: Because it was —
RM: That was the way they did it.
CB: In practise as far as they were concerned you were acting warrant officer.
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: But you were working —
RM: I went from station warrant officer to looking after these POWs.
CB: Yeah.
RM: That’s when I was demobbed.
CB: Demoted. Yeah.
RM: Demoted.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Because they said I couldn’t have that authority. No.
CB: Was this prison, a German prisoner of war camp, or a prisoner of war camp of Germans on an airfield or was it somewhere separate from that?
RM: Oh yeah. It was on an airfield. Yeah.
CB: At Marston was it? Or —
RM: No. I can’t remember what it was called. I know it was about four miles outside Stratford on Avon.
CB: Ok. Well, we’ll come to it.
RM: Because we used to go to Stratford a lot.
CB: Yeah. Ok. So, let’s go back to your operations.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So, your first operation. Where, what was that? Was that an exciting experience?
RM: My first one was Handorf. Handorf. And then I know where the second one was because it was a place called Karlsruhe which was in right the north. In Norway I think it was. Karlsruhe, it was.
CB: In Germany.
RM: Yeah. It’s in Germany but right at the top.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And the battlefield, the German battlefield.
CB: Battleships.
RM: The ships were there so we went and bombed it.
CB: That was Kiel wasn’t it?
RM: No. Karlsruhe.
CB: Yes, but —
RM: Then we went, my next one was Kaiser, no Kaiserslautern. That was up north of Germany as well. We got picked out because it was a good crew. And then from there I went to Düren. Then Gravenhorst. The Urft Dam. That was after the, it was a similar sort of thing as the Dambusters.
CB: Yeah.
RM: [laughs] things. It didn’t get the publicity of that, of course.
CB: No.
RM: And then I went to Munich. That was nine hours.
CB: What was Munich like?
RM: We went three times to Munich. It was one hell of a long trip and coming back from one, and this is true I phoned the skipper up. I said, ‘Skipper, where are we?’ He said, ‘We’re just over the Alps.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve just seen someone walk past my turret.’ And I swear to this day that I saw somebody walk by my, I do really.
CB: Whereabouts?
RM: In the Alps. We were flying over the Alps.
CB: No, yeah but where were they walking?
RM: They just walked past the window.
CB: Right.
RM: So that was fanciful I suppose. And that was Munich. Gravenhorst. I went there again. I think I only went to the what’s the name where all the things were. What did they used to call it? Where all the munitions and that was made. The area.
CB: What? The Ruhr?
RM: Yeah.
CB: The Ruhr.
RM: I only went to the Ruhr about, I went to [Gardena]
CB: In Italy.
RM: Yeah. Yeah. That was in Italy. They were all nine hour trips, you know.
CB: So, going. Taking the Italian trips did you do Spezia as well?
RM: Pardon?
CB: Did you do Spezia? Spezia or, anyway going to Italy.
RM: Yeah.
CB: You had to fly through the Alps did you?
RM: Yeah.
CB: So what was —
RM: We went over —
CB: What was that like?
RM: We went over Switzerland.
CB: Yes. Oh, you did.
RM: It was tiring. I can tell you that. And I went to Karlsruhe again. Ladbergen. That was in the Ruhr again isn’t it? Yeah. And then the one.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Dresden.
CB: Go on.
RM: I went to Dresden. I have never seen [pause] we went to a place called Rositz the day after which was an oil refinery a hundred miles from Dresden and we could see the flames of Dresden a hundred miles away. We were told to drop the bombs indiscriminately. Well, that’s where I, that’s what the bomb aimer said. So that’s what we did,
CB: As a crew when you were on the Dresden raid how did you actually handle that yourselves? What did you think about it on that day?
RM: Not very much. Not a lot. It’s a thousand bomber raid don’t forget. So you’d got aircraft all over and you could see some of them being hit and all you could see was the aeroplane just exploding in a ball of flame.
CB: Right.
RM: And that was nine people gone. Or seven people gone. So we made our run and then my skipper [pause] went down to five hundred feet and went down so low he said because people, fighters couldn’t follow us down there. So he knew what he was doing. He was a clever man. A clever man. We got, we got attacked three times. We got shot at three times but we were lucky. We thought we had a direct hit on one but you couldn’t, you couldn’t tell really. But the next one, not Berlin, I beg your pardon. Lutzendorf. Where is it? Where’s [pause]. Berlin. No. Where is it? Oh, it must be the last one. When they crossed the Rhine we bombed the German on the other side. And as we were going around to settle up all of a sudden de de de and the bullets, I’m glad I was only five foot because the bullets went all the way across.
CB: Through the fuselage.
RM: One of the chaps was testing his guns. He didn’t test them. He bloody well fired them and it went straight across my head and just missed my head. So that’s why I consider I’m a lucky person.
CB: So are you talking about somebody else’s gunner or your gunner?
RM: No. Somebody else’s gunner.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Checking his guns. But where was I? Wesel. Wesel.
CB: Ok.
RM: That was where that was. Wessel. Mid-upper gunner [unclear] [laughs] So we must have had a what’s the name because of course he finished his tour early.
CB: What do you mean happened?
RM: Pardon?
CB: What do you mean? Must have had a what?
RM: Well, he only did about twenty with us.
CB: And then he left.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So are we talking about LMF?
RM: Oh no. No. No. No. No [pause] No. No.
CB: What did you mean then about the mid-upper gunner?
RM: I think you did thirty the first one and twenty the second one. I’m not sure.
CB: Oh right. So he came to the end of his tour.
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
RM: And he disappeared. So I got a phone call from my mum. She said, ‘Do you know Crawshaw is here?’ And he come and stopped at our house for a month. He was like that. He was really. [unclear]
CB: He’d run out of women had he?
RM: Oh boy, did he have some women. [pause] That’s funny.
CB: Ron’s looking through the squadron record for these ops. What was your last op then?
RM: The 4th of May. Now that’s, that’s wrong because what’s the name as I said we was just coming back from a training flight and Mr Williams nearly hit the bank so they stopped him and I went. And a Mr Philipson Stow [talking to someone outside room] and we went to a crew called Philipson Stow and I’m sure I took a couple or three with him.
CB: Three ops with them.
RM: Yeah. But it was only just going across and bombing German troops.
CB: Right.
RM: That was all.
CB: So what are we talking about. This was early ’45 was it?
RM: Yeah. Early ’45.
CB: Right. And daylight or in the dark?
RM: Both.
CB: Right. We’ll just pause there for a mo.
[recording paused]
Other: Did you get on with him?
RM: He was good looking and knew it but he could just go and see a woman and he’d be with her.
CB: This is Crawshaw.
RM: Yeah.
CB: A lothario you’d say.
RM: A real lothario. Yeah.
Other: He had plenty of that.
RM: Yeah. Different to me [laughs]
CB: Yeah [laughs] Yeah. So how did the other crew feel about that?
RM: Oh.
CB: Envious?
RM: Let’s put it this way. The officers were the officers and the sergeants were the sergeants. My mid-upper —
CB: What, your rear gunner? Anderson.
RM: I’m just trying to, the bomb aimer.
CB: Oh yes.
RM: Came as a sergeant.
CB: Bert Crowther.
RM: He got offered his commission.
CB: Right.
RM: So he went with, the navigator was a flying officer and so the officers were the officers. We didn’t mix.
CB: Not even socially.
RM: No.
CB: At all.
RM: No. No.
CB: So what was your main entertainment when you were off duty?
RM: Women [laughs]
CB: On the airfield?
RM: Well, we just did the normal things that we did. You know what I mean is the sergeants were altogether.
CB: In the sergeant’s mess.
RM: Yeah. In the sergeant’s mess. And we used to have. When I come to think of it I don’t drink now. We used to have a five star special which was whisky, rum and three more shorts all together.
CB: In a pint glass.
RM: And the beer was Dublin. What was it called? Guinness.
CB: Guinness. Right.
RM: So we had that and a Guinness and we’d have about five of them. Well, who knows what tomorrow was bringing? We didn’t, we never knew whether we was going back did we? And we had some nice girlfriends as well [laughs] But we had a hell of a life. I had a good life in the RAF. Yeah.
CB: What I was looking for was where the socialising took place because it was limited on the airfield.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So did you —
RM: No. Didn’t.
CB: Did they have dances at all on the airfield?
RM: Oh, we had dances.
CB: But not drinking.
RM: In the sergeant’s mess and the officer’s mess. We didn’t mix.
CB: Right.
RM: The officers didn’t mix.
CB: So —
RM: We, when we got in the crew, when we got together we was one. Soon as we got in that aircraft we were one. The whole lot. When they left the air force, the aircraft we had our own lives. My skipper as I say owned a whisky distillery in Southern Ireland and he’d got a ruddy great car and he had his girlfriend come from Ireland and stop in Newark. So all he was bothered about was whipping off in his car and that. I had a motorbike. I remember that. But that was the way it was. But we had a good life. I think so. I had, I had a magnificent time in the RAF.
CB: And going out to the local pubs was there enough beer there or did they run out sometimes?
RM: I only drank in the sergeant’s mess. When we went out all I had was a couple of pints. That was all. But when we were in the sergeant’s mess because we knew they could stagger back across into our billet which were just across the parade ground. Yes. I did have a wonderful time really. I got hit in the back of the head with a flare from a verey pistol.
CB: When? Oh, on a night out.
RM: In Syerston. Yeah. I was walking to the sergeant’s mess and this chap fired this. Fired it and it hit me on the back of the head.
CB: No lasting damage.
RM: I don’t know [laughs]. My wife said yes there was lasting damage.
CB: Made your head rattle didn’t it?
RM: Oh yes. It did. It did. Yes. I had a good life really. I did really.
CB: So going to the operations.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Then you said Munich was really difficult going nine hours three times.
RM: Yeah. Yeah. Because we had to go over the Alps and come back.
CB: So you took the route over the Alps did you?
RM: Over the Alps to the top of Italy and then come back.
CB: Oh, did you really?
RM: Yeah. Yeah. That was the worst one.
CB: What was the most difficult? Why was it bad?
RM: Then again they were only our squadron. It wasn’t like the others. Like Dresden and what’s the name because they were thousand bomber raids so you got the aircraft all around you there whereas when you went to Dresden err what’s the name?
CB: Munich.
RM: Munich. You was on your own. Just the squadron.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So flying through the mountains was that the most difficult? Is that what you meant was made them difficult?
RM: Yeah. And the fact that it was so long. Don’t forget when you sit up there in a confined space for about, I think it was seven and a half hours or nine hours. Something like that. It might say it in there. How long it took.
CB: Yeah. The Munich one is nine hours isn’t it?
RM: Yeah.
CB: Because of the distance.
RM: Yeah.
CB: And then you didn’t —
RM: And all you do is just call the crew every so often to see. I had to call the crew to see whether they were alright. And then of course towards the latter end we had what was called [pause] fitted to the aircraft.
CB: Monica?
RM: Monica.
CB: Or H2S?
RM: H2S. We had H2S anyway.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then we had Monica.
CB: Right.
RM: Halfway through our tour.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Where I directed the, I had a screen in front of me.
CB: Right.
RM: And I directed, and I directed the tail bomber.
CB: Yeah.
RM: As to where he was and I was telling him I’d looked at the screen and I told him where the fighter was.
CB: So it wasn’t just showing there was a fighter behind. You could actually see.
RM: Oh, I could see it from the —
CB: Whether it left, right or up and down.
RM: Yeah. And they were, and I guided. I guided the, but not the mid-upper turret.
CB: No.
RM: Curiously enough.
CB: So, and did he engage those planes or did he ever shoot at them?
RM: Oh yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah. Yes. Yes.
CB: And how many did he shoot down?
RM: Well, we think one. We think one definite.
CB: Because it disappeared from your screen did it?
RM: Yeah. Yeah. We think we hit, definitely but don’t forget my rear gunner was a pilot.
CB: Oh, was he? And what had happened to him?
RM: Nothing. They made the pilot, you know when Monica first came out they thought that rear gunners weren’t intelligent enough. This is the RAF. I mean, thought they weren’t intelligent so they took these twelve pilots and made them rear gunners. And my, my rear gunner was a pilot. So when the people saw him they’d said, ‘But you’ve got a pilot. What’s the pilot?’ I said, ‘That’s where we back the plane up.’ And they believed it. It’s true. It’s true. He was a short ass the same as me.
CB: Yeah. How did he feel about being the rear gunner?
RM: Pardon?
CB: How did he feel as a pilot about having that role?
RM: Aye, it was something we took for granted. Everything we did was for a purpose.
CB: Yeah.
RM: We had a, we had a good bonhomie if you understand for the crew. Everybody. As I say we called the skipper Willie.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Never —
CB: Flight lieutenant —
RM: Squadron leader.
CB: Yeah.
RM: As he became squadron leader.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And he became flight commander later on. But he was Willie to us and the other officers, the bomb aimer and I we were friends. He was there but of course when he first came on the crew he was a sergeant and then he got his commission while he was flying with us and we used to go out together. But the officers kept themselves to themselves in their amusement because of course we couldn’t go in the officer’s mess. We could go in the sergeant’s mess but —
CB: So as a group of sergeants although there was flight sergeant and you became a warrant officer how did you feel about the crew from a social point of view working separately?
RM: We didn’t consider it separate. What we, we had two lives. We had flying and we had leisure and they were two separate parts. Two separate items if you understand. We went our way and they went, as soon as we finished flying and that they went their way. That was the officer’s mess and we went to the sergeant’s mess. That was the way but there was, there was no disagreement. We never had an argument. We had a fantastic attitude. All of us. You know, we were really tremendous. But [laughs] as regards you were saying what we thought about the RAF I thought that the RAF was officers and airmen. There was just that was it. You were either an officer or you were an airman and they didn’t mix. We mixed in the plane because we weren’t officer and airman. We were skipper and wireless operator if you understand. That’s how we had a fantastic feeling in the crew.
CB: And on the professional side you’re talking about then to what extent was there an interchangeability of skills in the aircraft? In other words could the bomb aimer fly the aeroplane?
RM: Yes. And the, the bomb aimer and the engineer could fly the plane. They were the only two that had lessons if you like.
CB: They’d had training on flying before.
RM: They could take over the flying.
CB: Right.
RM: The rest of us, we couldn’t because we were lower crew.
CB: And the navigator?
RM: He didn’t. No. Because his job was getting us there and getting us back which he was very, he was brilliant at. The way he’d ask me. I used to take positionals. Tell him where we was as regards from the RAF, from the radio I’d get a fix as to where we were and that would confirm where he was on his maps.
CB: Right.
RM: Yes. Well as regards to doing our job in the aircraft we were different if you understand what I mean.
CB: Completely different approach. Yeah.
RM: Yeah. You did.
CB: In your direction finding your position gaining position. What was the process of finding out the, making the fix? In other words this was —
RM: I used to phone a certain number and I’d press my key and they’d take a direction finding on me and then tell me where we were and then I’d tell the what’s the name. And then I had that job and I also later on I had, this is why they made signallers because of the —
CB: Monica.
RM: Monica.
CB: And H2S.
RM: Yeah. Yeah, and I had that as well.
CB: And did you operate the H2S or was that not used a lot?
RM: No. That was —
CB: The mapping radar effectively.
RM: Yeah. I told them that. I informed this, the navigator exactly where we were and what but yeah. I did.
CB: So when you said you phoned them up you would, how would you actually get the position because you’d normally have radio silence would you not?
RM: It was radio silence over the, over the bomb.
CB: Right.
RM: When we was, you had radio silence as soon as you reached the target.
CB: On the run in.
RM: That was it.
CB: The run in to the target.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But then again you see as soon as you come out the skipper had because he, he was a bugger. Straight down. I don’t know whether the others did. That was what they did. What we did. Straight down. And he’d be flying over rooftops more or less.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then the fighters couldn’t see you because they couldn’t make an attack.
CB: But you said on one occasion you had three attacks.
RM: Oh yeah. Oh yes. We did.
CB: How was, how did that help?
RM: That was coming back.
CB: Yes.
RM: Going back we had to be in the bomber stream.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And you’d have what fifty or sixty fighters come and attack the bomber stream because we was all going together. I mean we’d have planes what fifty, fifty feet each side.
CB: In the daylight.
RM: Yeah. In daylight. Well, we did —
CB: At night you had a bigger spacing wouldn’t you?
RM: Quite a few daylight ops.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah. But when we went to Munich and Dresden and the oil refineries and when we bombed the German battlefleet we bombed them. We got, the skipper got a DFC I think for getting a direct hit on the Prince Eugen.
CB: Prinz Eugen. Prinz Eugen.
RM: In Gdynia harbour.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But as I say the crew was the crew. When you went in to that aircraft you were, I was the wireless operator.
CB: Right.
RM: If you can understand what [pause] when we came out it was different again because we didn’t mix.
CB: No.
RM: Because he’d go to the officer’s mess and I’d go to the sergeant’s mess. And I suppose we had the same reaction with the ground crew.
CB: So tell us about the ground crew. How did you liaise with them?
RM: We had a fantastic ground crew. We had the same ground crew for the whole of our tour and Nobby Smith he was the man in charge and he was just the job. He was really. He knew what we wanted and he made sure that everything was right. We never went in that aircraft, never without it wasn’t perfect.
CB: And who was the person or people who liaised with Nobby about after the flight and beforehand?
RM: Well —
CB: Would you all —
RM: Before. Before the flight.
CB: Yeah.
RM: You’d go in to a room and you’d be told exactly where you were going.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And everything. And then when you came back you went in and you was interviewed by the personnel.
CB: The intelligence officer.
RM: Telling you, you know what had happened. You know, whether anything had happened at that.
TCB: So each member of the crew would be debriefed.
RM: Oh yes.
CB: By the intelligence officer.
RM: By yeah. Their own individual officer.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But you were told en masse where you were going. But when you came back you just went to your section commander.
CB: So after the squadron briefing what did the individual crews do?
RM: Went their way. We went for a good piss up or [laughs]
CB: No. After the briefing, before take-off what was the procedure?
RM: Oh, straight to, straight to your aircraft.
CB: Right. But the —
RM: Oh yes.
CB: The navigator would have to draw in his information wouldn’t he?
RM: Well, we went to our own. We had the big briefing.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Telling us. They showed us where we were going.
CB: Yeah.
RM: What was, what was happening. Whether it was a squadron raid or whether it was a thousand bomber or a two fifty. I hated thousand bomber raids.
CB: Why?
RM: It was too dangerous.
CB: What? For collision?
RM: There were some real stupid buggers they used to come right up over us and touch the wing some of them. I suppose I was frightened really. But as I say coming back we went our own way [laughs] straight down and he weren’t with the cruise or anything. He weren’t with the stream. He was a good man.
CB: So you had the major briefing. Then you dispersed.
RM: Yeah.
CB: To your specialities.
RM: Yes, to your specials and then —
CB: From a signallers point of view what was the next briefing for you before going to the aircraft after the main briefing? Was it to do with radar?
RM: No.
CB: Signals or —
RM: No. No.
CB: What was your briefing before you went.
RM: No. No. We’d already had that in the afternoon.
CB: Right.
RM: Then we went to the briefing.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then we went to the aircraft.
CB: Ok. So this chap, Nobby Smith.
RM: Nobby Clark.
CB: Nobby Clark.
RM: I don’t know why all Clarks are Nobbies.
CB: Yeah.
RM: They are.
CB: So he, would he be receiving effectively handing over the aircraft to the captain or to the navigator, to the engineer or what?
RM: Well, we had a crew. I think [pause] I think there was four in our aircraft.
CB: Well, there were seven crew.
RM: We had the same. We went straight to the same place.
CB: You had four ground crew.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RM: We had about four or five ground crew and each one was, he’d come up and tell me. Especially when we went on the whatever you called it. Monica.
CB: Yes.
RM: He’d come in and just see whether it was operating.
CB: Whether it was working alright.
RM: Yeah. But no. Just walked in. Went in and took off. Come back. Went to bed and that was it. That was your life.
CB: Did the crew have any rituals before getting on board?
RM: No.
CB: Like watering the —
RM: No. No.
CB: Stinging nettles.
RM: No. Not really. We each one had a knife down there for protection which when you come to think of it is a load of crap really.
CB: Did you carry a firearm?
RM: We wouldn’t have been able to use it. We didn’t carry firearms. No.
CB: No.
RM: Then you, every so often you’d go for training. You’d go to these bloody great where every station had this what’s the name of water? What did you call them? For the firemen.
CB: Oh yes.
RM: You know.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And you’d go in there and jump in.
CB: This was your dinghy drill was it?
RM: Yeah. Dinghy drill. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah. We’d do that.
CB: Then you had to dry it all out.
RM: Hey?
CB: Then you had to dry it out.
RM: No. No. No. No. No. No. It was there permanent.
CB: No, you [pause] for firefighters.
RM: For the firefighters.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah, but instead of going to the nearest park they always took us in there because they said the water in the ocean isn’t warmed [laughs] So we had to go in, do our saving kits, you know.
CB: Life saving yeah.
RM: Have a —
CB: The dinghy drill.
RM: Test as to how we were going on.
CB: So you come to the end of the tour.
RM: Yeah.
CB: How many ops had you done at the end of the tour?
RM: I think it was twenty nine or thirty one because I didn’t think we went when we was on OTU we went dropping leaflets in France and some people counted that as an op. I didn’t. So I would say I did twenty nine. A full tour.
CB: After you left the RAF or the squadron, the crew disbanded. To what extent did you get together afterwards?
RM: We didn’t.
CB: Ever?
RM: No. I [pause] I tell a lie. The bomb aimer, Bert Crann and I we went together for about three or four years contact with one another and we went on holiday to Brighton and the Isle of Wight together but he got married so, and I didn’t so I went to Ireland of course.
CB: Never looked —
RM: So that was that.
CB: Never looked back.
RM: No. No, I didn’t.
CB: So you’ve no idea what happened to Crawshaw after his huge expenditure of energy —
RM: Oh God, no. No.
CB: On women.
RM: He’s probably in jail [laughs] He had his own way of looking at life.
CB: Yeah.
RM: He if he wanted to do anything he did it. He says, ‘I might be dead tomorrow.’ But none of the other crew had that attitude curiously enough but he did.
CB: One other thing we touched on earlier to what extent were you aware of the LMF system? Lacking moral fibre.
RM: We had one or two. Especially when we got to the OTU with the, when we went on to Wellingtons. I don’t know. I wasn’t frightened. No. I was never frightened.
CB: No.
RM: No. Mind you lets get this to understand I haven’t a lot of personal feelings. If you understand what I mean.
CB: Sure.
RM: I’m odd altered to a certain extent and I was then.
CB: Resilient.
RM: It was probably that that taught me to be that way and my son is exactly the same. My daughter isn’t though. She takes after my wife. She can’t understand why I haven’t got feelings sort of business.
CB: So you said you knew one or two. These were in other crews are they you’re talking about?
RM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So what was the situation and what did they do about it?
RM: Well, you had a feeling. You knew that they were frightened so you tried to buoy them up you know. Say, ‘Oh you’re alright. We’re coming back. You’ve been there haven’t you? You’ve come back. So there you go.’ Yeah. And they’d say to me, they’d turn around and say, ‘But Jim didn’t.’ So that was their attitude. They had different attitudes. You could, you can’t say really. I found that with my crew. They were all like me. Hadn’t got an awful lot of feelings. I don’t know whether I’m saying this wrong or not. I have got feelings of course but I’m not as [pause] the same as a lot of others.
CB: No.
RM: I look at a thing basically.
CB: So all these other ones were any of them removed?
RM: Oh yes.
CB: As a result. They were —
RM: Oh yes. You couldn’t afford to have people like that and you knew. Or I, you know, you knew instinctively they’re never going to make this and you did know because they were frightened. They just [pause] I never thought I was going to get killed. I knew I was always coming back. A load of bullshit really but still that was it. But then again you got some that, that my brother was the same. He was taciturn. The same as me. I don’t know.
CB: We’ll just stop there for a mo.
[recording paused]
RM: Right.
CB: Now we’re restarting.
RM: It was too heavy.
CB: Well —
RM: Too big. I was only five foot one.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Don’t forget. When I went in the RAF. That’s two inches lower than I am now. I’m five foot three.
CB: Right.
RM: So —
CB: You had a stretch.
RM: Yeah.
CB: We’re —
RM: What [laughs] did you say?
CB: We’re restarting because I had to change the batteries.
RM: Yeah. Ok.
CB: I’m not quite sure how far we’d got.
RM: Yeah.
CB: But if we could pick up on some of the things we talked about.
RM: Yeah.
CB: The first one is what rituals did the crew have before getting into the aircraft like the tail wheel.
RM: Not really. I used to pee on the wheel.
CB: Right. The tail wheel.
RM: What did the others do?
CB: I didn’t notice. They probably had their own idiosyncrasies.
RM: Yeah.
CB: But I didn’t notice them. The skipper. He wouldn’t. Everything had to be so with Willie. The only one thing is when he handed me the empty bloody bottle and I had to go down, walk down to the chute and drop, drop the empty bottle. So he’d drink the bottle whisky on a raid.
RM: Would he really?
CB: His own whisky.
CB: That he, yes, his distillery. This is the Irish skipper.
RM: Yeah.
CB: What age was he?
RM: Oh —
CB: Old meaning twenty five.
RM: Thirty.
CB: Thirty. Oh right.
RM: No. Don’t forget I was only eighteen.
CB: Yes. Had he been in the RAF —
RM: He had gone, no. Don’t forget he came from Southern Ireland.
CB: Yes.
RM: I don’t know how he got in the RAF I’m sure. But he came from Tullamore in Southern Ireland. I never did find out how he came to be —
CB: Well, there were a lot of Southern Irish people.
RM: A lot of Southern Irish. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: In the British forces and regiments that were —
RM: Yeah.
CB: Made up of Southern Irish people.
RM: He was taciturn.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Very quiet. Very.
CB: But professional.
RM: But professional. Oh, definitely professional. If he spoke to you he spoke to you as the skipper and you listened to what he said and you did what he said. I think probably that is why we were such a good crew because everybody was the same. If the, what’s the name was doing something that appertained to him so say the rear gunner was talking about what’s the name you listened to him. He was in charge and that’s, that’s how we were. And then of course when we get, ‘Have you seen your new air gunner?’ ‘No. Where is he?’ This little chap. He was about the same size as me. About five foot. He comes walking up the road. He’d got bloody —
CB: Pilot’s wings.
RM: Pilot’s wings on here. So that’s where we used to get a lot of fun out of saying this, ‘Oh, we’ve got a pilot both ends.’ Because if we want to go backwards he does it and they believed us. Believe it or not they believed us.
CB: Going back to the rituals.
RM: Yeah.
CB: People have done all sorts of different things and some would have a lucky charm.
RM: Oh yeah. They’d probably have their own rituals when they got to their areas but don’t forget you see they were up there.
CB: Up at the front you mean. Yeah. So the wireless operator —
RM: I was —
CB: Your position.
RM: I was about halfway down the boat.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Down the plane.
CB: Yes.
RM: In a little area with a what’s the name and two things there so I didn’t see what the majority of them were doing.
CB: No.
RM: I was similar to the rear gunner. The mid-upper gunner you know you’re isolated.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And all you have in contact is the headphones. The skipper was, ‘Righto, we’re ready.’ Or what’s the name or the navigator turning around, ‘Oh we’ve got, we’ve got to take a turn.’ So you knew that in the next minute the plane was going to turn right or left. So we did talk a lot on the, you weren’t supposed to really.
CB: On the intercom.
RM: No. But we did talk on the intercom.
CB: In the event of fighter attack then what would the pilot do?
RM: Well, the, all I did was just sit there because it was all to do with you kept quiet because you’d got the skipper talking to the rear gunner or the mid-upper gunner. He was in charge and that was it so I, and they did do a, ‘Corkscrew port. Go.’ And you know.
CB: So the corkscrew manoeuvre was —
RM: Yeah. Until later on when the Monica come on of course and I’d be telling. I’d be looking at the thing and telling the rear gunner —
CB: The screen.
RM: Where the opposing aircraft was coming. So that changed halfway through our tour really.
CB: And did they procedures change when it became clear that the German night fighter could lock on to Monica?
RM: Yeah.
CB: So what happened then?
RM: They still used it. And we, we had one what was called fish, fish —
CB: Fishpond.
RM: Fishpond. We had fishpond. That was it. A ruddy great thing on the bottom of that and that was to help the, I think it was to help the navigator because that sent signals down and told him where we were and that. But as I say all I was interested in was I did very little sending messages.
CB: What was your role? As the signaller what was your, what was the regular task you had to do?
RM: The majority was taking messages from headquarters. If they’d sent as I say all of a sudden there was a big load of fighters coming, they’d tell me and then I’d inform the skipper. That wasn’t until later on of course. Not, not in the early times because they hadn’t got that.
CB: And when you were going on an op to what extent did you feel you needed to psyche yourself up and what did you do?
RM: I didn’t do anything because as I say I was [pause] I hadn’t got a lot of emotion.
CB: No.
RM: If you understand what I mean?
CB: But did you talk to yourself?
RM: So [pause] No. I never talked to myself. No. I didn’t. No. I never did talk to myself. No.
CB: And as you walked to your position —
RM: No.
CB: Did you —
RM: I’d just go and when I got there just did the job that I was supposed to but I never did talk to myself.
No. You said you kicked the box on the way.
RM: Oh, you used to hit it.
CB: Hit it on the way —
RM: Yeah.
CB: To the seat.
RM: I don’t know why but as I was going up bang. And then you think to yourself what did I do that for?
CB: Yeah.
RM: You know. But it’s something I did.
CB: Now when you were on the raids. On the ops, and you’re closing on the target then the aircraft is being steadied straight and level for the last —
RM: Yeah.
CB: So how did that work and how did you feel about that?
RM: Well, I was here. That’s the window and there’s a window there.
CB: Next to you. Yeah.
RM: Yeah. And I looked out the window. I’d look out the window and see. I couldn’t see an awful lot [laughs] I could see the other planes. Especially when we were on a thousand bomber raid. You could see all these bloody planes and then you could see others being attacked. You could see that and think, ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake don’t come over here,’ sort of business, you’d say to yourself. I don’t know really. As I say I wasn’t very emotional.
CB: But it’s slightly nerve wracking to have to do straight and level.
RM: The worst part was coming home. Especially when you’d been to Dresden. Not Dresden. Munich.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And you were coming back over the Alps and you felt very lonely then because it was such a long time. So you’d done your target. Everything’s gone smashing. Well, you couldn’t come down so much. So he’d have to go with the flow and, but when you was coming home it was so lonely. And I think that was when the loneliness turned around and that’s when I said I saw that chap walking by my window. But I swear to this day I saw a man walk past my window. I swore to it.
CB: Is he walking on air? Walking on the wing?
RM: Yeah.
CB: Or walking on the mountain?
RM: Just walking. Just walked past.
CB: Right.
RM: So it must have been imagination of course.
CB: Atmospherics.
RM: Yeah. I don’t know what it was.
CB: And thinking of atmospherics how did you deal with the temperatures? Because what is the temperatures at, you’re flying at what height?
RM: It was normally twenty five, thirty. Thirty thousand.
CB: And what was, what did it feel like in temperature?
RM: Well, you got your flying suit and everything so I was never cold. Never cold.
CB: What about the others? Did they feel the cold?
RM: I don’t know [laughs] I didn’t ask them.
CB: Were they —
RM: That was the thing that never, we knew what the temperature were. We knew. We knew we were cold.
CB: Well, it’s minus forty.
RM: It wasn’t something that we talked, curiously enough there was very little talking. Very little talking. The skipper and the mid-upper gunner talked more than anybody because he could see. He could see more because he could see all the way around so they had more talk. All I had was talk with the navigator telling him whether, if he wanted a fix from somewhere. Apart from that I didn’t have any communication with the others.
CB: Would you say you were quite busy on a flight?
RM: Coming back, no. Coming back it was bloody, it was boring. That’s why I say coming back it was boring. Going it wasn’t because you’d got, they attacked us more going. Although I tell a lie there because we got attacked on our aerodrome when we were landing three times and we got shot at. Shot at when we were landing.
CB: On the same occasion or different occasions you were shot at?
RM: Three different times.
CB: Yeah.
RM: We got shot at.
CB: And did they hit you?
RM: Didn’t hit me [laughs]
CB: No, did you get —
RM: I don’t know. They did. They did hit the wings and things like that but we didn’t get anything serious. As I said the only serious thing was when that bod, when we were going to Wessel he was testing his guns and our own air gunner and it just went straight across. That was the only time that I got really [pause] That was the nearest time any bombs came to me err bullets came near to me. We didn’t get hit. The plane didn’t get hit at all.
CB: It didn’t. Right.
No. No. The rear gunner got very near hit. It went to the side of him. But apart from that we never got hit. Somebody was looking after us.
CB: Yeah.
RM: No. We never got hit.
CB: So when you were returning from an op you come, you’re coming back and there are lots and lots of airfields. Literally hundreds of airfields. How did you find your own airfield?
RM: I was stationed at Fiskerton.
CB: In Lincolnshire.
RM: Which had FIDO.
CB: Right.
RM: So we knew. You see sometimes when you was coming back you’d be, we finished up in Scotland. You’d be diverted to land at Scotland because the weather conditions on your own aircraft weren’t, weren’t good. So we finished up at Lossiemouth and that’s the farthest you can get in Scotland and, but as I say when I was at Fiskerton we had this FIDO and you could see. When you was coming in you could see the flames at the side of you. You knew exactly where to be.
CB: This was the fog dispersal.
RM: Where you were landing.
CB: Yeah. But under normal circumstances how would you pick out your airfield as opposed to the others?
RM: I didn’t. He did [laughs]
CB: Ok. So how was that done?
RM: Well —
CB: Because there was a beacon flashing was there?
RM: I think there was. Yeah. Now, of course that was the pilot’s job.
CB: Yeah.
RM: He did that. He knew what he was doing.
CB: But —
RM: The navigator would tell him to go, to a certain extent where to go and I didn’t. I didn’t talk to the skipper about where we were. I talked to the navigator and the navigator talked to the pilot.
CB: But there was no radio signal coming out.
RM: No.
CB: For you to —
RM: No. No.
CB: Focus on. And what about the situations where some airfields had searchlights shining up?
RM: It didn’t make any difference.
CB: No. Did that, did that happen on, was that a —
RM: No. I don’t.
CB: At Fiskerton.
RM: No. We [pause] where did we have that? You remember me telling you that incident about the Queen Mary?
CB: Yeah.
RM: That’s the only time we were ever illuminated with searchlights and they definitely put it on the aircraft and they definitely shot up. They weren’t near us but, bloody get off. Away.
CB: Right. What would you say was the most memorable event in your experience in the RAF?
RM: Dresden.
CB: What was it about that that was, was it the next day or that actual day itself.
RM: The next day we went to Rositz.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Which was a hundred mile away.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But we could see the flames a hundred mile away and then we had to go very near and when I saw that Dresden you have never seen anything like it in your life. When people turn around and said there was what thirty thousand people killed in that one night and you think that you contributed to it. That’s the biggest thing that I’ve ever thought about actually is the fact [pause] none of the others meant anything but Dresden to me was a terrible terrible thing.
CB: Was, was that at the time or in retrospect?
RM: At the time. Even when we were bombing it because it was the first time that we said, ‘Drop your bombs on the town.’ So we knew what we were doing and we did. And coming back as we banked to go away I saw Dresden.
CB: Yeah.
RM: You’ve never seen anything like it. Flames was absolutely everywhere and I’m not talking about isolated incidents. The whole town was all on fire.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Oh, and the flames were terrific. There’s no describing it. Honestly. No describing it. It was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
CB: What was the best recollection you had of the Air Force?
RM: Looking under my hat and seeing the sergeant’s stripes and the S brevet. That was the best thing I ever had.
CB: Achievement.
RM: Oh yeah because I knew I’d done it, you see because I knew I was going to do it because I’d come top. So, but when you lifted it up and you saw the S brevet and the first, I thought what the hell is this S? What does that stand for? And we had to go and ask because we thought we were going to get an AG.
CB: Because it used to be a wireless operator/air gunner.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Which —
RM: We’d got, we’d got the thing there. The sparks.
CB: The brevet.
RM: That you put —
CB: Yeah.
RM: On your arm.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And then you got your brevet with AG but what, what’s that S? So we told everybody it was the shithouse [laughs] because we didn’t know.
CB: No.
RM: We didn’t know that it was signaller. We always said, if it was anybody asked the S stand for? Steward. We always used to say it was steward. Not signaller. No. And then of course they became regular. Everybody had them but we were the first.
CB: You said early on about your inspiration to join the RAF or motivation was the loss of your brother.
RM: That was the reason.
CB: And —
RM: No. I went, when Reg went in the Air Force I joined the Cadets.
CB: The Air Training Corps.
RM: The Air Training Corps. That’s why I was, when I went in the RAF I could do thirty words a minute already.
CB: Right.
RM: That’s why I was always coming top because I’d studied it in the five years that I had from fourteen to eighteen. Four years at the Cadet Corps.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And so wherever I went I was competent if you understand what I mean. So I never had any thoughts that I was going to fail. I knew damned well that I was going to pass and I was going to get it.
CB: Right.
RM: The only other experience was we didn’t bomb, we were a specialist squadron and we didn’t bomb the Ruhr an awful lot but my brother died bombing the Ruhr. So the one time that we did bomb it I was able to say, ‘That’s for Reg.’ And that was the only other time that I thought like that. Thought like that. I’d done my bit. I’d bloody well dropped bombs on [pause] Now, of course, my son, my grandson’s married to a German and she didn’t know. She don’t know that I bombed Germany or anything like that because we don’t discuss it and of course she come through one of the places that I went to originally. Was that somebody knocking?
CB: No. We’ll stop there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: So, let me just ask you the question.
RM: Yeah.
CB: We talked an awful lot about what you’ve been doing but what about people close to you? You didn’t meet your wife until after the war but to what extent did you ever discuss your experiences with your wife?
RM: I didn’t. I did not.
CB: And why was that?
RM: I don’t know. That was, it wasn’t part of my life with her. My life was [pause] was with Mary and my Mary was fantastic to me. We got married sixty three years and she’s, she’s fantastic. She was. She was really.
CB: Did she ever ask you?
RM: No. No. That’s, you see how can I put it? She was Irish and it was the Irish that was her life.
CB: Northern Irish.
RM: Northern Ireland. Yeah. So, the fact that I had been in the RAF, she knew I’d been in the RAF and she knew that I’d [pause] it didn’t mean anything to her that I’d done thirty ops. I went and joined the —
CB: RAF Association.
RM: RAF Association.
CB: Yes.
RM: At our local pub.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Which, well it isn’t local it’s up. And the things that I did with the what’s the name she would see to it that that was part of what I wanted and so it never, it never interfered. I could do what I liked with the RAF as long as the RAF was with me.
CB: Didn’t come home.
RM: You follow what, you understand what I mean.
CB: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
RM: Yeah.
CB: What about your boys? To what extent did they want to know?
RM: My younger boy, he died when he was eleven he was more interested than my eldest son. As I said my eldest son is like me. Very much like me if you understand what I mean.
CB: Stoic.
RM: Yeah. He’s more interested in his family and, you know the fact that I would bomb Germany in the war didn’t mean anything to him. He knew I was in the RAF. Yeah. Whereas my younger son they both went to High Pavement. They both went to High Pavement and he took it more if you understand what I mean but neither of them took it to an extreme. They knew that if they went to the RAF, ‘Oh he was in the RAF.’ And that’s it. I was in the RAF but what is this if different to that?
CB: What made, what made you join the RAF Association?
RM: Because I thought, with not discussing it with anybody else I simply thought I wouldn’t mind. And not only that but one of our next door neighbours was a rabid RAF Association and you know he was really RAF and he got me in to it sort of business. But no the, they never thought of anything like that. He’s in the RAF. He’s going to be RAF. Yeah.
CB: When you look back at your experience in the RAF how do you feel about it? Do you feel a sense of pride?
RM: Yes.
CB: Do you feel any —
RM: Yes.
CB: Reservation about your experiences?
RM: I thought it had to be done. As I said the only reservation I ever had was when I saw Dresden. I didn’t appreciate that. I knew that it had to be done. Well, I thought about it later on. In actual fact it didn’t ought to have been done because all it was doing was making the English get to Berlin before the Russians. That was my idea. And I think that’s what it was for. Because I didn’t think that it was necessary.
CB: Did you ever —
RM: Never thought it was necessary.
CB: Did you ever meet people in the RAF Association who’d been involved in the Hamburg raids?
RM: Never. Oh, I went to Hamburg, I think. Yes. I did one trip down to Hamburg I think. Because that’s the time I said, ‘That’s for my brother.’
CB: Right.
RM: When I went to Hamburg because that was in the Ruhr, wasn’t it?
CB: Well, it’s outside the Ruhr but it’s North Germany.
RM: Yeah. No. As I say Dresden altered my opinion I think. That it was not entirely [pause] Not until a long time after that when I was, people started talking about Dresden and the implications of what happened then. About, I think it was about twenty or thirty year ago weren’t it? Dresden suddenly came into being didn’t it? I hadn’t thought the implications of it as to why it was done and that and now I realise that that’s what it was about. That it was to stop, to get to Berlin before the Russians did. And that’s my opinion. That’s why it was done.
CB: It seems curious in a way that the RAF and Britain take the flak as it were and the emotional flak for Dresden.
RM: Yes.
CB: When the RAF did the first, the night bomb then the Americans did the day bomb.
RM: That’s right. They followed.
CB: The Americans never get any adverse comment.
RM: No.
CB: Why do you think that is?
RM: They don’t do they.
CB: Why do you think that is?
RM: I think the reason is that there was so much damage done on the first raids that when the Americans did all they were doing was just adding to it. Do you follow what I mean? Because if you’d have seen when I looked out that window and saw Dresden it makes me shudder now. True. I can see it now. And then to go the next night to Rositz which is only about a hundred miles away from it and to realise that the flames that I kept seeing was Dresden. And I thought oh God. That’s awful.
CB: Well, because the RAF bombed the second night as well.
RM: But that’s it. Apart from that my life in the RAF was brilliant. It was the four and a half years the best part of my life.
CB: And you —
RM: Apart from the sixty four years that I had with my wife.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Or sixty three years I had with her.
CB: Yeah. So Ron Mather thank you very much for a really fascinating conversation.
RM: Well, I hope I’ve satisfied your—
CB: It’s really good.
RM: What’s the name? Your memory sometimes goes and you can’t think of it.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Taking everything in the what’s the name I thought my life in the RAF was absolutely fantastic. It was really. I couldn’t half get [laughs] some women.
CB: But even on a serious note you gave a payback for your brother.
RM: Yes. Yes. I went to, very near the same place and yes, I think that it was it was a good thing. It was a good life.
CB: Thank you.
[recording paused]
RM: It was my attitude I think. I think it was enjoy yourself. I enjoyed myself. I never got serious with a girl though until I was thirty. Until I got married. But I was never seriously attached to a girl. I went out with many but they were, I’ve got here sort of business. No. I wasn’t, it wasn’t like that but you could pull women with a, if you were in the RAF and in Nottingham.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Because there were so many. You went to the Palais de Danse and three quarters of the people at the Palais de Danse were airmen. All the rest were women. So I mean it didn’t help matters the fact that you were but it did help if you’d got sergeant’s stripes and a brevet [laughs]
CB: Yes. The ground crew weren’t so keen on that particular aspect of —
RM: Yeah [laughs]
CB: Service life [laughs]
RM: I’ll tell you something. I used to go, we used to go when, when I was stationed at Syerston I’d come home regularly of course and we’d go at 8 o’clock or 7 o’clock on a Saturday morning at Trent Bridge thumbing a lift and I’m talking about twenty or thirty people. All RAF men thumbing a lift to get back to camp. And we got plenty of lifts.
CB: Did you?
RM: People stopped.
CB: Yeah.
RM: They did.
CB: Lorries as well? Trucks?
RM: Lorries. Everything. They all stopped because well the RAF were good weren’t they? Conceited [unclear] aren’t I?
CB: We’ve met your type before.
RM: I know. I know. Mind you I will say I have never used my RAF career to help me in any way. I hadn’t thought it was necessary. I’ve got a skill. I was a baker and one of the best in Nottingham as it happens. And I was a manager so I was happy enough.
CB: On the flip side of that though after the war did you ever get an adverse reaction to the fact that you had been flying in Bomber Command?
RM: Not really. No. No. I’ve never mentioned it you see. I mentioned it to his, people like his dad and him.
CB: Darren, yes.
RM: But I wouldn’t, I never mentioned it to anybody else.
CB: No.
RM: That was just something I’d done.
CB: Yeah. A long time ago.
RM: A long time ago. I was just thinking I didn’t go into the RAF until I was eighteen/nineteen in the last year of the war so anybody that’s bombed during the war has got to be ninety three. So there isn’t many of them is there? Although people are living a lot longer now, aren’t they?
CB: I’ve interviewed —
RM: I think so.
CB: I’ve interviewed four people aged one hundred.
RM: Yeah. I’m not surprised.
CB: You keep going Ron.
RM: You have to be a hundred to be in the war at the beginning wouldn’t you?
CB: Absolutely.
RM: Yes. They would. And that’s what I was thinking the other day and I was thinking when we went to, where was it we went down south?
CB: Duxford. Flying legends.
RM: The only people in the RAF suits was the soldiers and me. So and I thought to myself there can’t be many of us left then.
CB: No. No.
RM: Yeah. No. I never talked to my wife about it at all.
CB: You didn’t feel the urge to do so?
RM: With her being not only that but with her being Northern Irish and we’d go to Northern Ireland and we’d get trouble there. When I first went to, when I first went there we landed at Belfast and a chap with a rifle had a look at my luggage. So that’s how the situation was at that time there. And also, the fact that the two people Catholic and the Protestant were so different to one another. I mean nowadays when you go it’s as different again. You don’t notice. I know it’s started up again hasn’t it but up to when I went about four years ago it was, it was lovely. Religion meant nothing or anything. It’s just got a bit nasty just lately I notice.
CB: Well, let’s have a look at your pictures and things.
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 Ronald Mather
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-29
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
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMatherR171229
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:58:30 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
Upon leaving school, Ronald was employed first as a pawnbrokers assistant, followed by butchers assistant. In 1943, upon reaching the age of 18 he followed his brothers footsteps and enlisted in the Royal Air Force. After initial training, he attended radio school at RAF Yatesbury where he was taught Morse code and the 1154/1155 radio. Flying training was carried out in a Proctor aircraft operating from RAF Bishops Court in Northern Ireland. On one occasion, flying over the Irish Sea, they were shot at from the Queen Mary. Following qualification, further experience was gained at RAF Husbands Bosworth on Ansons, at RAF Winthorpe on Stirlings, before completing his training at No. 5 Lancaster Finishing School, RAF Syerston on Lancasters. Posted to 49 Squadron, Ronald operated from RAF Fiskerton, RAF Fulbeck and finally RAF Syerston, completing his tour of 30 operations just before the end of the war. He describes the concern he used to feel on the 1000 bomber operations because of the closeness of surrounding aircraft. On one occasion a nearby gunner accidentally strafed his aircraft when carrying out a gun test, the bullets passing inches above his head. He recalls one experience when atmospherics of flying over the Alps affected him to the extent he firmly believed that the figure of a person walked past the outside of his window. Having taken part in the Dresden bombing, he describes how he felt and also witnessing the flames from Dresden still being visible the night following when they were on a operation some 100 miles away. Following the completion of his tour, Ronald was posted to an airfield near Stratford Upon Avon as station warrant officer where German prisoners of war were being billeted. He was finally demobbed in December 1945.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
Germany
Germany--Dresden
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Irish Sea
Poland
Poland--Gdynia
Italy
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-04-05
1945-12
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
49 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
perception of bombing war
Proctor
radar
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Syerston
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Yatesbury
Stirling
superstition
training
wireless operator
-
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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
A name given to the resource
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
Dick Curnock's School Reports
Description
An account of the resource
11 school reports from 1933 to 1938.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
City of Leicester Education Committee
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
11 printed sheets with handwritten annotations
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
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660001,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660002,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660003,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660004,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660005,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660006,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660007,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660008,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660009,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660010,
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-0660011
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--Leicester
England--Leicestershire
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938