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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/53/834/EBoldyS[Recipient]531206.pdf
0fc7c35b5ea3d8eb11c56026b37af0da
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
Boldy, David
Dave Boldy
D A Boldy
Description
An account of the resource
334 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant David Adrian Boldy (1918 – 1942, 923995 Royal Air Force) and consists of his school reports, letters from school and photographs of family and locations in India, letters from training and service, and photographs from his social life and time training. It also includes newspaper cuttings and letters about him being missing in action. David Boldy was born and attended school in India and studied law at Kings College London. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained as an air gunner in South Africa. He flew operations in Manchesters and Lancasters with 207 Squadron from RAF Bottesford. His aircraft failed to return from an operation to Gdańsk 11 July 1942. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by David Boldy and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.<br /><br />Additional information on David Boldy is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/102182/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
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. 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
Boldy, DA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Dear Sir,
It has been brought to my that the name of my brother does not appear on the Roll of Honour listed at Runnymede.
[deleted] I enclose the [/deleted]
The particulars relating thereto are:-
F/Sgt DAVID ADRIAN BOLDY 923995 [deleted] of [/deleted] C Unit SQD. 207 reported missing from air operations over Danzig on the night of 11th / 12th July 1942 & later presumed killed.
I would be very grateful if you would look into the matter
[page break]
and take such steps as are necessary to have his name included.
I enclose a stamped addressed envelope and would be grateful if you would let me know when this has been down. [deleted] Or inform me of any further details you require. [/deleted]
[page break]
Imperial War Graves Commission
Wooburn Green
Bucks
- II - .
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 Stephen Boldy to the Imperial War Graves Commission
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Draft letter from Stephen Boldy to the Imperial War Graves Commission stating that the name of David Boldy does not appear on the Roll of Honour at Runnymede and asking for appropriate steps to be taken.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Steven Boldy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EBoldyS[Recipient]531206
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--Runnymede
Poland--Gdańsk
Poland
England--Surrey
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.
1942-07-11
1942-07-12
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Andy Hamilton
final resting place
killed in action
memorial
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/257/3404/PFraserC1501.2.jpg
1b37fb0db87bcc24ea45c3ca9410d737
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/257/3404/AFraserC151113.1.mp3
c25ed2496f5e21b68df313bc38956864
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
Fraser, Colin
Colin Fraser
C Fraser
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Colin Fraser (Royal Australian Air Force) an account of his being shot down, a crew photograph and a piece of parachute memento. He served as a Lancaster navigator on 460 Squadron. His aircraft was shot down in April 1945 and he was a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by XXX and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-13
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. 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
Fraser, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Col Fraser. A 460 Squadron navigator. The interview is taking place at Camberwell in Melbourne. My name’s Adam Purcell. The date is the 13th of November 2015. Col. I believe you have got something prepared. Let’s go.
CF: Yeah. I was born in Melbourne on 5th of November 1922. My air force number was 435111. And when the Japanese came into the war I decided to join the air force but they had many volunteers and the army wanted me so I went into the army on the 31st of December ‘41 and it took me ‘til March ‘43 to get back into the air force at Number 2 ITS Bradfield Park in Sydney. Where I was then classified as a navigator which is what I wanted. By changing Australia where the system was to have a observer, which means you could be a navigator, a bomb aimer or both depending on the size of the crew. I graduated in February forty — oh sorry. It was ‘43. ’44 sorry. Yeah. I graduated, sorry, in February ’44 as a navigator and had leave and then lived in the Melbourne Cricket Ground grandstand for seven days before I sailed off to England. I arrived in Brighton where the Australians were — had a reception centre, in February, sorry in March ’44. And we were told then immediately that there would be a delay because the fact is that the Bomber Command was not losing the people and aircrew were surplus for the moment there. I took leave courtesy of the Lady Ryder Scheme at a farm in, outside York. And I then returned to the new area of the instruction things at Warrington in Lancashire. And I and my mates spent a lot of time from there looking around various parts of England while we were waiting and we had some leave. At that time the RAF stopped the number of pilots being trained and there were empty airstrips and aeroplanes. So they said the pilots had been waiting a long time, for three weeks down to these airstrips and an empty backseat. They sent the navigators and bomb aimers to learn about map reading in English conditions. I finished up at Fairoaks which is in the Windsor Castle area. And we arrived there in early June ‘44 and we could see with flying at only a few thousand feet around the area that the invasion was well and truly on. And a couple of nights later we were not surprised at the amount of aircraft flying around for the invasion date. The — and then about ten days later we woke up to the sound of the V2. The flying bomb. We were not on the direct route from France to London, but the stray ones often were within our sight and two at least came over our area. We went back to Padgate and there we were split up into navigators and bomb aimers and I, being a navigator went up to West Frew in Scotland. And there we were joined by a section from New Zealand boys and I did my first DR navigation for six months while there. Then we were sent to 27 OUT at Lichfield which was the Australian OTU. And there we met up with our bomb aimer mates who we’d trained with, and I crewed up with Dan Lynch for the following day. We discussed having a pilot and decided we wanted one who was big and strong and had to be mature. About twenty three or twenty four [laughs] so we mixed with the pilots and picked out two pilots who seemed to fit the bill a bit. And we were at the same meal table as them that evening and the following morning when we decided that we wanted as a pilot Harry Payne. Known as Lofty because he was six foot three. So later that morning when we all got in the big hall we sat behind Lofty and were chatting to some gunners who’d also paired up. And when the chief flying instructor said, ‘Righto boys. Crew up,’ we tapped Lofty on the shoulder and said would he like a navigator and a bomb aimer and he said, ‘Yes. Do you know any others?’ and we said, ‘There’s two nice gunners over there. So we had them. They in turn knew a wireless operator from the night before so we finished up with a crew which was Harry ‘Lofty’ Payne from West Australia. Dan Lynch, the bomb aimer from Tasmania and myself, Colin Fraser from Melbourne. Our wireless operator was Bill Stanley from Melbourne. And then we had two Sydney boys as gunners. Jack Bennett, upper, mid-upper and Hugh Connochie known as Shorty, as the rear gunner. We then did ground subjects for a couple of weeks. Everybody. And I was then introduced into the mysteries of Gee. The radar navigation aid. We were taken out to the Wellington aircraft with a instructor pilot and he showed Harry how things were done and then said to him, ‘Now you can take off for three landings and take offs and then call it a day.’ Well, we took off and landed twice and the third time as we reached height the port engine failed and we went into emergency drill which for my position was in the middle of the aircraft where I couldn’t see anything. As we went around I pulled a nacelle cock to get rid of some petrol from the plane. And when Lofty turned in to make the landing he instructed me to pull the air bottle which I did and down came the undercart. The original Wellingtons that would also blow all hydraulics. But the pilots had all been advised that all planes on the station had been adjusted. That this would not happen. However, as Harry went to put down the flaps nothing happened. And he finished up banging the aircraft down halfway down the strip and he ran through the fence, across a road, a fence the other side, a bush or two, and finished up in a ditch with the back broken and up in the air. We all managed to get out of the escape hatches with any trouble, no injuries except a few minor cuts. And we took on, went back to flying the following day. And the only one there the one night the heating failed just after take-off and I had to navigate around with frozen hands. Putting them in gloves and out again. Navigation was a bit sketchy. And when I handed the log in, the instructor said to me it wasn’t too good. I maintained that in the circumstances it was quite ok. His comment back was, ‘In Bomber Command there are no excuses,’ which stayed with me for the rest of the tour. We finished there on the 11th of December and then we went in to Poole which meant sitting around for nothing for a couple of months because it was winter and there wasn’t any flying going on anyway. And we took leave to several places such as Edinburgh and there. Then on the 2nd of February we then went to Heavy Conversion Unit at Lindholme and met up with the mighty Lancaster bomber. As the navigator I met up with the H2S which allowed you to look through cloud and pick up the signals from the ground. It was good on the coast but not too good with towns. And one night when we were flying on a decoy raid which meant you flew within a few miles of the enemy coast and then turned back to make them think you were going to attack them. And that night it turned out that my oxygen tube got twisted and I was only getting half the amount of oxygen, and as such I got — cut out a dog leg we should have done and got back earlier to be noted that they were bandits in the area which was code for German fighters. Anyway, we got down. The last crew in to land while a mate of ours at 460 Squadron, Binbrook was shot down on a training flight and two of his crew were killed.
AP: Col.
CF: There were about a hundred JU88s came back with the bombers.
AP: Col. I’ll stop you there for a minute.
Other: I’ve heard this story.
AP: I haven’t yet.
[recording paused]
CF: Ah yes.
AP: Now where weren’t we?
CF: That’s how it goes. Now, where was I in this?
AP: We were talking about bandits returning from your decoy trip I think. Bandits. You were returning from your decoy trip.
CF: Oh yeah.
AP: And there were bandits.
CF: Yeah. Which meant that therefore we landed. I think we said we landed. And got, Binbrook. That’s right. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. So we’re as we said before any former on there. We finished on that at Poole, there we’ve got the — ah that’s right we’re at Lindholme. Ok. So Ok. Now where do I start from now when.
AP: Say again. Alright. Have you finished.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Your prepared statement shall we say. Ok. You said you were picked as a navigator and you said you wanted to be a navigator. Why?
CF: Because I’m good at figures. I’m not very good with my hands. I never wanted to really drive a car like all the other kids were fighting to get the steering wheel and I’d say, ‘Give me the map.’ So [laughs] yeah. I haven’t got the co-ordination with my hands. Well the obvious thing is my wife very nicely said to me, ‘You know dear if we lived on what you made with your hands we’d be below the poverty line.’ [laughs]
AP: Fair enough.
CF: No. I’m good at maths and I enjoy doing the figures. And secondly to stare, to sit with your steering column in front of me for five, six, eight, nine hours. That’s deadly. I like, I’ve got figures in front of me. I’m working on this time . Doing it there. So all in all the idea of being a pilot, although I had all the things. In those days my eyes were good for landing and everything. I was pilot/navigator category only because I was six feet one and they would not make you a gunner if you were over six feet.
AP: That’s why you’re —
CF: When I went in for my interview as to what I could be and they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘A navigator.’ And they probably looked at each other and said well that’s a change because ninety percent or more say a pilot. And they had a look at my figures that I had done pretty well in the exams. The mathematics and so forth. So yeah. So I was happy with being a navigator, yes. I wouldn’t have liked to have been a bomb aimer. Again, you would be steering there on a bombing trip for hour after hour whereas, you’re working on it. Mind you, at the same time you have a lot of pressure on you because if you’re not there and where you should be the crew look upon you. I always remember reading memoirs of some fella that when he said they got there and he said, ‘But we’re there,’ and the pilot and the rest of the crew said, ‘There’s no markers down. No, nothing. Are you sure you’re right Bill?’ You know. And then all of a sudden some markers went down and the pilot said, ‘Oh well done. The markers are down.’ He said, nobody apologised for all the queries and suggestions that I’d stuffed up really [laughs] yeah. No I enjoyed being a navigator. Yep. Yes.
AP: Very good. Can we — we might backtrack a little bit actually. Your early life when you were growing up. What, what did you do before the war?
CF: What?
AP: Yeah.
CF: Well I grew up at, in Hawthorn you might say. Down near the Quay on tennis courts on Scotch College where we had the Gardiner Creek winding around and like all the little kids along the Gardiner Creek we played down there when we shouldn’t have probably. We even had a bit of naked swimming there when we were six or seven or eight sort of business there in the creek. And somebody asked me once what was the, your memory of childhood? And I said, I thought for a while and I said, ‘Freedom.’ We were free. There was never any worries about anything sort of business there. Admittedly in the Depression I never gave my parents enough credit for the way they looked after us four kids during the Depression sort of business then. But the point was that as I said at my elder brother’s funeral my first memory of him was mother calling out, ‘Take you little brother with you and look after him.’ And that was the way that it acted in those days. Big sisters and big brothers looked after little brothers and I had what you might — and of course there was no TV. And we played games within the family and with our mates, sort of business, there. I had a great mate who died only a few months ago with a sudden heart attack and I went out my back gate and up a couple of houses in his back gate and vice versa and he was just as much — had two sisters he didn’t [pause] but he was just as much an elder brother as I was for the girls. They just treated me like a brother. He was over so often, he was always with us. Yeah. But the freedom was that was it. I could do what I sort of liked. Mother never said ‘Where are you going?’ Or something or other. I would just say, ‘Oh I’m going down to see Bill Jones or something like that.’ There was no worries that there were going to be any strange men or odd people around about. I had the — and there weren’t that many cars on the road either sort of business. That was it. It was freedom type of business that I had on there. And I was in the, one of the higher ones up in class. Again fortunately I had brains. I had nothing with the hands but the brains. I had the brains. And I can remember at state school you had two, what you’d call, very smart bastards, and I was one of the next three or four after that to get fired over two or three or four of us. But those two were outstanding and then we three or four or so were varied from time to time as to who was the smartest bastard shall we say. But that was it. We had freedom type of business of it there. And what was more. To do it there, more we had security ahead of us. It was obvious that if we’d ever thought about it we would grow up and get married and have kids and have a house. And that was, you know, the feeling was there was life ordained and certainly anybody who took a job in the public service would be, assume that they would see their life out in the public service. Again, if you joined a big company like BHP or something like that you would again, would assume that you’re there. So that was also better. But on the other hand of course as you were growing up you didn’t think too much about security. You just assumed I suppose that there was a instruction. And living in Hawthorn black was black and white was white. It was only when I went into the army I found there was a lot of shades of grey, depending on circumstances and the viewpoints of people etcetera. But in Hawthorn where I was, as I said we had all those. We had all that creek and the open land to run and play and fished and so forth etcetera there and I can remember the actual Quay on tennis courts there being built shall we say on it there. But that was it. It was the freedom of doing things. We might, as I say, Depression we might have had a second hand football or cricket bat or something or other. You had something. That was it, sort of business there. You weren’t looking for much sort of business there, and as I say you had a lot of, a lot of kids in that area I suppose moved at the same time and there was always. You walked out the house and walked around to the next over or you’d run into a couple of kids and you sort of business there. Yeah. Yes.
AP: Yeah. [unclear]
CF: A good childhood really. As I say not a very, not a rich one in any way or form sort of business there but a good childhood of freedom. Yeah.
AP: What— was the army your first job. Was the army your first job?
CF: What?
AP: Sorry. Sorry. Your first job. Was, was that — did you come straight out of school and straight into the military or did you do something?
CF: At that stage, Year 10, the intermediate was where everybody except the, the title used recently — only the swots went past Year 10 and they would be the future doctors and so forth there. The only the very, very smart ones you might say, the top ten percent or something went past Year 10. The rest of but again, looking, you went to work in a big company and when you started out they had — shall we say half a dozen new boys started at the end of January or something and you worked in the mail room. And for twelve months you delivered papers and picked up papers all around and you got to know what happened in the company. And then after that or sometime during it perhaps you then got a job of doing — writing something up or doing something and you stepped up your attitude. And you also went to work — you went to night school to learn book keeping accountancy. Or whatever was the thing of it there. So for two nights a week and maybe a bit of time to do a bit of study you were occupied shall we say. You didn’t have much money so you couldn’t go out much sort of business there. You did the things. Yeah.
AP: So why did you want to join the air force? Why? Why did you want to join the air force?
CF: Well I’d never had much to do with the water so the navy was out for a start. The idea of being on a ship sailing around on water had no appeal. The army — well I had read a few books about World War One. In the trenches and such and again the idea of face to face, shall we say, bayonet and so forth didn’t appeal much to me and so I couldn’t see a place in the army for my clerical skills shall we say. That type of business. So the air force and being a navigator appealed to me. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Fair enough. You were, I think you said ITS was at Bradfield Park. Your Initial Training School was at Bradfield Park?
CF: Yes. Don’t ask me why they sent a Melbourne boy, like a fella said to me when he went to do his initial training as a pilot, he lived in Adelaide and thought he’d go to Padfield or something.
AP: Parafield.
CF: And no. No. No. They sent him over to Wagga.
AP: Ask not. Just do.
CF: The mysteries of postings. Yes.
AP: What happened at ITS? What, what sorts of things did you — were you taught. What sort of things did you do?
CF: Well you learned the theory of flight was the main thing there. Why did a plane stay up shall we say. You did mathematics for your because later on your skill. You did plenty of PT to keep yourself in good fit there. Incidentally, the fittest I ever was after the army induction because we did marching, drill there. PT. And then we’d finish up at four in the afternoon with a swim in the [Goulburn River?] And at the end of six weeks of that or something like that we, at nineteen years of age you were very fit when you’d been doing all this exercise every day for six weeks sort of business there. Yeah. The [pause], I can’t really think what else you did in there as I say the theory of flight. The theory of there and as I say mathematics. And PT. Yeah. I can’t think of really much else you did in that sort of days. I didn’t ever keep any records of what we did but certainly when you were on the reserve they would send you homework to do on mathematics. Do that there. So we had a reasonable amount of mathematics in there. Teaching up at there. But now I can’t remember really much other than the fact that we did the mathematics and the theory of flight etcetera up at there. Yeah. They might have had something else up at there. I don’t think if that was the question when you know they would ask you how you got up there. Yeah.
AP: So the first time that you ever went in an aeroplane what aircraft was it? Where was it? And what did think?
CF: It was an Anson aircraft at Mount Gambier which was Number 2 Air Observer’s School. So that was where I go on from ITS to Mount Gambier. And we went on [pause] I think it was an initial flying thing. We flew over the land and we flew over the ocean. And I think that was, you might say, showing us what flying was about. I don’t think we did anything other than fly around and see what was there. Yeah. And the Anson. Yeah.
AP: Did you —
CF: And what was more you had to wind it up a hundred and six turns because you were the, you were there. The pilots wouldn’t wind it up. You were part of the crew who had to wind it up. Yeah.
AP: That’s the undercarriage. That’s the wheels.
CF: That was the navigation. Yes. And you flew two to a crew. Two to a crew. One was the navigator and the other was the secondary one who had to take some notes about the countryside. Yeah.
AP: Did you, did you encounter any accidents or incidents in that early training? Did you, did you see any or —
CF: No accidents in the early training.
AP: No.
CF: Australia had none of the training actually till I was a sergeant and I didn’t actually get involved in any accident that time at all. Sort of business there. No.
AP: Alright. Once you got your wings you passed out as a qualified navigator. You then went to the UK somehow. How did you get there?
CF: We actually went to Brisbane and we caught a American twelve thousand dollar victory ship. They were the ships that they were welding for the first time. They had the, what was the seven thousand tonnes was called the something or other. And I was on a twelve thousand tonne called the Sea Corporal. And we went from Brisbane to San Francisco. And the two things I remember was A) I could see a rain storm and I could see a rainstorm had length and it had width but living where I was in the sort of valley a bit really of Gardiner Creek you only ever saw the rain coming at you sort of business there. You could never see the width or the depth of it but then all of a sudden there you had the ocean. Look across there and there is a rain going across and it’s got width and it’s got length. And the other thing. One day we went into the doldrums when the sea is perfectly smooth. There was no waves crashing. Smooth. There’s no, not a ripple on the water. This was what the old time sailors with the sail used to dread getting. I can imagine. That’s it there. I saw that one day. Yeah. It was eerie to watch this, shall we say, waves — not raising high obviously but, you know, up in the air, yeah.
AP: Very nice. You got to the States. Did you spend any particular time in the USA or was it straight across?
CF: Oh we had six hours. We went to a place called Angel Island in San Francisco Bay which was an American camp and we were given six hours from 6 o’clock in the evening till midnight to see San Francisco. That was our time in San Francisco. Then the next day we caught a train. A train across America. And the great thing about that — on the Pullman carriages they had sleepers. Great thing. Yes. We had to sleep sitting up in Victoria. Well in Australia and in England and then we got to outside New York and we got three days leave in New York. And then we went down to the harbour to there and on one side was the Queen Elizabeth of eighty four thousand tonnes and on the other side was a boat, I’ve forgotten the name, fifty five thousand tonnes. And we had never seen a ship bigger than twenty thousand tons. So eyes opened up big and wide. We didn’t know actually we were going to go on, you see. We actually slept in the Queen Elizabeth. In the third class cinema with bunks three high. And they had something like twelve to fifteen thousand troops on. I understand the American soldiers had eight hours each to sleep. That was it. There was only one bed for three American soldiers when they were taking them across. Six were there. So that was — you had two meals a day. And you had about, I think about half an hour you were allowed up for fresh air once a — once a day you got half an hour on the deck to get a breath of fresh air or something. Because the Queen Elizabeth had done that trip, you know, how many times they had the work down to a fine art. You had to wear a colour patch on your uniform and you weren’t allowed to move outside that colour patch except to go down and have your meal. It was a highly organised thing of it sort of business there. Yes it was. Yeah.
AP: How long ago — sorry, how long did that take. That voyage.
CF: Five or six days it took us to get across. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Not much fun. Not much fun.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Alright. You get to England. This is the first time —
CF: Actually you finish up in the Gourock in the Clyde. Firth of the Clyde.
AP: Ok.
CF: Yeah.
AP: You get to the UK though.
CF: You take the train down and in actual fact you get in the train and you go to Glasgow and then you come to a city that’s got a big castle. And it’s got Waverley. That’s when we asked where we were. ‘You’re at Waverley.’ We couldn’t find Waverley on the map. And of course later on, some a month or two or so later somebody went up to and said, ‘Hey that was Edinburgh.’ Waverley is the station like Flinders Street.
AP: Certainly is. This was the first time you were overseas.
CF: Yes. First time. No. Sorry the army was the first time I was outside Victoria.
AP: Really.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Ok. So as a young Australian, the first time you were overseas wartime England would have been fairly confronting I suppose. What did you think of wartime England when you first got there? What was it like?
CF: Well, wartime. We got there in April which was spring you might say. And we had seen many pictures of England. Of the green land and so forth there. And coming down from Scotland the land was open shall we say and pleasant and the main memory I got down there seeing, for instance all the poles to stop planes landing from the invasion and other matters that indicated there was a war on around the place and England, I read a book. The same thing. It seemed to fit in pretty clearly of what you’d seen in the papers shall we say because you weren’t looking at the slums of London or anything of that nature. We were at Brighton which was the big as you probably know was the big holiday resort with the pubs all along the front. Like something, you might say, like the Gold Coast or something or other like that. And plenty of, actually in peacetime B&Bs behind that, also around places etcetera there. But no England was comforting I would say. There was no problem in there and of course they spoke the language [laughs]
AP: What did you think of the people?
CF: Incidentally, going across to America we had one naive nineteen year old saying to some American officers talking about America and he said, ‘Won’t they think it funny we haven’t got an accent?’ Took the Americans about five minutes to calm down with their laughter.
AP: Fair enough. What did you think of the people in England? Did you, did you have much to do with the civilian population?
CF: Well as they said in the book of, “No Moon Tonight” the author said if there was ever a Commonwealth spirit it was in England during the war. There were no — the Canadian, the English and such and one of the great things about being an Australian was that there were no Australian army troops to stuff it up in England. The air force by and large were ground crew admittedly as well. But by and large the Australians over there were, shall we say middle class and educated and were very popular with the locals and with the girls. That’s it. Yeah. And we were pretty well paid shall we say. Not as well paid as the Americans but we had — yeah.
AP: What — what sort of things, when on leave and these could be at any point when you’re in England. When you’re on a squadron or when you’re in training. What sort of things did you get up to when you were on leave or when you were off duty?
CF: Well, I went on leave with Dan Lynch who — he’d been doing the first year of a medicine course so you might say that we, on leave looked at seeing what we could of England, Scotland and Wales sort of business of it there. So we were always looking for the views and what was there and the old castle and all those types of things of it there. We had a few drinks but basically we didn’t hang around the pubs etcetera there. We, we wanted to see the actual country and as a tourist shall we say there. Yeah. That was my particular little group of, shall we say half a dozen mates and so forth you mixed. In other words you soon found out who wants to, you know, we were friendly with a couple of older blokes who, you know. They were shall we say twenty five or twenty seven or something like that. They’d like to, and they were married they liked to just go down to the pub and just have a drink and a talk. That was fair enough. Whereas we would possibly pop into the pub for one or two drinks and then on to the dance or something of that nature of it there. Yeah. So, like, how things go, when we were at OTU we got a week’s leave and Dan Lynch and I went out and went to hitchhike a ride with the Americans trucks to Brum. Birmingham. And we –they pulled up and, ‘Where do you want to go.’ I said, ‘Birmingham,’ and, ‘That’s ok we’re going to Oxford.’ ‘Could we come to Oxford?’ ‘Oh yes. Hop in the back.’ So we finished up at Oxford. And the following night we went and saw a George Bernard Shaw play which I had never seen one before. But that’s, as I say, a mate of mine. Dan Lynch. He was, that was his culture more so than mine, shall we say, etcetera. Yeah there. Again it was mixed up with you that for instance out of hours, 7 that was what we had to go to get back by the way that we picked up with the English. Bill Stanley and Dan and I would often make a three and go to the dance shall we say. Whereas the navigator Jack Bennett would then be he was a bit of a, he had a couple of other blokes or something. He was chasing the girls and so forth there. And he would, he’d go there and go sometimes with Shorty and the pilot. They tended to do other things shall we say. Yeah. But that was it. You, you soon found the people that wanted to do things that you wanted to do. Yeah.
AP: Did you spend much time in London? Did you spend much time in London?
CF: No.
AP: Not at all.
CF: No. We thought, having had a good look around London on a couple of occasions when we were there. No we didn’t spend, we spent some time there but no we wanted to, when we went on leave we would head down to either Cornwall and Devon or John O’Groats up in Scotland. We never made either place, or land. We didn’t make Lands End. We didn’t make John O’Groats but we would head off with a pass and went off with a thing and we’d stay one day, two days, three days and then all of a sudden realise that we’ve only got two days left. Perhaps we had better in that case make a firm plan where we’d go but that was it. Yeah. We went we made the opportunity. The one little group I sort of mixed around in was to see as much of England, Scotland and Wales as possible in the time. Yeah. In fact, Ireland as well. When the war was over, over there I actually went over to Ireland. Yeah. Where my Irish grandfather came from.
AP: Excellent. What did, what were your thoughts when you finally got out of that Wellington? Or the Wellingtons that kept having engine failures.
CF: Yeah.
AP: And you’re now on four engine aeroplanes. You’re looking at a Lancaster for the first time.
CF: Well, wait a second. When I, when after the Wellington crashed or when we moved in to the Lancaster.
AP: Sorry. In general. When you moved on. So you’ve left the Wellingtons behind.
CF: Left it behind you. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Thank goodness for that.
CF: The old story was that the following day we went flying and that crash was they rolled the Wellington. That’s what happened. We didn’t suffer any and our main thought then was we’d got a bloody good pilot who didn’t panic. He did everything he could to keep the aircraft going and so forth. Safety sort of business of it there. Because as I said they found out that aircraft somehow had not been modified. I never found out why and so forth. Anyway, no, you, we were young. You got on with it and when you got to a Lancaster well let’s face it, let’s say the Lancaster at the Heavy Conversion Unit might have been a little battered but it was better than the Wellington. At the OTU sort of business there. Yeah. And you had four engines too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No. You didn’t worry too much about that.
AP: Can you, can you describe for me what the navigator’s position on the Lancaster is like? What? What’s there when you’re sitting at your desk. What’s around you and what’s it like?
CF: Well a Lancaster you had first of all you were the pilot and the flight engineer stood alongside of each other with the great things in front of them. You, then there was a big black curtain could be pulled across there where [unclear] and you actually faced sideways with a desk in front of you and therefore in front of you you had a compass which theoretically agreed with the compass in the — [paused]. You had to check that there because sometimes it didn’t. And you then had a set for the Gee which you used frequently. You read the thing and you got two, and two things on that and then you plotted on a special sheet which curved and let there. And then you had a, then a thing for the, on the side, for the H2S when you had that equipped on it there. And the rest of the thing of course your tables had your log and most of all you had your flight plan which you drew on as you went along and filled the detail in it there. So you had a couple of pencils and a compass and you had then a, the calculator. I’m trying to think of the name that is that you put your thing on and drew a couple of things on. It was a calculator for navigators to use. I’m trying to think of the name of it now. Yeah. That was it. At that stage you hadn’t, the navigator didn’t have a drift recorder and the ones we had which you had in the Anson and so forth to get there but when you had the Gee in the aircraft you didn’t need that. You had your map on there. Yeah. So as I say you sat on the side and then as I say you had a curtain between you and the, really, flight engineer and then you had a curtain on the other side to keep the light going out that way type of business of it there. So you were in your little cocoon with the light going on. As they said one navigator came out of the second or third raid and had a look at it, and said, ‘Bloody hell,’ and he said he never looked, he never would come out of his cocoon again. He didn’t want to see it.
AP: Did you ever have a look at a target? Did you ever come out and have a look?
CF: No. I went out and had a look. As one navigator said if you’re coming this far let’s have a look. But as they say in my thing that I had down there that on my first trip we were down for a place near Cologne which is in the Ruhr. Where the ack ack is pretty severe and the point was that we got there. We — ok there. Everything was going nice and easily and you’re thinking it’s a nice and easy sort of business there and then you see what’s there. But the bomb aimer’s there and he says everything and then all of a sudden he says, you know, ‘Bomb doors. Bomb doors closed.’ That’s the thing and then he called down a rather, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ I must admit that the rest of the crew including me were feeling much the same way as he was feeling. This is no, no place to be for us nice blokes. That was straight out of there and say, as we were flying across occupied France and Germans had —half an hour later something after we’d dropped the bomb or something, maybe there, a shot come up and went through our wing and kept on going thank God. And it was dark. You couldn’t see outside and our pilot, having already done one trip as a second pilot said, ‘Oh it’s alright boys. A near miss.’ And about twenty minutes later when daylight appeared the mid-upper gunner said, You’ve got a bloody big hole in the wing,’ [laughs]. But that’s it. We got back home and we felt a bit guilty that, bringing back an aircraft another crew normally flew with a hole in the wing. As if we had been a bit careless about the whole thing. Yeah.
AP: That sort of leads on to the next question. The ground crew. What sort of relationship did you have with your ground crew?
CF: I didn’t have much of a relationship because as the navigator I was working up to the last minute finishing the plan we’d been told and so forth. And I was taken out to the aircraft just before it was time to — I never, never really saw the ground crew at all. And of course when we got back there was a no talk for the crew. So I had no relationship with the ground crew for the simple reason, as I say, that I didn’t — I was not there like the rest of the crew had been out doing a check and so forth etcetera there. But I was a late comer because I was there and sometimes you got you had to then finish your flight plan because you hadn’t had time to finish it beforehand. Yeah. So our pilot had a good relationship with the ground staff. I don’t know about the other crew members that were there as to whether they did or didn’t. I have a feeling that we only did seven trips so we weren’t there a long time and I don’t think, I think basically our flight engineer and our pilot had a good relationship with the ground crew but the other members I don’t think they really had much relationship with them type of thing.
AP: Alright. I’ve done that. Were there any superstitions or rituals that you, either that your crew took part in or that you saw in the squadron? Hoodoos or anything like that?
CF: No. No. I heard of various rituals and odds and sods but as far as I know there was no rituals about you always wore a blue tie or a certain hankie or something or other. As far as I know, in our particular crew, there was never any particular ritual, as you said. Some crews there was a ritual something or other but with our crew as far as I know there wasn’t any.
AP: Did you have any nose art painted on your aeroplane or were you not there long enough? Did you have anything painted on the front of your, on the nose of your aeroplane.
CF: No.
AP: You weren’t there long enough.
CF: No. No.
AP: That’s alright. Just thought I’d ask the question. So oh that was what I was going to ask you. As the navigator you’re working pretty hard when you’re flying. I believe it was fixing a position every six minutes or something along those lines. Can you remember much of the process of the actual physical what you were doing?
CF: Well when you were in England and you had the Gee which gave you your position, as you, I think you mentioned, every six minutes. You had to get a reading where you were and from that you had to work out the wind that had blown in the last six minutes and then readjust your flight plan as to whether to tell the pilot to change course if so what to change to. And you also had to check your estimated time of arrival likewise. Every six minutes. Which meant that you were working steadily shall we say? Yes. Yeah. As I say that was the great thing as I was good at mathematics I could, I could meet those six minutes all right shall we say. Yeah. Yes.
AP: And when, when you were no longer —
CF: And then once you, once you got over Germany and your Gee was jammed or you had difficulty getting a good reading because Gee lines were curved and over a certain distance they tended to merge into each so you could you know could be a half an inch deciding where they actually crossed sort of business there. But when you, after that you were dependant on if the bomb aimer can tell you something and sometimes the Pathfinders would drop a light to say this is the turning point to something of that nature there which I don’t remember ever having that myself. And basically we were flying on what information we’d had and anything we’d had in the first half hour or so or an hour or so of flying. And that’s one thing. When we started operations the [pause] see this was the — we started in March ‘45 the actual operations and the, that stage they were getting into the German border which meant that you possibly had a couple of hours of what the actual wind was that you could do yourself, sort of business a bit there. Other than that you flew on your flight plan and if you were over cloud, well, there and there were at times a wind direction might be come over from the Pathfinders. They might send it back if the wind was so and so and you might get a thing from them. Very rarely we did that but I heard it happened at times. We basically flew on DR. Dead reckoning. Once you got past the, into the German jamming and so forth there. Yeah. And of course it was always nice to see the Pathfinders drop the markers and you got off the course. Or you could see them ahead of yourself. Yes.
AP: The [pause] alright, what was the drill if one of your gunners spotted a night fighter and said, ‘Corkscrew. Port. Go.’ From your perspective as a navigator what happened next?
CF: Never happened to us fortunately there but as a navigator you mean when they said, ‘Go.’ Well, as a navigator you just sit there and grind your teeth or something or other. Or say, that there is nothing you could do and the only great thing what you had to do was to make sure that the, your gear on your desk when they flew into a steep curve didn’t go flying anywhere. And particularly because I remember the first time when we’d been practicing doing it for the first time when the pilot flew it down and the bomb aimer for some reason was having a rest on the bed, the rest bed which went along the aircraft. And my compasses flew up in the air and was flying towards him. And he was trying to push away this compass coming at him. At that — so I learned from that that if there was at any time the first thing I would do would be yes to put my hand on my gear and hold it there.
AP: Hold on for dear life.
CF: But fortunately I didn’t have to do that. Yeah.
AP: Ok. You mentioned something when we were at the RSL at Caulfield the other day. At the EATS lunch. You came up and you said something happened on Anzac Day 1945.
CF: Happened on —
AP: Anzac Day 1945. You haven’t told me that story yet.
CF: Well that’s what I’m getting on to later on. That was the, in actual fact that’s the day we got shot down.
AP: That’s what I was hoping you’d say.
CF: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Please tell me about that experience.
CF: Yeah. Well I’ll tell you about the whole story. That’s part of my story.
AP: That’s part of your story.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Well ok.
CF: In actual fact I did that for this group, did one and I got for what turned out to be would I have my photograph taken and I said yes and I turned up like this and the, I found out that there was a team of five or six people. Not just one from the publicity. And one wanted the story and one wanted a photograph and so forth there. And I finished up getting my medals out and having a photograph taken and then they said, ‘Would you say a few words?’ I said, ‘Well a couple.’ A few words turned into, ‘Will you make a ten minute speech?’ So I finished up making a ten minute speech which described what happened from the day before when we were on the battle order which was the, picked like lead teams. That was the team that picked for the following day which was Anzac day. And my story lasted from there till the time that [pause] where does that go? Till the time we got to the Stalag. That’s right. Yeah. Ten minute speech. Yeah.
AP: Well I’ve got to the point in my questions now where we’ve been talking about operations so this is probably an appropriate time to carry on with your story if you —
CF: Yeah.
AP: If you’re happy to do so.
CF: Yeah. Yes. Well as I say. Right. Ok. Well now. Where were we? We’d got [pause] oh we got to Heavy Conversion Unit. I got introduced there, that I forgot to mention the fact that we picked up a flight engineer there. English flight engineer at the, when we got to Lindholme we picked up a English engineer. He had been, he was one of those fellows who’d been trained as a pilot and been sitting around for eight or ten weeks doing nothing and therefore he volunteered to go to go to a six weeks to be flight engineer and therefore get into operations. So we finished up, as I say a bit there that he was happy to fly with an Australian crew and we were happy to have him as a second pilot shall we say because he was a qualified pilot on it there. And he did a little bit of flying of the Lancaster while we were there and while we were at 460 so that he could take over if anything happened to our pilot. It was reassuring to have him. Yeah. Yeah. So then we get to, let me see, then we get to the 460 in March. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Ok. We start on that now?
AP: Yeah. Go for it.
CF: While at the start of our Heavy Conversion Unit we met up with our new flight engineer required for a Lancaster. He — name of Rick Thorpe and he came from Sheffield in Yorkshire. He was happy to join an Australian crew and we were happy to have him as a flight engineer and second pilot if necessary. We finished our training at HCU in March ‘45 and was transferred to Australian squadron number 460 at, near the village of Binbrook in the Lincolnshire. We did a training trip and the [pause] our skipper then did a second dickey trip with an experienced crew over Germany and after he came back about three days later we were on the battle order for that night. And we had the briefing. Found out we were going to bomb [Bruckstrasse?] which was a town close to [pause] what was it? Cologne. Everything went well. We took off at about 1.45 in the morning. Flew to [Bruckstrasse?] Started our bomb run. Everything was going nicely along. Nobody was saying anything. There was radio silence except for the navigator. The bomb aimer giving directions. And then the bomb aimer said, ‘Bombs gone. Bomb doors closed. Let’s get the bloody hell out of this,’ in a rather excited voice. And the rest of the crew felt that they had the same feelings. It was time to go. And on the way back across occupied France the plane got a shudder and the pilot told us that it was a near miss but it was dark at the time. Twenty minutes later when daylight came they found out that they had a hole in the wing that the shell had gone right through. We went back somewhat shamefaced that we’d injured the plane that was usually flown by one of the more experienced pilots. We then did several more trips and went ok. And then we went to Potsdam which was our longest trip to that date and as we dropped our bombs on Potsdam we were grabbed by the searchlights circuit and that’s very dangerous because the guns keep following those searchlights. And we dived very, very smartly and very steeply and heaven knows what speed we got to but we got out of the searchlights and flew back home. We did a trip to Bremen and as we were starting our bomb run the word came over, the code word, ‘Marmalade,’ which means cancelled. No bombs. So we had to dodge over Bremen to miss the flak and come home and land with a five or ten tons of bombs. Then on the 24th of April we were on the bomb order for the following day which would be our seventh flight. And wake up time was 2.15 am. So an early night. Up next morning, breakfast, flight plan, briefing and we were going to Berchtesgaden area. Not the town. In two waves. The first wave of a hundred and eighty planes was to bomb the houses of Hitler and all the Nazi leaders who’d also built their holidays home there and the communication centre and administration buildings. The second wave, of which we were one were to bomb the barracks of the Gestapo and the army that were looking after the Nazi leaders and their communication centre and administration quarters. That was one hour later. We took off just after 5 o’clock in the morning and flew down to the meeting point, joined the gaggle and were flying over The Channel and along over the French countryside. It was a lovely day. Beautiful blue sky. No clouds. Green fields, lakes and rivers down below and on the right was the majestic Alps and with the snow shining on the snow tops. Absolute picture book. We got near the target area and I left my table and moved behind. Ten inches behind the seat of the engineer because on the floor was a parcel of metal strips for [pause] we looked ahead, the flak looked light-medium so no worries. And the bomb aimer took over and he said, ‘Left. Left.’ And then, ‘Bombs gone. Bomb doors closed.’ And as he finished that word we were hit and something flew up past my face and out over the roof. And I looked down and in the centre of the parcel there was a jagged hole. In the meantime the pilot and the engineer were closing down the starboard engine which was a mess and the two inner motors which had also gone. So we were flying on one engine and an empty Lancaster will fly on one engine. The pilot checked the crew and found that everybody was ok. And he then said that the port outer engine, the remaining one was not giving full power and perhaps it would be best if we jumped while he had full control. Nobody wanted to jump. And the flight engineer said, ‘But we can’t do that Lofty. We’re over the Germany.’ At the time I thought that was a very sensible remark. Then we decided that we would try to reach the line of the allied army but very quickly the port, the remaining engine stopped and we were gliding and we had to go. And the drill was to all escape underneath the plane so you wouldn’t get hit by the tail plane. And the bomb aimer was the first to go and the four others all followed in due rate. And then the rear gunner appeared with the parachute in his arms. It had caught on the way up and opened. The pilot told him to get the spare parachute. He came back to say it wasn’t there. Later we found that they had taken it out to repack it and not — failed to replace it. The pilot then made a very very brave decision that rather than leave the rear gunner to his fate he would try and make a crash landing. At this time there was petrol floating around on the floor of the cockpit. His chances weren’t too good but he found that with the five men gone, the petrol also gone and such the plane would glide much better. And he saw a field down below of what looked like wheat and he glided the plane down. Dodged some wires close and put it down on a cornfield. They then both got out of the plane. Ran forty or fifty yards. Threw themselves down on the ground, looked back waiting for the explosion but nothing happened. The earth they’d driven into had apparently put out the flames. But appeared four Hitler youth boys aged about fourteen or so carrying a couple of machine guns which they pointed at the two Australians who were pretty worried. The boys were very excited. Talking to each other. And then along came the Volkssturm. The German Home Guard who took over and took the two Australians back to the regular army. Harry, the pilot, Harry was interrogated by a very high German officer there who said to him, ‘Why are you Australians here? We haven’t got any argument with Australia.’ Harry didn’t attempt to explain it but — meanwhile I had parachuted down to the ground and landed near a couple of houses in which the housewives were standing. Presumably looking at me coming down. And I hastily unbuckled my harness and parachute and left it there and went, walked quickly over to where there was a large clump of trees. The Volkssturm didn’t take long to turn up and no doubt the ladies pointed out where I was. And they were — I thought they said, ‘Pistol? Pistol?’ and patted me. I said, ‘No, and shook my head very vigorously. They said, ‘Parachute.’ and I just raised my eyebrows there and I assume that the couple of German ladies would be wearing silk underwear in the future. They took me to an army camp where there were my, the [unclear] were, was there and in the next couple of hours along came the mid-upper gunner and the flight engineer. And two or three hours after that again the pilot and the rear gunner appeared. The remaining member of the crew, the bomb aimer dropped first. He landed in the snow in the foothills and was captured by the mountain troops who took him deeper into the mountains and he actually didn’t get out of there till two days after the war ended. On May the 10th. The Americans turned up there. We were taken from the camp into the town where they had taken over the hotel as a headquarters and we were put in a room and finally given a piece of dry bread and it was covered in honey and ersatz cup of coffee. There was no hostility there. They were, but they were treating us as prisoners but not close guard. And came the evening light was there and we were put in the back of a covered wagon with the parachute of the, we think, the flight engineer. And we left there with a couple of guards. You might say nominal. Nobody was taking it too seriously. And we drove into the mountains and through the night. There was lots of traffic both ways on the roads. The Germans were using the darkness to avoid the allied fighters who were everywhere. And we then changed over half way across. We changed over to an open truck and we got under the parachute to open the parachute. Yeah. And at 6 o’clock we arrived at the Stalag 7a. Moosburg. Where they opened, a couple of the allied troops actually opened a couple of Red Cross parcels and fed us some breakfast which was very welcome. They then drove us further on to a communication centre at [Mainwaring?] about twenty kilometres away. And that afternoon the interrogating officer had Lofty, our pilot, in and asked him the questions and they got the usual answers there. And they said where, ‘Where do you come from?’ Lofty said, ‘West Australia.’ And the interrogating officer said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I know that quite well. I was an agent out there on several occasions for German firms buying wheat and wool.’ And Lofty said we then had a chat about the west Australian back countryside of which he knew more than I did. And then he said, ‘Well you’d better get back to your crew.’ So he said that was the interrogation. The Germans had given up. And the next morning, we stayed the night there and the next morning we were taken back to the Stalag on a tray, a horse tray with two horses to carry us back to the thing and we did a mixture of walking and sitting on the truck. And we talked to various Australians along the way who had been working on the farms. Where was the question? And we got back to the Stalag and the chief Australian officer said, ‘Do you know what’s going to happen to us prisoners when the allies arrive?’ And our pilot said, ‘Oh yes. We’re going to be taken back to England in the back of bombers.’ ‘Oh,’ said the group captain, ‘How would you know?’ Our pilot said, ‘Well the day before we got shot down they marked twenty five places on our plane where people could sit.’ ‘Oh.’ That was the end of that. The, on the 29th of April the American 14th Division came in and we were free. But it was some time before we got back to England.
AP: And you did go back to England in the back of a bomber. Did you go back to England in the back of a bomber?
CF: Yes. I think that’s about enough there but in actual fact what happened was that was the 29th of May. On May the 1st, yeah the 29th of April, May the 1st two days later General Patton arrived sitting on the front of a truck and at least a hundred correspondents and photographers if not a thousand were there and he announced that we would all be home in two or three days. Back in England in two or three days. And the, some of the Americans would be back in America in two to three weeks. At which the old timers such as me and such were a little bit cynical because of the amount of numbers. And we, yeah, so we sat in the Stalag with the — somehow or other the food was still coming in and the Red Cross parcels were being tapped and so forth. There wasn’t much difference under the Americans than there was under the Germans shall we say because I wasn’t going to go out into the town that I couldn’t speak the language and there were some wild people around. And, yes, I stayed in camp. But the long term prisoners who could speak German went into the town and in actual fact slept in some of the houses because the German, the German civilians liked to have you sleeping in their house if you were well behaved. There was no, any wild men turned up in the middle of the night sort of business, there. On the 7th of May. The night of the 6th of May we were told the following morning at 5 o’clock we would be taken by semi-trailer to air strips where we would be loaded on DC3s. A Dakota who would take us to the main ports, airports where we would then get into either American or British bombers. On the 7th of May we got up at 5 o’clock and duly got on the back of semi-trailers there and we were driven, I reckon forty odd kilometres if not more to an airstrip, a grass airstrip and quite a few. A big crowd. Only a few planes turned up. And therefore that night we were taken back to the German, at Ingolstadt the German. And we did some souveniring of some German wear and tear. And they took us back to the airstrip again the following day. And that was May 8th. Everybody was celebrating. One plane turned up, don’t ask me how they got to one plane there. So at lunchtime, by then the fella in charge of the shipment out said, ‘Go away and have a swim in the river or whatever you do. There’s nothing. Nobody is going to come in today and get it there.’ So an, sorry English long term prisoner who slept just near where I was in the hut said, ‘Oh come into town.’ I said, ‘ Oh ok.’ He said, ‘We’ll go and get, go in to the house and get some hot water for which we’ll give them American cigarettes,’ which were a very strong bartering tool and we’ll take some coffee in. He said, ‘I’ve got some of the stuff that the Americans who got taken out yesterday left on the ground. And let’s put it this way. A long term prisoner never threw anything away. You could, if you didn’t want it you could barter it for something else. And, ‘Yeah. Ok,’ and we went in and I don’t know whether he’d sized it up before we went in this house and we saw them and said you know could we get some water for a wash and a shave and we got some American cigarettes. And yes that’s ok. So we had a wash and a shave and then we said we’d got some coffee and they said yeah. So we were there and two daughters appeared aged, well they might have been nineteen, twenty, twenty one. Some like that age. And we found out that they had married some local boys who had then been grabbed by the army where ever it was. They were taken into Stalingrad. Do you know? Have you heard of Stalingrad?
AP: Yes.
CF: And as such they wondered whether they’d ever see their husbands again, sort of business, there. So that was their message. That we were celebrating the end of the war and they of course weren’t celebrating. And the two daughters were wondering you know just what the bloody hell was going to be the future of them. Anyway we had some nice cup of coffee with them. We having produced the coffee grains there to do it. Yeah. And we went back to the camp and we were taken to a jail that night and there was a bit of a fire about four in the morning or something or other. Some screaming. We got out of that and went and spent the rest of the night back at the airfield and using the overcoats that had all been abandoned by the, because they wouldn’t let you take overcoats on planes. It would make the load too heavy. And that was the 8th. The 9th and the 10th a few planes came in and the English bloke with the German language and so forth managed to wangle himself on one of the planes. So we didn’t go back to the house again and we just filled in the day just walking around. It was nice warm weather and such. So on the 11th there we were having breakfast. Oh we slept out those two nights using the overcoats and so what shelter there was and such so the following morning we’re there and the whole bloody plane, DC3s turned up. So we have to grab what breakfast we could and go and get ready, ready to go and you know make up plans. You had to go and list. Before you got on a plane you had to list everybody who was getting on the plane so if anything happened you knew what was happening . So we got taken to Rheims. To the small aerodrome and then we were taken by semi-trailer across to the major airport which of, was Juvencourt which was, you know, had about, probably had about five runways. Whatever it is. Anyway, we got there and I was allocated to a New Zealand Lancaster crewed by new Zealanders. And the pilot — I’d been in advanced flying unit with him six months before. He looked at me a bit surprised. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘What the bloody hell do you think I’m doing?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Come and sit alongside me.’ So I, I didn’t sit in my designated spot but sat alongside him and got quite a nice view as we flew back. So anyway I was back on the 11th but the rear gunner, the bloke in there, he got back late on the 7th. He was the only one that came through on the one day where we were at the whole five thousand were supposed to do or something or other. Don’t ask me who was doing the statistics and everything around the place. Anyway, he got through on the night of the 7th and he was tired and they slept at some English ‘drome near London. Were there when fighter ones probably saw it and in the morning he and the other blokes hopped in a bus or something or other. He said, ‘What’s all the people wandering around shouting and jumping and everything else.’ ‘Oh the war’s finished. They’re celebrating.’ They said, ‘Oh is it?’ Oh. So he said he got down to Brighton on the 8th. The mid-upper gunner and the wireless operator had got as far as Holland no the 7th in other words but there was no plane to take them back to England that night. And so they got back on the 8th. That’s three. We don’t know what happened to the English engineer, he, after that he didn’t reply to any mail or anything etcetera. That was four. That’s right. So I got back on the 11th when, as I say, I got back to England on the 11th and the pilot actually stayed another four days after this. He didn’t leave the Stalag until about the 11th. Then he got flown to Nancy and then he took the train to the [pause] somewhere near the English Channel. And then flew across The Channel. He got back about the 15th. So if you get the idea that all your POWs are going to be flown back home in two days [laughs] — but I will say this much. We got very well treated when we got back to Brighton. In England. There, we got special treatment from there and when I went on leave I got, I think quadruple rations, I think, to take to the people I stayed with etcetera. Yeah. I got very well looked after. So that was the story of there. That as I say and that’s one thing on the DC3s you get quite a nice view of the Maginot and the what’s the name, the Siegfried Line. And all the debris of war was still spread out across the countryside shall we say. Nobody had had time to clear it up. It was, it’s out of the way, just leave it there and we’ll do it next week or something or other like that. The debris was and the bridges had been blown up and you could see what war had done to the countryside. You know. Yes. Oh yes. So that’s the story.
AP: Well I have three more questions.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Alright. So after that experience you came home to Australia. What did you do? How did you adjust back to normal life again?
CF: I had very little time adjusting back shall we say. And for instance my mate, Dan Lynch, who I, he was Tasmanian but he’d come over to Melbourne and he stayed in Melbourne and did the, went to the Melbourne University and got a degree in biology and then joined the fisheries and game department as their first biologist actually. And I formed a lifelong friendship and so I for the next few years while we were batchelors we saw a lot of each other. As we did with another couple of fellas who we trained with — Frank Kelly and John Hodson etcetera there. Yes. Four bachelors played around and one went up to The Northern Territory and then three bachelors played around. Yeah. So we all, as far, we all seemed, we all seemed to get pretty much, Frank actually I know started to do a course on something. I forget now. But he gave that away and then he got a job with a international there. The motors and so forth with them and from there he moved on to the South Melbourne City Council. I got a job back with a small building firm that I’d worked with and went back there. And went and did my accounting studies and then moved to a job with what was then Vacuum Oil which is now Mobil oil there. And Dan, as I say, got this thing and then he got a job. Those three of us, none of us had any, well as I say Frank had got shot down. And Dan and I had got shot down. And in actual fact the other fellow, John Hodson, he was sick one night. Didn’t fly. His crew didn’t return. So he had to get another crew etcetera. He, he, he sort of felt the war, shall we say, more than he did because he’d been pretty friendly with that crew and did a lot with them whereas we didn’t lose over there the same feeling as he got. And we also adjusted quite well to doing it there and I don’t quite know. By and large aircrew seemed to adjust pretty well back to there. Maybe the fact that we did it at remote distances as distinct to fellas that were there but on the other hand there were like the other day one fellow who didn’t do too well. And I know another fellow who didn’t, for thirty years did nothing because his best mate had got killed on 460 Squadron. I don’t know much about it. His third of fourth trip the plane crashed and killed the whole lot. Now why the plane crashed about twenty miles from base I don’t know. It could have been that something had been frayed and wear and tear over those next hundred miles might have caused something and all of a sudden some control might have snapped and the plane went in before the pilot could do anything about it. If he was flying at only a couple of thousand feet ready to land you don’t know. But that fella wouldn’t just come, for thirty years he wouldn’t come back to the air force. So there were people who were affected by the things but in my immediate knowledge of the people I trained with and saw a lot of in the next few years, none of them suffered from any kind of mental stress that showed in any way at all, sort of business there. So it did appear that being possibly a little bit away from it and so forth there but that’s how it goes on it there. In actual fact my biggest loss was a friend I grew up with who joined the air force before I did and went up to New Guinea. And on his first flight was shot down and he was injured and captured by the Japanese and the bloody Japanese sergeant then bloody murdered him. Which was a nasty one at the time but you know that one of your boys had not only not killed in action but bloody murdered sort of business there and we were told like, and the family afterwards said that they were told that they, that sergeant had been killed and they couldn’t do anything about it as a result sort of business. But that was the only, really he was the only one that was, really hurt me shall we say. My brother was in the army in the anti-aircraft in New Guinea but he was ok. And the other as I said this mate of mine. This is the odds of course. In Berkeley Street which is the next street to where I was in Kooyongkoot Road, Hawthorn. My mate did the thirty trips. The one that was there. Next door to him was a fella called Bob Benber who later became a big dealer in the insurance industry. He did a trip and got his DFC. And exactly opposite them was where Alec Wilde who did two trips — two tours. A tour and then another tour with 460. They all survived. And Kooyongkoot Road where I lived there was this lad I was telling you about got killed by the Japanese. I was a prisoner of war and a little further up the street was a fellow who was captured in the army at Crete. So two streets, three blokes all had tough luck. Next street three blokes who lived as close as you could possibly get all survived Bomber Command which was a dangerous place. Don’t ask me about the statistics. Yeah.
AP: Someone. One of my interview people said, ‘That’s the important thing in war. To have good fortune,’ he said.
CF: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: That, yeah. That’s exactly what you just explained.
CF: Yeah.
AP: I’m getting closer. I have two more questions. You mentioned when, I think it was your pilot, Harry, was being interrogated or when he was captured the German asked him, ‘You’re Australian. Why are you fighting us?’ I’m just curious. If he had attempted to explain why Australia was there what might he have said? What I’m interested in is why was Australia there?
CF: Well Lofty was not shall we say a well-educated man. He was a country boy. Grew up in the wheat fields and then moved into Perth. As such his, I don’t quite know what he might have said actually with his background of it there. It’s a little hard to say what you would say on it there. And whether he might have said, you know, we were fighting for the king or something. I can’t quite, can’t quite imagine him saying kind of thing that er. We were fighting. The best thing I could say he’d say we’re fighting because you Germans are threatening the rest of the whole of the world. Something of that nature is about all I think he might have said at that stage. But as I said he was not well educated in the sense of the word. He was a doer rather than a thinker type of business there. But as for a man in an emergency he comes out much higher than anybody else I know.
AP: I guess he was tested there.
CF: In other words, we said on his eightieth, so much so that both Dan and I worked it out that we would be in Perth around his eightieth birthday and we then took him up to Frasers restaurant, by name. Which is the big restaurant in Perth overlooking the township from what’s its name there? Have you been there at all? Anyway, we went there and we said, I said, ‘Except for picking our wives — Dan’s wife was there so she said, Thank you Colin.’ Picking Harry as a pilot was the best personnel decision we ever made. And he said, ‘Yes. I agree entirely. It was the best personnel decision that we made.’ And as you heard before we just about picked his crew for him. But as I said he was, we were right he was a solid citizen and that was it type of business of it there. He’s the type of bloke thank you want in your back line I suppose, at football. Sturdy. Dependable. And always be there. Yes. Yes a real bloke. A pity of it that they only had one daughter who was a smart lady. In actual fact she didn’t get married. Yeah. You could pass some of his genes down shall we say but there it is. Yes. Yes. He died some years ago and I flew over for his wedding [laughs] for his wedding — for his funeral and made a speech on there. Yes.
AP: The final question and probably the most important one. In your opinion what is Bomber Command’s legacy? What is the legacy of Bomber Command and how do you want it to be remembered?
CF: Well I’m not too sure where Bomber Command stands at the moment as you said. The thing is that hurt most of all that Churchill deserted Bomber Command. In fact he did it there and the — Harris, the one said he was sitting with on May 8th listening to, with the head of the American bombers and they listened and he mentioned Fighter Command and Transport Command and Coastal Command. Not one word one way or the other was Bomber Command in the Churchill’s speech of the victory over Germany mentioned. And in actual fact a couple of there before that after he was the man who agreed with Stalin that Bomber Command would bomb Dresden and he then sent the message back to the head of the air force — Portal. Who then passed the message down to Harris. And as Harris said all he said was the decision was made by somebody much more powerful than me and he was quite aware that no doubt he had a good relationship with Portal. He was probably mentioned of it there and he [pause] that, that hurt most of all. That later on there but that was it. When the war was close to finishing and all of a sudden shall we say the bishops and the [unclear] were saying oh we shouldn’t have bombed. Oh no. Look. Bombings nothing supposed to be like that. It’s just supposed to be drop a little bit in their garden or something. Look. Look at all the houses you’ve knocked down. Look at all the [pause] No. So in England there was great horror that those nice German people they used to see on holidays had been. Yeah. Anyway. The point is that it should always be remembered that the amount that Bomber Command did for the — well they sunk more capital ships then the navy and as Harris said didn’t even get a thank you [laughs] The army in the war in Europe would go back, instead of calling up the artillery they would call up Harris and say would you drop a few bombs on something or other on the business of it there. And while the, for instance the Americans got — grabbed a lot of praise for stopping the advance the Germans made in December, January sort of business there. Nobody ever mentioned that Bomber Command went and, in the, where there were the roads, two very important roads crossed. That Bomber Command just blasted that crossing out of action and nothing could move through there for another twenty four to forty eight hours. Reinforcements and so forth etcetera. That sort of thing never got talked about. Yeah. Well the thing is that in more recent times they have come around to realising that Bomber Command did a lot of things there. And one of the things that they did was that they bombed the artificial petrol factories there and the German fighters basically from the invasion on, or before the invasion were short of their hundred degree err hundred octane petrol because of the artificial petrol being made from coal — I think it was about eighty seven where they wanted a hundred. So they had to add things to it to make it a hundred and the, from before that the German fighters were not sent up anywhere near as often because they were trying to save petrol and of course the funny thing was that [pause] what is really never said and that is both against the Japanese and the Germans that the code breakers were able to get the messages that had been tracked on the wireless and they could then tell you what was going to, they could then tell you what was going to happen, sort of business of it there, and they never got the accolades. It did sort of business of it there. Because anyway they got the message and Churchill and the head of the army, the head of the navy and the head of the air force and I think about two other leading politicians etcetera there. I’m not too sure. They were the only ones that were allowed to be given the information that was coming through and they knew how it got there. So Portal, as the head of the air force knew that the Germans were short of petrol. Not only for their planes but for their tanks and so forth etcetera there. And he’s wanting Harris to really bomb the artificial factories more, more, more, and Harris who’s been told over the years it’s ball bearings, its gear boxes, there’s something else that was going to win the war was getting this message about it, about this. And in fact that it got to the point when Harris said to Portal, ‘Well if you don’t like my bombing programme I’ll hand my resignation in and you can get somebody who will do it.’ Portal couldn’t say, ‘I’ve got this information.’ You could understand why Harris was irate. So it was a bit tricky for some months there as to a bit of a chill between them because one knew all the information he was right but on the other hand he could understand why the other one was arguing against it there. But oh well it’s like there and I think in the last few years that the Bomber Command has been done there but it will never get the credit because it certainly did the damage and I must admit when you see the damage that Bomber Command did they did it, sort of business. And probably this is the old story of course people say oh they should have stopped it much earlier and you ask people in January ‘45 how long would the war last? You know. January February. Could go on for twelve months or so. And they say well why didn’t they stop doing it etcetera there. They probably could have stopped it a little earlier but it’s very difficult to say. Nobody knew that Hitler was going to commit suicide. If they knew that Hitler would commit suicide. Ok. Sort of business there. But as I say our raid that we got shot down on was completely unnecessary because Hitler was never going to come back to Berchtesgaden but a lot of people thought he was and he did sort of the business of it there. Ah yes I was quite glad as several leading people have said there, said the main character is that, I’m trying to this of his name. He said — he was a farmer in the Wagga area and he and another fella in Wagga further on he said, the war as he saw it was it’s like how you are at home. If there’s a fire or a flood on a neighbours territory you down tools and go over and help him. And he said, that’s what we were doing. Australia. England was in trouble and we were going over to help it sort of business of it there.’ And he [pause] Bill Brill and Arthur.
AP: Doubleday. Doubleday.
CF: Yeah. Yes. They had amazing bloody careers on there and I read somewhere that neither ever had to bring back an injured crew member. Absolutely amazing the fact that they had flown. Each of them had done sixty trips or something or other. Or more. Just one of those things. Yeah.
AP: Well that’s all the questions I have so unless you have anything, anything else to add to the discussion just before we wrap up.
CF: I don’t think so. The business of it there. The great trouble was of course after the war here as you probably knew that the fellas who came back from Europe were blackballed a bit. In fact some of them were accused of running away and actually anyway when the war was over the people who were out here were very annoyed when the people who’d been in Europe came back and told them what a real war was about. And as the fella who later became chief of the air force and the actual Governor General — sorry, the Governor of New South Wales he said he was in the mess and he said and somebody was saying, ‘There must have been forty planes, forty guns firing at me. It was terrible.’ And as this fella said, ‘I didn’t say something but I had had four hundred guns shooting at me sort of business of it there. And that was the thing. The reason there and they appointed the wrong bloke as chief of the air force during the war. They got the wrong diagram or something or other. I forget what it was. Anyway. Yeah. So that was a pity that it took ten years after the war I think to sort of get that nexus between those who had been in the war there. The fella I was telling you about Eric Wilde did two tours now he’s a bit of a character but he went to having got the DFC and the DFM and a flight lieutenant and all the rest of it. He was, went to an OUT, up I think to Mildura or somewhere like that and he was classified as not suitable for flying in The Pacific. And he promptly got a discharge and went and got a very nice job with A&A flying planes and he was made for life and that sort of business there. But some other fella came back, he’d been a wing commander over there and the best they could offer him was a flight lieutenant’s job or something or other. Those sorts of thing. Yeah. There was a bit of a nastiness as well as difficulty that fellas who had handled miles of stuff — when they came back here they would say the people who had the bit of power they’d fought in The Pacific and that was, ‘oh we had to do it. We didn’t have brick buildings to go back to at night time.’ And we had to do that and so forth there. One of the interesting periods of that incidentally was the fact that the fella came over as a wing commander at Binbrook and in that period in December, January when the big war was on. The Battle of the Bulge. And the air was there he said Binbrook when the snow came down he looked at the amount of equipment they had and he thought well in The Pacific we had one ‘drome and that was it. One big strip. That’s all we could make. So he told the bloke in charge of the ‘drome that he was to put his all equipment pick out the main one that was used and keep that one strip open. The other two strips don’t worry about them. Keep that main strip open and keep your, all the equipment on that and as he said at one time, or something or other we had seventy planes come and landed there and he said, ‘Where did you put them?’ And he said, ‘We put the one on strips we weren’t using.’ That was it. In other words where the one fella who had only ever been in England always had three strips tried to keep three strips open. Whereas he had been in The Pacific where, you know that was it. A few little things like that appeared here and there. On their, on the business side of it there. Yes. Yes. Of course there were a lot of politics on it. On the business of it there. But it’s there and the point is that’s true about Lofty Payne on there. That was in various magazines over the time and even in The Sun and it’s in the bomber what’s the name there, Bomber Boys. Lancaster man. Yeah. And I asked Lofty. He said, ‘I have never talked to anybody.’ I think he did talk to the fella who wrote the history of 460 Squadron during the war. He was Australian. I think he might have talked to him. But he said all the others — no. I’ve never talked anybody about that. Where they’ve got the information from I don’t know. But none of them ever come or ring me up or talk to me about it sort of business there. Yeah. It’s irritating slightly shall we say. Sort of business. Yeah.
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AFraserC151113, PFraserC1501
Title
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Interview with Colin Fraser
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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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02:10:16 audio recording
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2015-11-13
Description
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Colin joined the British Army in December 1941, and eventually moved to his preferred Royal Air Force in March 1943. He went to Number 2 Initial Training School at RAAF Bradfield Park in Sydney as a navigator, graduating in February 1944. His first flight was in an Anson at Number 2 Air Observers’ School at Mount Gambier. Colin then sailed to Britain.
There were some delays as Bomber Command had surplus aircrew. He spent some leave through the Lady Ryder Scheme and went to RAF Padgate. He was sent to RAF Fairoaks and witnessed V2 flying bombs before returning to RAF Padgate. Colin was sent to RAF West Freugh and did dead reckoning navigation. His next destination was 27 Operational Training Unit in Lichfield. Colin describes how they crewed up. He was introduced to the Gee radio navigation system and Wellingtons. He went to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Lindholme and encountered Lancasters and H2S.
Colin discusses his impressions of England and his activities. He also outlines how he carried out his role as a navigator.
They transferred to 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook and started operations in March 1945. Colin describes some of their seven operations, which involved damage to the aircraft on a trip to Saarbrücken; being caught in the searchlights at Potsdam; cancellation mid-route of their trip to Bremen. On 25 April 1945, they flew in the second wave to Berchtesgaden and were hit, losing all but one engine. Some of the crew baled out but the pilot crash-landed the aircraft with the rear gunner because of a missing parachute. Colin was taken to Stalag Luft 7 at Moosburg. They were freed on 29 April 1945 by the American 14th Division, although it took some time to return to England and ultimately Australia.
Colin gives his views on the treatment of Bomber Command and the politics involved.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Surrey
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Germany
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Potsdam
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Germany--Moosburg an der Isar
Germany--Ingolstadt
Poland
Poland--Opole (Voivodeship)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1943-03
1944
1944-02
1945-04-25
1945-04-29
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
27 OTU
460 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
C-47
crash
crewing up
Gee
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military service conditions
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
prisoner of war
RAF Binbrook
RAF Fairoaks
RAF Lichfield
RAF Lindholme
RAF West Freugh
searchlight
shot down
superstition
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/406/7055/ENortonSCNortonG431105.1.pdf
ffa178b8f3a080bca32a3468a2dfc214
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
1819182 A/C2 Norton G.,
Class 6D, "C" Squadron,
2 Air Crew Wing,
4 Radio School,
R.A.F. Madley,
[underlined] Hereford [/underlined]
17, Beech Street,
Lincoln.
[underlined] 5.11.43 [/underlined]
Dear Geoff,
Thanks a lot kid for your letter which was waiting for me when I arrived back home today.
I'm glad you are getting on O.K. with the course, and that it's not so difficult as the first. You are having some bad luck as regards the flying, but you will no doubt be able to get it all done when you get some good weather. I don't suppose you will worry about flying on Sunday as I expect you would rather be doing that than staying up all night
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
on guard.
I hope you get on alright in the Harwell boxes, as they are the nearest thing to actual air operating.
I am getting on o.k. and am enjoying my leave. I managed to get away from camp on Sunday morning but owing to the rotten train service on Sundays I didn't get home until just before midnight, so I had to knock Mother up. On Monday morning I stayed in, and then went to town in the afternoon, but there wasn't anything to buy. At night I went to the cinema with Dorothy, and we went to the Savoy to see "Kings Row," and it was a very good show. On Tuesday morning I went to fetch Mother's train ticket, as she went on the lunchtime train. I stayed in during the afternoon, as I had quite a few things to do. [deleted] On [/deleted] At night Pete was playing at a dance, so Eve and I went to
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined]
the Theatre to see "Date in Tunis", the two principals being Leslie Fuller[?] and Maisie Weldon and it was a very good show. I was very busy on Wednesday morning, as I had to make the fire, make the beds, and clean the [deleted] beds [/undeleted] place up a bit. By the time I had done this and washed up, it was time to set the table for dinner. In the afternoon I went to the Ritz to see Abbott and Costello in "Money for Jam," and it was very good, although not as funny as they usually are. In the evening I went with Dorothy to a dance at the Assembly Rooms, and had a really good time. On Thursday morning I had to get up early to catch the 9.24 train to Derby, and I didn't have much time, not even time for breakfast. I got there about 11.30 and little Hilary was fast asleep. She is a lovely little thing and has been really good. I went into Derby in the afternoon to do some shopping, but the only thing I bought was this writing stuff, and I was lucky to get this. I stayed in at night and then went for a walk with Ray to the fish shop for [deleted]one indecipherableword[/deleted] our suppers. Ray and I slept upstairs and May Mother and Hilary
[page break]
[underlined] 4 [/underlined]
downstairs, and I never heard a murmur from baby all night. This morning we were dashing about and everyone was in in a flat spin. I had ordered a taxi, and it came at 10.15, so when we got to the station we had about twenty minutes to wait before the train came in. Anyhow, we managed to get a seat, but Hilary didn't like all the noise on the station and she [deleted] didn't [/deleted] yelled quite a lot, but was much quieter when the train started. We had to change at Nottingham, and we got in an empty carriage, so we had a good journey. May had written and asked Mrs. Burrows if she would get a taxi to meet us, and when we got to Lincoln this great big car was waiting for us, so we weren't long being whisked home. Mrs. Burrows was at our house, and had got a cooked dinner waiting for us, so we were very thankful [deleted]one indecipherable word [/deleted] as we were nearly famished. This afternoon May and I had Hilary in the pram and we went to Giles and to the post
[page break]
[underlined] 5 [/underlined]
office, and baby was asleep all the time. We had just had tea when Eve came home, then Mrs. Collins popped in to see them. Auntie Eliza and Martha then came, and they were followed by Mrs. Burrows, so you may guess that we had a housefull.[sic] Everyone was delighted with Hilary, and I expect you will notice a difference in her when you come home again. After baby had been [deleted] ?one indecipherable word[/deleted] put to bed they all went, so we are nice and quiet now, and Eve and Pete have gone on their bikes to the fish shop. That is a complete diary of my activities since I came home, and I hope it hasn't bored you.
If it is fine tomorrow I may go to Nottingham for the day as I want to do some Xmas shopping. There is also a match on, as the County are playing Forest, so it should be good. If I don't go, I shall go to
[page break]
[underlined] 6 [/underlined]
the match here, as City are playing Grimsby. The latter are hoping to have the services of Ronald Dix, the international inside forward, so it should be a good game. City are fielding practically the same team that beat Mansfield last week, so Lello who scored four last week may put up another good show.
I shall be returning to camp on Monday, so write to me there.
Everyone sends their love, and Mother will be writing at the weekend.
I managed to get a new valve from Woodheads, and the radio goes quite well now.
Well kid, I guess thats [sic] all the news from home, so cheerio, keep smiling, and safe flying
Yours
[underlined] Stan [/underlined]
X [underlined] from Hilary to [deleted] hear? [/deleted] her Uncle [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined]From [/underlined]
Sgt S. C. Norton,
Sgts. Mess,
R.A.F. Dunsfold,
c/o Horsham G.P.O.
[underlined] Sussex [/underlined]
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 Geoffrey Norton from Stanley Norton
Description
An account of the resource
Stanley Norton comments on Geoffrey Norton's training, he describes his last leave and going to the cinema with Dorothy, to the theatre with Eve, to a dance with Dorothy, lots of domestic activity and news.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stanley Norton
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-11-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six handwritten pages and envelope
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
ENortonSCNortonG431105
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
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--Herefordshire
England--Surrey
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Debbie Record
Margaret Carr
David Bloomfield
military living conditions
RAF Dunsfold
RAF Madley
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/459/8204/EBarrNorthR450312.2.jpg
ead5ea55a4feb7df490f54e3d66f0eec
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
North, Geoffrey John
North, G J
North, Johnny
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey John 'Johnny' North, DFC, (173836, Royal Air Force) who served as a rear gunner on 428, 76 and 35 Squadrons flying Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He was called up in 1940 from his job as a tailor in Saville Row where he returned after the war. He was shot down on an operation to Duisburg on 21 February 1945. The collection contains his logbook, an account of his shooting down, capture and time as a prisoner of war, including documentation, forced march to another camp in 1945, liberation and repatriation. The collection includes membership documents for Royal Air Force Association, Pathfinders Association and Caterpillar Club as well as personnel documentation, Pathfinder badge correspondence and photographs of crew and squadron as well as other memorabilia.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Bishopp and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
North, G
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[embossed stamp]
Royal Air Force,
Graveley,
Hunts.
Ref: 35S/C.68/174/P.1. 12th March, 1945.
Dear Mr. North,
I am enclosing a certificate for the permanent award of the Path Finder Force Badge to your Son, which no doubt you would like to keep for him.
I regret that we still have had no news of your Son’s crew.
Yours faithfully,
[signature]
Flight Lieutenant, Adjutant,
for,
[underlined] Squadron Commander [/underlined]
Mr. R. North,
Karind Boundstone,
[underlined] Farnham, Surrey. [/underlined]
[inserted] [underlined] Acknowledged 17 . 3 . 45. [/underlined][/inserted]
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 Geoffrey North's father concerning pathfinder badge
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to R North from RAF Graveley covering enclosure of certificate for permanent award of Path Finder Force badge. Note of regret that there is no new of his son's crew.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. 35 Squadron
R North
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-03-12
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
EBarrNorthR450312
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--Surrey
England--Farnham
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Andy Hamilton
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One-page typewritten document
missing in action
Pathfinders
RAF Graveley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/474/8381/MClydeSmithD39856-160919-04.2.pdf
f7527bdcc9b68b15110a25b101935993
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
Clyde-Smith, Denis
Clyde-Smith, D
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains 26 items and concerns Squadron Leader Denis Clyde-Smith Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross, who joined the Royal Air Force and trained as a pilot in 1937. He flew in the anti aircraft cooperation role including remotely piloted Queen Bee aircraft before serving on Battle aircraft on 32 Squadron. He completed operational tours on Wellington with 115 and 218 Squadrons and Wellington and Lancaster with 9 Squadron after which he went to the aircraft and armament experimental establishment at Boscombe Down. The collection consists of two logbooks, aircraft histories of some of the aircraft he flew, photographs of people and aircraft, newspaper articles and gallantry award certificate.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Clyde-Smith 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
2016-09-19
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clyde-Smith, D
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
The enclosed aircraft histories are all in respect of Tiger Moth aircraft flown by you while undergoing ab-initio training at Sywell. I have commenced the breakdown of their service life as from the date of their impressment into RAF service. However, prior to this, the Tigers in question were operated under a Type ‘A’ Civil Contract which was put into use under the Expansion Scheme of the 1930 era. Then on the 30th of November, 1939, the Air Ministry took over command and RAF roundels were applied to the Tigers, although their civil markings were retained until 1940/41. The Tigers at Sywell were impressed under two Contracts, each issued on the 17th of September, 1940, as follows:
BB693-706 allocated to 6 E.F.T.S. under Contract No. All3015/40 dtd 17/9/40.
BB788-793 allocated to 6 E.F.T.S. under Contract No. All3015/40 (2nd part)
G-ADGF c/n 3345 impressed as BB704
Used at Sywell until 9/8/42, when it was transferred to 10 OUT at Abingdon. Released to 6 MU Brize Norton on the 9th of February, 1943, and later issued to 16 E.F.T.S. Burnaston. Here BB704 was coded ‘7’ later taking the code FIP:A (the four letter codes were issued to Flying Training Command, circa 1945/46). On 31/7/46, BB704 was flown to 9 MU Cosford, and stored until released to 21 E.F.T.S. Booker (near High Wycombe) on 25/3/48. Coded FIW:O, BB704 remained with 21 E.F.T.S. until transfer to 7 F.T.S. Cottesmore on 30/3/50. On June 19th of the same year it was transferred to Station Flight, Feltwell, taking the code ‘W’. However, it’s active use was now rapidly drawing to a close, and on 30/11/50, it was allocated the instructional airframe serial 6805M and delivered to No. 664 ATC Squadron, St. Walter & St. John’s Godalming County School (Surrey Wing).
[page break]
G-ADGG c/n 3346 impressed as BB695
Used at Sywell throughout it’s entire career and was destroyed in a landing accident on 12/5/41.
G-ADGT c/n 3338 impressed as BB697
Continued in use at Sywell until transfer to 26 E.F.T.S. Theale on, 15/7/42. Coded B26, BB697 remained in use at Theale until it was released to store at 12 MU Kirkbridge on 18/7/45. It’s next move was overseas to Germany and 652 Squadron where it served from 17/10/45 to 9/5/46. Following a year spent at No. 151 Aircraft Repair Unit, BB697 was flown to 5 MU Kemble for disposal.
On 27/8/47, BB697 was sold to a civilian operator, and was restored to the Civil Register, and during the early 1960’s it was still in use, registered to Westwick Distributors, Foulsham.
G-ADGV c/n 3340 impressed as BB694
Used by 6 E.F.T.S. until transfer to 29 E.F.T.S. Clyffe Pypard on 15/7/42. Released to 5 MU Kemble on 14/8/46, BB694 was eventually released to the Royal Navy. In RNAS service BB694 served at Stretton, Lossiemouth, and Arbroath before transfer on 17/11/60, to the Britannia Flight at Roborough (Plymouth).
G-ADGW c/n 3341 impressed as BB706
Sevred at Sywell throughout the war years, and was eventually released to store at 10 MU Hullavington. Struck off Charge on 22/5/50, BB706 was disposed of to W.A. Rollason Ltd., who in turn sold it to the D.H. Technical College for ground instruction purposes.
[page break]
G-ADGX c/n 3342 impressed as BB698
Continued in use at Sywell until 9/8/42, when it was flown to RAF Doncaster. Following a brief spell at Taylorcraft, BB698 was released to 5 MU Kemble on 24/6/43. From Kemble BB698 was transfered [sic] to the Royal Navy and delivered to RNAS Hinstock. Attached to 758 Squadron and later RNAS Lee-on-Solent, BB698 went on to serve with B Flight of 798 Squadron, Station Flight Lee-on-Solent, RNAS Evarton, and 727 Squadron RNAS Gosport, in that order before being sold to the Wiltshire School of Flying on 5/2/51. Restored to the Civil Register it was lost in a crash at Thruxton on 11/7/53, when it’s pilot overshot the airfield.
G-ADGY c/n 3343 impressed as BB699
Served for it’s entire life at Sywell, and was lost in a crash during a low flying exercise near Turvey, Bedfordshire, on 25/7/44, when it struck some power cables.
G-ADGZ c/n 3344 impressed as BB700
Used at Sywell until transfer to 7 A.G.S. Stormy Down on 13/8/42. Delivered to Towyn U.A.S. in 1943, and damaged beyond repair taxing [sic] at RAF Towyn, 10/2/44.
[page break]
G-ADIH c/n 3349 impressed as BB789
While in use at 6 E.F.T.S. BB789 took the code ‘89’. Released to 5 MU Kemble on 9/8/42, and then to RAF Speke on 31/10/42. However, by 6/12/42, BB789 had found it’s way back to 5 MU, where it was eventually converted to an instructional airframe. Bearing the serial 3654M it was delivered to 2006 ATC Squadron at Cheltenham on 2/4/43.
During 1946 this Tiger was handed over – without Air Ministry approval – to the Gloucester Flying Club, who promptly spent £425 in restoring G-ADIH to flying condition, and naturally thought the Tiger their property. However, the Air Ministry then stepped in and requested the return of their aircraft – the matter being eventually settled by a payment by the Gloucester Flying Club of £50 to Air Ministry. G-ADIH remained on the Civil Register until 20/11/52, when it was destroyed during a landing accident near Ramsgate.
G-ADII c/n 3350 impressed as BB701
Served with 6 E.F.T.S. throughout the war years, and was released to 9 MU Cosford on 30/8/46. Remaining in storage until 6/4/49, when it was delivered to 9 R.F.S. Doncaster. Destroyed on 22/4/50, when it spun into a sports field near Hansworth.
G-ADIJ c/n 3351 impressed as BB788
Used at Sywell throughout the war, and taken to 9 MU Cosford on 19/7/45, for disposal. Sold to Marshalls of Cambridge in 4/46, and restored to [crossed out]the the[/crossed out]
[page break]
to/ [sic]
the Civil Register as G-ADIJ. In December 1952 G-ADIJ was sold abroad to New Zealand as ZK-BBS and was converted for crop spraying. Used in this role by Northern Aviation Limited, ZK-BBS was destroyed in a crash near Dargaville on, [sic] 15/12/55.
No details at present for G-ADEZ – may have been lost prior to 1939. Further information on the aircraft that you flew will be passed in due course.
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
Aircraft histories of Tiger Moth aircraft flown by Denis Clyde-Smith
Description
An account of the resource
Histories of twelve Tiger Moth aircraft flown by Denis Clyde Smith while undergoing ab-initio training at Sywell.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five page typewritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MClydeSmithD39856-160919-04
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 Navy
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Oxfordshire
England--West Midlands
England--Wolverhampton
England--Lincolnshire
England--Stamford
England--Norfolk
England--Thetford
England--Cumbria
England--Carlisle
England--Berkshire
England--Theale (West Berkshire)
England--Northamptonshire
England--Northampton
England--Buckinghamshire
England--High Wycombe
England--Surrey
England--Godalming
England--Norwich
England--Wiltshire
Scotland--Moray
Scotland--Angus
Scotland--Arbroath
England--Cheshire
England--Warrington
England--Devon
England--Plymouth
England--Yorkshire
England--Doncaster
England--Hampshire
England--Gosport
England--Bedfordshire
England--Bedford
England--Gloucestershire
England--Cheltenham
England--Cirencester
England--Chippenham (Wiltshire)
England--Shropshire
England--Shrewsbury
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Scotland--Invergordon
England--Andover
Wales--Mid Glamorgan
Wales--Bridgend
Wales--Dyfed
Wales--Aberystwyth
England--Kent
England--Ramsgate
Germany
New Zealand
New Zealand--Dargaville
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cambridge
England--London
England--Hounslow
England--Cumberland
England--Middlesex
England--Staffordshire
England--Royal Wootton Bassett
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1955
1960
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
Flying Training School
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Clyffe Pypard
RAF Cosford
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Feltwell
RAF Kemble
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Sywell
RAF Towyn
Tiger Moth
training
-
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/.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
England--Surrey
Title
A name given to the resource
Surrey [place]
Description
An account of the resource
This page is an entry point for a place. Please use the links below to see all relevant documents available in the Archive.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/289/9665/LLarmerLO430037v1.1.pdf
ab62da7bcc4b6cb26a31883a47285725
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
Larmer, Lawrence
Lawrence Larmer
Laurie Larmer
L O Larmer
L Larmer
Description
An account of the resource
17 items concerning Flying Officer Laurence O'Hara Larmer (1920 - 2023, 430037 Royal Australian Air Force). Lawrence Larmer volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force and trained in Australia and Canada. He flew operations as a pilot flying Halifax with 51 Squadron from RAF Snaith. The collection consists of one oral history interview with him, wartime photographs of aircraft, aircrews and targets, his logbook, route maps, and an official certificate.
The collection was donated by Laurence Larmer and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Larmer, LO
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Laurence Larmer's Royal Australian Air Force flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Australian Air Force flying log book for Laurence Larmer covering the period from 7 April 1943 to 3 August 1945. Detailing flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAAF Benalla, RCAF Dauphin, RAF Fair Oaks, RAF Banff, RAF Dallachy, RAF Lichfield, RAF Riccall, RAF Snaith and RAF Driffield. Aircraft flown were, DH-82, Cessna Crane, Oxford, Anson, Wellington and Halifax. He flew a total of 4 night and 5 daylight operations with 51 squadron. Targets were, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Homberg, Hagen, Travemunde, Bayreuth, Boizenburg, Heligoland and Wangerooge. He flew as a second pilot on operations with Flying Officer Chatting. In July 1945 he flew a number of Cook's Tours flights, described as European cross-country.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Australia. Royal Australian Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LLarmerLO430037v1
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
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Staffordshire
England--Surrey
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Bayreuth
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Wuppertal
Manitoba--Dauphin
Scotland--Banff
Scotland--Moray
Victoria--Benalla
Germany--Wangerooge Island
Victoria
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Boizenburg
Manitoba
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1945-03-12
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-11
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-18
1945-04-25
1945-07-04
1945-07-09
1945-07-30
1945-08-03
1658 HCU
27 OTU
466 Squadron
51 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Banff
RAF Dallachy
RAF Driffield
RAF Lichfield
RAF Riccall
RAF Snaith
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/368/10061/LDeytrikhA1381508v1.1.pdf
7a86e4150408629425043aa853221a9d
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
Deytrikh, Andrew
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Wing Commander Andrew Deytrikh (1921-2016, 1381508, 111248 Royal Air Force), his log books and three photographs. After training as a pilot in 1941, Andrew Deytrikh flew Spitfires on 66 Squadron at a number of locations until July 1944 when he joined Vickers Armstrong as a production test pilot. After the war he served on 604 Squadron Auxiliary Air Force flying Spitfires, Vampires and Meteors. He finished his air force career as a wing commander air attache in Finland.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Deytrikh 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
2016-04-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Deytrikh, A
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
Andrew Deytrikh’s pilots flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Andrew Deytrikh, covering the period from 20 May 1941 to 1 February 1944. Detailing his flying training and operational flying. He was stationed at RAF Brough, RAF Montrose, RAF Grangemouth, RAF Portreath, RAF Zeals, RAF Ibsley, RAF Skeabrae, RAF Church Stanton, RAF Redhill, RAF Kenley, RAF Perranporth, RAF Hornchurch and RAF Southend. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth DH82, Master, Hurricane, Spitfire, Magister and Whitney Straight. He carried out convoy patrols, interceptions, army co-operation, scrambles, Fighter affiliation and bomber escorts with 66 squadron. Targets attacked, and bomber support targets were, Cherbourg, Caen, Abbeville, La Pallice, Amsterdam, Schipol Aerodrome, Courtrai, St Malo, Poix, Bryas, Gosnay, Beaumont-le-Roger, St Omer, Boulogne, Brest, Le Touquet, Brussels, Beauvais, Arras and Calais.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Log book and record book
Text
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. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Brussels
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Somerset
England--Surrey
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Abbeville
France--Arras
France--Boulogne-Sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Cherbourg
France--Gosnay
France--La Pallice
France--Le Touquet-Paris-Plage
France--Poix-du-Nord
France--Saint-Malo
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
Netherlands--Amsterdam
Scotland--Angus
Scotland--Orkney
Scotland--Stirlingshire
England--Cornwall (County)
Belgium--Kortrijk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDeytrikhA1381508v1
66 Squadron
aircrew
B-17
B-25
B-26
bombing
Boston
Flying Training School
Fw 190
Hurricane
Magister
Me 109
Me 110
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Brough
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Kenley
Spitfire
Tiger Moth
training
Typhoon
V-1
V-weapon
-
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73002dc2724bb947f2c5fefa0a04acf7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/518/10339/E[Author]MChadwickR-MXX0604-0002.jpg
f92ed6cacab29350d7c70fc2674d5cd0
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
Lapham, Rosemary
R Lapham
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lapham, R
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Lapham, the daughter of Roy Chadwick, family correspondence, congratulations on being honoured, personal documentation as well as photographs of family, acquaintances and aircraft. The collection also contains a thank you letter from Barnes Wallis to Roy Chadwick and a note from Arthur Harris to Robert Saundby about the in-feasibility of the Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation, some conceptual aircraft drawings and other mementos.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Lapham and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[indecipherable word]
Bramsholt
South Bank
Surbiton
[underlined] June 4th [/underlined]
Dear Roy & Mary.
I felt I must just write on Bee’s behalf & my own to congratulate you both – Roy for the honour bestowed upon him by the King, & you for having such a clever hubby. We heard Roy on the wireless some time ago & thought his voice came through very well indeed.
[page break]
How are the girls – I expect they are quite grown up. We hear about you sometimes from Ethel, & often think of the good old days spent in Hale.
Our very best wishes to you both.
Yrs V. Sincerely
Mabel. (Howard [inserted * [/inserted])
* You might wonder which Mabel !!
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 Roy and Mary Chadwick
Description
An account of the resource
Letter congratulating them on honour bestowed on Roy Chadwick by the King and asking after the family. Signed Mabel [...]
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two 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
E[Author]MChadwickR-MXX0604
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--Surrey
England--Kingston upon Thames
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
Steve Christian
David Bloomfield
Chadwick, Roy (1893-1947)
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/518/10421/EWallisBChadwickR430525-0001.1.jpg
3546fe6c7caa542633108bdc9d2e935d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/518/10421/EWallisBChadwickR430525-0002.1.jpg
09e745f89b30570cbcb4ad7514c252c3
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
Lapham, Rosemary
R Lapham
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lapham, R
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Lapham, the daughter of Roy Chadwick, family correspondence, congratulations on being honoured, personal documentation as well as photographs of family, acquaintances and aircraft. The collection also contains a thank you letter from Barnes Wallis to Roy Chadwick and a note from Arthur Harris to Robert Saundby about the in-feasibility of the Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation, some conceptual aircraft drawings and other mementos.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Lapham and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TELEGRAMS: “VICASTRONG-TELEX. WEYBRIDGE”
TELEPHONE: BYFLEET 240 (14 LINES)
[National Scheme for Disabled Men Crest]
REGISTERED OFFICE: VICKERS HOUSE.
BROADWAY. WESTMINSTER. S.W.1.
Vickers-Armstrongs Limited.
(AIRCRAFT SECTION)
WEYBRIDGE WORKS.
WEYBRIDGE. SURREY.
OUR REF. CA.
YOUR REF.
25th May 1943.
Roy Chadwick, Esq.,
A.V.Roe & Co. Ltd.,
Greengate,
Middleton,
[underlined] MANCHASTER [/underlined]
My dear Chadwick,
I am sorry that my erratic movements since the great event have prevented my receiving your telegram of congratulations until today. I am very deeply grateful, but feel an enormous share of the credit is due to you, and I have been trying to find the time to white and tell you how much I appreciate all the work which you and your assistants have done, and personally, in a special degree, was given the making or breaking of this enterprise, for if at that fateful meeting in C.R.D’s office on the 26th February, you had declared the task impossible of fulfilment in the given time, the powers of opposition were so great that I should never have got instructions to go ahead. Possibly you did not realise how much hung on your instantaneous reaction, but I can assure you that I very nearly had heart failure until you decided to join in the great adventure. No-one believed that we should do it. You yourself said it would be a miracle if we did, and I think the whole thing is one of the most amazing examples of team work and co-operation in the whole history of the war.
May I offer you my very deep thanks for the existence of your wonderful Lancaster, for it was the only aircraft in the world capable of doing the job, and I should like to pay my tribute of congratulation and admiration to you, the designer.
Let us hope that the future will hold for us another terrific adventure in which we may join, though I fear no such spectacular target
P.T.O.
[page break]
remains to be brought down.
All good wishes for the future success of Lancaster [inserted]s[/inserted] and Yorks.
Yours very sincerely,
[underlined] B.N.Wallis. [/underlined]
[inserted] Received Stamp dated 27 MAY 1943 & numbered 683/5700 [/inserted]
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 Roy Chadwick from Barnes Wallis
Description
An account of the resource
Addressed to Roy Chadwick at A.V.Roe on Vickers-Armstrong headed paper. Thanks Chadwick for existence of Lancaster and his support at a meeting in C.R.D's office on 26 January without which the dams operation would not have happened. States is was one of the most amazing examples of team work and cooperation in the war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
B Wallis
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05-25
1943-05-27
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page typewritten 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
EWallisBChadwickR430525
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--Surrey
England--Weybridge
England--Manchester
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-25
1943-05-27
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
bombing
Chadwick, Roy (1893-1947)
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
Lancaster
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/518/10444/EWallisBLaphamR761223.1.jpg
05d6e3fb95c2d494be2cfc375fbe4ba3
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
Lapham, Rosemary
R Lapham
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lapham, R
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Lapham, the daughter of Roy Chadwick, family correspondence, congratulations on being honoured, personal documentation as well as photographs of family, acquaintances and aircraft. The collection also contains a thank you letter from Barnes Wallis to Roy Chadwick and a note from Arthur Harris to Robert Saundby about the in-feasibility of the Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation, some conceptual aircraft drawings and other mementos.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Lapham and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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 document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
WHITE HILL HOUSE,
Effingham,
Surrey.
23th December, 1976
Mrs F. Lapham,
The Vicarage,
Upton-by-Chaster,
[underlined] CHESHIRE, CH2 1EL. [/underlined]
Dear Mrs Lapham,
Thank you very much for your Christmas Greetings from all your family and for the photographs which I think are excellent.
Molly and I join in sending to you, your Mother and family our very best wishes for a Happy Christmas and New Year,
Yours sincerely,
Barnes Wallis.
[page break]
[photograph]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Mrs Lapham from Barnes Wallis
Description
An account of the resource
Addressed to Mrs F Lapham thanking her for Christmas greetings and sending their's in return. Signed Barnes Wallis. Enclosed is photograph of Barnes Wallis and a women seated looking up at another woman who is leaning down to talk to them. Three people are holding plates of food.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
B Wallis
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1976-12-23
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page printed document and one b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWallisBLaphamR761223
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--Surrey
England--Effingham
England--Cheshire
England--Chester
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1976-12-23
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/990/10663/MStevensMH88219-161018-03.2.jpg
5683ee7e7188e922658c24d5b8e7367a
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
Stevens, Peter
Peter Stevens
P Stevens
Georg Franz Hein
Description
An account of the resource
Eleven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Peter Stevens, Military Cross, (1919 - 1979, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, letters and photographs. Originally called Georg Franz Hein, a German Jew, he was sent to Great Britain by his mother in 1934. He attended school in England and when war was declared he assumed the name of Peter Stevens, a deceased school friend. He joined the Air Force and flew operations as a pilot with 144 Squadron before crash landing his Hampden at Amsterdam in September 1941 and becoming a prisoner of war. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Marc Stevens and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.<br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Ivor Fraser. Additional information on Ivor Fraser is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108075/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-09
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. 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
Stevens, MH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
POST CARD [postage stamp]
Dear Mum
Just received these cards so am sending you one. I have told you all the news so goodbye.
Love. Ivor
To, Mrs M .G. Fraser.
Bitter Sweert.
Cannon Grove.
Fetcham
Nr Leatherhead
Surrey.
England
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
Ivor Fraser
Description
An account of the resource
Top, a photograph of an airman wearing battledress with air gunners brevet and side cap.
Bottom, a post card from Ivor to his mother Mrs M A Fraser saying he received her card and has no further news.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
I Fraser
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One colour photograph and one handwritten post card
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MStevensMH88219-161018-03
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Surrey
England--Leatherhead
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
air gunner
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/803/10783/PdiPlacitoLH1701.2.jpg
89587cbda0f20671b0c4ea1b85001701
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/803/10783/AdiPlacitoLH170209.1.mp3
bb9d0b5a910e57882406f39298fe61e0
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
di Placito, Lawrence Henry
L H di Placito
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Lawrence 'Lawrie' di Placito (1922, 1646268 Royal Air Force). He served in Air Sea Rescue.
collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
diPlacito, LH
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewee is Dav, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Laurie Placito. The interview is taking place at Mr Placito’s home in Line in Surrey on the 9th February 2017. Okay, Laurie so if we could start with you, your parents, where you were born and where you grew up.
LP: Yes, I was born in Chertsey, Surrey 21st 1st 1922. [Ringing sounds] with six boys, three girls and two children already pre-deceased at the age of three and four. I was educated at the Stepgate school, council school, until the age of eleven, where I passed the scholarship for the grammar school, which was Stroves Grammar School, Egham. And from there I left Egham, Stroves in 1936. I took up employment at the post office as a sorting clerk and telegraphist, at the wages of twelve shillings and sixpence per week, of which one shilling and three pence was stopped for unemployment benefit. War came, before the war came in 1939, I joined the sixth battalion of the Surrey Territorial Regiment, with the headquarters in Chertsey, Drillhall Road, Chertsey, which consisted then of two or three times a week marching up and down the roads, drilling and such like. This brought us up to the summer of 1939, before the war had started. I was called in to the office to say that I wouldn’t being going to the summer camp with the rest of the lads, because of my Italian parentage, I therefore, I was sort of thrown out of the Territorial Army. Now this clashed with my position at the Post Office because I was, at the Post Office I signed the Official Secrets Acts; the Postmaster told me, he said they can’t really do that he said, but things what they were, so I just had to accept it. Now in, war started September the 3rd 1939. I saw all my old friends go off before into the summer camp. They had about three weeks summer camp training. At the end of the training war broke out and these lads were shipped out to various places, with the barest of minimum of training, not firing a rifle in, in, anger or shooting, just all theory really. I therefore then, I left the post office and I was employed at a boatyard, building naval vessels in, on the Thames in Chertsey, where I was friendly, very friendly with another young lad. Now we’d talked about this air sea rescue business what we’d heard about, so we both decided to join. We went to Acton town hall to join the RAF Air Sea Rescue. We were called into separate rooms, but before this I didn’t have much knowledge of sea going, but David, my friend, he knew all about the sea and the points of the compass and such like and he genned me up on questions. So eventually we were called into two separate rooms. I was questioned concerning my knowledge of the sea but I explained I didn’t know much but anyway at the end of the day, I was accepted. You know, David came out of his room said how did you get on? He said they won’t accept me he said, because I am a trainee boat builder and I was only a labourer really, so that put paid to that friendship [laugh]. Going back previously to this, to early ’39, I was only seventeen, I went to Surbiton town hall near Kingston, was a recruiting office and I applied to join the Royal Scots Greys Cavalry Regiment, because I was so full of horses. Now the recruiting sergeant told me, he said for one thing you’re too young, you’re not seventeen and a half, he and another reason he said, forget about the horses he said you’ll never see a horse on active service. Well that, this was all previous to me joining up at the town hall. So, I waited quite some time for my application to come through before I was called up, and from there I received me travel warrant, to travel to Cardington in Bedford. Now Cardington was a pre-war airship station, and the airship mast was still in place where the, all the different airships used to moor. At Cardington I was issued with kit, which consisted of uniform, boots, shirts, etc. It was a bit of a hit and miss affair because you lined up in front of a counter and a fellow looked at you and said I think you’re about a size and threw you a coat or jacket hoping it would fit. Anyway, that soon sorted out. We was only there a very short time to draw kit, from there I was posted to Great Yarmouth, RAF Great Yarmouth to do basic military training. Now this consisted of marching up and down the, the roads, rifle drill, shooting, bayonet, with the bayonet with the dummy, you had to charge at the dummy with the bayonet. Now what that meant for me being an air sea rescuer [chuckle] I never, would never know., This was a very, quite basic training, but it consisted of assault courses, as I say, rifle shooting, the Sten gun what had just come into operation, using the Sten gun. Sitting in an enclosed room without your gas mask, when a gas was turned on you had to find your way, to get your gas mask on before the gas got too much for you, which obviously you had somebody standing by. We were there for about two, Great Yarmouth, we were there Great Yarmouth for about two, two months, marching up and down the roads. One particular thing I always remember was our drill corporal was a Yorkshireman, a Corporal Harrison. And on every march you had to sing On Ilkley Moor Bar Tat, I knew every word of Ilkley Moor Bar Tat. Anyway that came to an end and we travelled well at once to go to Tayport, on the Scottish Coast. Now Tayport, well obviously it was a port, but it was also home to RAF Leuchars It was an Australian squadron at Leuchars, mostly Australian squadron, but we were there just doing menial work ‘cause it wasn’t a training station for air sea rescue it was just a pit stop, so my day was employed either helping in the hangars, or we had a very zealous CO with his garden. That garden had to be kept up, it was pristine, there was even stones had to be painted white, all round the garden. What’s more, he had a dog, and this dog was obviously come and dig up where you had to. This lasted for a few weeks and for the first two or three weeks I was stationed, rather I was in barracks with the Aussie squadron, And all day long every time someone would come in it would play – what’s that Australian song?
[Other]: Waltzing Matilda.
LP: Yes, Waltzing Matilda, that would be on all day every day, Waltzing Matilda. Well eventually I came out of that, back into the English section of the RAF and from there, oh I had this thing of joining to be a flight, a flying airman, so I went into the office where you remuster, that’s where you changed your trade. Now I spoke to the recruiting I suppose he was an officer, I’m sure. I explained what I wanted to do. He said ‘Whatever for?’ Well I said I think I was just getting a bit fed up of waiting around for this air sea rescue. So I applied to be a wireless operator air gunner. His reply was ‘I’ll give you a bit of advice boy’, he said ‘Only birds and fools fly.’ Now I thought that wasn’t a very nice thing, because he’s sitting in an office all day long, with those poor fliers night after night out flying, doing a terrible job. Well, anyway, within the space of another couple of weeks I was posted and I didn’t hear any more of that application. So from Great Yarmouth I went up to Tayport, that’s how I got to Tayport. As I say I was at Tayport for a bit, killing time actually. And then we got posted to RAF Corsewall, Corsewall Point, that’s on the other side of Scotland. That’s at the head of Loch Ryan at the head which led down to Stranraer, the waters at Stranraer. Now here we commenced our training, our air sea rescue training proper. It was a very, very, what shall I say very complex because it covered so many subjects., We had to study for instance buoys, buoys how they was attached to lines underwater to a mooring called a mooring trot, how to scull a boat, a small rowing boat with one oar, navigation, morse code and semaphore flags. The morse code was, was [chuckle] was a bit of a laughable situation because you’d be paired off and you had to send, one would be sending, one would be receiving morse code course there was many rude messages sent from one airman to another! Also aircraft recognition you would be thrown cards and you, you had to say straight away, English bomber, English fighter, German bomber, German fighter such like, and also from school work you were given a books and pens and you had to write notes and notes down of rules of the sea, the meaning of flags and such like. And then there was the practical training where we were taken down to the waters edge to the port and it would be put on different vessels and you would practice how to work a boat. These were called sea plane tenders, there was a, an old hulk moored, moored out at sea and you had to come alongside. The coxswain would shout out ‘come along port side to or starboard side to,’ and you had to turn your boat round to starboard of course there was lots of times there was lots of crashes [chuckle] ‘cause not many boys were able to control boats like that. As I say it was very thorough, thorough training. It, although it was an uncomfortable billet. The billets were nissen huts scattered about in the woods. And for the washing facilities were very basic, you had wash tubs, but for the toilets consisted of, of a row each side just with sacking in between each person so you could have a conversation with the follow sitting opposite on the other side of you, and I’m saying when I said it was basic, it was basic. At the end of the, at the end of the, at the end of the huts, nissen huts there was a big container of a blue liquid. [Turns away] What’s that liquid, erm,
[Other]: I can’t remember.
LP: Perm, permanganate of potash,
[Other]: Yes.
LP: Every man had to gargle with it, permanganate, and if you didn’t and you went sick with a sore throat you were in trouble, you were on charge, as I say it was very basic the conditions. The nissen huts were equipped with a paraffin stove in the middle of the hut. Now you were issued with a ration of paraffin and that had to last you so much, so many days, or day or whatever it was. If you used it up that was your fault, but you’ve got to remember we’d be out at sea, or on the boats rather, you’d be wet and cold, so that paraffin did always last. Now another situation was you had to do guard duties, now the guard duties consisted of dotted around this camp, in the woods, sentry huts, well, just stands really, just a metal stand, you would do I think it was either two hours on or four hours off, or vice versa. This was after you’d done your days’ work at the training. Now, one of, one of the duties of the guard, night guard, was called a rover patrol, he would as the word say, he would wander round the camp just looking at different places keeping an eye. I’d have an old Lee Enfield rifle, First World War issue, with five rounds of ammunition. Now if you come across a German I don’t know what would happen [chuckle]. One amusing, well I don’t think it was amusing really, on my amble round the roving patrol I came across a big bowser, a big tanker, which I thought contained paraffin, I thought well this is lovely [laugh]. Now, I searched around to find a container, luckily I found this container, put it under the bowser, turned the bowser on but instead of paraffin it was all effluent, effluent that came out [laugh]. So I was in a bit of a state, the rest of the, that was cleaning me uniform. Food, I suppose for RAF food wasn’t bad you just had to line up and you were served by a WAAF, RA WAAF girls. But you held out, you had a mess tin, knife, fork and spoon and tin mug. You’d hold your mess tin in front of the WAAF and she would dish whatever was up – plonk. Well, the food wasn’t all that great, but another incident, rather amusing. The officer would come round. A shout would go up ‘Orderly Officer, any complaints?’ But the Orderly Officer would come round accompanied by an NCO, ‘Anybody any complaints?’ Well, one brave soul shouted out ‘Yes sir, I’ve got a caterpillar on my plate.’ The officer walked over, this is true, he walked over to the boy, he said ‘There sir, it’s a caterpillar.’ ‘Hmmm,’ he said, ‘just push it off’ he said, ‘with your spoon.’ ‘Well, I wasn’t going to eat it sir.’ So that was another happy episode. Previous to this I forgot to mention, when I was at Great Yarmouth there was one particular airman, late in the afternoon he would go up to the NCO in charge, say a few words to him and off he would go, well we had to continue till the end of the day. So I said to this boy, after a couple of visits I saw him. I said what do you say? What gets you to come home so early? ‘Well, I’m in the boxing club.’ So I was always interested in boxing as a youngster so I said ‘Can I join?’ he said we’d be only too glad to have you. So I joined the boxing club there which was an asset really, I boxed and a couple of times at Great Yarmouth amongst the RAF. Well also, now also, back up to Tayport, not Tayport Corsewall Point, Corsewall, there was a boxing section there. And the fellow in charge was a guy who was an athlete, a pre-war was a runner, he wasn’t a boxer, a runner oh can’t remember his name. We used to have running, training before going on duty so I joined the boxing club there. Now, I did very well there really, because I’m not praising myself, but every Sunday we had what’s called a uniform parade. We had two uniforms, there was the best blue. Now on this best blue parade, everybody was lined up on a Sunday morning had a full inspection, the flag would be hoisted, the CO of the whole section would come round and inspect each man, so he gets to me, the Orderly Officer who was with him taps me on the shoulder and says you stay there you and I thought ‘Now what’ve I done?’. And so when the parade was dismissed and everyone went, the CO and officers came up and congratulated me ‘cause I’d boxed the night before apparently and I won my two bouts. I always remember one because it was an officer and I anyway that was the end of that but also stationed there was, I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of him, a Steve Donahue, now he was a champion jockey of England, Steve Donahue, like our Lester Piggott today. Well his son was Pat Donahue, now Pat Donahue was an officer, first of all he was just a NCO but the second time I visited he was an officer and he was a very good boxer. Pat, Pat Donahue, a very good boxer and I was very friendly with Pat although it didn’t do him any favours but was just the fact that we became good friends what with him being an officer and me being NCO, just a private. What more can I say about that? Oh, another amusing incident, on a Sunday as I say, you had the day off. They used to run the transport buses into Stranraer, which was quite a bus ride away and there were no such thing as seats and you was just clinging on, hanging on as best you could. I was hanging on at the back of the bus, and the fellow next to me, he said ‘Where do you come from?’ I said ‘Oh, you probably wouldn’t know, a place called Chertsey, in Surrey,’ and he laughed, he said he lived at Everstone. Now he turned out, he was Worts w-o-r-t-s funeral directors and Harry Wort was a funeral director, well there again there was another strange quirk because when we finally moved from Corsewall Point to various stations Harry moved off and I didn’t see Harry again till he arrived a year later when he turned up at Newhaven, he’d spent what they called the white man’s grave, the Gold Coast in Africa. Well, I don’t know quite how long we were at Corsewall Point because, it was a very long, as I say, it was, covered a lot of work, classroom work, practical work, seamanship and such like but eventually I passed out from the giddy heights of AC2 to aircraftsman first class with a rise in pay. [Laugh] I’ve got my figures actually what rise in pay. Shall I get those figures now? Well, my rise in pay, my pay in 1942 that was three shillings per day. And out of that three shillings, I made an allotment to my mother of one shilling and sixpence per day, so that was ten shillings and sixpence per week. And this was for twenty four hours a day service. [chuckle] But then in March 43 I was a AC1, I was getting four and ninepence per day and I was still one shilling and sixpence to my mother. August the 1st 1943 I was receiving five shillings and threepence and still making the allowance of one and sixpence to me mother and I think it was not until 44 that I was getting six shillings per day [papers shuffling]. But I had, had a very good family. My sister used to regularly send me money, so really I wasn’t too bad. I did not smoke, when I say I used to drink, it was, you couldn’t afford to drink a lot anyway. Now [pause, shuffling of papers] Can I go back to my days at Great Yarmouth?
DM: Oh yes, yes.
[Other]: [ Cough]
LP: Yes, during my days at Great Yarmouth, the raw recruit, you obviously jumped to any order that you were given. Now, the second day I was there, the corporal in charge tapped me on the shoulder ‘Haircut Hughes!’’ I said, ‘Corporal,’ I said, ‘I had a haircut yesterday.’ He said ‘You’ll have another one today.’ So everybody tapped on the shoulder had to have a haircut. Now after you had your hair cut, you had to give the barber a sixpence, so he must have done very well out of – him and cohorts. And also at Yarmouth I think it must have been a big college because it was a big open room with showers, no shower enclosures, just open showers. You had to have a shower today – another sixpence. So that was quite a lump out of my, those must have made good living the barber and the shower man. And also I must, [shuffle of papers] injection time. Now it would be a column of men you had to bare one shirt sleeve, go past a so called medical orderly for an injection. There was no just holding your arm, just walk by one big stab. No change the needle. Next one up, another big stab. And I see grown men what I don’t know if it was fright or nerves just collapse on the ground.
DM: Can you remember when you started actually active service? When you’d finished your training. 43 or 42
LP: It was the beginning of 43. January 43, yeah. Now, I’ll come to that now. I was posted from Coreswell Point, Scotland to Gosport, Portsmouth. I was only there a very short time and this consisted of we were based on Stokes Bay, part of Portsmouth Waters, Southampton Waters, it was a testing ground for torpedoes. At the end of a long runway, a seaway, was an old hulk, bored, the aircraft would come down, drop the torpedo obviously aiming for the hull. And our job was to patrol up and down retrieve the torpedoes and so forth. Well that lasted only could have only been there only a few weeks. From there I got a posting to Newhaven. Now Newhaven was a very busy station. And it was there that the actual air sea rescue began. I was, I was told to find a billet in the town, Newhaven town, because the actual nissen huts were full and the, a certain number of airmen were billeted with families in houses. Well I was stationed with billeted with a Mrs Cook, her husband was away on war work, she had two children and an old grandmother, but she did look after me. She used to obviously get a ration allowance for food. As I say, from there I was taken straight on to high speed launch 190. Now it took quite a bit of get used to because you were mucking in with old hands really and I was a newcomer, but I got quite capable. My first job was a gunner. The gunner at this time there was a stand outside each a stand either side of the wheelhouse with a Vickers drum fed machine gun. Now my job was to hang on to that machine gun. Don’t forget the boat is not just cruising up and down its moving. But, as I say it was, it was a drum-fed machine gun but these didn’t last very long as it wasn’t so long after the guns were taken off of that and then we had a for’ard gun, revolving turret with twin browning machine guns, that was my next job I was a Browning machine gunner front turret. The turrets, the armament on the boat as I say they disbanded these two shields machine guns. There was a front turret, a rear turret, and then they decided to put a twenty millimetre Oerliken canon right at the stern of the boat. Well that did slow us down a little bit, the cannon. For there I was the gunner, that was my job, I had to be in the gun turret, and it was only after that I took my second class coxwain’s course, I was called in one day, the CO said I think you should take a coxwain’s course. From there I had been at Newhaven, I don’t know, five six months, I was sent up to back up to Corsewell Point for another bout of training as a coxswain. Well I passed that out, that meant a, that meant a rise in pay and also a jump in rank from leading aircraftsman to corporal. By this time I was quite, what shall I say, well quite at home on the boat: I knew what to do and what not to do. And my job was to be in the wheelhouse. There was a first class coxswain, the skipper and the second class coxswain in the wheelhouse. And you took it in turns to coxswain the boat.
DM: How many of you were there on the boat?
LP: Well on the boat, the boat consisted of the skipper, obviously an officer, a flight sergeant first class coxswain, a second class coxswain, a wireless operator, a medical orderly, two engineers, and two more gunners. Roughly, sometimes you’d have eight of you, sometimes there’d be ten of you. Now, the day consisted of hours and hours of searching, we had, the first boat that was always called the first boat, on first degree, that was usually, the rendezvous thirty miles south of Beachy Head, that was the usual one for the first boat, you’d be on station if you were the first boat you’d be on station, at six o’clock you’d be on station if not near that you’d be on your rendezvous. Now when you were on your rendezvous, patrol up and down just waiting orders really, it could be a long, long long day. But suddenly you’d get a crash call now this was taken by the wireless operator and ours was a very good one named Norman and a good wireless operator too. If he didn’t have his helmet on, Norman he would have it by his side. Now he could pick up our particular call we were a seagull, seagull something, I forget my number but we were seagull something. As soon as Norman heard that, he’d get the signal and that came from the Navy. Now although we were RAF Coastal Command, we were directly under the command of the Navy when it come to positioning. So you would take the course of that call and go up and down, up and down and what you would do call a square search, you would do a certain distance, a mile, one way, turn starboard right then back again so you were doing a search square all the way to where it had been reported – a crash. And you would report search and search and whatever you did your search. Now sometimes you’d be there all day log and do nothing but another time you’d be flying here there and everywhere. On one particular, one particular search, I’ve got it written down here somewhere, we had a crash call I was a gunner at the time and I was still in the front turret. This was in my early days. We were patrolling along and suddenly this spitfire came overhead. I didn’t know it was a spitfire at the time, fired his machine guns in front of us. At first thought I thought it would be a German, he turned round, turned round again and then I could see it was a spitfire, and he took us right up to this pilot sitting in his dinghy, which was a good save, we saved him. Now on that journey, the turret and I’m not exaggerating or making it up, a mine floated past and I could have stretched out and touched it. But there’s nothing I could do about it. It wasn’t the first mine I’d see, they was quite frequent. Quite often you would see a mine broken free of its moorings floating. Now we used to have to report the Navy and the navy would send out a vessel and destroy it. But that was very handy when they would explode the mine you’d get buckets and buckets of dead fish, or stunned fish and it was just a case of scooping the fish up. Although when I was in a private billet I used to have, the landlady used to supply my rations, but the rest of the crew, or those who weren’t in private, they would draw rations for the day and we would have what they call a galley which consisted of a methylated spirit stove and you would do your cooking, but the fact that I wasn’t part of it didn’t make any difference really, you was just part of mucked in together. Clothing, clothing we were well-equipped. We had duffle coats which no other RAF had, proper rain coats, rain macs, we had sea boots, jack boots, just slippers for ordinary time on the boat when you were in harbour and also our CO he was Squadron Leader John D. Syme, a very, what shall I say, a man’s man. His main concern was the welfare of the boats crews. Now all of the boats crew and the probably the base crews as well, we had sheets to sleep in, not just a blanket because the ordinary issue was blankets, two blankets, but John D. always made sure we had sheets, clean sheets. On board, when you slept on board if you were on duty at night, then you would sleep in a sleeping bag, and you had fold down bunks.
DM: Would you be at sea?
LP: I’m sorry?
DM: Would you be at sea when you were sleeping?
LP: Yes. You would, there was no regulation you would be at sea eight hours, ten hours and then come home. It didn’t work like that. You went out until you were called. You just couldn’t say well it’s time to come home, you just did as you were called. As I say, I’ve got a record of it here where you’d be out. You’d do a crash call and that would take a day and then you’d still have to go out. So the hours was long. Also, another thing, it was, it was the only base in the whole of the RAF Air Sea Rescue that received a rum ration, going back to the old days. Once you’d been at sea so many hours, you were entitled to the skipper’s, to the skipper’s, to the skipper’s thoughts it was time for a rum and everybody had a rum ration. And if you stayed out longer and longer you still had another rum ration. But that was entirely up to the skipper.
DM: Did you ever get attacked? Did you ever get attacked?
LP: No. We were always told you must never open fire on anything unless you were attacked first. We lost a couple of boats on the, what they call it, the early landing, where it was a failure?
DM: What was that Dieppe?
LP: Dieppe, yes. We did lose a couple of boats, I wasn’t at Newhaven at the time, but we did lose a couple of boats there. Two or three got killed. When DD come here around we had armour plating put on top of the wheelhouse. And on the part of the fore deck was armour plated and you had a big five white star painted on the fore deck for aircraft recognition as an allied sign. Now I’ve got somewhere I picked up Germans, shall I tell you about?
DM: Yes, that would be very interesting.
LP: Right.
[Other]: Doc here ten past one in the morning.
LP: Yeah, ten past one in the morning, crash call to position 360 degrees Hove two and a half miles, search the area till hours when message received to return to harbour. After seen in dinghy airmen picked up German wireless operator from a JU88. We searched the area for the remainder without result. Returned to Newhaven, and prisoner handed over to Naval authorities at 0705 hours.
[Other]: No further incident 1400 hours.
LP: Then 1400 hours we searched till quarter to five, 1745 hours. Now going back to that German,
DM: Yes.
LP: Now going back to that German. This was early hours of the morning and we picked him up with a searchlight. Previous to that there’d been an air raid over Newhaven, the district. The funny part of it was. We kind of felt it was we picked, he’s sitting in the dinghy, he’s got a very pistol in his hand. We said ‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’ friend, no answer, he didn’t answer. And it took several minutes to realise he wasn’t British or Allies, he was a German. Part about it was on this particular journey the engineer was a Belgian. His name was Albert, They called him Albert. Now Albert wasn’t a regular on the boat, it was a one-off. Now Albert, was forced to leave Belgium in the German invasion. Albert hated [musical sound]
DM: Yes.
LP: Albert hated Germans he realised it was a German he was for throwing him back in! Well, it took a bit of persuading, but another interesting thing was, I kept his very pistol, the Nazi very pistol and had a whistle attached, and part of his parachute we divided up, silk parachute. I had quite a nice piece of silk parachute which I gave my sister for her baby girl at the time wasn’t it. It made her christening gown. I think the skipper had his boots, I think the skipper had his boots. Anyway we took him back to harbour. Oh, we clothed him, we had dry clothing, gave him dry clothing, we took him back to harbour and then it was quite a way from the water’s level to the harbour wall – which was up a steep. Somebody had the bright idea of blindfolding him. Well he put the blindfold on and he was absolutely shivering. He thought we were going to shoot him. Anyway we got him up on board and got him to naval and it was a couple of weeks later that a complaint came through that somebody had taken his fur lined sea boots, flying boots and I kept that very pistol and the whistle for not, four, five, years back.
[Other]: Four, five years.
LP: Years, then I gave it to somewhere in Newhaven.
[Other]: Museum.
LP: Newhaven.
[Other]: Museum.
LP: Yes, museum at Newhaven. Anyway to pick somebody up early hours of the morning just with a searchlight, he was lucky, wasn’t he?
DM: He was.
LP: Another. Which one’s this one?
[Other]: The Walrus, where you rescued the men from the Walrus.
LP: Not the one off the French coast was it?
[Other]: Don’t think so, no.
LP: This is another. This made the headlines in the paper this rescue. [shuffling of paper] That’s the original but,
DM: That one: ‘Six RAF men saved in the battle of the Seine’?
[Other]: That one.
DM: Six men saved from the wreck of a Wellington bomber, so that was you, you rescued those men?
LP: Well, it’s strange really, I won’t go into all the details of how we got there.
DM: Well you can do.
LP: Can I?
DM: Yeah.
LP: Well, shall I read off that?
[Other]: Hmmm
LP: If I read it off that, I can’t read it. [Pause] There’s a lot to read isn’t it.
[Other] You dropped the lifeboat.
DM: Which bit are we talking about? So they obviously came down over the other side of the Channel, the French side of the channel.
LP: The mouth of the Seine.
DM: Right. So why were you, were you sent there or were you already there?
LP: No, no we were on patrol in the channel when we got a call, so we had to break off from where we were to go there. Now, two RAF launches took place.
DM: When was this, do you know? Oh yes, July 17th 1943.
LP: Yes. Two launches were sent there. Now I was on 190 and after you see all the air, fighting going on we found that airmen, six airmen, were in an airborne lifeboat, it was one of the first that had ever been dropped. They climbed out of their dinghy into this airborne lifeboat. Now I think the other boat was 177, 190 177. 190, we reached the crew first. Now our coxswain, the first class coxswain, Bert Underwood, a very good coxswain, in his anxiety, he came along a little bit too fast for the crew. We threw ‘em a heaving line, we were going a little bit fast for them to hold onto the line, consequently we passed. 177 behind us, they picked the crew up. Strange part was, they picked the crew up, turned round and gone straight back to Newhaven. Now we were left out there, off the French coast [laugh] with this lifeboat. First of all, orders came ‘Sink the lifeboat, return to base’. So on board we had a tool chest consisting of axe and various tools these were passed along. At the last moment a message came up again, ‘Return to Newhaven with lifeboat.’ So that meant towing, so consequently, we had to put the tow line on the lifeboat and tow it back to Newhaven which took ages, ages. I don’t know what time we got back, I never know what time we got back, but that was a good rescue that.
DM: Did you rescue any other bomber crews during?
LP: Yes, yes. That another one? Routine patrol in the channel, a fine day, round about mid-day skipper said it’s about time we had something to eat, so we were preparing something to eat, when looking up at the sky, we saw a US American fighter bomber a P38 I think it was, a twin-fuselage. That disappeared and then we saw a parachute gently floating out. We followed him, where the parachute was going to land, and it turned out that when he had pulled his cockpit cover he’d dislocated his arm. He was floating in the water, unable to save himself. We were alongside in minutes. One or two of the crew jumped overboard, held him up while we got alongside him, and picked him up and took him back to base. I’ve got a letter from his CO, this letter is dated 29th of March 1944. Dear Sir, The excellent work of the members in your command when they rescued First Lieutenant T.G. Giles, United States Army, from the waters of the English Channel on the 16th March 1944 cannot be allowed to pass without an expression of appreciation. It is my very great pleasure to send you this letter of commendation for bringing about an operation with such happy and favourable results in the case of an officer of my command. Lt. Giles was forced to bail out of his plane while returning from an operational mission over occupied enemy territory. In so doing he sustained severe injuries. His condition was such that he was practically helpless when he reached the water. He was not able to find his dinghy and he would not have been able to get into it if he had and he was not even able to inflate his Mae West. It is fortunate indeed that launch 190 commanded by Craig as was brought alongside without delay. This pilot could not have survived any length of time in the sea on his own. The prompt and sure action of the ASR personnel in this instance merits the highest praise. The courageous action of the men who when over the side to render assistance is most noteworthy. I am fully aware that this rescue is not an isolated incident, but one of a number of superb accomplishments on your parts that have saved many ditched airmen, both British and American, under catastrophic circumstances, but one cannot disregard that if it were not for the immediate aid given so skilfully and successfully, and I am sure that Lieutenant Charles would not be alive today. The sentiment of the whole of this organisation when I express that thanks of a job well down. The crew of the HS190 was the Skipper, Flying Officer Craig, Flight Sergeant, first coxswain, Sergeant Placito, second coxswain, leading aircraftsman Fiddler fitter, LAC Hayes Leading aircraftsman Leading Aircraftsman Hyde crew. That was a good rescue that one.
[Other]: It was.
LP: There’s so many more [chuckle].
[Other]: Still there’s a sad one.
LP: How about or bore you too much, if you left me that, well there’s not much attached to that one, not so far off the French coast there were German floating stations which consisted of a bed, provisions for downed airmen. And on a couple of occasions we came across these stations but fortunately or unfortunately there were no airmen alive in it. We just inspected them, took note of what was there and left.
DM: Do you have any stories around D-Day? What happened on D-Day with your group?
LP: Well on D-Day it was quiet actually, our D-Day was very quiet. Our boats weren’t considered deep sea going; they were built for speed. Pictures of them where they came out. I’ve got no big thing about D-Day. We went out early, picked up odd, odd bits of floating material rafts and such like but no actual rescues. D-Day was a quiet day considering the other days you would be there all day and all night.
DM: You were talking earlier about a rescue involving a walrus.
LP: Yes,
DM: Okay so this is where you picked up a civilian body.
LP: 0710 routine patrol over Beachy Head. Crash call to position search direct by Beachy Head Beachy Head Station, that would be the station at Beachy Head.
DM: Coastguard, or maybe coastguard?
LP: Coastguard, that’s the word. We carried out in company with a Walrus and sir sea rescue aircraft at 1445 received another call to position. On position at 15:15 hours quantity of wreckage found at 1600 hours we sighted a body of a civilian
[Other]: Civilian.
LP: Position 5 degrees off Newhaven seven miles delivered body to police. Returned to patrol until 2115 hours. [shuffle papers] Yes, we picked that poor boy up, that civilian bather. What wasn’t nice, the skipper wasn’t pleased to take him on board, no he thought about either sinking the body or, but he was told, yes, that was sad that.
DM: Take you on now to the end of the war. What happened when hostilities ceased?
LP: Yes, just let me et me thoughts. Yeah, I finished the war off as a transport driver actually.
DM: How did that happen?
LP: The Japanese war finished in
[Other]: August.
LP: August. Okay then yeah. When peace, okay then, when peace was signed with Germany in May, it meant that there was no longer essential for so many routine patrols to take place owing to the fact that it was just friendly aircraft. When peace was signed completely with Japanese surrender, the station the RAF station I don’t know what to try and say.
DM: You were still at Newhaven?
LP: Yes, still at Newhaven. I know what, the end of the German surrender the Japanese war was still in. It was decided to send boat to the Far East. The boats that were chosen to go were copper plated hull that is the hill was plated with copper plate to stop borings from sea insects. 190 although I wasn’t aboard at this time, 190 got as far as Gibraltar when it was halted and that the operation to go to the Far East was aborted, was no longer necessary, The reason I was no longer on board at this time I failed a medical exam and you had to be A1 to be a boats crew. So I was taken off HSL 190 and given a shore job. I was lucky enough to be made a transport driver. We had a Bedford vehicle used to run messages to Thorley Island and into Brighton. This was a very good job because it was so easy going. The reason I got the job was an old friend of mine who was on 190 was a transport driver his job was to drive the warrant officer his name was Stevens a nice gentlemanly man, Steves, Stevenson, he was to take him where he wanted to do to go. Bill Stoneman used to frighten the life out of him wherever he drove. He wasn’t a driver he relied on somebody else to drive or whether Bill did di deliberately or not I don’t know but he fell out of favour with the WO I was called into the office by a friend of mine, Don Stovey, who was a clerk and said that Warrant Officer Stevenson wanted a new driver, a different driver would I take the job. Of course I jumped at it. So from there on I was the station driver. The strange part about it was, I was the only one knew where the vehicle was kept. It was kept in a side street in Newhaven in the town. So consequently we used it on many occasions at night for our trips into Brighton, [chuckle] but I think this soon came to an end when I think it was spotted by another, a Marines, not a Marines, a motorcraft, I beg your pardon a motorised section of the RAF in Newhaven at the time and I think it was one of their vehicles that was mistaken for us and anyway from then on the vehicle had to be kept outside the officers mess on the harbour. Yeah.
DM: So you finished your time in the RAF as a driver.
LP: I finished sa a driver, yeah.
DM: Can you remember when you were demobbed?
LP: I’m sorry?
DM: Can you remember when you were demobbed?
LP: I got demobbed in 1946 I don’t know, middle of 46, something like that, I was demobbed, yeah.
DM: Did you go back to the post office or
LP: No I didn’t I no, I didn’t I just worked for me brother-in-law driving and one thing an another. But it was such a funny thing feeling you know being under orders twenty four hours a day. I forgot to say, that when it got near D-day time, all the civilian billets were closed and where we used to have single beds in the, in the nissen huts they were all double bunked so, to get all, so all the boys were on call. Yeah, it was a good job driving because quite often they, the officer would go into Brighton to pick up papers and also the rations were picked up in Brighton at the, one of the big hotels I think it was the Metropole or the Grand Hotel which was run by RAF, yes, it was the Australians had taken over. Which was the hotel that was bombed? Was that the Metropole?
DM: That was the Metropole.
LP: Was it? Yeah.
[Other]: I think it was.
LP: Yeah, I think it was the Metropole yeah, well the Australians were living there they had taken it over, and that was also then, I used to have to go in for a clothing exchange because what usually happened, well it always happened, if you had something worn, your clothing were worn and you thought need a change we had a storeman at Newhaven, Tiny Wellman, he was a big fella, they called him Tiny Wellman, he was the storeman, and it was up to him if you wanted a new pullover or a new shirt or whatever, it was up to him whether you got it or not. Which was, you know he either liked you or didn’t like you. But after that, all the clothes were kept at Brighton and it was my job, I could take clothing in and exchange it, so consequently I did a good, had a good job changing clothes for the boys that wanted, you know new shoes, whatsoever. But you used to get up to all sorts of tricks to earn a shilling, because one particular, in the Metropole, the Australians had taken over, and there was one room with dozens of pairs of shoes, they would throw the shoes in, me and a friend of mine I used to take with me, we would sort out shoes, take ‘em in to the clothing exchange, get a new pair of shoes for pair of old ones. The things you did. [Chuckle] I tell you one other happy episode too. When the war ended, horse racing started, and Brighton was, I think it was the first race course in the south of England to open. Now, there was no signalling affairs, there was no way when the horses. I don’t know if you understand horse racing but when they go down to the start, there was no way that they knew where the horses were at the start or when the start, starting gate opened or not. So they came to Newhaven to look for a signaller or signallers. One of my best friends was a signaller so he said you come, he said you can do the transport, so I used to take the transport, it lasted for about three or four days. We would take two men down to the start of the racecourse, and two men at the finish with Aldis lamps because there was no speakers as such, and they would signal when the horses were ready to go off, to start, they would signal to us they’re off and then obviously we knew if they’d won or lost so we had a good few days, three or four days with that. But going back to that American we saved he piled cigarettes, whatever, in a day or two the CO sent down. I didn’t smoke, it didn’t matter to me, but one of the do-gooders there tried to put the block on it, to say you know you didn’t do it for, for cigarettes. Obviously we didn’t do it for that but that was his kindness to do it wasn’t it. I would have liked to have met that American some time.
DM: Yeah, I suppose all the people you rescued you don’t really know what became of them after they walked off your boat, that was it, they were gone.
LP: Yeah. We used to have something about the size of that polished wood and every rescue you’d put on you’d put a roundel on, you know, RAF roundel, you’d stick one of those on and we had that on the.
DM: Did you used to put a swastika on when you rescued a German? [Laugh]
LP: No, we didn’t put a swastika on, no. We had two Germans, two particular Germans. One German, I had only been there a short time. He was in the water or in a dinghy. We picked him up and he had the sense enough when he’d baled out he’d wrenched his leg and his leg I don’t know, was half off or half on the sense enough to have tourniquets round his thighs. We saved him. There you are, years and years ago.
DM: Yes, 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 Lawrence Henry di Placito. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Meanwell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-09
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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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AdiPlacitoLH170209, PdiPlacitoLH1701
Format
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01:27:39 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
British Army
Royal Navy
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
Lawrence di Placito served as a second-class coxswain on the RAF Air Sea Rescue launches during the Second World War. He was born in Chertsey and attended Egham grammar school where he was a member of the cadet force. Upon leaving school in 1936 he was employed with the Post Office as a clerk/telephonist. Early in 1939 he joined the 6th Battalion East Surrey (Territorial Army). Lawrence went through military training, but he was told he would not be allowed to remain in the unit because of his Italian parents.
At the outbreak of war, he left the Post Office and was employed building naval vessels at a boat yard on the Thames in Chertsey. It was here that he first heard about RAF Air Sea Rescue, which he successfully enrolled into. Following training at various establishments he was posted to Newhaven on High Speed Launch 190 as a gunner.
Lawrence describes rescue operations: a Spitfire leading them to an airman in a dinghy; a Wellington aircrew rescued close to Le Havre on 17 July 1943; a German wireless operator who baled out from a downed Ju 88 and his parachute being divided amongst the crew, and finally rescuing the United States serviceman T G Giles who baled out of a P-38.
Occasionally they would come across mines that had broken free. These would be guarded until the Navy arrived and detonated them. This would result in the surface being covered in stunned fish which the crew would be able to scoop up.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Chertsey
England--Great Yarmouth
England--Newhaven
England--Bedfordshire
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France
France--Le Havre
England--Norfolk
England--Surrey
Temporal Coverage
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1943-07-17
1944-03-16
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Anne-Marie Watson
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
air sea rescue
animal
bale out
ground personnel
Ju 88
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
P-38
RAF Cardington
RAF Great Yarmouth
shot down
Spitfire
sport
Walrus
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/830/10804/EFullerJWilsonJH440331-0001.2.jpg
f6742adf7b9745670d133254a39f30ff
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/830/10804/EFullerJWilsonJH440331-0002.2.jpg
4930bb95979f754a836cce65481c698b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fuller, Frank Tilden
F T Fuller
Description
An account of the resource
19 items. Sergeant Frank Fuller was the rear gunner on a 7 Squadron Lancaster captained by Squadron Leader C H Wilson, Distinguished Flying Cross, which was shot down during operations to Nuremberg on 3/31 March 1944. Collection consists of letters to Mrs Wilson, the captain's wife, from the parents of other crew members and official sources after crew reported missing. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Maurice Burl and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /><span>Additional information on Frank Fuller is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/209870">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Fuller, FT
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
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Bueh holt Cottage
Sidley
Bexhill on Sea
Sussex
Dear Mrs Wilson
My son Frank was Rear Gunner in the plane which left base on March 30.31 and did not return.
My sympathy with you is therefore most sincere.
We are endeavouring from enemy sources to get early news and if we do, I shall write you immediately, I beg of you to let us know should you get any information.
We got your address from Oakington
Yours sincerely
J Fuller.
[hand written on letter mounting REAR GUNNER. SGT FULLER]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Mrs Wilson from mother of Frank Fuller
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to Mrs Wilson, wife of captain, from mother of Frank Fuller, rear gunner on the crew. Crew did not return from operations on 30/31 March Hoping for news. Will write if they hear anything.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J Fuller
Format
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Two photocopied sheets, one page handwritten letter and printed transcript
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EFullerJWilsonJH440331
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Surrey
England--Bexhill
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Trevor Hardcastle
David Bloomfield
air gunner
aircrew
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1009/11282/PMadgettHR1811.1.jpg
d44b98865db180d4fa57a12b7dee6fff
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
Madgett, Hedley Robert
H R Madgett
Description
An account of the resource
250 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Hedley Madgett DFM (1922 - 1943, 147519, 1330340 Royal Air Force), a pilot with 61 Squadron. He was killed 18 August 1943 on the last operation of his tour from RAF Syerston to Peenemünde. The collection consists of letters, postcards and telegrams to his parents while he was training in the United Kingdom and Canada. In addition the collection contains memorabilia, documents from the Air Training Corps, artwork, a railway map, diaries, medals as well as his logbook, photographs of people, places and aircraft. Also contains letters of condolence to parents and a sub collection containing a photograph album with 44 items of his time training in Canada'.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Joan Madgett and Carol Gibson, and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /><span>Additional information on Hedley Madgett is available via the </span><a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114690/" title="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/madgett-hr/ ">IBCC Losses Database</a><span>.</span>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-17
2019-06-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Madgett, H
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Royal Air Force memorial Runnymede
Description
An account of the resource
Ceremony at the Royal Air Force memorial at Runymede. Airmen line the path up to the memorial with servicemen and civilians sitting behind on both sides.
Format
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One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
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PMadgettHR1811
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Surrey
England--Runnymede
England--Surrey
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
memorial
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/931/11289/ALonghurstWJ180407.1.mp3
424c626566a83d4f46af2bc68695d0e3
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
Longhurst, William Joseph
W J Longhurst
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bill Longhurst (b.1924, 1874159 Royal Air Force). He served as a flight mechanic with 620 squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Longhurst, WJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DB: This is Denise Boneham and today I am interviewing William, Bill Longhurst, and today’s date is the 7th of April 2018 and it is currently 14.10. Bill, would you like to tell me a little bit about your life involved with the RAF?
BL: Certainly. Certainly, I volunteered for the RAF when I was just turned seventeen and a half, because I didn’t want to go in the Army. I was, had been in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, 1552 Squadron, Hackney Wick for two years and had decided that that’s where I would like to go, so when I got, I went to Euston Road Recruitment Centre, volunteered, had my medical and was awaiting to hear, my calling up, but before I got my calling up for the RAF I had a calling up paper for the army, or so I thought for the army. When I got to the Territorial Centre at Leytonstone after I had a medical, I went to see the reception, reception party there and I said, ‘could you tell me why I’ve been, received these calling up papers to come here?’ They said, ‘well, because you have your calling up for the army.’ I said, ‘Oh well I’m not,’ I said, ‘I’ve already volunteered for the RAF.’ He said, ‘have you been, got your papers?’ So I said, ’No.’ So he said, ‘well evidently they don’t want you.’ So I got a bit annoyed at that and thought what could I do? Well I walked away from the person interviewing me and I got called by one of the other interviewers, which was the second one along, and he called me over and he said, ‘there is an RAF officer along the corridor, about the fourth door on the left,’ he said, ‘go and, go along there,’ he said, ‘knock at the door and have a chat with him.’ Which I did. When I went along and knocked on the door and was asked to go in. I said sure enough I said there was a pilot officer sitting at the desk and he said,’ Can I help you?’ and I said, ‘yes, very much.’ I said, ‘because I volunteered for the RAF, I said, ‘I’ve been in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, which is changed to the Air Training Corps,’ I said, ‘and they’ve just told me now that I’ve been called up for the army.’ So he said, ‘that’s’ ridiculous, we can’t have that can we? We can’t lose someone like yourself.’ So he took full particulars and sure enough, I got my call up papers for the RAF. I, when I called up, I said, I called up and had to go to Bedford, and Cardington at Bedford, and when we got there, I said most of the people who lived around London I said, were called up and put in the billets. And the corporal come along, sorted us out in groups and we was marched off to get kitted out, with a greatcoat only. And I thought well that looks funny, this thing, this greatcoat fitted me twice! So I said, I said to the chap ‘this not my greatcoat surely!’ ‘Don’t worry.’ He said’ ‘you’re only going to get your photograph taken. So the next thing we did, we went along, and the chap draw the number, he had the one, he drew my number 187459 and I had to carry this piece of board, I said and sat down and do me greatcoat up, and I said you know I looked ridic, stuck, had a big greatcoat. Anyway, held the number in front and was told you know, no smiling, just look straight ahead. The photograph was taken and that was that, that was my first day at Cardington. On the evening, the chap came along, and was a sergeant this time, and he said, ‘right,’ he says, ‘you won’t be, tomorrow morning,’ he said, ‘you’ll be leaving here,’ he said, ‘so we’ll be kitting you out first,’ he said, then ‘with the kit,’ he said, ‘and you’ll be boarding the train which goes from the, there’s a halt specially for recruits.’ And he said, ‘by the way anybody live in London?’ He said, ‘there’s a poss’, oh everybody put their hand up, I said that’s great he said where’s the aerodrome you’d like to be? Well, being I lived in east London, I thought Hornchurch. I said, ‘I’d like to be at Hornchurch.’ There’s another couple of chaps also wanted and they were all saying all sorts of aerodromes which surrounded London, couple of you’s going to be very lucky then tomorrow. So the next morning when we rose, we got kit and then we marched on to the square which was quite close to where the halt was, and the train came in and eventually we climbed aboard the train and off we took. All the names of the stations during the war was taken down, so we didn’t know which way, where we were going, so we went to the, went away from the halt and on to the main line station and we started heading away to wherever we were destined to stop. We carried on along the track for some miles but no one could see or could remember which way we were going, [cough] and eventually one of the chaps turned round and said, ‘I’m afraid we’re not going towards London at all, we’re away somewhere else.’ So we all guessing, had a guessing game until finally [emphasis] we pulled in to Skegness. Now Skegness was a, when we got off the train there we were then marched straight away to have a meal and when we’d had our meal, we had to then form up outside and the corporal was there, they were drill corporals, they picked us, sorted us into sections and we were marched off to various places were our billets. Now the first ones that we went to was in Drummond Road in Skegness and that was a four-storey house, ex, people, you know, people that went there for holidays, right next to a place called the Arcadia: that was a theatre. And that’s where we were until half way through our training when we was transferred round on to the Windsor Hotel which was on the sea front. Now that was very good there, very good, big rooms and we were in the front room down stairs which was evidently a dining room which had beds in this time. [cough] We had these, our vaccinations and other, other inoculations and I unfortunately got vaccine fever and I was confined for twenty four hours, or sorry forty eight hours, excused duty, which one of the members had to bring back my food because I was confined to beds for forty eight hours. That they didn’t like very much! About three days later we had our, we did a stint of drill on the sea front, different things, doing this drill, we were then told to go indoors, change for PT, PE, well when we get inside everybody is shouting and talking, you know, getting ready to go. Unfortunately we had no blinds to pull and curtains to close, and two WAAFs was walking by, happened to stop outside the door, window, and everybody says oh there’s a couple of WAAFs out there and we said you know, everybody was saying, ‘oy oy, go on, move along, move along,’ because we were in a state of undress, some of us. So a sergeant suddenly walked through the front door, and he said, came in and he says, ‘right you lot,’ he says, ‘you’re on cookhouse fatigue tonight.’ So he says, ‘no need for that rumpus, you’re only attracting more attention.’ So that was that. So we ended up in the cookhouse which was unfortunate for me because I do not like cheese, no way do I like cheese and what we had for tea that night was toasted, sorry, fried bread with fried cheese on the top of it. So it was, well I had the job of washing all the trays out, that was my job. The only thing I had to eat that day was scrape the cheese off the fried bread and ate the fried bread: that was it, so that wasn’t very good at all. Right, so, the training was very good, and Alvar Lidell was a radio commentator, talking on the news on the BBC. Now he happened to be called up at the same time as we were, and in the paper a couple of days later it said: “Alvar Lidell is in Skegness. This is Alvar Lidell, a photograph of him and this is the square and Alvar Lidell bashing it.” Because when he used to announce on the BBC he used to say, ‘this is the news and Alvar Lidell reading it.’ The next thing I was I went on leave from, after did my infantry training and I went on leave and after that, I had my seven days leave I was posted to RAF Filton as a trainee mechanic. We had two Blenheims on this station at Filton, which is a, belongs really to the RAF and the Bristol Aircraft Company. Now we had two WAAF flight mechanics at the time, and most of the time I did more or less things that they asked me to do, different things, and if they wanted help, anything shape or form, I used to help them to do that. I used to have to prime the engines which are underneath the engine lascelles and they used to have the trolley action, tell the pilot, the other one used to tell the pilot when he’d to turn the props. So, sometimes they were, it was okay and sometimes it was a bit dodgy because, when they used to prime the aircraft, where you pushed the priming pump in it used to push petrol into the spider which was on the top of the cylinders and the pilot at the same time was told to turn the propellers to suck the petrol up into the engines and switch the switches on, make them start. Sometimes they’d start straight away and other times they used to just bang away and it’d frighten the pilot because it didn’t start first time and he’d switch the engine off. Which was unfortunate because by this time the petrol in the intake had caught light, and naturally the petrol, as it was an updraught carburettor, underneath, the petrol used to run down and drip out into the pour, under the aircraft under, the engine. The first thing you could do was to take your cap off, hold it over the air intake, signal to the chap on the trolley act and tell the pilot to start the engines again to suck the flames up into the engine and you finished up with a burnt cap! Oh dear, dear, dear. Right well.
DB: I’ll just stop it for a minute while you think about it.
BL: Our aircraft was mostly, being A-Able it was mostly the flight commander’s aircraft. Consequently, If they had a special job for it, SOE or a special person, man or woman, to be dropped they usually got the aircraft. Right. One day we was on the airfield and there was an aircraft landed, two actually, they were Flying Fortresses. The Flying Fortresses they landed, came round the perimeter track, parked somewhere on the field, and one of their coaches pulled up. The coach, it come from the hospital which is the Cheltenham, there’s a hospital, American, across over at Cheltenham, and they’d come to see some of their buddies that been, were convalescing there, but some of the ground crew that used to fly with them, they came along and they started walking round the aircraft. So, one of them came, coloured chap, big feller and two others, came round and stood in front of our Stirlings and looked up and said: ‘By Gal!’ he said. ‘What an aircraft,’ he said, ‘Look at the size of it, beat Flying Fortresses hands down. Look at the size of it, what a babe, look at the size of that.’ He said, ‘how many guns in it?’ When we told him four, he turned round and said, ‘four,’ ‘yeah and they’re at the back.’ So he walked, they walked round and had a look. He said, ‘I can’t get over the size, can I go inside and have a look?’ So I said, ‘yeah, I’ll come in with yer.’ Cause I didn’t know what, you know, what they might do, so we went into the aircraft and when we come out the aircraft after he’d had a look round, he came out, put his hand in his pocket, he said, ‘‘ere, have a cigar,’ he said, he put his hand in his pocket, ‘have two!’ Right, that’s that one. A couple of days later we had a fighter, American Mustang, came round the airfield, landed. I think there was an officer, colonel, somebody, evidently come to see his friend or whatever, and this was his aircraft, he parked it up. They’d been doing some work on the perimeter track and they’d dug up part of it, not a very big hole, but big enough, and when he came back, he got in his aircraft, taxied round the perimeter track and unfortunately very, very similar to the Stirling, he’s tail down, when you’re taxying with your tail down you can’t see over the nose, so you have to look side to side, and he goes, taxies you know, from side to side around the perimeter track. Unfortunately for this officer, found where they’d dug the ‘ole! And he ended up in the hole. Well, you know, his propeller got smashed [unclear]. It stopped the engine naturally, so didn’t catch fire or anything. But when we went and got him, walked over to him to see if he’s all right, he said, ‘my god,’ he said, ‘I’m in bloody trouble now!’ he said, because he shouldn’t have been there. [unclear] And that was it, but I don’t know what happened to it. I think the Americans sent a motor and got it out. We had to get it out of the hole with our Coles crane and they come and collected it, took it away. We actually got on very well with all the aircraft, all the aircrew on it and they were pals with everybody. They was, had, some of them had got themselves a second-hand car but they didn’t get enough petrol to go with it and always needed a bit of petrol. And unfortunately, we could only let them have a hundred octane, but, what we used to do, we used to give them some petrol in a car, in a can and we’d water it down with some oil, not too much: it smoked, smoked out the vehicle, and we used to do that, we used to help them out a little bit on that aspect, you know. And every now and again you’d get somebody would come out with the glider pilots, they’re going out for the night, some of them used to have some big motors. So I said don’t expect, I’m not trading this aircraft for your flippin’ car, no way! So, but no matter who you were, I won’t mention the names, but I used to have the flight commander and it was from right the way down, if they wanted help that way, I used to climb up on the undercarriage sometimes if I knew that the aircraft still had to be refuelled and drain off five gallons and put it in the motor, you know for them [unclear]. Might be their last night. So, that’s, that’s the way I helped them. They were very good to us, they used to save all their flying rations if they didn’t want them. They used to have nuts, raisins, chocolate, different things, sweet cigarettes, corporal, sweet caporal cigarettes, lucky strike, you name it, anyway it was all the, they used to come because they used to be a mixed crew. We always had a mixed crew, I don’t think I ever had an all RAF crew. And anyway, that was my way of helping them and they used to take us out every so often, and say meet you down the pub tonight boys, we’re not on our ops, all right, all right, meet you down the pub, and they used to buy us drinks and give us all their rations, throw ‘em on the table and we have, have a good night out really. Yes, or, or, they used to say right off tonight, all together, anybody fancy going to a dance in the village or wherever, and they used to take us out there and it was very nice and handy because at least we had an officer and they were allowed out after midnight and they used to, can be driving the car come through the main gate and the corporals look down look in and say Flying Officer or Pilot Officer so-and-so and company and right through. [Laughter] It used to happen quite a lot actually. That one. One day we was waiting for something to happen, as it’s coming, certain parts of, area of the, Europe, were being, after D, right, after D-Day we had a, quite a few places and things to do that we was working every day, doing all sorts of things, we was taking more troops, dropping supplies, dropping petrol for cars in five gallon drums, for lorries I meant, and tanks and that. We were very, very busy all the time, twenty four hours a day of doing work, stuff like that. Most of, some of them was on the dropping more specialist troops to areas that were needed out there and also arms and ammunition. The ammunition they didn’t have enough of that type of ammunition, that went over as quickly as possible. [Whispered] I’d love another one. One day we was er, decided to go, we had a day off, we did meet a couple of WAAFS, there were three of us: three men, three WAAFs. We all had our hopper bikes and decided as it was a beautiful day we decided to go down and see the river Severn because it wasn’t far from the river Severn. So we went down there, spent the day down there, you know like visiting the pub and one thing and another, and unfortunately one of the WAAFs got a little bit tipsy and on our way back to the camp, on our way back to the camp it was an uphill struggle on the hill. Got over the hill alright, she was a bit slow, but as she got over the hill it gathered momentum, unfortunately the, the road was resurfaced, just been resurfaced. And the resurface them days was tar spray and sprinkling of small shingle on the top and a quick roll over with the steam roller. Well, this poor girl got going so fast she couldn’t guide her bike properly, whatever, her mind wasn’t looking straight over, but over she went and she landed on her knees, tore her knees and laddered her stockings or her legs, oh, what a shame, you know she was in a bit of a state, so we was just walking back to the camp. I’m going to tell you now about our times when we used to go home on leave. Ah, well, we didn’t always get a ticket to go on leave. We always had to jump ship you would call it. Well, we used to have a chap who was very keen on talking to us chaps because he worked in the Orderly Room so no excitement in the Orderly Room, [laugh] no excitement in the Orderly Room so what he did, he used to come with us, you know, come to the NAAFI with us, and talk to us and ask us different things in the RAF as you do, so I said we, I want to go home on leave, for a couple of days, is any chance of giving me a 295, he said yeah, will you stamp it for me? Which he did. Right, right our crew, oh dear, our crew crashed at, in France on D-Day, or just prior to D-Day and we had a new flight commander arrive, Squadron Leader Bunker. Now Squadron Leader Bunker, he’s a legend. He joined the RAF on a short term and in just 1938, 1938 and became a pilot when war broke out and he flew right up until 1945, about 1945, 46 some time there, I haven’t got the correct time, date. And he was flying back, he was, took over from 620, 190 Squadron lost their flight, their wing commander so as he was a squadron leader in, on 620, they made him up to the wing commander. He took charge of the squadron and he was taking, they were doing the same ops as we were and he was flying cans of petrol to Belgium and bringing back prisoners of war, ex-prisoners of war to England and landing them at Oadby in Leicester, in Surrey, Sussex or Surrey, Oadby. Now when he landed there, they are still on operation and they are helicopters, large helicopters are flying from there, on the same station. Now when he landed there, there was a two, the Stirling had two tail wheels, one tail wheel was punctured and they decided to take off from there to go back to Dunmow because they had something on at Dunmow and one aircraft started going along the runway, the wheel, because the tyre was flat, shimmied and as it was going along it was shimmying and it eventually it caught light, because of the heat, and naturally he didn’t know this and when he put his undercarriage up, the two tailwheels went up into the aircraft at the back. The rear gunner was still in his cockpit and the tail of the aircraft caught fire and exploded and blew the turret out and killed the air gunner as he hit the ground. The pilot then couldn’t control the aircraft and it was flying towards the village of Windlesham and he saw a, saw a games field and decided to make for that, so he made for that and could only put the aircraft down because it was aflame, he put the aircraft down in the playing field thus missing that town of Windlesham. And the town people put up and erected a big [emphasis] memorial for him and his crew, a man, Bill, ex-RAF man, decided to erect this memorial and did a lot of work for it, to this, and also he wrote to the church in Windlesham, commemorating this memorial, wrote to the church and asked them for permission to fly the RAF ensign at the church tower every year on the same day that the accident happened, and this was granted, and from that day to this on the anniversary the flag flies from the mast. Now I attended the memorial service and it was well attended by the CO of Oadby and other officers and representatives and included, his son invited me to the funeral and Janet and I we went down and we attended the funeral and we went to see a service in the Clement Danes church in Oxford Street, and we attended a service in there and also a meal of, in the – where the hell was it – we attended a meal in the Royal Courts of Justice across the road to commemorate it. Right, our next trip was to Fairford, the adj, the crew and the whole squadron moved from Fairford to Great Dunmow. Now when we got to Great Dunmow that was a different kettle of fish because Great Dunmow was built by the American Air Force, air force construction gang. Now they had aircraft built and up and running before we got there. So quite a few roads, pathwords, pathways were built, the only problem when we first landed, we found that their toilet arrangements were quite different from ours. When went to the toilets when we arrived there we naturally wanted to go to the loo, we arrived there we walked into the toilets and there was a row of WCs, all in a row, no doors, no particulars, nothing. So we looked at one another and thought what the hell’s going on here? There was urinals there, but there was, on the toilet, WCs no doors, nothing, no privacy whatsoever. So, we was all looking at one another and laughing. Eventually someone said what the hell is this all this about? You know. So I turned round and kept a straight face, and said well you know the Yanks, said they like to read their comics, I said and when they sitting next to each other and reading their comics and they’re nearly finished, if they finished the comic they hand it to the next one, I said and they pass the comics along. [laughter]. Right, that’s the end of that one. The tin huts were the same huts as the others. The name on our door was called the gold brickers, that was painted on our doors and I understand, I don’t know if it was correct, but I understand the gold brickers was the lazy buggers, so I thought well maybe it suits us, I don’t know, but it wasn’t a bad place, but we never got a lot of coal for our winter when we stayed there for winter, so we had to end, we end up robbing, doing a little bit of getting some from somewhere else. So the WAAFs were fairly close, but their coal was behind big wire cages, so one winter we was in this winter there and I said well we’ve got to get some more coal lads, we’ve got no coal, flippin’ freezing in here, we been freezin’ all day out in the snow and that so we decided to do a recce and a raid, so we went out about five of us, and we went out and we were creeping in the dark, behind the WAAF huts. I climbed over first, climbed over the wire fence and kept sorting out the small enough bits of coal that I could throw over the wire, ‘cause they were a bit heavy, I’m not a weightlifter. So course we did it, and we got enough coal to go back, when I climbed back over, to last us for about a fortnight. So there we were, happy as pi – as hell. The next time we decided, there was a corporal, a corporal fitter, his name was Corporal Chatterjee. Now he was an Indian unfortunately, for us, but he liked it in our billet so he stayed, and he picked a bed near the fire which annoyed some of us, right, so we was, had to have another raid so I said to the corporal, ‘we’re going to get some more coal.’ ‘Good.’ he said, I says, ‘and you’re coming with us. So he said, ‘I can’t, I’m not coming I can’t do that, I can’t come and start stealing.’ I said, ‘if you want to warm yourself up mate, you’re coming with us or you’ll make things very awkward.’ So anyway we decided that he was going to come, and he certainly had to come, he gotta come or else. Anyway, we was finished going out, in the dark, and it had been snowing hard all day and the WAAFs had slit trenches outside their huts and course the snow had blown and filled the slit trenches up, so we didn’t know where the slit trenches were, you where they were. So away we went, once again I hiked over the fence, started throwing the coal and we got enough coal out over the other side, then we picked it all up, put it on our shoulders, walked it back through the camp and all of a sudden one of the WAAFs for some reason or other, because the lights was on in the hut, she opened the door, out the back, opened this door, lights shot out the door and silhouetted the corporal and me with these flippin’ great lumps of coal on our shoulder and she let out one horrific scream. Well the corporal started to run, not following the footsteps that we took going and went straight down the flippin’ slit trench, dropped the lump of coal, didn’t know what to do, he’s screamin’ his head off down the slit trench, cause it came up just to his armpits and he’s screaming out: ‘get me out of here, get me out of here!’ So I said, ‘hold on a minute, no, no, no, no. Give us the coal first.’ ‘No, no coal, no coal.’ So I said, ‘we want the coal first or you don’t get out. Get out yourself,’ so otherwise they’ll know that we been and pinched the coal. So anyway, eventually he give us the coal, I picked it up, we yanked him out and away we went back, he says, ‘no more, me no more do that, no.’ But that was a funny thing that night. Anyway, stop that one, that’s it. Next time we wanted some coal, we asked one of the chaps that, we was getting a bit low over the WAAFs quarters so we decided to raid the officer’s quarters. So the officers quarters was up on a bit of a hill and we decided to go there [unclear] we thought we’d take, ask the chap going on leave that used to drive, one of the – what was it – one of the Crossley, one of the lorries that used to tow the gliders, it was a Crossley, had no, nothing on the back only the tow bar, and it used to have a big galvanised tank in, on the back with concrete in it to hold the weight down, keep the back of the Crossley. Right, so this time we’re gonna go with this. Can we borrow your Crossley? He said ‘I’m going home on leave for the weekend, do what you like,’ he said, ‘but don’t mess about with it,’ he says, So I said we’re just going to get some coal. So away we went. There was the driver, was the Scotsman, and myself and somebody else sitting in the Crossley in the front, and away we went. We went round there, found the coal, got into position, got as much coal that we could get that night in there, and we’re driving this chap used to drive the oil bowsers driving the Crossley, he’s driving back. Well as we come away from the officer’s quarters goes down a hill swung round sharply to the right, there was a tree on the left hand side with a branch had come about three feet off the floor, off the floor and went across towards the road. Well, the Crossley’s quite wide and he’s driving this thing down there and he’s hit the corner of the cab on the near side, corner of the cab, lifted the cab up nearly off the chassis and smashed the, smashed the window, the windscreen. Anyway, we carried on going, we got back to the camp, we emptied the coal, emptied the coal, went and saw the chap who’s nearly ready to go out of the camp on leave, he’s dressed now, and said ‘ere we’ve damaged your lorry. ‘If you don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘go and get rid of it, I don’t know nothing about it.’ So anyway, they got a bike, put a bike on the back, drove the motor over round the other side of the camp, parked it, and then, somewhere, rode back on his bike, and then turned round and didn’t say a word. When the chap come back off leave, looked round says me bike’s not, me motor’s not in the MT, MOT, MT, somebody’s taken it out of the MT. So he went up before the sergeant, and the sergeant said, ‘your motor wasn’t signed in.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘well I’m sure I did, I certainly took it in,’ he said, ‘I might have walked out and forgot to sign it in.’ Anyway the sergeant, it was damaged, it’s smashed. Anyway they had a court, not a court martial, they had an inquiry into it, and it finished up they said that he didn’t sign it in, they couldn’t find any record so he’s guilty and he got seven days jankers and a seventy pound fine. Now, he used to, he used to run bets on the camp so he wasn’t worried about the fine, that’s all right said he was just upset about the jankers! Where the Scotch bloke that done the job, he got caught, you know, they found him and he got five days in the cookhouse. [laughter] He said I wouldn’t have minded if I’d got the fee he says cause I had the money to pay for it! And then we had sailors on our camp to help us out and this chap that was, used to sleep next to me. Well I went, he went on leave and I was going out one night, when he went on leave, and when I looked for my shoes, I couldn’t find me shoes, I only could find me boots, two pair boots, I had pair shoes, and I looked searched everywhere tipped every place upside down. Anyway, it finished up, his kit bag was next door to me. So I looked in the kit bag and there they were in his kit bag. So I went to the MPs, and I says look, my shoes are gone. I said ‘I believe,’ I said ‘I believe,’ I didn’t say I know, said ‘I believe that this chap has gone home on leave, he was an electrician, he went home but I believe he might have gone home wearing my shoes.’ So they said all right we’ll send a couple of our MPs round. Tipped his kit out and there’s my shoes, they yours, I says yeah, they’re my shoes so I said, so he said put it all back and when he come back we’ll have him. So he turned round, he got away with it, because he turned round said he didn’t know they was in there, someone must have put them in there and that was it. We was at the camp one day, at Dunmow during the day about four o’clock, and all of a sudden there was a tannoy message: “All personnel report, 620 Squadron report to the, report to their aircraft immediately.” So we all went down there, my one was well out the way, my one was AA, was at the front. The bomb dump was down where, when we got there BANG! Thought what’s that, you know, then there was another bang, a bang went up, as it went up this one exploded in the air. The bomb dump was alight, yeah, the bomb dump was alight. So we had to get down to the bomb dump as quickly as possible and get the aircraft out the way because there was the, there was the stock, so we all raced as fast as we could to where the bomb dump was. I got into one aircraft, cause there was no one there at the time. I got in there, started the engine up on the internal batteries, started the engines up and the four engines was running and by that time the pilot came to the aircraft and he, I got out and he taxied it across to the middle, middle of the airfield out the way. In the meantime these flippin’ bombs were going off! So of course I went back, after that I rode me bike back to my dispersal to wait and see what else had happened and the fire engine from Dunmow, ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling, come flying round the corner, came on to the airfield, on to the perimeter track, drove round, got as far as my aeroplane, stopped, got off the fire engine, and they’re looking, and they’re going boom, boom, these bombs are going off and incendiaries are flying all over the place, all of a sudden I suppose they thought got to go and sort this out if we can and they took off and went down there. I don’t remember much about it after that, you know. We just went and sat in the flight office, was down in, down a hollow, that was what we had to do. Time I was on night duty on night flying, I was, my turn to see the aircraft off, me and the rigger. So we went, you know, got go down there. I used to have a Claud Butler bike, a racing bike and of a night time I, if I had time off, I used to put me shorts on, go climb over the fence with me Claud Butler bike which I could lift up, light, and go for a ride round the country lane and that was me, that was a bit of my pleasure. Well this night, this day, I go, I thought, the hopper bikes were heavy, so I got me Claud Butler, got it out, got on to it and pedalled going down to the aircraft. Get out to the aircraft, course as I said my perimeter track went round, and as it went round, it went down to my first one, was there, so I’m going round, and I’m going, now Claud Butler was racing bike had one break, fixed wheel, one brake and a nipple on the end of the brake cable, so I comes flying down and when I got to, saw it on the aerodrome, there, saw it, the four engines was turning over. Well I’m, now I’m the engine mechanic, so evidently some, you know, the flight engineer probably, the skipper said start it up and the rigger, because this time I’m bike, cycling like mad, I’ve swung into the put me front brake on and the nipple on the cable broke and I’m going, I went straight underneath the props on the starboard side, straight under the props, and nearly hit the tail plane that sticks out the back, there at the back, and everybody sort of looking up and sort of saying bloody hell, good job it wasn’t a Halifax. Talking about my Claud Butler, I was on duty crew another night in the Control Tower and I was it was our turn to look after any aircraft that was coming in, you know, or what, we’re sitting in there, in the Control Tower, nothing happening, and all talking there and all of a sudden we had a call: there was some Halifaxes that couldn’t land at their own base so they were being diverted to us. So the flight control came down, says right, we need somebody at the far corner of the second runway, we shall bring the aircraft on behind the follow me car, behind on the perimeter track, that person on the end there will turn the aircraft down on to the spare runway. We want another person at the end of the spare runway, not too close to the main runway that’s being used and stop the aircraft there and park ‘em one after the other so you know, you had time to come round and do it. So of course I went, I said I’ll go to the end of the runway, send ‘em down. My mate says I’ll park them. So I said right and away we did it. So I rode me Claud Butler round, got the end of the runway, we parked my bike on the end, on the far side of the runway because the aircraft are turning just before it, and I stood there and said right, once I’ve stopped them, turn the aircraft with torches and then went like this and he could see the one up the end of the runway and he’ll follow them. I come to the last, I come to the last aircraft and as fast as I walk backwards, he followed me, so I turned this torch, turning me right hand torch as hard as I could so that he’ll turn round: still following me, so I thought he’s not going to do it. So I stopped him, walked over to the fuselage, bangs on the back door, somebody came and answers me at the back door, he said, ‘what’s the problem?’ So I said: ‘The problem is, the pilot is not turning to starboard, he’s got to turn now, lock his starboard wheel and rev his prop to get round otherwise he’ll miss going down the runway, right you got that?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Right.’ I walk back to where I was, I was standing there like a twit and the pilot signalled to me forward so that one’s solid, this one this way, you know. He started to turn, started to turn, eventually he come round and he turned, eventually he comes round and turned and I’ve gone like that and away he’s gone. The follow me motor was behind and he said you want a lift back to the control tower? So I said no I says that’s all right I’ve got me bike here, I’ll ride over. Went over to pick me bike up and the flippin’ aircraft had run over it, he’d run right over the bike solidly and even clipped the pedals. It’s a wonder it didn’t burst his tyre! Yeah, he squashed it completely, useless, frame, wheels, buckled, the lot! So I had to pick the bike up, walk back, walk about what, three quarters of a bloody mile it is, ever so sorry, the other side of the runway, and when I got back there, so no good telling anybody as I shouldn’t have had the bike on the runway. So I had to dump that, and that was the end of my bike and my pleasure. We were all standing on the end of the runway one day, on the side and just watching things, aircraft taking off, one after the other, or whatever, and all of a sudden, this by the way is, we have changed from Stirlings now to Halifaxes, very careful. So we’re standing out there, this Halifax starts to take off and all of a sudden he got to the end of the runway and we kept wondering whether he’s going to stop or he’s going to go. Eventually he went, he just took off the floor, went across the runway, went across the runway, over the hedges and then bomb, ploughed straight into the field. We all ran over there see what had happened, didn’t caught fire or anything, went over there see what happened, the pilot’s, all got out, all standing around, pilot’s standing outside of his cockpit, on the wing, standing there, you know, and as we got over there we said to him ‘what’s wrong, what happened?’ ‘Oh!’ he said, the flippin’ ailerons locked on me,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t turn the ailerons he said to take off.’ So, anyway, within that time the engineering officer was turned up in his motor, he came up, walked across, got on, climbed up on the wing, ‘cause by now that’s on the floor, climbed up on the wing, looked into the cockpit and the I’ve never heard an officer swear so much in all me life! He turned round and he said what happened to the bloke, pilot says, ‘the ailerons locked.’ He said, ‘I would think so, they are locked!’ so the pilot said ‘what?’ ‘They are locked.’ What had happened was, on the aileron locks which clip either side of the steering wheel so to speak, on the, I say there should have been a piece of metal painted red and it was hinged on to the aileron lock to stop them going like that, wind blowing them and this piece of rod supposed to go on a seat to stop the pilot sitting on the seat. He supposed to take that, undo this one and that, and take it off, give it to the flight engineer and stow it in the stowing box that was, in a bag, but they were on the [unclear] and this piece was missing. And you know when I said, that whatshisname was in that magazine didn’t they, that was in that magazine so the pilot really [unclear]. Yeah, yeah, I don’t know if he got away with it, I suppose he did really, cause it wasn’t his fault, it was [emphasis] his fault, well it was the engineer’s fault ‘cause the engineer should have should have accepted it, put it in the stowage bag. I’ve already told you where I used to help ‘em out. I’ll tell you a quick one Dunmow, not a nice, not a nice thing this. I used to catch rabbits. What meat was naturally short during the war so naturally if I could get, take home any rabbits or anything like that for my mum, family to eat I would do so, I wasn’t living far from London so wasn’t a problem. So the Americans that were stationed at Dunmow lost a lot of aircraft, there was a great big heap of smashed up Marauders, and every Marauder had an aerial, stainless steel aerial, so that it was made of nice bond wire, so I went round and cut most, a lot of them off. What I did, I made some snares. I made these snares and put them around where these aircraft were damaged because I could see a lot of rabbit runs in there, and see little piles of poo, so I did this, I used to catch quite a few. And if I wasn’t going home I would give them to other men to take home for their parents to eat. So one morning I went round to see if I’d any rabbits in me snares. I come along and all of a sudden I could see in the distance, I thought what’s that, I said the next thing I saw was this dog. It was a grey dog, with, it looked like a Welsh terrier, little curl, grey curly hair. When I got close to him, I said he looked at me, he caught this snare, foot in the snare, and he looked at me and he wagged his tail and I thought well that’s good, he’s a little bit friendly. But he hadn’t been caught for long because he wasn’t rushing around or well, he was just sort of stood there like that, if to say I’m caught, you know. So anyway I approached him, and he was approachable, I just slipped it undone, and when I took his paw out, he just run around as though nothing had happened, he wasn’t hurt at all so I thought well that was brilliant, so anyway it finished up that the armourers, evidently he was lost, the armourers on the site, 620, they took him under their wing and he used to be their dog for all the time they was at Dunmow. But we used to take, take the windscreens out of these aircraft cause they was perfect Perspex. We used to cut them into little hearts, and fire ‘em, we used to cut the crown and the wings out of the button, put ‘em on there, put the hot heat on to it, and that used to melt into it, put a little loop on the end of it and buy a little chain, you know, not gold chain, I couldn’t afford that, but a chain and give it to girlfriend or somebody you met at the dance, you know. They used to like ’em. They used to make all sorts of brooches. Sometimes they used to find a cannon shell that was in all the rubbish, find a cannon shell. They, what they used to do then, used go in the site hut what we used to have was a vice what we used if we have to, you put the shell in the vice, wiggle it a little bit to make it loose, pull the bullet out or the shell out and then tip out all the cordite or whatever was inside, put the cartridge case back in the shell, get a piece, a little bit of wood and a hammer, put it on the end of the firer, give it a hit, fire it off so it made it safe and then we used to make a lighter out of them. That’s it. We used to have one rigger that used to be a very lazy person, and that rigger annoyed me because he was an elderly man, and how he ever passed A1 I shall never know. He used to cut mens’ hair for six p, you know, and I never let him cut my hair I wouldn’t do it if it was tuppence. Because, see he used to annoy me very much, he used to go on the site – he hasn’t got his bowl - the dispersal and he used to walk down the steps used to lead down the bank to the hut at the bottom and come in there and he’d sit, always was a fire if it was cold because they used to be, keep it during the night when they was, keep it alight night and day because you sleep there, wait for the aircraft to come back. Well anyway, this, this morning, he came up and he turned round, and he said, ‘Ah,’ he said ‘bloody hell it’s cold out there, innit, bloody, just come back, bloomin’ cold I don’t fancy going out there.’ I said and because it was warm inside the windows’d steam up, I said, he’s over, greatcoat on, I said he’d wipe his cuff on his hands on his greatcoat and he’d look out the window, he’d say, ‘ah well, airplane’s still there,’ open the Form 700 and sign his signature to say he’d done his DI to his signature. Now that annoyed me, I was always very, very conscientious, you know, people’s lives and that, anyway he’s said oh well that was it and sign it. So of course I went back out the aircraft and there were talking with a couple of me mates out there, we’ve got to teach this bugger a lesson, I said I know what we’ll do, so I went into the aircraft, I got one of the very pistol cartridges. I opened it up, I’m not quite sure of the colour: green, red, blue, or whatever it was, it used to be [unclear] emptied them out, I banged the cartridge on the end like to stop it explode off so it was safe, took these things, took ‘em down to there, I got a brick, a block or something, the old fire was burning merrily there, we got a lump of rope, tied it round the door ‘andle and tied it to something was outside, I can’t think what it was now, we tied it up anyway so he couldn’t open the door, and there’s only one door and we climbed up on to the top of the – what’s the name – on the nissen hut, cause you can, you could walk up ‘em. We used to have rubber soled boots on the aircraft, we used to walk up there, although it might be bit dodgy, and I got the pellets, dropped these pellets down the flue and put the brick on the top. Well! The colours that came out the top of the flue, where it’s coming out, shooting out all different colours, smoke, filled up the place, he’s screaming his head off in there. We had to let him out because the place got so full of smoke. Terrible it was, yeah. But he wasn’t a very happy bunny, yeah. [Laughter] One more, Sue, one more, right. We was in the NAAFI, used to be the NAAFI, Sally Ann it was, Sally Ann used to come round the dispersal and used park out underneath the wings of the two aircraft at the dispersal where the flight office was and see they used to open it up and sell the old tea and buns. We was there one day and the tanker driver pulled up under the wing, pulled up under the wing of the aircraft there, sitting there, talking, they was all talking round, eating and drinking and all of a sudden is that a flame in your cab? And he looked, he run round, he opened the door and somehow there was a flame in there, whether it come in from the engine or not we don’t know. So of course everybody’s running round like, there’s two thousand gallon tanker underneath the aircraft, so anyway, one of them went, we got fire, only a few fire extinguishers, we got it there, of course they got these fire extinguishers and one’s firing it through one door, and the other one firing through the other door and they’re getting smothered in foam! You know, anyway, it didn’t take long, I don’t know what it was, but it didn’t take long, whatever it was, it went out with the two fire extinguishers. All of a sudden, because it was an emergency they rang the fire brigade at our station, so of course they came flying round the corner, yeah, and the tanker driver got his tanker out just in case it sparked off again, backed it out away from the aircraft and these firemen on the cab, come flying round, jump off the fire engine, grabbed hold of some axes and went round, one opened the door, the other one opened the other door and two of them smashed in the front windscreen, ahhh, sorry, craaaash! Crash, windscreen. The tanker driver says, standing there he said, ‘what you do that for?‘ He said ‘well there’s a fire in the cab.’ He said ‘bloomin’ well we’d already put the fire out! What you do that for?’ Talk about cases caught, that’s it. First of all my overseas trip. The aircraft, the sixth airborne was going to Palestine to quell the vision, the trouble between the Jewish rebels, outburst, call them rebels because that’s what they were. As far as I’m concerned I’m very annoyed because when the Polish war was, when the war was started it was the Polish Jews and everything on that, I know Hitlers’ condemned the Jews, done all this against the Jews, here we are out there, it wasn’t the Jewish population’s place or the Arabs, it was split between them at the time and it was going all right. Somebody said that it belonged to the Jews and the Jews started to, causing trouble, and people were getting shot and injured by the Jewish population, that was the bit that got me. So I wasn’t very happy, against them, I’m not against the Jewish population, but I’m against them attacking us, which helped them as best we could and lost a lot of lives doing it. Right, getting back to this one then. We sailed out of, went first of all climbed on the trains and we went up to Liverpool, right, we thought well that’s it. So we was there at Liverpool, we was there for just before Christmas and they sent us home on leave for two days at Christmas. We’re back all the way up there, then they decided they weren’t going to let us sail from there, we’re going to sail from Southampton, so we’re all the way back to Southampton and we caught the Capetown Castle. Now the Capetown Castle was a beautiful [unclear] it was a Castle Line boat, and it was beautiful, it held the Blue Riband for the crossing to South Africa and England, so no, no never had an escort of any sort, mind you it didn’t need it at the time, but it never did have an escort during the war when it made journeys because it was too fast for submarines, they couldn’t catch it, so they didn’t need escort. Right, so we went over there and ended at Port Said. Landed at Port Said and we got off there, marched along the ruddy railway track looking for the passenger train. What passenger train? No passenger train. Cattle trucks! So we had cattle trucks, so we all had to climb on board cattle trucks, put our gear on the cattle trucks, and sit there with the doors open with your legs hanging out the door. Well I remember my dad telling me this about the wogs they’re right rogues and that, I had a cigarette, so I’d just lit this cigarette, and it was just lit so it was a whole cigarette more or less, and one of these chaps came along in his night shirt, turned round and looked at me, leant up towards me cause I’m sitting higher than him on and with me feet out the train, and he turned round, and he wanted me to light his cigarette, so he give a little tug, give a little tug on my cigarette wanted to sort of take it, making out it was too hard to light his cigarette so I let my cigarette go like a fool and off the rat he ran with my cigarette and I thought, oh Bill you’ve arrived. That’s that one. One of our things we had to do, when you have a kit bag you have a kit bag lock and if anybody knows a kitbag lock is a piece of brass or whatever, a straight piece of metal on a hinge and one piece that looped over, which you hole, put it one through the other and padlock it. Well, of a night time, we used to have to padlock our rifles or our guns or whatever we had, to the bed, through the springs of the bed, and put it through the trigger guard and then padlock it, so that nobody sort of blow in your face if you like, make you roll over and take your gun from underneath yer. So that was a bit of a bind because it was a bit of a bind because personally when I went on board the boat I had a sten gun. When I got off the boat I had a rifle. So there I am with sten gun pouches, with sten gun ammunition in it and when I got off the boat I got a rifle with no nothing, no ammunition whatsoever, no spare whatsisname. Anyway so they took, the first couple of days they took ‘em all, everything off us, but then again they handed them back to us, I still got a flippin’ rifle. Anyway, I used to, when we went on guard, and we used to have to go on guard, the only problem with the RAF, I found from the beginning, and the only bones I had to pick with them was, if you was on a squadron you was a lodger, when you went on a main station, all the people that was lodgers, the squadrons, they had to do all the guard duties, all the fire picquets, all the rough and tumble but when it come to night flying we had to do that as well. We had to do night flying, we had to do duty crew, things like that, there wasn’t a lot. Now I was against that all the time, that was my bugbear with the RAF. Right, now when we come to the RAF station, we come to there, we used to have to go on lorries from the main camp out to the dispersals and what they used to have was a thirty hundredweight lorry, a few seats in the back of that and behind that was towed a trailer and it was like the trailers you see the Germans carted round and the trailers sitting in the back with the seats running side to side and people sitting there with their guns in the middle. So we used to have to go out and that was, but then put your gun somewhere and start doing your work during the day. That the toilets, now there was something you’d never heard of far as I’m concerned. They were built of brick, they were built of brick, they had some sort of an L shaped sort of urinal wall, with the urinals on the side, you walk in, walk past that and you go in and round the centre of the thing, was a centre wall built with seats the same height as you would normally get it, but between them was set, going towards the centre with a, a pipe comes up and through the middle which vented it below, below and when you went to sit in there, there was a piece of timber used to come down on top of ‘em. When you wanted to go to the toilet you used to have to pick up this seat have one hand behind your back to hold it up. And when you get up it automatic flop down, to stop the flies. But it doesn’t stop the flies. Nothing stops the flies. So anyway one night I went round in to the toilet, my dad, you know was telling me bits about different things, and I’m in the loo and I’m sitting there, thinking of England and all of a sudden, I had an American torch at that time it was an UA, American military torch, and it was one that stood up, and it had a clip on the side and the light faced horizontally at the top, very bright, a lovely light and I used to take this torch out, put it on the seat side, and it used to, sorry, it used to shine up on the white wall and light the place up a bit, so not only I got the benefit, so did other people. Anyway, I’m sitting there one night, and it wasn’t long, I think it was about fourth or fifth day I was out there, I was sitting there, no one else in the bloomin’ place, all of a sudden sominck went past me quick [whooshing sound] oh some twit had dressed a sheet over him and run past, run round, round the toilet, run round, anyway it made me jump. I jumped up, the seat automatically flaps down, hits me torch, lost me torch down the toilet, gone down the pit. I’m now in darkness, what’s that in darkness, oh dear, so I lifted the seat up quick and I could see me bloody torch shining down the toilet! I wasn’t half fuming I was, I didn’t half give everybody a row, what you talking about, I don’t know about it, you know, that was it. That was that one. We was, we used to have to do a guard at one time, when it finished the Arab Legion took it over. When that happened that was fine, because sometimes if you was on guard they used to have a wire, a thing where they used to go into the dispersal, the aircraft were parked, they used to have wire going across, barrier and you lift it backwards and forwards. Well if you was on guard you used to have to stand there, well when they used to come and empty these flippin’ toilets, they used to, I’m not going to say how they used to empty it, but they used to, and the cart they used to pour it in to take it away used to dry, used to dry, and shrink, the timbers used to shrink, anyway, it didn’t leak, wasn’t a metal one or anything, one nothing plastic or anything, so it used to be, when it used to stop there, for them to lift the barrier, and we then shut the barrier, pfff, that whatever used to drop out of there it used to smell bloody horrible. Anyway that was that one. That was nasty. The little, another of my quickies. We used to have a little wog, we used to have water bowsers and they used to have taps along the back. Now they used to have big wasps, like, looked like bloomin’ hornets, big black, brown and black, white and yellow ones and they used to go up the tap, when you went out for [unclear] like that, bloody thing would come down the tap wash your mouth round so you had to be careful. But what the little, we used to call them, what the little wogs used to do, because they used to come on to the and sell you oranges and things like that, or scrounge what they can, and he used to come on and what they used to do, they used to get a matchbox, and they take their skull caps off - oh I’m sorry I’ll have to stop this - they used to grab their skull caps, grab these waspy things, get a matchstick, squash their bottoms out, take out the sting, but we didn’t know that, put them in these matchboxes, and then when it was tea time, or tea breaks, they used to come in, go in the middle of the room, and stand there talking and they’d see these wogs and that they used to undo these match boxes and throw ‘em on the floor. Cor! Can you imagine! Everybody used to run out of there, pick up all their buns and run out of there. Yeah. So that’s what they used to do. That was terrible. I went to Benghazi, when an aircraft landed there because burst it’s tail wheel, I went there to fix an engine, because it only done the tail wheel, somebody slung his sten gun over his shoulder when he was on guard and the bullet, block came down, took one up the spout, went through the aileron so we didn’t know whether it had damaged anything inside the aileron, so we had to send back an aircraft to Palestine for a new aileron. There’s that one. Cairo West, Cairo West we had, I told you about the lady, girls in the swimming pool, I, one minute I’ll get meself sorted in a minute. So I adopted a dog at Cairo West, it was a white, white alsatian, he was a beauty, brown nose, big white, big white, creamy white tail and everything. But he was, had got loads and loads of ticks. So what I had to do I had to go to get some petrol out the aircraft, put it in a can, used to go back up there, and I used to get hold of him, put him between me legs, and I used to get a matchstick, dip it in the petrol, touch the back of the whatsisname and it used to unscrew its neck and drop on the floor and I had to get them out of his ears, and off him wherever I found one, I got one, god rid and lovely. I had him for about two three months and someone come in and said the South Africans have just run over your dog. They used to have a little South African squad on the camp and they’d gone out on the beer that night and come back and they’d run over, went out looking for him and found him, and he was runover him, shame wasn’t it. That was that one. What was the other one? Sandstorm. We had a sandstorm, at, in Cairo West, blew all our tents down, blew our tents down, [laughter] that was a right do that was. Went to Iraq, Habanya, and then on to, oh, can’t think of the other one, Hibanya and the other one, can’t think of it. Went to Nicosia, we took, we used to take boats over to Nicosia, and we used to go over there to service the aircraft, while it was over there for a couple of days and they used to come back and we used to do that regular before leave, you know, you could come home. And that was that one. Well, I don’t think I can, there is others, there’s lots of others bits and pieces that I think’d make you laugh, but I think I’ve said enough. Well I was demobbed in Heliopolis, caught the bus, caught a tram [laugh], caught a boat for going home, it’s called the Duncott Castle. Now that was on the Medlock trip. Now on the Medlock trip they used to go from Mediterranean which was Port Said to Greece, Piraeus and then back again, do that trip then they used to catch a train right through Europe. Except for this time they was told, the crew was told that they was going home to England, but they didn’t, they came back to pick us up, right. So a lot of the crew jumped ship, says right, no, we ain’t going to do it, we’re going home, wo they went home. So when the boat got to Egypt, when we were on board they any RAF personnel is interested in being the ship’s crew, like to come to the ship’s Orderly Room we will sort a job out for them. So the electricians went in to the electricians, engineers were whatever wherever, I said well and my mate, come on let’s go, got be good. So of course we went there and when we got there we were made waiters, stewards, made stewards, looking after the senior NCOs and WAAFs, in there, and they were on board ship, they used to get special, waited, others used to have to queue up. Anyway, so that was it, so we went there. When we got there we used to say how do we wash in the morning, can’t get washed, oh use the crew, you’re crew now. We didn’t, when it was deck drill we used to be ‘we’re crew not RAF’, and when we were crew we are RAF, anyway we done all right out of that cause we used to, sugar was on the table, and we used to keep filling up bags of sugar, putting in the boot, we come back with sugar, tea, coffee you name it, plus the fact you used to have egg and bacon as much as you want in the morning, we did all right. We used to, we didn’t have to but went up in to the crew’s quarters to have a wash and shower, where the other blokes didn’t have any. Decent toilets sit on a what they say sit on a thing, water used to run through like that, sometimes somebody would light a bit of paper, put it in the water while we’re sitting there! Anyway that was that. Right. Now, when they, we finally came home, we found we got paid for it as well, they had to pay us, they had to pay us. We went to the, this, what they call it. I finally got demobbed at Preston. I said to the, it was, 1947 Winter, 6, 47 winter, February, beginning of February I think it was and I went to, I said to them right, they said throw your greatcoats over there, I said hold on I said, I think we can buy our greatcoats, I said I think I’ll buy mine I ain’t going out in that in just a mac and a suit, you know. So he said throw your greatcoats over there, so I said can’t we do it? No. They refused to let us buy our greatcoats, so we had to go home in the flippin’ whatsisname, freezing cold. Anyway the next thing I knew I tried for a job, tried for different jobs. I tried for a job in the gas company, cause I didn’t want to go in the building trade ever, tried for a job in the gas company, in the turbine house. I kept falling asleep, cause we did the night time, you know, and you couldn’t fall asleep cause there used to be a water tank used to have to keep filling up to keep the turbine working, the turbine an I keep falling asleep. I’m packing it in, I can’t have this. So I packed it in, that’s what I thought. I went down the labour exchange to see if they’d got anything and they said we’ve got a job at Ford’s. So funnily enough they let me pack it in there, so I went to Fords, got a job on the Ford V8 engines. But it’s not what I wanted, I wanted to be in the engineering centre, I wanted to be in the machine shop, want to be in the machine shop, says yes, okay, got the job, went there. Next thing I know I’m being traipsed along to a bloody whatsname line, Ford V8 assembly line, putting pistons in the piston block, and that was everything I don’t want take day. I see you ever see Charlie Chaplin in Modern Time, well I was in there like that, I shut me eyes go to sleep and I could see it, you know, monorail. Anyway, I finally finished up, I did leave. I said machines were made to help man and not make him a slave, I’m out of here and you can do what you like. Well anyway, he didn’t take any notice and I finally went back in the building trade and I stayed in that until I retired.
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Interview with William Joseph Longhurst
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Denise Boneham
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2018-04-07
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Sound
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ALonghurstWJ180407
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Pending review
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01:35:34 audio recording
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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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Cyprus
Egypt
Great Britain
Libya
North Africa
Cyprus--Nicosia
Egypt--Cairo
Egypt--Port Said
England--Bedfordshire
England--Essex
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Surrey
Libya--Banghāzī
Description
An account of the resource
William Longhurst served as an engine mechanic through the Second World War. He was a member of the Hackney Wick Air Defence Cadet Corps before volunteering to enlist in the RAF after his seventeenth birthday. Following basic training at Skegness, technical training was undertaken at RAF Filton. Initially working on Blenheim aircfraft, William went on to gain experience on both Stirlings and Halifax’s. He provides a colourful account of his experiences throughout his service career, which ended when he was demobilised in the Middle East in 1947.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1947
620 Squadron
B-17
Blenheim
fuelling
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
mechanics engine
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-51
perimeter track
RAF Cardington
RAF Filton
runway
Stirling
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1018/11456/DWynn146838.2.pdf
2096867fc9046c0386f9a590e50be571
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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
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
Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Cover of diary headed DAY BOOK
[page break]
Inside cover [deleted]Postage & travelling Exs. Etc [/deleted]
[underlined] Diary [/underlined]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
1
Service Log.
OCT 3 1940 Went to Padgate and was accepted into the RAFVR as from the 6th Oct 1940 as U/T Observer. Called to the colours on 22nd MARCH 41. Reported to Babbacombe, Devon April 5th . Posted to 7. J.T.W. Newquay Cornwall Taken off the course in May & Posted to 6 s of T T Hednes final as a U/T FME. 29/5/41 Passed course in Oct 1941 A C 1 & Returned to 6 s s of TT as a U/T Fitter.
Passed AC1 on 22/12/41. Posted to Kenly on 6/1/42 became acquainted with “Bluey” Truscott, “Paddy” [undecipherable word] & Group Capt Beamish.
Posted to 3 C O T U Cranwell 25/3/42. (Flew to Shetlands August 1942) LAC at Cranwell July 1942. Posted to ST ATHANS (4 s of TT) on F.E. course on 14/10/42.
[page break]
2
Commenced F E Course on “Lancasters” 16th October 1942
Passed School Exam (Written Paper) 76% A. class pass 6th November 1942
Passed Trade Test Board 12/11/42. Sgt. 64.26%
Posted to 166 continued at Skellingthorpe didn’t arrive there landed at Swinderby midnight. Transferred to Waddington 17/11/42. Introduced W/C Nettleton VC who [indecipherable words] This was cancelled & we were posted to 12 Squadron at Binbrook who were in the process of converting to Lancs. from Whimpeys [sic]. However the squadron was stationed at Wickerby where we eventually arrived about 10 pm on the 18th. Thoroughly browned off.
19/11/42 This camp is in process of construction & is not organised. Mess. Hopeless.
20/11/42 Went to Binbrook & drew flying clothing. The Raf gets interesting at last.
[page break]
3
21/11/42 Crewed up. Am in [indecipherable word] Flight Commanders Crew due for first flight 1300 hrs.
Went on C&L with Skipper, who was very pleased at the way the kite handled & he coped well. [underlined] 2.55 mins – 1430 to 17.25 hrs [/underlined].
Still have to meet rest of the crew
Climbed above the clouds to 9,000 ft & had the most wonderful view possible of a huge sea of clouds with high banks arising to the west like snow & mountains. There were most wonderful strands of pink mauve & rainbow effects.
22/11/42 Flying again today with F/O Stevens & Sgt Aubert [underlined] 2 hrs. C&L [/underlined] P/O Stevens very steady pilot. Sgt Aubert knows his way around. (Check up times of flying).
23/11/42 Flying again. Acted as No.2 to F/O Stevens 1 1/2 hrs. [underlined] 1130 to 1300 hrs. [/underlined]. Low haze vis poor had difficulty in finding runway, which gave no chance of doing gun shoot drill. Coped OK I think?
[page break]
4
23/11/42 Continued
On leave. Caught 5 o’clock from Midland Stn Lincoln (B flight should start night flying tonight if the mist clears.)
The rest of the crew have not woken up yet. Will see them after leave. Apparently all have bags of hrs in.
Called home from Hartford around 12.30 am. Kathleen upset about Vera who died on Sat.
25/11/42 Attended Vera’s funeral.
29/11/42 Went to [indecipherable word] Church with Bert & Mr Turner.
30/11/42 Leave over Returned to Wickerby the other Crew in the billet just gone on leave
1st Dec Some of my crew are not up yet so acted Engineer to Sgt HUDSON of 5 flight [underlined] 1 hr 40 mins [/underlined] Felt groggy went to bed at 9 pm. Sweated out the cold.
2/12/42 [indecipherable word] morning. Saw F/O Stevens who informs us that S/L [indecipherable name] is tacking over the crew
[page break]
5
am not enthusiastic yet. Went to plane in the afternoon but the tail [indecipherable word] Was U/S so should not fly.
3/12/42 Thursday.
Duff weather no flying attended a lecture in the morning on George. In the afternoon saw a “Ditching Film” quite good & instructive.
In the evening we had a House Warming dance in the mess. It was so cold that everyone was stuck in the bar until quite late & most people were tight. Bags of excellent refreshments. Had quite a good time. Short slept with a dame all night. [underlined] Shaky do!! next bed. [/underlined]
4/12/42 FRIDAY
Got up late & in not to [sic] bad condition. Went to Binbrook on 1215 bus to draw pay & [indecipherable word] a shirt returned 1815 & spent night in billet.
[page break]
6
SATURDAY 5th DECEMBER 1942
Heavy rain [indecipherable words] we (Sq/L & P/O) got in 3 hrs. Circuits & Bumps. What a good show. Hobbled down too late to obtain a ticket on the transport to Lincoln. Walked into Wragby with Morton visited the two pubs which are quite good “Locals” but was astounded at the lack of Females who were conspicuous by their complete absence which is indeed a rarity even in small villages these days. In the Adam & Eve we collected some “Erks” & proceeded to Langworth via bus to a [indecipherable word] it was dead ropey – Rachs [indecipherable word] 4 school girls and to [sic] old age pensioners (approx). Did not enjoy the walk back a bit, which was about 4 miles or more.
Sunday 6/12/42
[indecipherable words] Sgt did not fly. Went up on an A/C test with P/O Graham
[page break]
7
who dive bombed the mess & drome in general. He can certainly handle a plane. Went to Lincoln at night saw F/O Stammers & Huver. Found out we could obtain nice sandwiches at the Oxford (a temperance hotel).
7-12-42 Still no flying getting browned off with the Sq/L is [indecipherable word] or he is stalling for some reason. A.V.M. came in the afternoon & told us that he was pleased with our progress etc. etc. [indecipherable words]
8-12-42 Flew today with Sq/L. (45 mins 11.50 – 1235.) in our own plane J for Johnny. A new plane & the engines seem O.K. Would have been airborne longer but the weather came u/s & several minor defects were found out. Mainly intercom up though a faulty plug. Skipper made a very ropey. Spent the afternoon
[page break]
8
around the plane, with the mechs and oiled the flap lever etc.
Received parcel of laundry today together with an onion which shall be eaten with enjoyment later. Spending [underlined] the night [/underlined] in the billet.
Wednesday 9-12-42
Received a letter from Rex who tells me that A Griffin the lawyer has died and it will cause even further delay in settling up dads estate. Went out to the sea just of [sic] Mablethorpe & did a little Air to Sea firing that is the Rear Gunner & Front Gunners did. Came back & Sq/L made two ropey landings. The second was terrible I thought we had had it bounced at least 25 ft first [indecipherable word] numerous times shot about it. He will never live it down on this squadron.
Went to Lincoln in the evening
[page break]
9
saw Stammers & Co on the bus all were merry & bright.
10-12-42
Woke up heavy this morning & dopey all day. Flew out to sea with Sgt Withall on an NFT in [underlined Johnny [/underlined]. Heard great news when we returned. Bloomfield is posted as Wing Co to another squadron Stammers is going to try to get us back for his crew. I hope he does because they are a good crowd & he is a damn good pilot & a fine chap. I was down for night flying tonight but the flying was cancelled owing to weather conditions. I don’t mind really as I don’t feel too lively. Spent evening in the billet won 1/- at darts & lost 5/10 at pontoon not my lucky night at cards though I played cautiously.
[page break]
10
11th Dec 1942 Friday
Very dull sort of day. One bright spot was a practice bombing [indecipherable word] trip in K with Stammers & crew F/O Fatten wash his usual self ([indecipherable word] flying all over the place). A nice spot of Fighter Affiliation with three Bostons who could not get inside us at all. Stood by till 2230 hrs for night flying which was then cancelled Weather U/S
12-12-42. Duff weather all flying cancelled had very interesting talk by a F/L Pepkin who bailed out of a Halifax over Duisburg & got away with it took him about 7 weeks most interesting. Received a very disturbing letter from Kathleen. The Civil Liability people have stopped 32/6 a week grant which actually makes our combined income 4s a day more than when I was an L.A.C. & comparatively in a safe job. I take a very poor view of all this. It does not say much
[page break]
11
for our Country’s appreciation of our job when a slim fool like me jeopardizes the future of his family for a net gain of 4s a day while thinking what the hell will they do if I go for a burton?
I must go into all this immediately because if nothing can be done about it my enthusiasm [underlined] is ZERO!!! [/underlined]
Incidentally I shall be worse off having more expenses to pay out etc.
Went to see the Padre in the evening with Ryan to the loss of income. He seems to think that I have a chance of getting my allowance made up some anyway. Have to let him have particulars of expenses & wife’s allowances I am in a state of complete browned offness. I will write to Kathleen.
Sunday 13-12-42
Actually got airborne on X country to day Went up as far as Stranraer came back over Bassenthwaite & Skiddaw. Saw them through clouds. Listened to BBC 1 o’clock news while
[page break]
12
over Skiddaw.
Should have gone on a night X country but G was u/s so after being airborne for 30 mins abandoned trip did a dual [indecipherable word] as engineer with Sgt Dunwick who made a superb landing (his first shot). Packed up owing to U/S weather. The flare paths looked like an arterial road lit up in peace time.
MONDAY 14-12-42.
Did a short night X country to Penrith. It was marvellous above the clouds in the moon light. I find I am quite duff at Morse I must get hold of a buzzer & practice some. F/O Stammers invited F/Sgt Hule [indecipherable word] to the officers mess afterwards where we enjoyably drank many beers, and [indecipherable word] in a spot of jocular line shooting.
[page break]
13
TUESDAY 15-12-42
Went as passenger in a “Ferry Wellington” to Doncaster & Helsham to pick up a crew & some spares for K. Kitty (gets oil seal)
In the afternoon went Lincoln shopping and bought Kath a bag which I dont like now I have it. Also went to The Astoria which was a lousy dance place shall not go again. Missed the bus to camp & could not get accommodation so slept in a parked bus bitterly cold & not comfortable. Then was a warning at about 3 AM. Ignored it & apparently so did everyone else. After the all clear I was disturbed by a friendly Bobby who let me remain. Was I glad when the YMCA opened at 5.30 AM.
Wed 16-12-42
Short local trip 1 1/2 hrs in
[page break]
14
daytime & 3 hrs 35 mins night & photo trip at 4000 ft quite good bags of other A/C flying.
Thursday 17/12/42.
Nothing doing of interest.
18/12/42.
Weather duff no flying today. Wing Co’ gave a bit of a jaw at midday. He wants the squadron operational [undecipherable word] after Xmas. I dont think there will be many of us operational that soon unless we get better weather. Went to Lincoln in the afternoon where I me “Olga Coe” who is now 21 & an M.T. driver in the waffs at Waddington. When I last saw her she had just left school & was a gawky kid who wanted to take [indecipherable word] out in the pram. Came home on the 10.45 bus.
[page break
15
19-12-42 SATURDAY
Weather still duff did dingy drill in the morning & collected an interesting “Escape aid” from the intelligence library
Stayed in camp all day
broke & browned off.
SUNDAY 20-12-42
This morning saw a demonstration of dingy inflation in a plane. Later went with “Bluey” Graham as Engineer in X (LANC) to LEVENHALL but vis there was bad did not land. Took some “Erks” with us. One was about to use the Elson when we went into a dive. Others landed in a heap on the cabin floor.
Air firing & bombing in the afternoon. Kay dive bombed the last bomb with great success would like to try further bomb by that method wrote six letters tonight. quite a record for me. The Scots boys in the billet have a little kitten which
[page break]
16
has been getting mad at its own reflection in a mirror to our amusement. Early this evening I heard a terrific explosion it sounded like a plane going up with a load of bombs, heard later that it was. Not confirmed though yet.
21st Dec 1942 MONDAY.
Weather not too good but some flying although our crew did not participate. The A O C (AVM Harris?) came to Wickenby & gave us a little [indecipherable words]
Feeling generally browned off but received 25/= PO from the Comfort fund at Norby. Went to the White Hart at Lissington bought a stock of baccy & cigs & spent 24/6. Came back to the mess & had a Sing Song around the Piano with Mortons Crew & Sgt Driver who is an AG. was flying in the second day of the war
[page break]
17
as an LAC/AG. He was awarded the second DFM of this war & has two lots of Dinghy hours in. Retired quite merry.
22 DEC TUESDAY
Fine day though the met people predict all sorts of muck. Worked like Joe Soap on K all morning then went on long X country in G. The tail trimmers went U/S but we carried on flew 1150 miles at 15000 ft with marvellous visibility. In some cases up to 200 miles completed the trip (dispersed to dispersal) 6 hrs 35 mins. Should prove an interesting trip for consumption data etc.
23-12-42 WEDNESDAY
Moderate sort of day did a spot of A to S firing & bombing in the morning & a night bombing practice trip. We were annoyed at having
[page break]
18
to do the Bombing trip but we were down again at 8 PM. Went to the Sgts. Dance in the mess had a nice boozy time but did not think that it was as good as the last.
24th Dec 1942
Ferryed [sic] a Lancaster to LYNDHOLM with Bluey Graham. The mess there was wizard & met Ratcliffe & Hind who have only just started their conversion course. Returned in a Wimpy with F/LT Stammers. Came back to the mess & most of the boys have gone to lunch. The billet was deserted & there was no mail for me. Not a bit festive yet. Later went to Wragby & had a booze in the local with crowds of Erks. Not too bad but I would rather have been at home. Went in the kitchen & helped to prepare Xmas dinner until 5 A M
[page break]
19
25th DECEMBER 1942
Quite a good feed in camp today. Went to Lincoln in the evening & had a quiet night. Stayed all night.
26th Dec.
Quite foggy no flying went to Lincoln by train had a quiet evening at the flicks came back by taxi.
27th
Still a duff day & no flying. Went to Wragby in the evening & had a quiet night again.
28th
Bags of excitement everything ready for a big show. Everyone excited 16 crews briefed. (MUN) found the briefing quite interesting – was cancelled at the last moment & everyone annoyed. It is perhaps as well that it was so or many of us would [underlined] not [/underlined] have returned.
29th
Weather still duff. Some gardening trips proposed but eventually cancelled. [underlined] Snow fell [/underlined] in the evening.
[page break]
20
30th DECEMBER 1942
Snow still lying around did a low level X country trip over [indecipherable word] & district lasting about 2 hrs. It was quite nice to see the country covered in snow from a plane. Went to Lincoln again in the evening went to the flicks & saw a well acted but sloppy picture. Stayed the night at the Y.M.C.A. again.
31st Dec THURSDAY
Quite a nice morning with the snow still about. Stood down from Ops. Acted Engineer for Sgt Morphett in an NFT.
Sgt Aubert & Sgt Marshall came back from Skegness doing some [underlined] Real [/underlined] low level stuff.
Spent the evening in billet quietly. In bed before midnight.
[page break]
21
1943
JANUARY 1st FRIDAY.
Nothing doing again today.
Stood down again.
2nd
A few letters today & 10/= from Rex for my birthday.
Still nothing doing.
3rd Jan Sunday.
My 35th birthday & all’s well. Celebrated it by completing my first Op. which was rather boring in as much as it was quiet. Only 2 shots of light flack near us from a vessel at sea. (Mining of La Rochelle).
The number of lights visible over France was amazing & La Rochelle seemed to have very little black out at all. Quite a successful trip.
4-1-43.
Tonight we started off on a H L bombing attack over Essen
[page break]
22
4-1-43
but apparently we were not getting sufficient supply of oxygen & all behaved peculiarly & did not reach the target so we dropped the bomb 20 mins away from T & returned. All made a foolish calculation thought we would not have enough juice to do the full trip bad show.
5th
Snow fall & all stood down.
6th Proceeded on leave at noon.
14/1/43
Back off leave & learn with regret that 3 of our crews are missing in the last week. F/Sgt Baker. Sgt Marshall & Sgt [indecipherable name] did a ferry trip to Hemswell & A/C test.
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
Ian Archer Wynn diary
Description
An account of the resource
Diary commences on joining Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 3 October 1940 and training at Babbacombe, Newquay and passing out as an aircraft fitter. Posting to RAF Kenley 6 January 1942 and association with fighter pilots Bluey Truscott, Paddy Finucane and Geoup Captain Beamish. Postings to RAF St Athan 14 October 1942 and then to fitter engines course on Lancaster. Posting to 12 Squadron at RAF Binbrook and then aircrew training at RAF Wickenby in November 1942. Describes life and training for November and December 1942 including a visit from AOC AVM Harris on 21 December 1942 . Writes about first operation to La Rochelle on 3 January 1943. Last entry 31 January 1943.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Wynn
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Cover and 26 page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DWynn146838
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Devon
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Torquay
England--Newquay
England--Caterham and Warlingham
Wales--St. Athan
England--Lincolnshire
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France
France--La Rochelle
England--Surrey
England--Wragby (Lincolnshire)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-10-03
1942-01-06
1942-10-14
1942-11
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jan Waller
12 Squadron
aircrew
fitter engine
flight engineer
ground crew
Lancaster
mine laying
RAF Binbrook
RAF Kenley
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
RAF Waddington
RAF Wickenby
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1018/11478/EAndersonPWynnK430602.2.jpg
9375d9ed147393fb275e34440e8b194f
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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
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
Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
R.A.F. Station
Binbrook
Lincoln.
June 2 [underlined] nd [/underlined] 1943.
My dear Mrs Wynn,
Thank you for your letter and God will bless you for your bravery.
In answer to your question I have to state that F/O Stammers – now A/S/Ldr was posted away a few weeks ago.
Your husbands [sic] colleagues were -
A/S/L Turgel – Son of Cpt R. Turgel
“Bay Trees”
Vicarage Park
Guildford
[underlined]Surrey[\underlined].
P/O Petts – Son of Mrs C. M. Petts
2507. 16A Street
S.W. Calgary. Alberta.
P/O Russell – Son of Mrs Russell
75 Avondale Rd
Southport. Lancs.
P/O Harvey – Husband of Mrs K Harvey
Netherne Hospital
Coulston [Coulsdon]
Surrey.
Sgt Hudson – Husband to Mrs Hudson
33. Dudley St
[underlined]Grimsby[\underlined]
Again accept my Prayers for you all
Percy Anderson
[underlined]Padre[\underlined].
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 padre at RAF Binbrook to Mrs K Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks her for her letter and includes details of other member of her husbands crew.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
P Anderson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-06-02
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
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EAndersonPWynnK430602
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Surrey
England--Lancashire
England--Southport
England--Coulsdon
England--Grimsby
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
England--Guildford
Alberta
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06-02
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
missing in action
RAF Binbrook
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1018/11479/MWynnIA146838-150414-01.1.jpg
14c9b8ded74f617fd0e282d27a3607ea
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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
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
2015-07-13
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
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Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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Paddy Finucane Spitfire fighter pilot at Kenley killed in July 1942 Wing Leader of the Hornchurch Wing was missing after beating up a machine gun post in France. His Spitfire was hit by return fire. He tried to make it back to England, but over the channel his engine failed & he went straight in. Some of his mates circled over his grave for as long as they dared but all they saw was a patch of oil on the [2 words deleted] surface.
Ian was Paddy Finucane’s engineer when he was training (Ian) for air crewe [sic].
[Page break]
When you [underlined] do [/underlined] go home, Tell them of us & say “For your Tomorrow We gave our Today”.
[page break]
[Newspaper article]
[Photograph]
Paddy Finucane
To lead RAF wing at 21
He’s Acting Wing Commander Finucane now.
In other words, Paddy Finucane, Irish fighter pilot of an Australian squadron, holder of the D.S.O., D.F.C. and two bars, champion shooter-up of Nazi airmen, becomes the equivalent of a Lieutenant-Colonel or a Commander at the age of 21.
Promotion from Squadron-Leader to Acting Wing Commander was revealed last night.
Finucane joined the RAF four years ago, and has already shot down thirty-two Nazi planes,..Finucane, promoted squadron-leader in January became engaged last month to Miss Jean Woolford, who lives next door but one to his parents at Richmond, Surrey.
[Page break]
[Newspaper Article]
[Inserted] D.TE 4
29885 [/Inserted]
Brought together
THE LATEST pilgrimage, to Nijmegen in Holland, by relatives of dead British servicemen, has forged a poignant and permanent link between two war widows.
Kathleen Harvey and Kathleen Wynn had never met before the trip, organised jointly by the Royal British Legion and the Ministry of Defence, and when they started chatting on the coach taking them to Holland they were surprised to discover that their husbands both served in Lancasters belonging to 100 Squadron.
As they talked on they found that both men, Flying Officer Dennis Harvey and Pilot Officer Ian Wynn, were shot down on the same day, May 25, 1943. When the pair arrived at Jonkerbos Cemetery in Nijmegen they were amazed to find that the two men were buried side by side, both members of the crew of the same aircraft.
It was, in the words of the organiser Piers Storey Pugh, “An utterly extraordinary coincidence.”
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Title
A name given to the resource
Newspaper cuttings concerning Paddy Finucane and pilgimage to Nijmegen by Kathleen Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
1. Title 'To lead wing at 21'. Relates to wartime history of Wing Commander Paddy Finucane. Handwritten note explains his death and that Ian Wynn was his engineer. 2. Title 'Brought Together'. Relates the meeting of Kathleen Harvey and Kathleen Wynn while on pilgrimage to their husbands graves in Holland. Their husbands were shot down on the same day and are buried side by side.
Date
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1985-08-29
Format
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Two newspaper cuttings mounted on an album page
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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MWynnIA146838-150414-01
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands
Netherlands--Nijmegen
Great Britain
England--Surrey
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Bradley Froggatt
100 Squadron
final resting place
killed in action
RAF Kenley
Spitfire
-
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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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
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
2015-07-13
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
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Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[Postmark]
LONDON
25AUG
1943
[/Postmark]
Mrs I. A. Wynn
“Sunny Brae”
Norley Frodsham,
Warrington,
Lancs.
[page break]
Reverse of envelope
Forwarded by Air Ministry
[inserted vertically]
31 14 1
[underlined] 16 12 2 [/underlined]
15 1 11
[page break]
Bay Trees
Vicarage Gate
Guildford
Surrey
19.8.43
Dear Mrs. Wynn
I believe that your husband Sgt. [Sergeant] Wynn was a member of my son’s crew when they failed to return on the night of 25th to 26th May last. My son was Squadron Leader P.R. Turgel D.F.C. & was piloting the plane on that raid. I am anxious, as probably you are also, to gain any possible information I can about him or any member of his crew, so I am writing to the next of kin,
[page break]
in the hopes, that if we keep in touch with each other, we may be able to help one and other by passing on any information about any members of the crew even if not our own. I should be more than grateful if you would write to me & let me know if & when you have any news of your husband.
At present all the information I have is that two members of the crew have been reported killed P/O Petts & P/O Russell & one other as yet unidentified, that leaves four, of which there is still no news, and
[page break]
there is every possibility that your husband and my son may be amongst these. The above information I was able to get last week from the relatives [sic] department of the R.A.F. I am now writing to the searches department of the Red Cross to ask if they can trace any member of the crew who might be in hospital and if you have not already done this perhaps you would like me to let you know if I hear anything.
May I offer you my deepest sympathy during these anxious days.
Yours sincerely
Fanny M Turgel
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Title
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Letter to Kathleen Wynn from mother of Squadron Leader P R Turgel
Description
An account of the resource
Letter from mother of pilot of Ian Wynn's aircraft, Squadron Leader P R Turgel. Hopes that they will share any information that they get about the crew. Writes that the only information they have is that two members of the crew are reported killed, Pilot Officers Petts and Russell and one unidentified killed. There is no information on the other four members of crew.
Date
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1943-08-19
Format
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Three page handwritten letter and envelope
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EJurgelFWynnK430819
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Warrington
England--Surrey
England--Surrey
England--Cheshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-08-19
Creator
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F Turgel
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
killed in action
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1083/11541/APriceSTG151001.1.mp3
1421d71d473b33c64ebc651fe2bbf2aa
Dublin Core
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Title
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Price, Sam
Samuel Thomas Gwynne Price
S T G Price
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Sam Price (b. 1925, 1819421 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 and 35 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Price, STG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
IL: Recording on the 1st of October 2015 at the home of Gwyn Price in Colerne in Wiltshire and Ian Locker conducting the interview. Right, Gwyn tell us a little bit about your early life and how you joined, how you became involved in Bomber Command.
SGP: Yeah. I was born in 1925 so we’re talking about some seventy odd years ago when I did my first operation. So, although the mind is reasonably clear and I’ve had a look at things we really have to go back and give you the background. My rural background. Farming community. No — no electricity, no gas, no water, no sewage. Everything done on the range. But plenty of food and not an unhappy life. A very happy life in fact and I feel that with my later experiences that you make the most of what you’ve got and it was an ideal start because there was a determination to keep one foot going in front of the other if nothing more. I was always interested in flying and my main aim was to become a pilot in the Royal Air Force. I enjoyed the —
IL: What sort of age was that Gwyn? Sorry.
SGP: Well, when I was about fifteen — Grammar School ATC. I joined the Grammar School ATC and actually did all my proficiency exams. Did better at that than my academic subjects and became a flight sergeant which was a bit unusual to get that high. So I was then committed to join the Royal Air Force. And when I became seventeen and a quarter I, without anybody knowing I shot off to Birmingham for interviews and hoping to be a pilot. But the situation then was such, this is ’43, there were a lot of pilots being turned out and so I was offered a flight engineer. Which, in retrospect was a very good place to be because I eventually ended up on Lancasters and sat in the right hand seat and did a lot of flying and all the rest of it but — so there I was accepted as a flight engineer in 1943. Because of my age I was deferred until I was eighteen and a quarter which was the 7th of January 1944. And then my world, you have to — from a rural background, never really been out of the county very much, very quiet and laid back and shot into London for all my pre-RAF equipping and inoculations and films on sexual behaviour. People fainting all over the place [laughs] And some people fainting with the sign of a needle. And we suffered all through that and then went off to Newquay to start our initial training which was a three months course initiating us into the history and the aims of the Royal Air Force and the background. Plus all the navigation, engineering and all sundry things. Plus physical exercise. Lots of, beautiful down in Newquay. Very, got very fit. Sitting on the side of the cliff there breaking down Bren guns and things like that. And eventually came out. By this time I think we were beginning to feel a little bit like servicemen. And so then I went off to St Athan for my engineer training. Flight engineer training which was a six months course. And this was extremely complicated in you, you went from talking about engines from the autocycle right the way through to Rolls Royce, Merlin, V12s plus all the, the other equipment. Electrical engine, hydraulics. Oxygen. All the other systems in the aircraft and I eventually decided I wanted to be in a Lancaster because the Lancaster engineer sits by the side of the pilot and I felt then I would have a good chance to get some flying in. So, I passed out in October, practically on my birthday, nineteen year old birthday in 1944. And then shot off to do a little bit of Anson training. About ten hours. A little pilot training on the Anson before I then joined up and went to the Heavy Conversion Unit, Lancaster Heavy Conversion Unit to start my training as, on the job as it were, as a flight engineer. I then only did, let me, I should go back and say that passing from a cadet to a sergeant flight engineer my pay went up from three shillings a day to twelve shillings a day which was a ginormous jump. I’d always been a saving man and I sent a shilling a day, sorry. Yeah, a shilling a week home and saved that so I had a car at the end of the war. But there you go. So, we’re on our way. Flight engineer training. I did twenty four hours training as a flight engineer and then I was then considered fit to join a crew. And this was very, for a poor old engineer you had the boys coming in with their crews already formed, flying Wellingtons, pre-Lancasters, where seven crew were required. And the engineers sat like wall flowers on the side waiting for a crew to say, ‘He looks a decent sort of chap.’ ‘He looks like he might be sensible,’ or whatever. And I didn’t get picked for a while. I think I was probably too good looking actually [laughs] They didn’t want, they didn’t want any, they wanted a dour, down to earth engineer who would sort things out. Eventually this big Aussie, God he was big. Bob Newbiggin. Big Aussie. About six foot five and huge. He was the surf swimmer for Australia. He was in the “Guinness Book of Records” eight consecutive years. He was surf champion of Australia. A lovely chap. And he looked at me and the rear gunner was a bit older than the rest. A bit, he had a bit more savvy. He said, ‘Well I think he looks alright.’ [laughs] And I said, ‘Well, you look alright.’ So, so this Bob Newbiggin’s crew was formed. And then off we went and we did only thirty three hours training as a crew before we started our operations. We were declared fit for operational service which, when you think about it was not very much. After serving the Royal Air Force and flying about, nearly five thousand hours afterwards I realise how green we were at the time and, but how we managed despite that to cope with the difficult situations.
IL: So, had Bob Newbiggin and the rest of the crew been flying together for a while or were they — ?
SGP: They had, they’d only been on Wellingtons and formed a crew. They’d only probably done about fifty hours together.
IL: Right.
SGP: As a crew. So that formation but they had in fact had that advanced experience that I hadn’t had so I had to fit in with these other chaps you know.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And I’d better say a little bit about myself. I used to read my bible every day which was a bit, the lads used to say, ‘Are you coming?’ I’d say, ‘No. I’ve got my scripture reading to do today.’ [laughs] And I didn’t drink very much at the time. I was a good boy. That changed a bit later on but, so anyway we all got on very well and then, in fact we were posted to 195 Squadron at Wratting Common in Suffolk.
IL: Right.
SGP: A beautiful area but of course we were at the — 1944, the winter was severe. We had snow on the ground and there was icing everywhere and it was really, really difficult. And we were living in Nissen huts. Metal huts. Yeah. You know N number, about twenty in a room. Two whacking great stoves burning coke and coal. Absolutely red hot. Talk about health and safety. It just hadn’t come in to being in 1944. They would have gone mad then. The thing would have never got off the ground. Anyway, we were comfortable enough in our way you know. And we were then waiting for our first operation. So, on the 14th of December we were and I’ll go through the operational briefing which was very important. So we’d all go down to the briefing room. Already equipped. And sometimes you’d be selected for a flight and sometimes you wouldn’t. And you would have the CO and all the navigation, signaller, engineer leaders, gunner leaders, all there briefing on any particular trip on any facets that might affect the individual crew members. And a big curtain. A curtain was drawn. Secrecy was tight until then. The curtain was drawn and then you were given a target for the night. Well, it was so vague actually I haven’t even got the name of the target. First target. But because we got half way across, got airborne, fully laden, half way across the North Sea and it was aborted so we had to drop our bombs in the sea and return saying, ‘Oh.’ Oh. Amazing that we were feeling miserable that we hadn’t gone and completed our first operation. Which gives you an idea of the calibre of the people and their attitude to the war.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: We would, we then and now I have no regrets about what I did. And I think when you think about the way the Germans indiscriminately bombed our cities. You had your V bombs. You had your doodlebugs. There was no way that they could be targeted specifically at military targets. It was just pattern bombing. So we never felt any regret about this. Either then or now. And so we were a bit miserable on that occasion. A little bit post the briefing. You then, you had to go. The navigator would plot out his route. Because every, every aircraft was planned to operate individually which was very important. And then the signaller and myself and everybody else would be all briefed in the briefing room. And then the old truck used to come round, pick us up and drop us off at the dispersal point. And this particular one was a daylight flight and my role after all the crew went in the aircraft up the rickety old ladder that we had into the aircraft I would have to go around and check everything. Check all the things were tight. No, no cowlings aren’t loose or anything of that sort. No leaks. All the de-icing paste on the leading edge of the wings and the props was all done. So that we were all ready. And then I do say this and it’ll cause a laugh. You had, always had a last pee on the tail wheel before you went in, for good luck. So I did that and away we went. And then the crew did all the starting up procedures and everything else and pre-flight checks which were very thorough and then eventually taxi-ing out with all the other aircraft and you’d get your green light from the caravan at the end of the runway and away you’d go. And when you think about it we were probably laden with about two thousand seven hundred and fourteen gallons of fuel plus about twenty thousand pound of bombs, four thousand pound plus two fifties and that sort of thing. And so sometimes you were scratching a bit when you were getting off but then away you went and then you were individually working your way to the target. Now, in daylight it wasn’t too bad because you obviously could see people most of the time if the weather was fine and you could obviously avoid them. We did have a system to confuse the enemy radar where we’d drop what we called Window and they were long metal strips in packages. We’d throw, put them through the chute and they would spread all over the air below.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And confuse the radar. But the only trouble with that is that in daylight you could see these piles in front of you and they would tend to get in the, in the oil cooling radiators and overheat the engines. So you’d do the up and down, up and down until the crew said, ‘No. No more.’ [laughs] you know, ‘No more. We can’t have any more of this.’ Anyway, that was a little bit of an aside. So, at night and I’ll go through at night because —
IL: So, because, because presumably most of, most of your operations were night time because obviously Bomber Command was doing the night time.
SGP: Exactly.
IL: And the Americans were doing the daytime.
SGP: Exactly.
IL: Weren’t they?
SGP: Yeah.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: We did a lot of daylight over France supporting the army on the second front and all that sort of thing. So we did quite a lot of daylight ones as well but the majority of them were night.
IL: So were you fighter escorted during the daytime?
SGP: No.
IL: You were on your own.
SGP: Only the, only the Americans had escorts. They had N number of guns, God knows how many fighter escorts and they carried very little, very little in the way of bomb load.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: But Flying Fortresses [laughs]
IL: Yeah.
SGP: There was a song about that but I won’t go into it.
IL: Is it a rude one? [laughs]
SGP: Carrying a teeny weeny bomb. Anyway, the night trips, you can imagine you would take off in a stream, one after the other and then you’d all be heading your own way. Planning your own trip. And so, what happened then if you were in heavy cloud, you’re getting iced up, ice was flying off the propellers on to the fuselage, cracking on the fuselage, and St Elmo’s Fire flashing around. All these sort of things were new to us and I was always concerned about temperatures of engines and things like that. But then you, the thing you have to remember is we didn’t have any naked lights in the aircraft. All the, all the instruments, flying instruments were just luminous dials and with the background a little bit of radium light. And they, I I used a little torch with a pinpoint light from it to do all my logs for the fuel consumptions and all the rest of it. And the navigator was in a blacked out little cabin there behind with his light on the desk. So there was absolutely no light in the aircraft. Absolutely black. So there was no light in the other aircraft either. So you wouldn’t see them. The only thing you would see are the exhaust flames and suddenly you would see exhaust flames and you wouldn’t be too far away then. And some of them were very close. And if they were navigating to get there on time some were probably a little bit ahead so it would be crossing the main stream to be back on time. This sort of thing. So, it was pretty hazardous and if the cloud, you were being iced up and the turbulence was bad and all that sort of thing it was pretty — that’s one of the biggest things was to look out. Just keep the eyes peeled. So, so that gives you a little bit of background of what it was like at night. And I might as well get on now to the difference because at night you’d be flying along in darkness and suddenly the target area would be as light as day. Lit up by fires, by all the flares put down by the Pathfinders and everything that was going on. And you could see all the other aircraft flying around, all the bombs coming down and you’d unfortunately see some aircraft being hit at the time and going down. That sort of thing. And all the stuff coming up as well. I shall never ever forget what it was like ever because it was so surreal. You, you’d go from total blackness into this light and you’d think everybody, you could see everybody you know and it was very unreal, but [pause] So we got our next flight. Let me have a [pause] was, was on the 24th . We did a flight to Bonn and this was heavily defended and we were well tasked, you know, to experience what I’ve just told you about. Both the night flying and the difficulties and also the light over the target area.
IL: So, Bonn was your first night flight?
SGP: Yes. Yeah. And I’ve gone over the [pause] we completed that trip without any trouble and then went on to —
IL: You say it was heavily defended so, you know. Do you mean sort of flak, or —?
SGP: Oh yes.
IL: Fighters? Or —
SGP: Oh yeah. Flak. I didn’t, we didn’t personally see any fighters.
IL: Right.
SGP: Except on one which I’ll tell you later.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Because that was a bit close. But I suppose we had two major problems. One was a little bit later on over Kiel. No. Can I just have that for a minute —
IL: Oh yes. Please do. Please do.
SGP: Yeah.
[pause]
IL: Do you want me to pause for a second.
SGP: Yeah. Pause.
[recording paused]
SGP: We completed five further operations in six days. And the last one to a place called Vohwinkel. And we were, came back to base. The cloud was thick down to base so we were diverted to East Moor in Yorkshire. And I just want you to picture N number of aircraft all being diverted to East Moor. All stacked at five hundred foot intervals up to over twenty thousand feet. All desperately trying to get in and land and the weather wasn’t very good there either. So, we found ourselves in these orbits. Carrying on orbit, orbit, orbit until you were gradually coming down five hundred feet at a time and eventually you were the one five hundred, just five hundred feet and you were then in to land. And they got us down very well. But I thought about it. We’re in this cloud, continuously in cloud all the time but just going on instruments flying around in the orbit and if anybody had had an altimeter wrong or something like that only five hundred foot is the difference between the heights. But anyway, we landed ok and the next thing wasn’t so good. East Moor had only been given a short notice of us arriving. So, we’d had quite a long trip of about six hours. A bit tired out and a bit wound up with the, being diverted and having the towering let down procedure thing. And we arrived in our little huts and all they’d done, God bless them was to put piles of blankets on each bed. With no heat or anything. So [laughs] so we had to make the most of it. And that was the calibre of people we had those days. I should really go back to the beginning because I missed it out at the start. We came from a generation where we had great respect for the history of the country and our, what we’d done throughout the world. And that was still there then in the 44’s. We were very much in respect of the monarchy and the parliamentary democracy that we had and to the extent that even if you were at home we used to stand up when the national anthem was played. So, coming from that background it was a place in history that we accepted and we took it on for the, for everybody really. Because it was in defence of our country which we loved, you know. So, going back that gives you a little bit of a feeling for how we felt at the time. But after the, after the Vohwinkel one we completed eleven operations and then we were selected for the Pathfinder force. Well, we all thought, we were asked if we would be happy to go and we said, Bob said, the pilot said he’d be happy so we all decided we’d be happy to go to the Pathfinders. And then [pause] the, we, we went on our first flight which was a trip to Duisburg. As a Pathfinder. Now, the Pathfinder situation was that you had to go down to about eight thousand. That sort of height. Master bombers sometimes went lower than that and he circled continuously so their problem, they had a bigger problem than us. But we would go down and at least circle the target twice at something like eight thousand feet. So, what you had was, you had things coming up and you also had rather lethal things coming down from all our, the main force going through in their hundreds, sort of thing. Dropping bombs. In fact, our last squadron we had one tail turret taken off by a four thousand pound bomb. Clean straight off but the aircraft got back to base but the poor old gunner didn’t, obviously. So, and we circled around a couple of times and buffeted around. Anyway, we got our flares away because you’d, what you did was you identified the target where the flares were and then re-centred them on the, on the coloured lights that were down on the ground. And we did that a couple of times and we tore off home. A little bit wondering whether we’d done the right thing by going on the Pathfinders side [laughs]
IL: So how many, for a raid how many Pathfinders? Just the one or —
SGP: Oh no.
IL: For each squadron.
SGP: No. You had quite a lot.
IL: Right.
SGP: You had a master bomber.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Who would be there, technically going there and identifying the target and putting down the, the first indicators and then the main force would drop on those indicators. And then you had what they call visual centre’ers who’d come along and replenish the flares so that the rest of the force coming through would have a target to aim for. If it was, the weather was bad and you couldn’t identify the target you had a visual, a marker chap who would have his H2S equipment to identify it through the cloud and then put what they called Wanganui flares. And they would be suspended in the air and you would drop on those.
IL: Right.
SGP: Which was, subsequently these sort of things were done more by the Mosquito because they had Gee and the navigational equipment that was more accurate. And they would be up at, say twenty eight thousand feet. Above everything really. And they would drop their markers accurately on, it was worked out on Gee and they would drop their markers. And that was very accurate. They, they did a lot of that towards the end of the war. But, so, so we, we completed that and the next thing is after five more operations we were over Kiel and we dropped our bombs and immediately we were locked on by three, coned by three searchlights. And we were totally blinded. Couldn’t see a thing. Absolutely unbelievable. Well, Bob then, he went like a maniac and we, we went down and out and around and whoa, and we ended up, we got away from them and we ended up over Kiel harbour and it was amazing. It was almost like heavenly sent as it were in that we went from chaos in one minute, light and chaos and then immediately to peace and tranquillity. And we were only, we were down to five thousand feet by this time and we felt a bit vulnerable sitting there on our own, you know, with no — so I wasn’t too keen on saving any fuel that night so it was full bore and away. But we got away with it and that was up to Bob. He did, he did a marvellous job and I was standing up at the front looking to see what was going on. And that was, so that was that. That was probably our most frightening experience. And then, almost our last flight we were on, enroute to Bayreuth and we suddenly had a Junkers 88, head on, come over the top and nearly took our canopy off. It was so obvious it was a Junkers when it was overhead. And the noise and he was gone and what I said in my little book was we didn’t know whether he had run out of ammo, was short of fuel, was tired and realised the war was nearly over, and thought we’d give them a fright but we won’t damage our aircraft. So we got away with that. I mean he could have taken off our canopy off.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Without any trouble at all, you know. And we were a bit apprehensive about that. Whether he was going to come back or not but he never did so we went ahead and completed the target.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Then on the 24th of April the CO asked for volunteers for a flight engineer on a crew where they had lost their engineer. And it was to drop medical supplies to prisoners of war in a place called New Wittenberg. And I said I’d go. So the crew said, ‘Don’t go Gwyn. You know what happens when you have an odd bod in the aeroplane. Nine times out of ten you get clobbered.’ And anyway, I was a bit pig-headed I suppose and I said, ‘Ok I’ll go.’ We were in fact told, the war wasn’t over then, we were told that there was a, the Germans wouldn’t in fact attack us on the way. Well it turned out there was three aircraft involved and I was in one of them. And we went across Germany. Lovely night. Clear blue sky. Not blue skies, moonlit sky at about five thousand feet. Quietly going across, found the target, dropped all our supplies on the target and then came back without any problem at all. In fact, I did a lot of the flying that night actually but, which was a good experience. And then that was it really. That was my last trip of the war. And —
IL: So you were still a flight engineer at that point?
SGP: I was still a flight engineer. I was at, I became a [pause] I got accelerated promotion. In fact, I would have been, I was on the list for a commission and then the war ended and that was the end of that. But I was a warrant officer at the, at the end of the war. And so that was the end. I should like to say that I’ve always said that the lads who went ahead of us were flying in inferior aircraft. Not good navigational equipment. Not able to get the heights and that that we got and operated under extreme difficulties compared with us. We had a really good aeroplane. Good navigational equipments and carrying a good load of bomb. But the point I’m trying to make is that even on the last day of the war we lost a crew. And he was a very well decorated man. He was in headquarters and he came down to the squadron, booked himself out to do a trip and he picked up all his men. They were all in the eighty, ninety operations and he, they decided they would have this last op but they got shot down and all died.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Right at the end of the war. And I mean, you know so there was no safe operations.
IL: No. Absolutely.
SGP: And so that was it. That was my, my sort of war if you like. And after that I’ll go into the post —
IL: Oh no. I —
SGP: War era.
IL: Just, you’ve obviously you know, as a crew you became, I understand that, you know crews became very close. Tell me about the rest of the crew.
SGP: Yeah. I think we were, we were all very quiet. Nothing —
IL: Even the Australian?
SGP: Yeah. Yeah. Bob. Yeah. Well you did have a little bit where you had Bob was an officer and we were other ranks. The navigator was an officer and the bomb aimer was an officer. And the rest of us were other ranks. So there wasn’t the same sort of get together.
IL: Right.
SGP: Although we did get together. We had fine times but we were all very quiet crew and we operated together as a crew very well. Really well. Without making a fuss about it, you know.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Just getting on. Getting on with the job. And I think that’s the point I’d always make. People ask me were you ever frightened? And do you know I was only frightened if I had a fuel calculation wrong or the oxygen was queer or the hydraulics or something or this and that. You were so involved with the operation, your own operation that nothing else mattered really. You had to, I suppose that was the responsibility of both the crew and to the operation itself that you felt like that which seemed to put everything else to one side. I can’t say that ever, even when we were crashing all over the sky over Kiel with the searchlight on us I didn’t, I didn’t feel any fear then. I think, was it because we were too green to be, to have fear? Because everything was new and was to some degree was quite exciting actually. I don’t know. A lot of people go, go and say they were frightened actually but I will, I will say one thing. As a crew you have all you boys up the front and your two gunners down the back. One mid-upper gunner and one tail gunner. Now, we always felt sorry for the tail gunner. He was out on his own. His, he was away from the centre of gravity of the aeroplane and the centre of pressure and whatever. So everything we did with the aeroplane it would be accentuated back there. I don’t know how he managed to draw beads when you were doing a corkscrew on an aircraft coming in is anyone’s business. And what he did on the night that we were flying all over the sky trying to get out the searchlights I don’t know but he quite got on with it. But we always felt that the rear gunner was a bit special because, one he’d be stuck in the tiniest little cockpit. A little area. Doors behind him. And that was it. He was in there. And he’d have an electrically heated suit. Sometimes he was burning on one side and freezing on the other. Icicles. Condensation. Unbelievable. I mean we did a couple of eight hour trips to the eastern front and he’d be sitting there for, well it would be longer than the eight, the actual flight times were eight hours. By the time you got in and got all your checks done and everything else you were talking about another eight and a half hours or more. Which is a heck of a long time to be sitting in that, those conditions. And so we always felt a little bit sorry for him. By and large we were, we had a reasonably heated environment in the cockpit and from the ground up at night we were always on oxygen. Daylight we went on about ten thousand. But it was reasonably comfortable and we had a nice bottle with a chromium plate with a little lid on the top where we could have a pee if we wanted. And I’ll tell you a funny thing.
IL: For eight hours you need it.
SGP: I’ll tell you a funny thing. Bob, our skipper was desperate for a pee about halfway across one trip. So I said, ‘Ok Bob. I’ll hand you the bottle.’ And if you can imagine, apart from having long johns on, flying suits on, parachute harness on, seat harness on, trying to organise yourself to cope with that. And he tried desperately. In the end, as I said in my little book I think he must have tied it in a knot but he never said anything about it afterwards [laughs] So, no. We, we I think we were always good friends. And I mean I still call the, Frank, the signaller, but he’s not well at all now. He’s older. He’s about ninety three now.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: And he’s just been taken into hospital. He had a fall. And he’s the only one I know who’s alive. And I was looking at the goodwill tour which I’ll talk about later on because they were things that happened later on. I was looking in the book and there was a little note there from a P Farmer and she was the wife of our, our Farmer in the back cockpit. And she’d seen the name Jack Stratten, who was a Newfoundlander, bomb aimer, who flew with us.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And she’d seen his name mentioned. She was writing to this chap to see if he was the chap who flew with Bob Newbiggin and Eddie Farmer the, her husband, who had unfortunately died. And she was trying to get, I only looked, I only found that last night and I’ve been trying to pick up the threads ever since and Frank’s the only one that I’ve been able to contact. So that’s sad you know. Because we did [pause] but I suppose in a way we took it in our stride. I I took the whole thing in my stride and I had a longer term ambition to stay in the Air Force. The rest, none of the rest of the crew stayed and they all went back to civilian life. So, I had plans to be a pilot and so my next, I’ll go through, have a little break. I’ll go through my next period of service.
IL: Yeah. That would be —
SGP: After we’ve had a little break. It’s getting a bit hot in here.
IL: Yeah. It is actually. Might have to open the door for a second. Just, just suspending the recording.
[recording paused]
SGP: Rather than talk about military matters and flying and all the hazards associated with that you want to know a little bit about my personal background. And I’d like to put on tape my wife and I and our association for over sixty five years of married life recently. And it started off when she was evacuated from Liverpool to Herefordshire and was evacuated to my little village of Eardisland. It’s a lovely little chocolate box village of Eardisland. Very quiet. Nothing ever happens. And so she came down and then I eventually went off to start my service with the Air Force. And eight years later I was home on leave. I was actually taking part in the tug of war match for the local village and Muriel and her friend came down. And the, one of the neighbours who knew her said, ‘You know that’s Gwyn Price?’ She said, ‘Oh no. It can’t be him. He looks too young.’ [laughs] Which was always a problem I’ve had actually [laughs] And anyway what happened was we just chatted a little bit together and then there was an outing laid on by the village for a bus to go to a local village to a dance. And I didn’t know this but I turned up in my bow tie and everything else at the bus stop and immediately walked in behind Mu as I call her and sat down by her side. And from that moment on we never left each other, you know. The moment was done and the die was cast. And what I found out later was a friend of mine had actually bought the ticket to take Muriel. And I don’t know but I didn’t feel too bad about that actually [laughs] And after two years and I was on my way to, we courted for about two years and then I was on my way to Singapore and I said, ‘Well, we must get married.’ And the Air Force didn’t recognise you were married until you were twenty five. So, I actually bucked the rules and married just before I was twenty five. And so we were married and that’s the, that’s the start of our married life. And I’ll go to our association. From then on she became an Air Force wife. And we would never be anywhere without our wives because we spend so much time away from home. And I’ll go through all the times I’ve been away. And months on time. And they’re there running the home, looking after the kids, organising everything, looking after finances. Everything. And without a good wife it wouldn’t last which proved its point. So that’s my little bit of fill in. Social life in the middle of my Air Force history. Can I go on now to the —
IL: Oh yes. Please do.
SGP: The next point really is I’d completed twenty eight operations with, eleven with the main force and sixteen with the Pathfinders and then on the 24th of April, before the end of the war — no. Sorry. I beg your pardon. Not the 24th of April. On the 30th of April, before the war was peacefully declared we were geared to drop supplies to the Dutch people who had been starving under the Germans. They were really, they were eating rats and tulip bulbs and everything else and they were really, really in a bad way. Well, hundreds of RAF aircraft, Lancasters were filled up with food. Not any parachutes or anything like that. Just filled in the bomb bays filled with food. And we were, planned to do this and on the 30th of April we carried out an operation out at, in Holland. And I shall never forget this because we came in low from the sea at about a hundred feet and lo and behold there was a little hillock on the coastline and we couldn’t believe it. There were Dutch people there waving flags. Kids and everything else. Waving. And we could see the German soldiers standing there with their rifles down below. And you know, they obviously knew it was over then but we came in and dropped our supplies and then, that was known as Operation Manna. The Manna from Heaven. And ever since then there’s been this association with the Dutch people and the people who operated on Operation Manna and I’ve been there and feted by the Dutch people. I’m talking about fifty years later. And people, old people would come up, put their arms around you and cry. It was so dramatic that they were in desperate straits. The other important thing is and I think this is a reflection on our teaching in the schools. The youngsters were all taught this and were involved in carrying on this knowledge and this history, historical period. And I found that interesting because I find that even my own children are lacking in knowledge of World War Two and what was happening and who was doing what and where. And there’s a general feeling that the British Empire never did any good. And I really do feel strongly about that because I just ask one question. Can you name me one colonial power that was, one colonial nation that’s better off since the colonists went? Is this racist?
IL: No. No.
SGP: I don’t think it is because I’m, I’m rebutting what kids feel and what they generally feel today. What did we give to India? We gave the railways, we gave them a diplomatic service and we gave them the English language. Now, where would the Indian nation be without the English language? I don’t think they’d be as far ahead as they are. I know that they have got their social problems. They’ve got their peaks and lows in terms of riches and poorness but I do, I do have a bee in my bonnet about what we did. And I’ll say a bit more about that when we go to the Congo when I was with the United Nations in the Congo war. So we, we did our drop and Operation Manna was something that’s lived on in the memory of the Dutch people and it also was for us, was very emotional. We’d been dropping bombs on the Germans. Then suddenly we saw how the Dutch people ignored the sentries and were standing out there waving their flags and I thought, and the kids and everything. I thought it was very emotional for us. We felt really very emotional about it and very pleased to be able to help them. And talking about the food supplies because we were all free dropped on the ground. And they talk about the margarine and the sugar and all the rest of the stuff that came down. Scrape it off the grass or whatever. They were so appreciative and that’s stuck on. I mean, we’re talking now, they’re still, in fact doing it you see. Appreciating it and thanking us for it. But so that was Operation Manna and then we had all these hundreds of bombers. Lancaster bombers and we were totally employed then on bringing back our POWs from all over the place. From Belgium, Italy. We had Bari in the south. We had Naples. Pomigliano was the airport there at Naples. And we were in and out. Hundreds of aircraft on the undertaking and we could only carry twenty or so people and they were all sitting on the, on the metal floor in the cockpit. But I probably shouldn’t say this but we used to take Italian prisoners of war out and then bring our own boys back. And I won’t say what the treatment, how the treatment differed between the two because I’d probably be had up.
IL: Oh you wouldn’t. So how did it? How did it differ?
SGP: Well we gave our boys blankets and comforters and we also stayed at a reasonable height where they wouldn’t suffer from an oxygen lack or anything like that [laugh] We were naughty then but of course we were, we were getting over the war actually. It had been a trying period. And the other thing we did apart from all this, carrying all the troops around that was great because we felt we were humanly doing something very important. And we’d get our boys up in to the cockpit and if they were coming back and to see the white cliffs of Dover after four or five years of prisoner of war camp was too much. They all broke down without exception and it was very [pause] but they were so happy as well and had to work it out that way but so that was that and so, that was that. Then we amalgamated with 156 Squadron and primarily to represent Bomber Command in all the celebrations that one does after a war. The Victory Day fly past over London. The VJ day flypast. The Battle of Britain flypast. So we had twelve Lancaster aircraft in white and doing formation flying over these cities. And then we were, we were then ready to go to the good will tour of America. And so we took off from Graveley which was our base in Huntingdon, near Huntingdon and shot off via St Mawgan to the Azores, Newfoundland and then all around America. From right down from, from New York to Colorado to California to Texas. Washington. Giving exhibition.
IL: So was this with the same crew? With the same crew that you’d had?
SGP: We only had the amalgamation of the 156 and 35 didn’t come without its pain because obviously some people, they only wanted half of each squadron.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And we lost everyone except myself and my rear gunner. And the navigator came with us as well. So there was three of us on our crew. And we had another pilot who, in fact was then a Flight Lieutenant Harris who was an ex-master bomber pilot.
IL: Right.
SGP: A very good pilot. And so we joined up with him and flew all around the States. And had a very good time. They feted us but I don’t know whether I should put this in but we found, this is talking about 1946 we are talking about how parochial they are. They read their local papers but their international knowledge and even knowledge of World War Two was unbelievably bleak and barren if you like and they were, you know, they were, amazed to see people, other people who had actually been involved in the war other than the Americans. And this was something that we weren’t very comfortable about because I mean we always get the state where the Americans win the war but they, they’re load of bombs dropped was much less than we dropped. And they also — are you were getting near to the end of your tape?
IL: No.
SGP: Ok.
IL: I’m just checking.
SGP: Yeah. We all get blamed for targets that shouldn’t have been bombed. You know what I’m talking about.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: But the Americans also had a daylight bombing of that, of there as well. I can’t think of the name at the moment. I can’t remember. I’ve gone a bit queer. But so that was one thing about the American tour that I was a bit, we were a bit shaken by really because I mean we were so involved with the war the whole people, the whole nation had been subjected to all this bombing and everything else and the terror attacks and what have you. The Americans didn’t have any of that.
IL: No.
SGP: They didn’t have any of it. All they got was their films and their propaganda, you know. Then of course on the lease lend they made sure the British empire wouldn’t last forever.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: And this went on but I mean that’s a side issue which maybe is my view rather than anything else so.
IL: Just one, just on the war so how do you personally feel about this lack of recognition that you’ve had? Not you personally but, you know —
SGP: No. No.
IL: That Bomber Command has had.
SGP: I should, I will stick my neck out and be quite positive about this in that we only have one man to blame for that and he’s the honoured man Winston Churchill. Winston gave Arthur Harris, Bomber Harris, our great bomber commander the authority to break the will of the German people and Arthur Harris went out and we helped to do that. At the end of the war Churchill didn’t want to know. It was bad publicity to have this hanging around his neck. So, Bomber Command and including Bomber Harris and our Pathfinder chief, none of them were awarded at all. They weren’t given proper recognition and we felt very bad about that because they were, they were good commanders and we thought the world of them. And I think politically it wasn’t, it wasn’t to his liking you know to pursue that glorification if you like, in brackets again, of the war effort by the, by ourselves. That I think has pursued us down the years until we had the Memorial in Green Park which is —have you been there?
IL: I haven’t but I —
SGP: It’s a marvellous Memorial. It’s late but it’ll stand the test of time. It’s wonderful. The architecture. The setting. Everything about it. And I went to a political party meeting recently and I suppose I told the MP there. I said, I had a little bit of a go at him on this because it was not only Winston Churchill but every other prime minister since then. They ignored it. And he said, ‘But we did give you money.’ I said, ‘But nothing like enough to cover the cost.’ It was all done by voluntary subscription. And so I don’t even pinch any glory from that side of it, you know. It’s a political argument. I think it was lost and I do feel strongly about that and I think all my friends do as well.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: Who served at that time. But better late than never and another one is coming up in Lincoln.
IL: Yes. Well tomorrow.
SGP: Which will be good. Yeah. I was hoping to be there actually but you coming in the [laughs] No. It wasn’t that actually. It was a little bit longer. The journey was a problem in itself and it’s a day, it would have probably have taken two days or something. But I’m sorry I’ve not been there, you know. But so that’s what I felt about that. So then I left the squadron and I did a flight engineer’s instructors course. I did a little bit of flying as a screened engineer and then went on and flew about fifty hours on the Lincoln which is the bigger version of the Lancaster. And then the phone call came, ‘You’ve been selected to go for tests for a navigator or pilot.’ And so I went down there and went through about a week of pretty strict physical and mental tests. And then we were all brought out on the parade ground and we were also, I was hoping I wouldn’t be a navigator. I couldn’t stand that. Anyway, I was picked as a pilot. I was selected as a pilot so my day was made and my aim was achieved. I still had to qualify. Go through all the tests and pilot training etcetera but from that moment on I was happy and I started my pilot training and —
IL: Did you, so did you train on the Lincoln?
SGP: No. No. No.
IL: Right.
SGP: We started, oh gosh I started on the only aircraft I think that has ever been, that I would really call an aeroplane. That’s the Tiger Moth. Because it was such fun. And I mean we used to sit up there with our heads out in the winter with the scarves around and the goggles on hanging from your straps in the freezing air. Cutting your engine. Then doing vertical dives to start the engine again. All that sort of thing. It was a fun aeroplane. The only thing was it wasn’t like the Stampe aeroplane which is like a Tiger Moth which the French have.
IL: Yes.
SGP: And that had an automatic [pause] Oh God. [pause] Carburettor. Carburettor sorry, which would allow it to turn upside down and still fly. Keep the engine going where the Tiger Moth would cut out straight away. If you were upside down too long it would just cut out. But no that was a fun aeroplane. So we, we started on that and did quite a number of hours on the Tiger Moth and then we went on to the Harvard. And the Harvard was a wonderful aeroplane too. A wonderful trainee aeroplane and eventually with all the hard work we had nine months of solid training and then you’re going through everything from meteorology to navigation to everything, you know and plus all the tests and everything else. Plus all the flying. It’s quite a, quite a tough, a tough course. Anyway, I eventually passed out and they decided that I would be more a transport man. So I was, I started training on the Wellington which was the old wartime aeroplane with geodetic construction and all the rest of it. And I had a very interesting training on that because I think probably the only person who ever had two airspeed indicators fail. One at night and one in the day. So I had no airspeed at all. I was just flying along on the seat of my pants, you know. And they came up and said, ‘Do you want somebody to come and, come and side by you?’ I said, ‘No. No. I can feel the aeroplane. I can fly.’ Fly the inside. So I landed both happily. I got an above average assessment at the end of the course for that. So, after that I started on the Dakota which was going to be my operational aeroplane and that was a wonderful aeroplane and I eventually passed out on that and went off to Malaya. And of course there was a war on in Malaya. In the emergency, 1950 ‘53. And the, Singapore still hadn’t recovered fully from the Japanese invasion. Changi Jail. We were based at Changi Airfield which was near Changi Jail. And the place was pretty dire, you know. And we were supporting the army in the jungle of Malaya and flying a lot from Kuala Lumpur and Penang. And I mean, health and safety. Oh gosh. I can’t think about it now but we used to do all sorts of things. The army, because I know they’re cutting their way through the jungle and eventually getting tired and wanting to form a little camp with a dropping zone. DZ.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And they would pick them in the most awful places. Sometimes at the end of a valley. We could hardly turn around. I mean we had a wing tip to get around. And I was on one trip and it was on the side of a hill. I was coming in from the valley side, concentrating on the DZ and at the last minute the trees were coming towards me on the top of the hill. So I had everything open, a little bit of flap and I just went over the top. That was the sort of situation we found. In fact, that situation was probably more dangerous than anything I’d ever had during the war. And the other stupid things we used to do we had a big base at Ipoh which is North Malaya. And we would fly from Kuala Lumpur. It was always cloud covered at Ipoh so you couldn’t get down in to drop your supplies for the troops on the ground for distribution. And so what we would do, believe it or not, we’d fly, and at north of Malaya there was a little valley opening and a railway line used to work its way through the mountain up to Ipoh. And we’d go up through there, windscreen wiper on, raining, coming down and you’d wind yourself up, hardly any room for the aircraft to go up and eventually come out at Ipoh at the end underneath the cloud. Drop your supply and then you climb out to sea and you’d be ok. But little things like that, that I mean it wouldn’t happen today I don’t think. Even on operational circumstances it wouldn’t be on. But we had lots of flying out there. We used to travel from Ceylon as it then was or Sri Lanka now. And I had a two months — married my wife in the August, she came out by troop ship on the, on the, in the January. Seasick all the way because we got these boats as reparation from the Germans. They were all designed for river boating [laughs] so they had very little keel on and the sick, unbelievable sickness. Anyway, she came out. She was sick all the way and within a week I was off to Ceylon for two months. That was the beginning of our Service married life. And this was life in the Service. So, I was on air sea rescue out there and then we would go out the other way through, right through Indo-China as it then was. Through Saigon, [unclear] up to Hong Kong. And Hong Kong then was a small [pause] Kai Tak, the airport, the RAF airport there was small. You may know it or not know it.
IL: I do know it.
SGP: And you had Lion Rock up here.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And we’d come in over, along the valley on the south west side and over Kowloon and then you’d do a [pfhtt] straight down, chop everything and land and then the sea was at the other end. And then the Hong Kong Island on the other side. So that was interesting. So that, we were on San Miguels then. the San Mig which was very popular and very, very nice. So I experienced there — weather. I’ve taken off in pouring rain from Hong Kong island, from Kai Tak not from Hong Kong Island.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: From Kai Tak. Pouring rain. Could hardly see the end of the runway. Windshield wipers going like this. Targeting a non-directional beacon on the top of Hong Kong Island in cloud and just climbing like mad hoping that, the indicator going mad and you were trying to keep up and hoping that nothing failed otherwise you’d be straight in Hong Kong Harbour. And it was sort of things like that that made life interesting. So we would then go on to, up to Okinawa and then off to Iwakuni in Japan. And we were up there in the 50s which wasn’t that long after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs. And we were landing at Iwakuni which was quite close to them. So we had a good sight of the devastation that was there. Of the land and the houses and everything else. So that was, made us aware of how powerful — ok Japan houses, Japanese houses were not that resistant to that sort of treatment but it was all vaporised really and it was very, made one aware. We had our group captain [pause] not Townsend [pause] Who was our man? Famous man. A hundred operations.
IL: Not Leonard Cheshire.
SGP: Cheshire. Yeah. Leonard Cheshire. Leonard Cheshire was on one of those flights.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: And they’d made him, he’d done over a hundred ops and got a VC. And he was then seriously worried by using that type of bomb. But there you go. It’s frightening. But so on one trip coming out of Okinawa I’d just got airborne and my port engine seized and it’s from sea to sea at either end. So I had to do, I did a quick dink around and came back in on a reciprocal. Landed. So that was one of the interesting things that we had. And the other route we used to go to the north would be through Labuan in Borneo and then up through Manila. And we were then on Valettas. I transferred to Valettas because the Dakota went out and I did about four hundred on Dakotas out there and about eight hundred then on Valettas. But the Valetta was a different animal. They had the Hercules engines, Bristol engine, and as soon as you get in very cold air the oil cooler would, all the oil would get thick and it wouldn’t run through the engine. So you had to do the opposite. You had to slow down, put revs up and fly at the slowest. And I was going up there just north of Borneo over the sea, engines coring. We call it coring. When you get overheating and you do the opposite to what you would normally do and eventually you get the temperature back down and away you go. So that was one little flying incident. So after that tour I was then made a command flight safety officer at Upavon.
IL: Right.
SGP: I was the trial and command flight safety officer. So I had two and a half years there which was good fun. And I went to [pause] where did I go after that? [pause] No, I’d bet, can I, can I rescind that?
IL: Oh yes.
SGP: Can I rescind that?
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Well can we —
IL: Please do.
SGP: Restart. I jumped ahead of myself on the last. On the command flight safety officer. My next, in fact, in September ’53 I was put forward for an instructor’s course at the Central Flying School at Little Rissington. And then passed through that course flying Harvards and Provosts and was then posted to Ternhill in Shropshire as a flying instructor on the Provost aircraft. I qualified on the Meteor jet and completed the instruction at Ternhill, posted to fly Hastings aircraft at Colerne. This required a lot of time away from home and one of the main trips and the most memorable trip that I did was to, in July of ’58 I flew out to Kiritimati Island. Or Atoll. In the middle of the Pacific. Commonly known as Christmas Island — for transport support for the hydrogen operation, Grapple Zulu which was carried out at the Atoll then from a Victor aircraft. I’d like, just like to say to get out to Christmas Island it took us ninety hours flying in the Hastings. Eighteen days. And so we then arrived from, finally from sort of Brisbane to Fiji to Kanton Island and then up to Christmas Island and then if you get the idea of the space from Fiji was about five hours flying. Six hours. Then up to Honolulu, Hawaii was another six hours. So it’s a long, you can imagine. It’s a little spot. Coral Atoll, in the middle of the ocean. Obviously an ideal place for an atomic explosion. Or a hydrogen explosion that was then. Anyway, on the day of the explosion we were all on the tarmac with our backs to the blast, in flying suits and covered up. And the aim was that it would be dropped from a Victor aircraft and exploded about ten thousand feet. And then when we did anticipate, because they had old buildings and that on the island to see the reaction of the, of different constructions to the atomic bomb. The experience then was something I’ll never forget. We were on the ground. Sitting on the ground with our back to the explosion and hands over the eyes, eyes tightly shut. And yet the light from the explosion was obvious to us even in that situation and then the blast of air coming through was tremendous. And the power happening about thirty miles away was unbelievable. And I’ll never forget it. And then of course when it was safe to do so we turned around and looked at the mushroom cloud which was going, going up at that time. You could see the immense power in the, in the cloud. And the thing which I think there was a bit of naivety about the effect of radiation. But we had two Canberra aircraft with sniffer things on the, on the wings and one of them was in the cloud for about fifteen minutes. Another one flew through it which was less time. And in reflection, on reflection I don’t know what happened to the pilot or what effect it had on him or the other pilot. But of course a lot of people have suffered and there’s been a big fight about the effect of, the effect on one’s skin and cancer from, from the explosion. I’ve only had about fifteen lumps taken off so far and only one was cancerous [laughs] but then that involved five years in Malaya, Christmas Island for months, Ceylon for months, Congo for months and so my, my skin’s been exposed to a lot of sunshine which is not a good thing now. I’ve even got problems coming up. I’ve just had a few taken off my face actually.
IL: So, were you given, was there any radiation protection? Or was it just flying suits?
SGP: Nothing at all.
IL: Nothing.
SGP: Nothing at all. I’ll tell you an interesting story and this is about a doctor. I, I knew this doctor because he was at Farnborough and they’re all a bit mental there anyway because that’s why they’re there. They’re prepared to try anything. I know, I know he had, one of his tests was air sickness. He wanted to test it out. So he would get his mate with a flying machine with an aerobatic ace and he’d have a couple of eggs and, just before the flight, and he’d sit there with his stopwatch and his bag seeing how long it would take him before he was sick. But that was one of his, that was one of his little things he used to get up to. And then they, they he managed to contrive to have a railway track and they had a thing on wheels that had a rocket behind it and these rockets were actually dud ones. And they didn’t know what they were going to do with them. Whether they would go off or fizzle or disintegrate or whatever. I mean it just shows the way they — to see the acceleration. The effect of acceleration on the human body. And that was one. Well, I think he topped it in Christmas Island because he had some special glasses with, that were flicking at a fraction of a second. Timed for when the bomb went off. Looking at it to see what effect it would have on his eyes. And I was standing by to fly him up to Hawaii to a medical, you know, to get treatment. But in the event it wasn’t too bad so obviously he wasn’t exposed for very long. But I mean, his name was Whiteside, a super chap and there were three things I could say. He wasn’t on his own. I mean he was just I think a bit mad actually but he was still prepared for the interest of science to sort of expose himself to such terrible risk. So that was it at Christmas island. We used to fly around there. The frigate bird was obviously getting, we were flying all over the place. We used to be clobbered on take-off. They were a bit of a pain really. And then we had crabs who used to come and, on the island to lay their eggs and things or whatever and thousands used to come and you’d just drive over them because they were just too many. They were everywhere. And it was a very small island, Atoll, you see. And anyway that was an experience that, you know stands out in the memory. And of course, going up to Honolulu. It was very nice up there. Waikiki beach was very nice [laughs] and the food was nice and we’d go around to all the pineapple places. So we used to have a break up there. But then we, I had about three months out there and then we were back and I had one more job which was of interest and I flew the body of the Columbian ambassador from England to New York. And I think it’s probably the worst flight I ever had in my life. I took off at Colerne here on the short runway which was very rarely used, in a blinding storm. Got to Northolt and let down there totally down on the ground, pouring with rain, landed and thought I was going to run off the end because I was aquaplaning down the runway. Stopped there. Took off the next day for Iceland. Reykjavik. And with the body on board of course by this time. He wasn’t worried. No, I shouldn’t say that. However, we landed in Iceland. The weather to Goose Bay in Greenland was diabolical so they said, ‘You can’t go yet.’ So we were in and out of the aeroplane. Eventually got off. Landed in Goose Bay. By the time we refuelled the oil had gone solid and we had to go into the, into the hangar to warm the lot up and eventually got the engines turned over and got airborne. And by this time there were people in New York waiting for us to be there, you see. Waiting for time scale with the reception party and everything else. And then lo and behold we had one hundred knot headwinds going down the east coast of, the west coast of Canada and America and arrived in New York at 2 o’clock in the morning. Terribly late and where the guard of honour took off the ambassador and then we managed to get some sleep after that. The next day we had an engine failure and couldn’t, had to have it fixed before we could turn back. And we had just the same sort of weather all the way back. It was one of those trips you remember very clearly.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: So that was primarily one to think about. Then I did do an attachment to Accra in Ghana as OC Accra. We had one Hastings aircraft there supporting the Ghanaian troops under the United Nations banner. In the Congo. Operating in the Congo. And I went into what was then Leopoldville which is now Kinshasa and I was amazed. You know right in the middle of, I wouldn’t say the jungle that would be —
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Implying whatever, that Africa’s a jungle which it isn’t. But you go to Leopoldville, it was a city. A beautiful city. Wide boulevards with trees. Just like a continental city. And a lovely university on top of the hill. A small aircraft that did DDT spraying every day so it didn’t get any mosquitoes. Beautiful. And what happened was the Belgians said — at midnight tonight you can have the Congo. It’s all yours.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And they moved out lock, stock and, well not lock stock and barrel. They moved out to a man at that time. Left all their houses. We saw villas. Beautiful villas. I mean ok you could make an argument about they were living well but villas with all the tables laid and everything else. They just walked out. And their big mistake was they’d not really promoted anybody above artisan class. So there was nobody really in that sort of echelon to take over power of the country. But then, as so often happens and it’s the one thing I feel about the colonial reign was that because we were able to organise and run a country with very different ethnic people involved we tended to put a ring around. We got it everywhere. You can talk where you like. You can go to Kenya, you can go in to Iraq or anywhere like that where colonials put a ring around. In the Congo you had the people up in Luluabourg in the north who were totally opposed the south. And as soon as the Belgians went they wanted to take over the north. And since then of course the country has really gone down. It’s the richest mineral wealth country in the world and yet it’s in a terrible state. Roads and everything else. There’s been so much corruption and money taken out. It’s, it really is very sad but I mean I experienced that as part of the United Nations and I think, well perhaps it wasn’t perfect for everybody in the Congo when the Belgians were there but at least there was the rule of law as it were. And I believe the people respected it, you know. I mean a lot of people in India didn’t want the Raj to go because the place was organised and run but, and the same happened in Kenya. I mean Mugabe, he drives me up the wall that fellow because there was so many, so many things that, they’ve killed more people than we ever killed there. Opposing tribal, tribal situation. Anyway, I don’t want to go, that was my one little trip to the Congo. And then I did a flight to Gibraltar and that was the end of my flying at Colerne and you know, down the road here, on the Hastings. And my next trip believe it or not was to Singapore again. I came home and said to my wife, ‘We’re going to Singapore,’ and she nearly had a fit. She said, ‘I’m not going back to Singapore.’ She didn’t like the heat.
IL: No.
SGP: And the humidity. Although we had some extremely good times there. Had lots of very good friends. The kids said, ‘Oh great. Going back to Singapore.’ Well, the one, the first child, Debbie was born in Singapore on the first tour. So anyway, we went back out as I went as OC, the transport operations in Seletar. And of course, the upshot of that was that I got myself involved with the Borneo campaign and I went out with the commander out there. And in fact, I was the assistant to General Walker who was the army commander. And we arrived, we’d had a [pause] not a Valetta [pause] oh the big plane. Oh God, my mind’s going. Anyway, we all arrived in Brunei. The first night our accommodation was on a boat on the side of the river there. In the harbour. Not very comfortable. But eventually we set ourselves up as a headquarters in Brunei. And for a habitation, I shouldn’t say this really, but we went into a girl’s private school. Into their accommodation. You won’t believe this. We got in. We found the beds were lice ridden. All around the beds, we all went around with all sorts of things like lighters and things like that to kill all these bugs off. We eventually got ourselves reasonably comfortable there but we did have one chap who came over to visit us and we kept one bed specially for people we didn’t like and then a good skinful of Tiger Beer. Not a very happy lad in the morning. Anyway, that’s by the by. Now, we eventually moved down to Sarawak. To Kuching. Sarawak. And I was OC of the transport so I was, I was tasking all the transport aircraft. There were Pioneers and Valettas and Beverleys. Beverleys the aircraft. It was the Beverley that flew into [Lap?] and took the airport to start off with.
IL: Right.
SGP: That was the beginning of the war and they just got in and the troops got out and sorted it out before anybody else could do any damage to the airport. But so I was tasking the aircraft, mainly twin and single Pioneers and helicopters. And I had an interesting request from an army commander. They used to go up and down the Rajang River with twin outboard motors belting out the longboats you know. Up there. And he got a chief up there that he was wanting to get onside. And so he asked for a helicopter to go out and take the chief for a ride. And I said negative. I’ve got too many operational tasks for that. So he came blazing back down as fast as he could on the Raja, on the River Rajang in this outboard motors and had a go with this commander. The commander said, ‘Not a chance mate. You’ve had it.’ So that was that but the other thing was you get involved with the natives, the local people when you go up and so we all went down to a longhouse up on the sticks with a big hole in the floor for any business that one wanted to do. And you’d sit all around talking to the people. And out would come, the rice wine would come around in the cup. Well I’m not ultra fussy but I’m a little bit fussy [laughs] You come and you see the flies floating on the top and the globules of rice. Things look horrible and you have to take a drink otherwise it’s very unpopular. It’s like eating the sheep’s eyeballs in Arabia or wherever which I couldn’t, I wouldn’t cope with that either [laughs] And but we, we had that was in the interesting aside. They were head-hunters. They were in their loincloths. Very, very good chaps actually. We had no trouble with them. And so that was technically the end of my, my time out in in the Far East on the second tour. Because then we came back home. Then I came back to be command flight safety officer at Upavon. And that was a very interesting time because one had to look at the safety operation of the aeroplanes. And the war was over. And there was a greater pressure, if you like on operating, operating aircraft within safety measures. I mean we’d operated out of Colerne, for instance for years. Fully laden and everything else. Never had a problem. Then they produced Operation Data Manual which required that if you had an engine failure on take-off you’d never be able to cope at Colerne. So they were, Hastings were banned from Colerne although we’d been operating for years just because this Operation Data Manual. And we had the Argosy aircraft come out and the power on that was terrible. When you put the Operation Data Manual you could hardly carry a mouse. And the Beverley wasn’t a lot better so that was one of the things I had to watch was the safety. And we produced a magazine every month which obviously was a bit of a pain because you could never get enough people to put in contributions, you know. So you were always having to scratch at the last minute to complete your [laughs] your book. So, so where are we gone now then? We’re up to —
IL: You were in Upavon.
SGP: We’re up at Upavon. After that I was selected to go to the Ministry of Technology to do a project manager for simulators.
IL: Oh right.
SGP: And I got in the back end of the Belfast liaising with the companies concerned. And also the VC10. And I had a complete management on the navigation and the signals simulator. And I was kept on, in fact for five years to finish that. And that turned out to be a very good training aid for the RAF and they were very pleased with it. So, so that was that really. And after that I, I decided I wasn’t sure about what I was going to do but I felt that the mahogany bomber wasn’t quite me and I did my last tour as a personnel officer at Andover with Transport Command and finished. Retired from the Air Force in [unclear ] after doing thirty one years in the Air Force.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Which I think was, I enjoyed every minute because the big, apart from the operational flying side of it the sport side was attractive to me and I used to play rugger regularly and cricket. And we used to play badminton, squash and all the games, tennis but rugby was my game. I played on the Padang at Singapore. In the, in the heat but I went out as a young flank forward on the open side usually so I was tearing around a bit. And the Tiger beer didn’t do any good. I came back as a front row forward and they didn’t like that very much.
IL: No. It’s —
SGP: I remember playing the police force and I eventually got my arm was hanging like that. My one leg had gone and I thought, ‘I think you’re getting a bit old for this lad [laughs]
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: So we, we packed it up but, and also from the flying in the Lancaster which I didn’t mention, if you can imagine health and safety again I had a seat which dropped down from the side of the aircraft. It had to be moveable. The bomb aimer had to get through. Our escape hatch was just down below us. We had to dive down and a way to go. And so it had to be moveable so it used to fold up just a single seat. A little bit of foam on it and then you had a belt behind you. Yeah. You put a bar up. Put a bar up in front of you to put your feet on and that was your seat [laughs] And I never really thought much about it actually but if we came to a sudden stop I’d be probably, I’d be probably in the next parish [laughs]
IL: Right.
SGP: So there was no, there was no security there. But after that I had a lot of back trouble for a long time. and the RAF at that time had one cure for back trouble. That was lie on your back. PID I think it was called. Something about rest and something.
IL: That’s the current, that’s the current feeling. That’s not the current feeling is to keep going but it was for a long time.
SGP: Three weeks I was on this bed in Cosford in the RAF hospital there. Getting more and more uncomfortable. Not being able to do anything. You know. Back end wise as it were. And eventually they let me up to go to the toilet which was a great relief. But I came out a lot [pause] much worse than I went in, in fact. So uncomfortable and of course on nothing in the way of a mattress. It was just hard. And they wouldn’t let you turn over. You would lie on your back permanently for three weeks. That was hell. And I thought well I can continue, I had continuous manipulation on the back at Nocton Hall and places which used to be another hospital when I was up there. And eventually when I came down here to Colerne I went to Headley Court. Headley Court cured me because the first thing we did I was going there with the sciatic nerve trapped and dragging my leg along. The first thing you do, it was a lovely summer and you get down on, you’d be playing cards and you’d have a penalty — push-ups. So you’d be lying on your tummy on the floor. You’d either have to push up or lift your legs up and they continuously did that. Strengthening the back. Tuning up the back dorsal muscles. Whatever. And also heated pool. And we just had inner tubes. Quite a deep pool. You couldn’t stand up in it and you would have to hang from those. And you didn’t dare move. Just total relaxation. And that plus it’s a lovely place, Headley Court. I don’t know whether you know it. It used to be a house.
IL: I do know it. My brother in law is a physio. Well, was a physio, in the army and he was head of rehab there for a while.
SGP: Was he? Marvellous. Wonderful place. I saw people coming in who were smashed up. Really literally smashed up and they walked away. And it was continuous help and aid and wonderful. I’ve never had a problem with it since. You know, it did the job and manipulation didn’t. I’d have the manipulation, go home and I’d lean across and it would pop again. But, but having said that I now have mobility problems so, but the Service are looking after me well in that respect.
IL: Good.
SGP: Yes. It’s been a fascinating life and, and by and large the family have enjoyed it. It’s given us, I’m talking now about a country lad, farming stock. Rural background with they say two h’s Hertford and Hereford hardly anything ever happens. And Hereford is one of them. Hardly anything ever happens. So, it’s quite a remote place and I’ve moved on I suppose from that into where we are today and we’ve lived a very good life and a very comfortable life actually. And I, I thank the Air Force for that. The only regrets I have is as you say the boys who died, fifty five thousand of us didn’t get recognition earlier and I think that’s very sad. And it’s sad that it should be a political gesture that caused that to happen, you know.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: Yeah. But so here we are. We’re back to square one and how do you think it’s gone?
[recording paused]
SGP: A little reflection. I really intended to start this talk on the basis that I didn’t ask to be a part of this reporting system. And I was asked to do it. And I didn’t consider my service, my number of operations, my general service as any more remarkable than anyone else’s and the fact I was doing a job that I enjoyed was, was fine and I, I wouldn’t like to think that I’ve been courting publicity in putting my history down on record [laughs] Ok.
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Interview with Sam Price
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Ian Locker
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-10-01
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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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APriceSTG151001
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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01:38:25 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
Gwyn Price was living a rural lifestyle until he volunteered for the RAF. His dream was to train as an RAF pilot but since there was a surplus of pilots he chose to train instead as a flight engineer. On operations Gwyn observed the surreal feeling of one moment being in pitch darkness and the next being in the bright light over the target. On one operation they were coned by searchlights but managed to get clear by the skill and quick reaction of the pilot. On another occasion, their aircraft had a near miss with a Ju 88. When Gwyn left the squadron he became an engineer instructor but later retrained as a pilot; he went on to fly in the Far East and the Congo. He flew a large number of different aircraft including Hasting, Provost, Valetta, C-47 Meteor and Harvard.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Christmas Island
Hawaii
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Surrey
Hawaii--Honolulu
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
195 Squadron
35 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
C-47
crewing up
faith
flight engineer
Gee
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lincoln
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Colerne
RAF Graveley
RAF Wratting Common
searchlight
training
Wellington
Window
-
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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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
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
Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
N [underlined] o [/underlined] 1 Echelan
R.A.F. Kenly
My Darling,
Just a line in haste to tell you that I had a good journey down here & I was in Camp before 11.30. I am starting work again in the morning in my own section so that does not look much like [corrected] leave [/corrected] In fact it is a possibility that the draft may be cancelled, still one must not bank on it at all.
There is not much to tell you dear except that I am still feeling funny down inside. It is always the same when I get back. So keep your pecker up & Ill [sic] see you soon again
All my sincere love darling for you the best wishes to the “Olduns”
Yours
Ian.
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 Ian Wynn to his wife
Description
An account of the resource
He writes that he has returned back to camp and starts work in the morning.
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
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWynnIAWynnK[Date]-06
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--Surrey
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Archer Wynn
military service conditions
RAF Kenley
-
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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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
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
Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Kenly
Surrey
Tuesday
Darling,
Many thanks for your nice letter received on Sunday. I have heard from Dad and he has fixed up the car O.K. He said he was [corrected] writing [/corrected] you by the same post so I expect you have heard now.
There were several things that I was going to write to you about but I have forgotten them now. Yesterday was my day off so I went into Purley to the “Flicks” I did not bother to look what was on but was annoyed to see when I got in it was “It began with Eve”, but do you know think I enjoyed it even better than at Chester. I was able to study Charles Laughton more & I got more of the jokes.
I have my day off next week on Wednesday. If Jean manage it I shall go to see Vee & Bert. It all depends what time
[page break]
I get off and on the weather. At the moment we are Snowed up and frozen up. Quite artic conditions.
Up to the present I have done very little work on airplanes, except dig the buggers out of snow drifts. This is a very nice station but has a lousy C.O. Even his officers detest him As the Echelons are dispersed all over the drome [aerodrome] a Naafi Van comes round in the morning with tea & buns which are most acceptable Today. Just as the Van came over to us, he drove up and sent it away & said that we were far too busy to stop for tea. The men were to get back to [corrected] their [/corrected] work which was shovelling frozen snow off the dromes [sic] & there was about 10% of frost at the time to [sic]. In consequence when he had gone all the men packed up & there was nothing more done today. He is the sort of Divine that will get bumped off quick if he ever goes overseas. Fortunately or unfortunately? I was not there at the time. I have been doing station defence etc [sic] for a couple of days we all have a turn at this
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined]
and are known as backers up.
The actual work on engines is much simpler than we had at Hednesford but at the same time the Responsibility is greater because successful flying & fighting depends absolutely upon it.
[corrected] I [/corrected] was wondering if I am here doing enough if you could meet me in London on a 48 hr pass? & perhaps your Mother could look after the pair for that long if you ask her nicely.
Well I must go to French class now so tell after that. Oh! Yes! [underlined] Recevoir [/underlined] means = To RECEIVE” “RECU” is Received Voice! “j’ai recu votre letter”.
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 Ian Wynn to his wife
Description
An account of the resource
Catches up with family and writes of going to pictures. Mentions weather and snow. Comments on the work he has done and talks about life on the station. Mentions importance of his work on engines. Says he is off to French class.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four 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
EWynnIAWynnK[Date]-07
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--Surrey
England--Caterham and Warlingham
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Archer Wynn
entertainment
military living conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Kenley
-
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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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
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
Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
N [underlined] o [/underlined] 1 ECHELON
RAF,
Kenley
Surrey.
Tuesday
Ma Cherie,
Pardoney [sic] moi mais j’ai [sic] been to une Class francais ce soir.
Well what [corrected] do [/corrected] you think the wire was that I worried about all last night? Well if you will look at the enclosed you will see and that accounts for a phase in your letter that I could not understand. Apparently it [corrected] had [/corrected] reached the Warrington area. So I am sending this letter to the same address IE [corrected] addressing [/corrected] it exactly the same, to see what happens. If you get this OK enclose the Enollope [sic] (& the telegram?) in a letter to the Post master because I want my 9d back. I phoned the wire and the girl repeated it correctly
I addressed it to Stevens to avoid any possible mistake because there is or was another Wynn somewhere about there
[page break]
I have not yet heard from Wyrley & have you written to Aunt Jessie yet?
I will do so sometime over the week end Well my love I must close now with all love to you & the “Lads” & hope that you soon OK again
All My love
Yours always
Ian.
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 Ian Wynn to his wife
Description
An account of the resource
He is cross about his telegram going missing and he asks his wife to try and sort it out so that he can get his 9d back.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two 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
EWynnIAWynnK[Date]-12
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--Surrey
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Archer Wynn
RAF Kenley
-
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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
Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
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
Wynn, IA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
R.A.F. Kenley
Surrey
25th Feb 1942
Darling,
Many thanks for your Sundays [sic] letter received to day. [sic] It is good to hear that are are [sic] reasonably well, but you did not mention anything about David and the specialist Yesterday was my day off but I was unable to get to St Albans, because I did not get away until noon. So instead I went to London, and had a spot of “Gangway” at the Palladium. You would have loved it the whole show was fine But! It is certainly Tommy Trinders show, The others were [underlined] all exceptionally good [/underlined] but he outshone the lot. Despite the war & everything there were some marvellous
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
dresses & scenes though perhaps the quality of the material used was not quite up to the old west end standard.
Tommy Trinder started it by explaining that George Clark had bought 1000 yards of lovely silk to dress the cast in but the government had commandeered the lot to make kit bags for “FANNYS” I am enclosing the programme. The boy that came with me had never seen a West End show before, he simply rolled.
We had tea at the Beaver Club (The Canadians over seas club). It was the smashingest [sic] meal I have had for some time There was Potatoes Mashed with Parsley, Lettuce, Chopped cabbage & Beetroot with tinned pork and for sweet I had baked egg custard and a large cup of coffee & [underlined] Cream [/underlined] all for the magnificent price of
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined]
½. In peace time a meal like that would have cost 2/- & would not have been served up any more [sic] daintily.
We did not have much time to have a big look round but, we went to the strand Regent st [sic] Oxford St & Piccadilly & the only damage now visible was where the Gas Light & Coke offices [deleted] of [/deleted] used to be opposite Drages. “ It aint [sic] there anymore” If get up to town again I shall have a look around St Pauls & Ludgate hill. There is a lot of Damage up there I believe. Oh! We went into St Martins in the Fields crypt. One Part of it is Shelters another is a W.U.S. canteen which was also very good.
I have not yet heard from Wyrley [deleted] yet [/deleted]. I hope they are keeping as well as possible. I must write for my watch to be sent from there.
[page break]
[inserted] 4 [/inserted]
Whilst Rumaging [sic] about in the Garage at our billet I found a Model Steam engine which I have [underlined] “borrowed” [/underlined] It is a bit old for D yet but his grandad can set it going for him [corrected] too [/corrected] show him how it works. It works with “Meth”. Also some [underlined] good [/underlined] toy wagons (Ry) & a Clockwork engine Chassy [sic] that is extremely good & powerful. May be his Grandad could build him an engine onto the Chassy [sic].
I am glad to hear that you have got Mr Lumer to get a prue [sic] for the furniture I would see if any other firm could give you a price by Road as well.
All the chaps who are on this embarkation stunt have been taken off work today & we have just got to stand by. I think it is a mad idea myself
[page break]
[inserted] 5 [/inserted]
because Chaps have been sent back by the dozen from embarkation centres because they are not ready for them and have nothing for them to do there.
Oh! I was thinking of Dad & you spend a holiday in London with me one February? When I was in Town yesterday I did wish you were there it would have been quite like old times Although I had a nice time I was missing you all the while. It is funny when ever I have a nice time like that it lingered with a feeling of incompleteness because I cant [sic] share it with you I wonder what it is that [deleted] that [/deleted] makes you so necessary to me? I never though I would ever miss [deleted] every [/deleted] anyone like I miss you darling? And as you say after 5 yrs [sic] of Legal partnership
[page break]
I remember reading somewhere some years ago that it was impossible to love a person to the same degree always, but the love either [corrected] diminished [/corrected] or increased as time [deleted] when [/deleted] went on. I can understand it now too. I had better close now my love before I get to [corrected] sloppy [/corrected]. I dont [sic] think I really could though somehow.
So heres [sic] all my love darling for you always.
Yours Ever
Ian.
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 Ian Wynn to his wife
Description
An account of the resource
Relates trip to London and describes show at the Palladium and tea at the Canadian Beaver Club. Mentions some damage to buildings in London. Writes that that he has found an old toy engine at his billet for his son David. Talks of troops scheduled for embarkation and catches up with family memories.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-02-25
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six 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
EWynnIAWynnK420225
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--Surrey
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-02-25
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Archer Wynn
bombing
entertainment
home front
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Kenley