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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1010/11777/AWilliamsVD170403.1.mp3
8a621ee7029aea31c03d42b2eea0d61f
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Title
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Williams, Vivian
V D Williams
Vivian David Williams
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-04-03
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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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Williams, VD
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Corporal Vivian Williams (b. 1920, 616291 Royal Air Force) and one photograph. Vivian Williams served a a fitter with 56 Squadron at RAF North Weald and various training units.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Vivian Williams and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Monday the 3rd of April 2017 and we’re in Fiskerton in Lincolnshire talking with Vivian Williams about his life and times. What are your earliest recollections of life then, Vivian?
VW: A new house I should think. We lived in a small village called Tonyrefail — T O N Y R E F A I L where they had they, they had built, just after 1920, a new housing estate. It was semi-detached houses most of them, and they were rough cast in those days. And they had a bathroom. That was another something I remember. And they were, well at that time they were ten years before their time you know. And so that was one of the highlights. The next one was the oil lamp in the middle of the table. It had this gold filigree base, cast iron base, and a beautiful blue resin. Then shortly afterwards — yeah, that was, I must have been about four then. And shortly afterwards they actually put electricity in. As early as that, you know. And I can remember fooling about watching the electrician doing it, you know. And they had the old tumbler switches on and you screwed the cap off you know. The front of it off. And so I saw the bloke doing this and he was poking around with a screwdriver when he was connecting all the leads up. So I put my mother’s scissors in there. I leant on a chair, put my mother’s scissors in and got knocked across the room. Why I didn’t get killed I don’t know [laughs] but it was what kids I suppose. And I’d say the next big thing was the 1926 strike. And we were kept alive on charity in those days. And after that we moved to Pontypridd and stayed there until I was left school at fourteen. Elementary school. And then I was the only one in the family that could get a job. Because you got a, you went down the mine, of course everybody went down the mine so you went down the mine at fourteen and you went with a skilled man called a collier for five years. And then when you were nineteen they give you the sack and they’d give him a new boy. So, I said to my mum, I’d finished school at the end of July when the August holidays break up and, ‘When am I going to go down and get a job?’ And so she said, ‘ No, you’re not. You’re going up to London to live with my gran.’ So that was the next move. Up to London. And then the family moved up seven months later and we settled there. Had various jobs. Usually outside jobs because I couldn’t stand the factory you know. And, and then in 1938, in 1938 I joined the Territorials and I was on a searchlight detachment for a year. And then I said — I got fed up with that. I lost my job because just before, at the end of 1938, around about 1938, just say the end — they had a, had a slump in engineering and you couldn’t get a job anywhere. On the Great West Road where I worked. The factory there and all the factories were putting people off. And I was on shift work and they put off our shift. And the other shift went on to day work with the rest of the factory. And they sacked sixty four of us. You went to get your pay on Friday night and they gave you your cards. Your pay and your cards straightaway. Not an hour’s notice even.
PW: Which firm was that?
VW: Tecalemit they were lubrication specialists. Because cars in those days had umpteen grease nipples all over the chassis and everywhere. And it was an industry on its own, you know. And I was home for about three weeks getting under my mother’s feet and I said to our corporal, met corporal, I said, ‘I’m going to join the army.’ Because I just had to get away, you know, and nobody could get a job just then and so he said, ‘Don’t join the army,’ he said. He said, ‘I’ve done fifteen years in it and it never did me any good,’ and he said, ‘Join the RAF.’ And I said, ‘No. I can’t join the RAF.’ Because those days to get in you had to have a school certificate which I presume is something like four or five A levels you know.
PW: O levels.
CB: O levels rather. And he said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You’d be surprised.’ So I went up to Adastral House where you applied. And I found that they had started an expansion scheme in the RAF and had created new trades and a flight mechanic, which is what I was, was one of them. And they just dragged you in by the short and curlies you know. And that was it. And I was in the RAF then for — well ‘til the end of the war. I did what, because this was July ’38, so I did seven and a half years instead of the six that I signed for. But, yeah —
CB: Where did you go to join the RAF?
VW: The recruitment depot was at Aldwych near The Strand. And it was called Adastral House. So I, that was the first place I went to in the RAF. We were there overnight and, no, we were sent home and go back the next morning. Picked up the train to West Drayton. And that was the induction depot. And that’s where we were sworn in. Had our hair cut. They gave us ten bob which we thought was very nice. Except it was only an advance on your next weeks’ pay. They never told us that [laughs] The next morning we went to Uxbridge for our square drill. Did all our square drill, at Uxbridge.
CB: How long did that last?
VW: Twelve weeks.
CB: So in addition to drill what else were you doing?
VW: There. Nothing really. Oh we had, the only other thing that happened we had two weeks off completely because they had the scare in September of 1938 and we were filling sand bags. And nobody ever hears of it but we was almost on alert you know, then. Then we put the complete automatic telephone exchange in. We were humping all the, carrying all the various bits and pieces for 11 Fighter Group which was right behind our dining hall. And of course it’s down steps. Lots. Have you seen the hill? The complete thing is in the hill. And we were only allowed to carry all the equipment and everything to the top of the steps and they had their own team then that took it down in to the bottom. So we never saw the inside of it at all.
CB: This was the underground fighter control.
VW: Yeah. 11 Group.
CB: Position.
VW: 11 Fighter Group.
CB: Yes. It’s open to the public now.
VW: Yeah. It is is it?
CB: It is. Yes.
VW: Yeah well. I humped all the cabinets and all the equipment that went down in there. And we had a fortnight off for that.
CB: Right.
VW: Yeah.
CB: So you’re doing drill. Did you do PT?
VW: Oh yes. Oh yes.
CB: Now what about classroom work?
VW: No. Just drill. We did just drill. PT. We did. We had — they give us an introduction to show that you were in the RAF. And they had two old fuselages, just fuselages, in the MT section and they were bolted to the wall, or chained to the wall but the engines were serviceable. And they used to just take us over there and after about a fortnight and show you. This sergeant and his corporal starting them up you know. But no it was just drill and ceremonial drill and we —
PW: Tell them about running those engines. Starting those engines.
VW: Oh yeah. They, the funny thing we were down in Old Warden and they had a — what was that one they started Phil?
PW: Oh that was a Camel.
VW: A Camel. And he started it by swinging the prop in reverse. And this is what the sergeant used to do. Swinging it in reverse. And we heard later on that he got killed doing it. But yeah but that was the only diversion if you like. The rest was just drill. Drill all the time.
CB: And you had twelve weeks of that.
VW: Yeah.
CB: In total.
VW: Well, yeah except for the –
CB: The two weeks.
VW: Two weeks I was out. Yeah. But we lost that.
CB: At what stage did you know what trade you were going to take?
VW: Oh right from the first. Because they said, give me the choice of being a flight mechanic or a flight rigger. And I said I’d be a mechanic. So that was put on your docs straight away.
CB: And when did they describe what was involved with that?
VW: Oh at the first interview.
CB: Right.
VW: At Adastral house, you know.
CB: So what was it that the flight mechanic was designated to do?
VW: As a mechanic he was responsible for the day to day maintenance of whatever engine or aeroplane he was put on.
CB: So after Uxbridge where did you go then?
VW: Well, we went down to Manston in Kent. But it was on a course that was actually obsolete but we were a small flight. Instead of being a hundred and forty four we were only sixty four and I think they lost us somewhere and they posted us to Manston on this course which was three weeks on engines and three weeks on air frames and as I say it was called a fitter’s mate’s course. You were only qualified to hand the spanners out, you know on that one. But it was obsolete anyway and then from there we went to Henlow in Bedfordshire to do a basic engineering course for six weeks there. And then from there we went to St Athans. Got to St Athans on January the 16th in 1939. And they were, we were there until the end of July and — close to the end of July and then we were given eighteen days leave. And then I was posted to 56 Squadron. Fighter squadron. And at North Weald on Hurricanes.
CB: When you were at St Athan that was basically an engines course was it?
VW: Yeah. It was. Yeah.
CB: So what variety of engines did you deal with then?
VW: Pegasus. Bristol Pegasus and Rolls Royce Kestrels. And of course the Kestrel was obsolete then wasn’t it?
CB: Did you have any Merlins there? Or —
VW: No. No. No.
CB: So the first time you came across Merlins was when you went to the Hurricanes?
VW: Well, we had three. We had three Hurricanes there. That was the nearest I’d came come to the Merlin. But to work on, no. It wasn’t until I got to 56 Squadron. As I say that was my job. I was responsible for the day to day maintenance of the aeroplane that they put me on which is actually hanging in the roof of the South Kensington Museum.
CB: Is it? Right.
VW: And —
CB: It survived that long
VW: Yes. Phil would know.
PW: It’s a miracle survivor.
CB: It’s a Mark I Hurricane.
PW: Yes.
VW: Two.
CB: Mark 2 is it?
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right.
PW: No, it was a Mark 1 dad.
VW: Was it?
PW: Yeah. it’s L1592.
VW: Yeah.
CB: So what was the serviceability like of the squadron? There were how many aircraft in the squadron first?
VW: There was twelve aircraft.
CB: And what —
VW: Two flights of six.
CB: Yeah.
VW: Twelve aircraft. A flight and B flight. Yeah.
CB: And what was serviceability like?
VW: Very good because they’d only been equipped with new Hurricanes some months before I got there and I think they didn’t fly very often but I think they must have been restricted. Looking back. You know, for saving the fuel because, you know, they knew what was going to happen. But they would only fly perhaps two hours a week.
CB: Amazingly low.
VW: Hmmn?
CB: Amazingly low.
VW: Yeah.
CB: So what —
VW: They had to keep their hours in, you know.
CB: Yes. The pilots had to keep enough hours.
VW: Yeah.
CB: To be able to qualify.
VW: Yes. That’s right. For their logbook.
CB: So how much leave did you have at the end of St Athan?
VW: Eighteen days.
CB: Oh eighteen days.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right. So we’re in August.
VW: Yeah.
CB: When you get to North Weald.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right. And how long did you spend in North Weald in total?
VW: We moved. The squadron moved in October. Yeah. In October and we moved to Martlesham Heath in Suffolk. They were, they were on convoy duty for the convoys. Shipping in the North Sea. They had a sector to patrol.
CB: Right.
VW: And, but we, but everything was very quiet. Very quiet, you know. They only had one, our own squadron only had one tussle with a reconnaissance flight, you know. A Dornier. One of the Dorniers’. Something like that and that’s the only time we saw the gun patches blown off the guns, you know, like that. But other than that it was very quiet. We had nothing very much to do at all. Just wait. They just did patrols and nothing else.
CB: So you got there in October ’39.
VW: Yeah.
CB: How long did you stay with that squadron?
VW: Until Christmas.
CB: Right.
VW: I only stayed with them six months altogether.
CB: Right.
VW: The first six months of the war.
CB: Then what?
VW: Then I went on a conversion course to be a fitter.
CB: Where was that?
VW: At Hednesford in Staffordshire.
CB: To be fitting what?
VW: Pardon?
CB: A conversion course to be a fitter.
VW: Yeah. That meant that —
CB: Specialising in what?
VW: Yeah. But you were only allowed to do certain things as a mechanic. Like, as I say, the day to day maintenance.
CB: Right.
VW: Which was nothing much more than filling the tanks and doing the ground runs in the morning. And then while, when I first went there they used to have all the cowlings off on a Friday morning. Just once a week.
CB: Right.
VW: Just to see that nothing had fallen off. Or you know, nuts loose on the, the exhaust stubs. Check them all around and that sort of thing. And mostly it was observation.
CB: Yeah.
VW: You had the run every morning. You would check the, just check the mag drops and that.
CB: So you’d run them up every morning.
VW: Oh yeah.
CB: How did you make sure that plugs didn’t oil up? Because if all you were doing was running it up. Did the plugs oil up doing that?
No. No. You didn’t get plugs oiling up at all.
CB: So you didn’t do plug changes because the planes weren’t flying enough.
VW: Oh no. No. Because that wasn’t my job. But when I went on a conversion course as a fitter.
CB: Yes.
VW: Instead of being on the flights.
CB: Yes.
VW: Out on the aerodrome. We were in the hangar and we you doing inspections. And these inspections came around at pre-determined intervals. And then of course you did things like plug changes and oil filters.
CB: Oh, they were done then. Right.
VW: Yeah. And well anything that was going. Anything that could be done on the station and we couldn’t do a lot because we were a mobile squadron and we had to be away completely in an hour and forty minutes.
CB: Oh did you?
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right.
VW: Shifted. Gone. So our stores was in a big box in one of the annexes in the hangar, you know. Instead of the usual thing of a separate building.
PW: Yeah.
VW: Like you get. But we had to carry everything with us.
CB: What were the trucks that you were using for that? Crossleys.
VW: We had, we had a three ton Albion lorry. Yeah. And a Bedford artic flat bed. And that took all our stands and that you used for propping up the plane when you’re doing jobs on them you know and that sort of thing. Any equipment that we had which was very little so we couldn’t do a lot. But as a fitter you were qualified then to go into what they called maintenance and you just went into the maintenance hangar and you did whatever was scheduled as maintenance on that particular aeroplane or that particular engine.
CB: So, on this course at Hednesford.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Then that was on specific aircraft. Which one was that?
VW: No. No. Just engines.
CB: Just in general.
VW: Just engines in general. Yeah.
CB: Ok. How long did that last? The course.
VW: Well from Christmas. Christmas ’39. I went there on Christmas Day 1939. And we left there to do, did part of the course there and we finished it off at Cosford. And I carried my [unclear] when we went there. Somewhere about halfway through the course. And we left on the 30th of May and I got posted to the Channel Islands. Because that’s the first flying school that I went to. The School of General Reconnaissance. And they were at Guernsey. But we were only there a fortnight. We had to get out anyway because the Germans were coming in. But we should have, the flights were at Guernsey and we should have been posted to the parent unit which was at Thorney Island. And they mixed it up again so we had another fortnight’s holiday on Guernsey until we had to pack up and go. And went back to Thorney Island there [pause] We were there at Thorney Island [pause]
PW: What dad’s not telling you —
VW: Until — we were there, I can’t remember when we left but we were there but we were there while Dunkirk was on.
CB: Right.
VW: Because everybody had to have, no matter where you went you had to have a Lee Enfield and fifty rounds of ammunition.
CB: Oh.
VW: Everybody. Everybody on the station was armed. You know. Ready for anything like that. And we left there to go to a place called Hooton Park up near Liverpool. Well Wallasey. And the day after we left they flattened the hangar.
CB: At Thorney Island.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Did they?
VW: Yeah. Flattened it. So we were dead lucky there.
CB: Well, Dunkirk was the end of May so perhaps you went to Thorney Island a bit earlier — to Guernsey a bit earlier than that.
VW: [pause] Yeah. It’s a long time ago.
CB: It doesn’t matter.
VW: Yeah. It’s a long time ago.
CB: It’s all around the same time.
VW: Yeah.
CB: What — at Thorney Island what were you supposed to be servicing there?
VW: Ansons.
CB: Oh right. These were shipping reconnaissance were they? Or what were they doing?
VW: Well, it was the school. It was called the School of General Reconnaissance.
CB: Oh I see. Right.
VW: It was. It didn’t have a squadron number.
CB: Yeah.
VW: It was the School of General Reconnaissance.
CB: Ok.
VW: And shifted us up to Hooton Park.
CB: Yeah.
VW: Which was just across the Mersey from Speke Airport.
CB: Right.
VW: And from there we went to Blackpool. We missed the blitz on Liverpool.
CB: Right. How long did you stay at Hooton Park then?
VW: Oh just a matter of a couple of months I should think.
CB: Right.
VW: And then [paused] we were posted to Blackpool. And that’s a date I remember because when I was posted from Blackpool to South Cerney in Wiltshire.
CB: Yeah.
VW: It was on the 18th of October.
PW: Gloucestershire.
CB: Yeah. That’s where I joined the RAF.
VW: Sorry?
CB: That’s where I joined the RAF.
VW: Where?
CB: South Cerney.
PW: South Cerney.
VW: Yes [laughs]
PW: 1 FTS.
CB: So, so, yeah. 18th of October ’40.
VW: Yeah.
CB: At South Cerney. What was happening there? This was a different unit was it?
VW: Oh yeah. That was 3FTS. Number 3 Flying Training School. We were doing conversions. Taking the pilots from the Empire Air Training Scheme. Canada and South Africa.
CB: Oh yes.
VW: And converting them from like Harvards onto twin engine Oxfords. Airspeed Oxfords.
CB: Right.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Because these were people all destined for bombing. Bombers.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
VW: They were introduction to multi engine.
CB: Yeah. And how long did that last? That posting.
VW: That posting lasted till Christmas again. 1942.
CB: Right.
VW: Nearly two years there.
CB: And during that time you were dealing with the, what were the engines on the Ansons?
VW: The engines? Oh the Cheetah 9s.
CB: Cheetahs. Yeah.
VW: Cheetah 9s. And then when we left South Cerney we went to 17 AFU. Advanced Flying Unit at Watton in Norfolk and we were on Masters 2s. Fighter trainer.
CB: Did they have other planes as well?
VW: No. Just them because we did engine changes all the time. I was in, in the maintenance hangar there was a fitter.
CB: Yeah.
VW: I passed out as a fitter so I was in the maintenance hangar and we did what — they used to come around to the maximum number of between inspections and we just changed engines all the time.
CB: It was quicker.
VW: Yeah.
CB: What were the engines?
VW: It was easier for us to change the engines and send them back to places like Alvaston in Derbyshire and they did a complete overhaul of them.
CB: Right.
VW: In the factories.
CB: What were the engines?
VW: Mercuries. Bristol Mercuries.
CB: So how long at Watton? So from Christmas ’42.
VW: To [pause] now my dates are a bit [pause] I can’t remember my dates after that.
CB: Ok. Where were you posted to after you’d finished?
VW: At Watton?
CB: At Watton.
VW: We cleared out everything. All our backlog we cleared that up and the Americans moved in and it became a bomber ‘drome then I suppose. One of these bombardments groups would be there. And it was all grass when we were there and they put thousands of tons of cement in one hangar and they put obviously concrete runways in, but we’d gone by then.
CB: So personally where did you go to?
VW: We went to a little ‘drome near Crewe called Calveley. C A L V E L E Y. Calveley. And doing the same thing there. Training pilots, you know. A lot of them from overseas. Australia. New Zealanders. And then we went —
CB: What were the planes? What were the aircraft there?
VW: Master 2s.
CB: Right.
VW: They were the same squadron like. 17 AFU.
CB: Oh right.
VW: And then we went to Spitalgate near Grantham. That was 12 FTS. Yeah.
PW: No. 12 PAFU.
VW: Oh yeah. Yeah. Probably yeah. Yeah. Advanced Flying Unit. Yeah. And from there we moved up to, that would be around about the end of 1944. And we went to Hixon in Staffordshire. Hixon. And was there about two months and then I got posted to Lyneham on Transport Command. That’s when I finally got out of flying Training Command. That’s when we went to Lyneham. And we were flying Yorks there.
CB: At Transport Command.
VW: Transport Command. Yeah.
CB: What were you doing at Hixon?
VW: Just on the same, 17AFU. Doing the same thing.
CB: Yeah.
VW: But not much at all.
CB: Right. What was the aircraft? Because it was an Advanced Flying School. What was the aircraft were they using?
VW: Oh the same as we had at Grantham.
CB: Oh.
VW: They were Blenheim 4s and they were obsolete too.
CB: Yeah.
VW: The first time I saw them was at Martlesham. One of the first bombing raids of the war and it was a flight of five from two squadrons, 110 and 107 and they flew over and they bombed the islands off the German coast. Silt and Bochum. Like that. And they surprised them, 110 Squadron, Yeah. They surprised them and lost one. When 107 Squadron’s five went over they lost four out of the five. That was some of the very early casualties.
CB: And that was from Martlesham.
VW: Yes. Yeah. I think they hadn’t got that much of a range and I think they were at Wattisham and they lobbed down at Martlesham and filled the tanks up.
CB: Right.
VW: Topped the tanks up. Yeah. But — and then I was demobbed from Lyneham.
CB: When was that?
VW: January the 26th 1946.
CB: Right. How did you feel about that?
VW: Actually, I was enjoying myself and we were, I was a corporal and I was offered to be made sergeant if I signed on. My wife put her foot on that and, ‘No. Not likely,’ she said. ‘You’re coming home.’ By that time we had my daughter and Phil and his younger brother who is just over from Australia. And they were there so she’d had the three of them from 1940. My daughter was born, and he was ’44.
PW: I was ’44 Ted was ’46.
VW: And Ted was 46’
PW: Yeah.
VW: So I had to get home and take my responsibilities.
CB: So the rank of sergeant eluded you.
VW: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: But you’d looked forward to that had you?
VW: Well yeah because I was enjoying myself there. It was a very nice station and also we had chances of — they used to fly out as far as Japan, you know, taking engines and equipment to all the stops that Transport Command from Lyneham used to stop at. They used to go from Lyneham to Gibraltar. Gibraltar to Cairo West. From Cairo West to somewhere in what was then Persia, Iraq.
PW: Habbaniya.
VW: Yeah. And then Karachi and then Singapore. But they did fly, I remember they flew a prop to Japan. I think it was for the Lancaster. You know. That went all around the world after the war.
CB: Oh yes.
VW: They were trying to sell them.
CB: Yes.
VW: You know, so they were on a promotional tour and they had several with a prop in Tokyo. And they flew the prop out there.
CB: Yeah. The Argentinians bought fifteen.
VW: I didn’t know if they sold any.
CB: They did. Yeah.
VW: Because it wasn’t all that long. Well I say it wasn’t all that long. They [pause] I was at working as a civilian on the Maintenance Unit at 5 MU at Kemble.
CB: After the war.
VW: On Lancasters.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And it wasn’t, I was there for about a year and we would bring them in from the, from the service and they would examine them. The inspectors would go over them to see what was wanted to be done and they had a list of things to be done. And then they would mothball them to a certain extent. Put them out and then when the RAF wanted them they’d bring them back in to our hangars, the preparation hangars. And we’d do everything that was on the list, like that. And they’d go back into service. New paint job. And, but that didn’t last very long and the next thing they were out on the park and they just chopped them up. Got rid of them all.
CB: Well how full was Kemble Airfield? How full was it with these things?
VW: How?
CB: How full? How many aircraft on it?
VW: Oh. Must have been about a hundred I should think.
CB: Oh right.
VW: Easy. And Hants and Sussex Aviation just took, they broke them all up.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And took them for scrap. And we say now there were rows of four Merlin engines there all over the place and if they’d seen them today. The people who need them, you know.
CB: Yeah.
VW: They’d cry.
CB: Yeah. I bet.
VW: Should be here somewhere.
CB: I’ll just stop the, stop this for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: We paused just for you to get your prized screwdriver. Could you just describe. We’ve just had a picture of you with it. Could you just describe the background of it? Please.
VW: Yeah the screwdriver is basically a Merlin blockstud.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And the ends have been re-formed to make it into a chisel. And the handle is carved out of, shaped out of a solid block of aluminium. And the machinist shaped the handle and then he put, he drilled it to take the squared end of the, the square taper in to that. And he put the shank, the stud in the lathe and — the other way about. The handle was in the lathe and this was in the turret of his capstan lathe like that.
CB: Right.
VW: And he just pulled the capstan handles and —
CB: Put it straight in.
VW: And it never moved.
CB: No.
VW: At all.
CB: Now that engine stud. How would that have been formed in the aircraft? On the engine. Because you had the block and the head separate didn’t you?
VW: Yeah.
CB: So how, how did this work.
VW: This end was screwed in to the crank case. All you got was the crank case itself with the holes in it to take this and that was screwed in to there. Then you slide the cylinders on, right. So the end, this end, threaded again would protrude above the top of block.
CB: Yes.
VW: And then the head itself would slide down over that as well and this is just long enough then so that you get enough thread on the end to take the nut that holds the whole lot together. The three pieces together like that.
CB: Ok.
VW: And it’s in a block like that because it’s a V engine. So you have two rows of these down one side and two down the other side like that for the other block.
CB: So getting the block on is a heavy job.
PW: Yes.
VW: Well it’s yeah but —
CB: Sorry the cylinder head I meant to say.
VW: The cylinder is not so bad. Getting the block is the bad job because you have to introduce six pistons in to the bottom of the cylinders.
CB: Yes.
VW: As so all six have got to be in the right place and you’ve to gently feed them in, feed the rings in. Squeeze the rings to go in and then you just work it down very carefully because what makes it worse it’s on an angle anyway, you know, like that.
CB: Yes. A V12.
VW: It’s suspended you know and the block is on an angle going down because of the V of the engine.
CB: Yes.
VW: But — yeah.
CB: So these wet liner engines are they?
PW: Yeah.
VW: They, well Phil knows more about them then I do.
CB: They are. Effectively that’s why you’re putting in the —
VW: Yeah.
CB: Cylinder and then putting the head on.
VW: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
VW: Yeah. Because —
CB: Ok. And then for each part of the V.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Because these are V12s you’ve got six cylinders. Each. How many studs are there per cylinder?
VW: Four.
CB: Right. So that’s twenty four.
VW: Yeah.
CB: And you’re trying to thread the head over that.
VW: You’ve got rows like a porcupine.
PW: It’s like there are four studs per cylinder.
VW: Yeah.
PW: But between the cylinders the studs are shared.
CB: Right.
PW: If you can imagine.
CB: Yeah.
PW: You know, you have four studs for this one and then two of them become two of the four for that one.
CB: Right. Ok.
PW: So you got fourteen studs on each side.
CB: I see. Ok.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: Now, when you were at Lyneham what was the excitement you had there?
VW: I was in a little section. And I had a gang of four airmen and they were split into groups of two in a little workshop alongside the hangar. And when the, the engines had done a certain number of hours in the aeroplane they were taken off the whole, what we called a power egg right from the wing, the front of the wing, you know from the firewall.
CB: Yeah.
VW: The big bulkhead.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And they’d take the lot off. Just undo all the connections and then they’d put it in a special stand with four wheels and they’d bolt them in there like that. And then they’d link them all up together and then the David Brown would bring them up to our place.
CB: A tractor.
VW: Yeah. Bring them all to our place and I went up two of them. And the other corporal in the hangar he would have the other two for his four blokes. And they used to have two on each and then we would take the engines out and then renew any, anything that controlled our pipes. You know. Various things in the, that was left, you know, in the engine bearer. Any oil pipes, fuel pipes, coolant pipes, perhaps put a new coolant tank in which is just over behind the prop. Anything like that that had to be renewed. And then put a new engine in, like that. And then they’d go back in into hangars straight on to the Yorks.
CB: Now the York was essentially a Lancaster with a different body. What about the engines? Were they different?
VW: It had Lancaster things on it didn’t it?
CB: Were the engines the same as the Lancaster?
VW: Well, no not really because they were Merlin 24s that we had.
CB: Was that more powerful?
VW: No. I don’t think so. Were they Phil?
PW: They were slightly more powerful yeah. The general run of the mill Lancaster Merlin was twelve fifty horsepower or thereabouts.
VW: Yeah.
PW: And these were, I think they were slightly more. About fourteen hundred so a little more powerful. But they had different characteristics. The supercharging was slightly different on them. So, you know the York’s flew a different profile to the Lancaster and the engines were suited to that characteristics.
CB: And they didn’t fly so high.
PW: Didn’t fly so high.
VW: Yeah they went through.
PW: Yeah.
CB: So fast forward now to Kemble. So you’re a civilian there with 5MU. How long did that last?
VW: Two years.
CB: Then what?
VW: This isn’t — do you need this?
CB: Well, it’s just to know what people did after the war really.
VW: Oh yeah.
CB: Because you learned a lot in the war that you didn’t know before.
VW: Yeah.
CB: How did that impinge on your career until your retirement?
VW: Yeah. Well I went straight into a garage you know, because knowing engines. And I had four years, yeah, four years in the garage. That brought me up to 1950. And the Suez Crisis happened.
CB: ’56 that was.
PW: No. You’re getting confused with Berlin dad.
CB: So 1948 was Berlin. So the Korean War was 1950. Did you called in to the Korean War?
VW: Maybe. That was —
CB: I’ll stop that just for [pause] yeah go on.
VW: The — anyway the petrol went back on the basic ration.
CB: Yeah.
VW: So lots of people took their cars off the road and they sacked twelve of us.
CB: Right.
VW: In the garage. Because they had no work. I went to the, what they used to call then the Labour Exchange for a job and they said, ‘What did you do in the war?’ I said, ‘I was an aircraft mechanic.’ They said, ‘We’ve got a job for you,’ and they sent me out to Kemble. To the MU. And I was there for two years. And then I had various jobs. Short term. Taxies. I drove a taxi. And then I went from there to driving milk tankers for the Co-op Milk Department. And I had six years. No. Eight years. Eight years with them.
PW: A long while with them.
VW: Eight years with them. And actually in the first year wasn’t on the tankers. It was picking up the milk from farms in churns. You know. And then I went from that on the tankers for what we used to call long distance. Our long distance was a hundred miles a day I think at the most. Because you covered all the south of England. But yeah, and in 1962 I went into the factory in Swindon building motor bodies for British Leyland. And I was there then ‘til I retired.
CB: Which was when?
VW: 1984.
CB: So just to get the sequence because we changed it slightly. Did you go from Lyneham into working as a garage mechanic?
VW: Yeah I —
CB: Before, before you went to Kemble.
VW: Oh yeah. Well that was when I was demobbed.
CB: Yes.
VW: From there.
CB: Yeah. Ok. Right. I got it the wrong way around. What year were you married?
VW: 1940. Yeah.
CB: And how did you meet your wife?
PW: Teenagers really.
VW: We were fifteen when we married because she was just nine months older than me so we were both about fifteen. Yeah.
PW: That was when you met wasn’t it?
VW: Pardon?
PW: That’s when you met.
VW: Yeah.
PW: Because you said when we were married [laughs]
VW: Oh no. When we first met. Yeah. We married in 1940. Sheila was born in ’41.
CB: She lived near you.
VW: Pardon?
CB: She lived near you did she, is that how you —
VW: Yes. In the locality yes.
CB: Yeah. Good. Right I’m going to stop there for a mo. Thank you very much.
[recording paused]
CB: So just, just going back a bit Vivian.
VW: Yeah.
CB: When you were in the Territorial Army and you working at Tacalemit
VW: Yeah.
CB: What did you do in the Territorial Army?
VW: I was on a searchlight detachment and we, we had a ninety centimetre light and we had six lights altogether and I was on, I was always on what was called the home light. So I was on the centre and all the other five, yeah the other five, they were three or four miles away in a ring around as me in the centre. Like that. They were disbursed about three or four miles. And we used to have two girls fly a Dominie from, a Dragon Rapide in Croydon as the target. So the the detachment would be two spotters laid out at forty five degrees from the light. They are there. The lights here. I’m on the end of the long arm with the wheel, the wheel elevates it and to go around you just walk forwards or backwards, you know, like that. Very primitive. And then I had an earpiece and we had a telephone line to what they called the sound locators. They were sort of wooden horns. And they were on a stand and you could move them that way or around. You know.
PW: Azimuth.
VW: Circular movement you know. And also you’d get the elevation to get the sound. And then there was a corporal who was, lance corporal who was in charge and he was shouting in the other ear. And so you know we didn’t know where we were half the time and it was like [Fred Carnell’s?] outfit. It really was. All the other lights were all over the sky like waving corn you know. Like that. And then the girls would, they’d be flying without navigation lights, you know and they’d get fed up and switch the navigation lights on [laughs] and everybody was on to them.
CB: And suddenly you’d get them. Yes.
VW: And we’d cone them in the aeroplane you know. Great stuff. And they would switch the navigation lights off again and we were all lost. We were all over the sky again you know.
CB: These wooden detectors were pre-radar weren’t they?
VW: Oh yeah.
CB: So this was the only system they had.
VW: They came out the ark I should think.
CB: Yes. And they didn’t work.
VW: No. No.
CB: So how often did you actually acquire a target with a light?
VW: I don’t think we ever acquired one at all. Only when they switched the navigation lights on [laughs]
CB: [laughs] Right.
VW: And I was on that for about nine months I suppose.
CB: Yeah.
VW: We used to go out to aerodromes. Down to Aldershot, you know. Any military establishment like that. We used to go and spend a weekend.
CB: You’d take the lights.
VW: Take the lights.
CB: Yes. And how —
VW: And then we’d — pardon?
CB: All six would go would they?
VW: Yeah. And the lorries that they were transported with were Tilling-Stevens Petrol Electric.
CB: Right.
VW: You might, I think you’d have to go online to find them.
PW: Yes. You would.
VW: They were — that’s what they were called. Petrol electric. How that worked I don’t know but they would, they had this damned great generator on them. And we used to [pause] then he had a long cable. Oh it must have been about fifty feet at least. And he’d got to link up this cable so you don’t hear anything of the generator going at all. And [pause] and as I say I’d be on the home light and as I say we never, never really caught one at all. We were always all over the sky you know. Only when the girls switched the nav lights on. But it was, it was fun really. We were having a good time. You know. Not really working at it you know.
PW: Not taking it very serious.
VW: For us it was so impossible to find them.
CB: Well it was always peacetime wasn’t it so there wasn’t exactly an incentive to do a lot.
VW: Yeah. Yeah we used to go and do aerodromes and army.
CB: What was the unit called?
VW: The unit was called [pause] my army number was 2052042. Sapper. Sapper Williams. 339 Company. 26th London Electrical Engineers. R E, Royal Engineers. We come under Royal Engineers.
PW: Only the army.
VW: Yeah [laughs] yeah.
CB: This is before they really got the searchlight detachments operating.
VW: Well then they had the big ones you know.
CB: Yeah.
VW: They also had a hundred and twenty sized. A hundred and twenty centimetres but they were the same, just a larger light. And they were carbon arc lights. And then of course I went on crush guard somewhere near Spalding and they had a searchlight detachment there and it was a radar controlled light. This was some years later in the war. And it was radar controlled and it must have been a hundred and eighty, nearly two hundred metres, you know. Like that.
CB: Centimetres.
VW: Radar controlled.
CB: Yeah.
VW: That was I don’t know how successful they were but we were bloody hopeless.
PW: Pretty good.
CB: So you enjoyed it.
VW: Oh yeah. The Terriers. You know. It was adequate. It was an opportunity to get dressed up.
CB: Yeah.
VW: We used to get a few raspberries here and there, you know. Saturday night soldier.
CB: Yeah.
VW: But no I quite liked being in a crowd you know like that. In the company. Yeah.
CB: And when you joined the RAF how different was that?
VW: It was, it was much the same. I liked being with the company of other people. You know. I quite liked it in the early times you know, like that. And it wasn’t until I come across — I ran fowl of this engineer, warrant officer. That spoiled me for the RAF and I wasn’t interested after that.
CB: So what happened there? When was that?
VW: What?
CB: When did you meet this difficult person?
VW: October 1940. Yeah. October 1940.
CB: So what happened there?
VW: Well the School of GR was at Blackpool and they got posted to South Africa and — but they had this idea that you were going to get your wives out there so you had to be earning a certain amount, certain level of pay to cope with the cost of living out there. And I wasn’t. I was thruppence a day short because I wasn’t an LAC then. And so there was twenty of us I think that got then posted to different units in the UK. And I went to South Cerney. And I was there two years. You know.
CB: But you mentioned this warrant officer.
PW: This guy was —
CB: What was the significance of that?
VW: Well he was the engineering warrant officer of that and he, we just got off on the wrong foot. And I became bloody minded and I was always in trouble. I was always up on a charge. And in the end the engineering officer had us both in the office and he got as much of a bollocking as I did there, you know. He said it himself, he said, ‘This has got to stop.’ He said, ‘Getting him on,’ me, ‘Putting on a charge on trivial things,’ he said, ‘It only makes a man bloody minded.’ And he coined the phrase.
PW: And he was exactly right.
VW: And, yeah, and after that instead of being recommended for your classifications you had to take a board so he couldn’t do anything else but give me the opportunity to have a board. He comes up to me in the hangar and he said, ‘You’ve done very well.’ It took him a lot to actually congratulate me on it. It must have been hard for him.
CB: Dented his pride a bit did it? And the result of the board was what?
VW: I became an LAC then. And then a little while later I got posted from there to 17 AFU at Watton. And the engineering officer said, ‘What’s that thing on your sleeve?’ And I said, ‘It’s a good conduct stripe.’ He said, ‘How long have you been an LAC?’ I said, ‘Not very long sir.’ And he said, ‘Right,’ he said, he said, ‘You should have been a corporal by now, you know, at least.’ And I said, I didn’t, I just sort of bluffed it over, you know. Didn’t say what had happened obviously.
CB: No.
VW: And he said, ‘We’ll soon do something about that. And then in two months I was a corporal.
PW: I bet he found out what had been going on.
VW: I don’t know, he must have, yeah.
PW: ‘Cause it would have been, it would have been on your records.
VW: He must have looked on my docs. On my records.
PW: On your records.
CB: Trouble is that warrant officers are difficult to challenge.
VW: Yeah. Yeah. And the thing was you see then you were getting, frequently getting overseas postings. Well, we were, I was actually living out in Cirencester. Being a married man.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And so they, the sort unspoken rule then was that all these overseas postings were filled by single blokes. You know. And he was living out as well so you know we were in the same boat. He couldn’t treat me any different you know and so we got away with it like that. Made it so much easier.
CB: What would you say was the most memorable point about your RAF service?
VW: Memorable. Oh my first flight.
CB: Because we haven’t talked about that. So, ok, so first flight.
VW: Yeah.
CB: What was that?
VW: In a Magister. We were supposed to have an air experience flight at the end of the technical course at St Athans but there were so many entrants there, you know. People coming off the courses. They were pushing them through as fast as they could and they just didn’t have enough aircraft to give everybody this air experience flight. And that was in a Magister. So we got to the squadron on 56 Squadron and suddenly one of the NCOs there found out that none of us airmen had flown. And our CO was quite surprised you know because we were in the air force. We obviously should have had at least had, as I say the air experience flight. The initial flight. So our CO borrowed a Magister from somewhere. And each pilot then took his crew up. And bring up and then all the way back and that was the best thrill I think I’ve ever had. You know.
CB: Right.
VW: And most memorable that was. Frightened I to death but I was hooked after that and I used to fly in anything on air test. A lot of blokes, you know would say you know, ‘I won’t fly in that bloody thing you know.’ But if a pilot went up I would.
CB: Yeah.
VW: I just loved flying. Still do.
CB: How many hours do you reckon you got on doing those air tests?
VW: I must have done seventy or eighty air tests and they ranged from ten minutes to an hour on the Lancs.
CB: Yeah.
VW: At Kemble. That’s the way to fly. On the Lancs.
CB: Now the RAF was actually desperate for air crew. Particularly early on. So people were asked if they’d like to volunteer. What happened to you?
VW: Well, as I say, you know I just — they just put my medical back a month but they said, ‘We’ll keep your posting open,’ but I never heard any more, you know, at all. And I didn’t push it because my wife said no.
CB: Can we go fast backwards a bit? So how did you come to volunteer for aircrew in the first place?
VW: To get away from that engineer warrant officer.
CB: Right. Good.
VW: The attitude in the hangar. I just lost interest in it you know. That’s how he affected me. I thought I couldn’t do anything right. Although a lot of it was my own fault but no.
CB: So when you —
VW: Actually you see then they were losing so many aircraft towards the end of 1942, or the middle of 1942 and I thought then, I mean I could have been posted to Stirlings or something like that.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And I wouldn’t have stood a hope in hell’s chance of coming through it.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And I hadn’t, my daughter then she was born. She was born in 1941 so — he wasn’t born till ’44. But —
CB: So after you volunteered what was the next step? What did they do?
VW: Oh I just got posted away.
CB: No. No. They — what I meant to say was when you volunteered they then gave you some tests. So what was the first thing they did?
VW: Well you were posted away on a gunner’s course.
CB: Yes.
VW: And, and you did that and I don’t know — perhaps their way of thinking. But you didn’t get your medical until you’d finished your gunner’s course. But our MO just took it into his mind, ‘Oh I’ll give you your medical now.’ You see. When we were clearing out our what’s the name, flew around.
PW: Yeah. You go around getting cleared from the station.
VW: You go around station and clear everything you know like that. Of course one section is the MO and as I say if he hadn’t given me my medical then I’d have gone through, you see.
CB: Yeah.
VW: I would have gone to the air gunner’s course and then back up to Penarth to the medical before I got sent on the, on the conversion course because I would have been the flight engineer.
CB: What was the hiccup with your medical?
VW: The fact that I had this paralysis.
CB: Where?
VW: And he knew how long it would last.
CB: Where? What?
VW: Before it, my face came back to normal again you see, like that, and he said, ‘We’ll keep your posting open,’ but they never did and we never pushed it.
CB: ’Cause you wife wasn’t in favour.
VW: No. No. She wasn’t.
CB: Unsurprisingly.
PW: If you knew my mum you’d understand just how much of a brick wall that was.
VW: Yeah. I mean —
CB: But looking back would you have liked to have converted to aircrew?
VW: I would have liked to yes but looking back —
CB: Ok. So —
VW: I could weigh up the chances looking back.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And then never even thought about being shot down.
CB: No.
VW: Or anything like that.
CB: No. You were invincible.
VW: In retrospect, I mean I would, I could easily have been one of fifty five thousand.
CB: And which planes would you have wanted to have flown in?
VW: Oh the Lancaster. Yeah definitely. A Lancaster. Because the other went — I only know one of them. He was my mate there at Cerney. Name Lou Boyd. An Irish kiddie and he went and he did his conversion course at Swinderby.
CB: Right.
VW: On Lancs. I don’t know where the others went. I mean on one of them, on one of them.
PW: 1660.
VW: One of them was the sergeant in the hangar and he was thirty five
PW: Yeah.
VW: And he was the same as me. Just didn’t like our warrant officer. Never got on with him. And he went. Yeah thirty five he was.
CB: And how many ops did he do?
VW: I don’t know. I lost touch with all of them. I really did.
CB: Right.
VW: I only met Lou once. He came back and sorted us out and he was half way through his first tour then.
CB: So he —
VW: That was the, they told us when you lose an engine from mechanical failure. You don’t see it. You don’t realise it. The engine is not working.
CB: Because it’s wind milling.
VW: It’s wind milling.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And the thing is that it windmills. The revs stay the same.
CB: Do they?
VW: Yeah. The revs. The oil pressure stays the same, and that. You don’t get anything off the dials to indicate that it’s not running. The pilots afterwards said that there was, he felt a slight drag on that one side. But the first indication the engineer got, the flight engineer was the oil temperature goes down.
CB: Right.
VW: But everything else is the same bar the oil temperature.
CB: Because the pilot can feel it yawing.
PW: Just a little.
VW: Yeah but he would just take that as the engines getting a bit out of sync. Perhaps. You know.
CB: Right.
VW: Like that. Yeah.
CB: Actually that’s a point. How, yes, on the ground did you go through the procedures for synchronising the engines.
VW: Well you get the throttles and your boost gauges as near as damned synchronised and then when it comes to revs you [pause] you set the revs by synchronising the two. Either starboard engine or the two port engines or two starboard engines. So you get one engine up to what do you call it [pause] economical cruising. And then you look through the propeller. The inboard propeller so that it’s superimposed on the inside of the outboard propeller and if its strobes they’re out of sync.
CB: Right.
VW: And you use then the prop control.
CB: The pitch.
VW: Pitch controls.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And when that stops and it’s superimposed and just stops inside the other and then you do the same with the other side. With the other two engines.
CB: Just going back to your earlier point— if you lose an engine, you feather it and put it in —
VW: Yeah. You can feather it yeah.
CB: And what pitch can you put it in. What is the description of the pitch that you can put it in?
VW: Neutral.
CB: Right.
VW: Because it’s just the blades are just dead on to the slipstream.
CB: Yeah. The side of the blades.
VW: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yes. Good. Thank you very much. We’ve done really well.
PW: I really enjoyed that.
VW: Is that ok?
CB: Absolutely fascinating.
VW: You can edit. Edit it.
CB: They will but the fact is that they will be letting you have a cd. Listen to it and if you want to alter anything you can let them know.
VW: Yeah.
CB: But eventually they will edit it. Initially they will copy it.
VW: Well I shan’t bother.
CB: Now, you may remember what I said to you was it would be helpful if we’d any supporting stuff. That picture.
PW: The photograph that’s up there. Just on the end.
CB: That would be really good if we could borrow that. Yes. Have you got your wedding picture handy?
PW: No. We haven’t at the moment.
VW: No. We can’t find it.
CB: If that can come later.
PW: No. Dad hasn’t got it.
PW: I will find the pictures for you.
CB: Will you?
PW: And I will sort this one out as well.
CB: So there’s just one other form then which is to say that you’re happy. You authorise them to donate a copy of the picture and let you have the thing back.
VW: Yeah. That will be alright.
CB: Ok. How did you come to settle in Fiskerton? You were never stationed here.
VW: That’s another story in itself. We were, Phil got demobbed from.
PW: Waddington.
VW: Waddington.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And settled here in Metheringham and we used to come up on weekends for a weekend like that and we liked it up here.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And —
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 Vivian David Williams
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AWilliamsVD170403
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Vivian joined the Royal Air Force in July 1938 as a flight mechanic and served for seven and a half years. After square drills at RAF Uxbridge and a course at RAF Manston, he did a basic engineering course at RAF Henlow. After six months at RAF St Athan working on Bristol Pegasus and Rolls Royce Kestrel engines, Vivian was posted to 56 Squadron at RAF North Weald on Hurricanes and their Merlin engines. He spent six months at RAF Martlesham Heath before doing a conversion course to be a fitter at RAF Hednesford and RAF Cosford. Vivian was posted to the School of General Reconnaissance on Guernsey and Thorney Island before going to Hooton Park and Blackpool, followed by No. Three Flying Training School at South Cerney. After two years, Vivian went to No. 17 Advanced Flying Unit at Watton, where he changed engines on Masters. He went on to RAF Calveley, RAF Spitalgate and RAF Hixon before going to Transport Command at RAF Lyneham.
Vivian was demobbed in January 1946. After the war, he worked for a year on Five Maintenance Unit at RAF Kemble.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cheshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Essex
England--Gloucestershire
England--Kent
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Wirral Peninsula
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938-07
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:20:43 audio recording
Advanced Flying Unit
fitter engine
Flying Training School
ground crew
ground personnel
home front
Hurricane
Lancaster
mechanics engine
military service conditions
RAF Calveley
RAF Cosford
RAF Grantham
RAF Hednesford
RAF Henlow
RAF Hixon
RAF Hooton Park
RAF Kemble
RAF Lyneham
RAF Manston
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF North Weald
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Athan
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Watton
searchlight
training
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/559/42906/BBlacklockGBBlacklockGBv1.2.pdf
1141bb2ce07d176fdab70288e3d24b89
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
Stephenson, Stuart
Stuart Stephenson MBE
S Stephenson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stephenson, S
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. An oral history interview with Stuart Stephenson MBE, Chairman of the Lincs-Lancaster Association, and issues of 5 Group News.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, some items are available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Half a Life, Half Remembered
An Autobiography by Group Captain GB Blacklock
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BBlacklockGBBlacklockGBv1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
GB Blacklock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Skipton
Scotland--Bedrule
England--Northumberland
England--Yorkshire
England--London
England--Appleby-in-Westmorland
Egypt--Alexandria
Egypt--Aboukir Bay
England--Chester
England--Newmarket (Suffolk)
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
France--Marseille
Northern Ireland
Scotland--Montrose
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Wangerooge Island
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Borkum
England--Wisbeach
England--Weybridge
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Stavanger
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Netherlands--Rotterdam
France--Givet
Belgium
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Hazebrouck
France--Dunkerque
France--Socx
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Karlsruhe
France--Salon-de-Provence
Italy--Genoa
Germany--Essen
Germany--Lünen
Wales--Hawarden
Germany--Baden-Baden
England--Eastleigh
Scotland--Stranraer
England--Doncaster
France--Brest
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Lingen (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Magdeburg
France--La Pallice
Germany--Karlsruhe
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Description
An account of the resource
From his youth to the award of his DFC by the King.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
87 printed sheets
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
101 Squadron
115 Squadron
12 Squadron
142 Squadron
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
15 Squadron
2 Group
3 Group
311 Squadron
4 Group
5 Group
7 Squadron
9 Squadron
99 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
Blenheim
bomb aimer
bombing
Boston
Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
entertainment
fitter airframe
flight engineer
Flying Training School
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Gneisenau
ground personnel
Halifax
Hampden
hangar
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harrow
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hudson
Hurricane
incendiary device
Lancaster
love and romance
Magister
Manchester
Me 109
Me 110
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
navigator
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
observer
Operational Training Unit
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
pilot
radar
RAF Benson
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Catterick
RAF Cosford
RAF Cranwell
RAF Debden
RAF Duxford
RAF Finningley
RAF Grantham
RAF Halton
RAF Hendon
RAF Henlow
RAF Honington
RAF Leeming
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Manston
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Netheravon
RAF Newmarket
RAF Oakington
RAF Sealand
RAF Silloth
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Eval
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tangmere
RAF Upavon
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Waddington
RAF Warmwell
RAF Waterbeach
RAF West Freugh
RAF West Raynham
RAF Wittering
RAF Wyton
Scharnhorst
shot down
Spitfire
sport
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
Wellington
Whitley
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1554/27340/MMcDermottC1119618-161216-03.1.pdf
26f63a6bfeba319a6097f5d86abcedff
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
McDermott, Colin
C McDermott
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McDermott, C
Description
An account of the resource
87 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Colin McDermott (1119618 Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunnery instructor and flew operations as an air gunner with 98 Squadron. Contains his log book, papers and photographs and includes issues of 'Evidence in Camera'. <br /><br />The collection also contains albums of photographs from his training at <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1696">Evanton</a> in 1943, taken during his service in <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1699">Denmark </a>and some <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1698">duplicate </a>photographs.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Barbara Bury and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
EVIDENCE in CAMERA
VOLUME 4
NUMBER 3
JULY 19TH 1943
ISSUED BY AIR MINISTRY A.C.A.S. (1)
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
1. This O.U.O. document may be issued to Officers' Mess and Station Reference Libraries. (K.R. & A.C.I. 882, 2236(c), 2287.)
2. The only legitimate use which may be made of official documents or information derived from them is for the furtherance of the public service in the performance of official duties.
3. The publication of official documents, information from them, reproduction of extracts or their use for personal controversy, or for any private or public purpose without due authority is a breach of official trust under the OFFICIAL SECRETS ACTS, 1911 and 1920 and will be dealt with accordingly. (K.R. & A.C.I. 1071, 1072, 2238).
4. Copies not required for record purposes should be disposed of as Secret Waste in accordance with A.M.O. A.411/41.
SEE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON BACK OF COVER.
[page break]
[cartoon]
[underlined] "You [/underlined] should know when to stop talking, too!"
49
[page break]
HEAVY ATTACKS ON COLOGNE
[photograph]
When COLOGNE was attacked by Bomber Command aircraft on 28/29.6.43 and 3/4.7.43 a large percentage of the great area of devastation on both sides of the Rhine was caused by fire. This night photograph, showing fires and sticks of incendiaries burning, was taken by an aircraft flying over Mulheimer Hafen (A), Humboldt-Deutz Motoren A.G., submarine engines (B). Ver. Westdeutsche Waggonfabriken A.G. (C) and Deutz Locomotive Depot (D).
50
[page break]
[photograph]
Railway communications in COLOGNE sustained severe damage. Rolling stock and buildings at the Deutz Locomotive Depot and Carriage Sidings (A and at D on previous page) were destroyed and the extensive chemical works (B) of Chemische Fabrik Kalk G.m.b.H. were damaged by H.E. and fire. Strassen Bahnof Ost (C), 'bus depot, was extensively damaged.
51
[page break]
[photograph]
In early 1942 sheds which occupied the site (A) at the Gereon Goods Depot, COLOGNE, were severely damaged and the sheds were rebuilt to a simpler plan. (See page 19, Vol. 3, No. 1.) In the recent attacks 75 per cent, of the adjoining buildings (B) were destroyed. Considerable damage was also caused to the Engine Sheds and other buildings (C) attached to the railway sidings.
52
[page break]
[photograph]
Lying beneath the smoke from buildings still burning at KALK are the wrecked premises (A) of Klöckner-Hamboldt Deutz Motoren A.G. (Internal combustion engines) whose workshops at Deutz {see night photograph, page 50) were also heavily damaged. Gottfried Hagen A.G., U-boat accumulators (B) and large sheds at the Kalk Sud Goods Depot (C) were severely damaged.
53
[page break]
[photograph]
It is estimated that at least 1,000 acres of the centre of COLOGNE, west of the river, have been 75 per cent. devastated. Warehouses on each side of the Rheinau Hafen are among the hundreds of destroyed buildings in the area photographed.
54
[page break]
[photograph]
The roof of the Main Railway Station (A) at COLOGNE was seriously damaged. The photograph reveals that damage to the North Transept (B) of the Cathedral is nothing like the extent alleged by the enemy. Black smoke (C) is still rising from this devastated area which includes the Town Hall (D) and Post Office (E) both damaged in the latest attacks.
55
[page break]
CONCENTRATION OF BOMBS ON AIRCRAFT FACTORY
[photograph]
A heavy concentration of bomb bursts on and around the target photographed during a daylight attack on the S.N.C.A. de L'Ouest Aircraft Factory at NANTE CHATEAU BOUGON by 61 aircraft of U.S.B.C. on 4.7.43. The target (outlined) is enveloped in smoke from many direct hits. Damage caused in the attack is seen on the next page.
56
[page break]
[photograph]
Damage to the S.N.C.A. de L'Ouest Aircraft Factory at CHATEAU BOUGON is very severe. At least fourteen direct hits have destroyed over half of the main building (A) and a number of smaller buildings and stores of material have been seriously damaged. This factory is engaged on aircraft repairs and is connected with Chateau Bougon airfield (B) by a wide taxi-track (C). Five He IIIs are seen in the factory yard (D).
57
[page break]
U.S.B.C. ATTACK ON LE MANS
[photograph]
During a concentrated attack on the Gnome and Rhone Aero Engine Works and Airfield at LE MANS by U.S.B.C. on 4.7.43 bombs were photographed bursting on the works and sidings. The centre of the airfield is also covered with bursts. Inset shows the result of the attack, four direct hits on the main works and a large number of craters across the airfield.
58
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
HEAVY BATTERY S.E. OF LE CREUSOT
A daylight photograph of a four-gun heavy battery S.E. of LE CREUSOT. Inset is a night photograph of the same battery taken during the attack on LE CREUSOT on 19/20.6.43. Three of the guns are in action and the gun flashes reveal ground detail which enables the position of the battery to be plotted. (A) Crew's quarters. (B) Intersection of road and hedge. (C) Woods.
59
[page break]
KNOW YOUR PORTS – COPENHAGEN
[italics] COPENHAGEN is the largest industrial centre of Denmark. As a result of an agreement between the Danish and German Governments it is not under such severe control as are the ports in other occupied countries. In spite of this the Germans have increased and are increasing their use of the port. Danish merchant shipping not yet seized by the Axis is laid up in the Sundkrogen, Kronlobs Bassin and the Nordhavn. (A) Main Station. (B) Goods Station and Sidings. (C) Engine Sheds. (D) Oster Port Station. (E) Terminus of Copenhagen-Malmo (Sweden) Train Ferry. (F and G) Burmeister and Wain Shipyard and Royal Naval Dockyard (see next page). (H) Copenhagen/See Seaplane Station. [/italics]
[photograph]
60 and 61
[page break]
[photograph]
The Royal Dutch Dockyard (A), a part of COPENHAGEN the Germans are not allowed to utilize, is employed solely for the construction, maintenance and repair of units of the Danish Navy, most of which are still under Danish operational control. Work is also carried out to a few train and car ferries under control of the Danes. The Burmeister and Wain Shipyard (B) and the Sondre Frihavn (see previous page) are used considerably by the Germans for the construction and repair of German merchant ships.
62
[page break]
PROMINENT LANDMARKS
[photograph]
Above: This islet, on which is a light tower and two other stone towers, is the largest and highest in the CASQUET group, six miles west of Alderney.
[photograph]
Right: Le Fort de la Latte was built in 937, repaired and enlarged in 1689. It is on the extremity of a small peninsula near CAP FREHEL and approximately twelve miles west of St. Malo.
63
[page break]
DESTRUCTION OF 750 TON U-BOAT
[photograph]
This 750 ton U-Boat was destroyed in the Atlantic Ocean when attacked twice by the same aircraft of Coastal Command. The U-Boat had the newly modified conning tower that provides an additional A.A. position aft. In this photograph of the first attack the splashes of the depth charges entering the water are seen straddling the U-Boat.
64
[page break]
[photograph]
Above and below: Subsidence of the explosions.
[photograph]
[photograph]
Splashes from depth charges entering the water in the second attack, made from port.
65
[page break]
STORAGE DEPOT FOR FOODSTUFFS
[photograph]
This Storage Depot at AUGSBURG is of standard design and similar ones are to be found near most German towns. Their function is to conserve supplies of foodstuffs for civilian and military use. The tall standardised buildings (A) are served by road and rail while the lower type of standardised buildings are at (B).
66
[page break]
NIGHT ATTACK ON LE CREUSOT
[photograph]
A night photograph taken during the attack on the Schneider Works at LE CREUSOT on 19/20.6.43. Two bursts of tracer are seen coming from flak positions in the vicinity (A and B) and reconnaissance flares are to be seen at (C). The Locomotive Machine Shops (D and E) were damaged in the attack.
67
[page break]
[photograph]
DORNIER Do 217
The Do 217, which has been coming into service in increasing numbers for some time, is now one of the standard bombers of the G.A.F.
[photograph]
Do 217s outside the Dornier assembly factory at OBEPFAFFENHOFEN near MUNICH. The netting-covered multiple shelter (A) is of an unusual type. Six or more aircraft are faintly visible through the netting. Dummy bushes (B) are being placed on the roofs of hangars and other buildings. Photographs of Do 217 in flight are from a combat film.
[photograph]
68
[page break]
[photograph]
Do 217s dispersed near covered aircraft shelters at DUON/LONGVIC.
[photograph]
[photograph]
Above and left: More Do 217s at GARZ/USEDOM on the Baltic coast.
69
[page break]
CONTINENTAL RAILWAYS
These oblique views of typical Continental railway stations, sidings, rolling stock and equipment were taken by Boston aircraft during attacks on 2.7.43.
[photograph]
The northern end of LILLE/LA DELIVERANCE Marshalling Yard with mixed goods stock in the forwarding sidings (foreground). The reception sidings and locomotive engine sheds are to the left middle distance.
[photograph]
Above: A train of flats carrying motor cars on the Dixmude-Ghent line near THIELT.
[photograph]
Left: The signal box at the Northern end of the forwarding sidings at LILLE/LA DELIVERANCE. Note the floodlighting platform and the burrowing junction line which leads to the engine sheds seen in top photograph.
70
[page break]
Right: A modern signal box controlling train movement at the western end of St. Peter's Station, GHENT
[photograph]
[photograph]
Left: This typical all-over roof is at COUTRAI Station.
[photograph]
Right: A modern signalling system controlling the exits from platforms at COUTRAI. The covered wagons are standing in the goods-yard for off loading (to and from road vehicles).
71
[page break]
PROBLEM PICTURE.
[photograph]
WHAT IS THIS?
Answer at Foot of This Page.
ANSWER TO PROBLEM PICTURE ABOVE.
An unusual type of wind-tunnel, for testing models of aircraft under flying conditions, at CHALAIS MEUDON, near Paris.
72
[page break]
(4405.) 31-9832. 2900. 19/7/43. 45.246.
C. & E. LAYTON LTD. London, E.C.4.
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
This weekly document will consist of a collection of illustrations varying in number in each issue according to the quantity of material of sufficient interest and suitable for reproduction that is received.
2. Requests for material to be included in this document should be submitted to Command Headquarters, who, after consideration, will submit them to Air Ministry, A.D.I.(Ph.). Any useful suggestions as regards contents will receive full consideration and will be welcomed.
3. Distribution is carried out by Air Ministry (A.I. I) and any requests for fewer or additional copies must be made through Group Headquarters who will ensure the maximum possible economy.
4. Under no circumstances must any of the illustrations be reproduced by Units in the British Isles. Further copies can be printed from the existing blocks and independent photographic reproduction would be a waste of material and labour to the detriment of the National War Effort.
5. The distribution of photographs to the general public is carried out through the Press who are supplied with photographs which have been specially selected for their general interest and have been published after careful consideration by the Security Branch and by the Ministry of Information; it is therefore unnecessary as well as undesirable to communicate any of the contents of this document, either directly or by discussion in public places, to persons not enjoying the privilege of serving in H.M. Forces.
6. The document has not been officially graded as Secret or Confidential in order that the widest distribution may be given, but Commanding Officers should use their discretion to ensure that the appropriate information is available only to those whose work will benefit.
7. The necessity for security cannot be over emphasised, for although this document is not marked Secret some of its contents may occasionally be of value to the enemy. Every care must be taken to prevent such information being disclosed.
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
Evidence in Camera Vol 4 No 3
Description
An account of the resource
A magazine of aerial photographs covering the bombing of Cologne, railway yards, factories, gun battery, Copenhagen, two prominent island landmarks, an attack on a U-boat, storage depot, the Schneider works at Le Creusot, Do 217 s at Munich and Dijon airfields, low level views of railways and a problem image of a wind tunnel at Paris,
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07-19
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
28 page booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcDermottC1119618-161216-03
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
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Cologne
France--Nantes
France--Le Mans
France--Le Creusot Region
Denmark--Copenhagen
Great Britain
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Munich
France--Dijon
Germany--Usedom
France--Lille
Belgium--Tielt
Belgium--Ghent
Belgium--Kortrijk
France--Paris
France--Saint-Malo
France
Germany
Denmark
Belgium
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Air Ministry
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
aerial photograph
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Boston
Do 217
He 111
incendiary device
reconnaissance photograph
submarine
target photograph
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1490/27529/BMitchellJEFMitchellJEFv2.2.pdf
79ab91df3c1f13c17172b651be8ac4d9
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
Mitchell, Mitch
John Ernest Francis Mitchell
J E F Mitchell
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
2016-02-27
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
Mitchell, JEF
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. Flight Lieutenant John Ernest Francis 'Mitch' Mitchell. Joined the RAF as a boy entrant in 1934 and trained as a wireless operator. Flew on Vickers Virginia, Handley Page Heyford and Whitley before the war. Completed an operational tour on Whitley 1939-41. After being rested he flew a second tour of operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron before retraining as a pilot post war. Collection contains his flying logbooks, memoires of his air force career and first operations, lists of his operations, correspondence and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C A Wood and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Seeding the Storm
Squadron Leader John Ernest Francis Mitchell, DFC, wireless operator/air gunner, then pilot.
I had never known our headmaster at Eye Grammar to be taken aback. But when he asked at my leaving interview what I intended to do and I replied without hesitation, “I want to fly, sir”, it seemed to floor him. Possibly he had expected me to say something about Oxford or Cambridge , after all I’d been no slouch under his tutelage. And that might not have been so bad. What I had no intention of doing, though, was getting involved with the land.
The desire to fly, on the other hand was something that had become ever more compelling. What we tended to see in Norfolk were airships. But I knew all about the record breakers and their machines, but far more about the wartime aces of the RFC – the Royal Flying Corps – about McCudden, Mannock, Bishop, and to me, the greatest of them all, Albert Ball. And war fliers rather than civilian, for even in 1934 it was clear to those with eyes to see that another conflict was brewing.
I even knew the qualities needed in an aspirant war flier: ‘not exceptional, a good general education, a mechanical background advantageous, a fair working knowledge of maths and the application of simple formulae; more than keen to learn’. Apart from the ‘not exceptional’ – the very idea! – I more than fitted the bill.
The ensuing discussion went on for some time, but even then the Head was not happy.
“Think about it for a day or so, Mitchell”, he bade, “then come back and see me again”.
I dutifully did so. When, having satisfied himself that I was determined to pursue a flying career, he sent a recommendation to the local education committee
+”. As a consequence, just weeks later, a letter – railway warrant enclosed – invited me to present myself at Victor House, Kingsway, in London.
The interviewers surprised me! I had expected them to be knowledgeable about aeroplanes. Instead they seemed to inhabit some intellectual level, way above such things. Eventually, however, they descended from their Olympian heights to deliver their verdict.
At seventeen I was too young to become a pilot. Only here, as my face fell, they descended even further, to assure me that age was the only bar. Meanwhile, I could be taken on as either a wireless operator or an air gunner. Stifling my disappointment, I opted for the former and a short time later reported to the Electrical and Wireless School at RAF Cranwell, near Sleaford in Lincolnshire, where I was rigged out from cap to puttees, not forgetting boots that were initially reluctant to take the least shine, to begin my training.
It was clear that the government was among those with eyes to see, for some months before it had decided upon a vast expansion of the RAF. This meant the building of new airfields and the creation of new squadrons. It also meant a full-scale recruiting drive. And so it was that on 10 October 1934 I joined a Boy Entrant intake, doubled that year to nearly 600 for a nominal twelve months’ course.
We were not the only trainees accommodated in the double-storied blocks of Cranwell’s East Camp. There were also signals officers on short courses and air gunners who, after twelve weeks of instruction, were to take on an additional wireless-operating role. And there were Aircraft Apprentices, their entry too swelled to some 600.
The latter were boys like ourselves, from fifteen plus to eighteen who, also like us, wore the distinctive spoked-wheel arm badge. Only they had gained entry by competitive examination rather than education-committee recommendation, their three-year course qualifying them to maintain the RAF’s communication equipment – as opposed to operating it, as was our destiny.
And then, of course, just across the road, but infinitely remote from East Camp, was the gleaming new Royal Air force College where future leaders of the King’s Air Force studied in hallowed halls.
Our year-long course was packed full as we poured over wireless theory, disembowelled sets in workshops, achieved a mirror surface on those recalcitrant boots before strutting our stuff on the parade ground, and between times continued our studies in English, maths, general subjects and History of the Service –one Albert Ball’s machine guns was enshrined in a barrack- block hallway!
We tapped away at morse keys, strained into headsets, memorised the most frequently used of the Q and Z brevity codes – necessary with morse mssages being so protracted – and even got the feel of airborne operating in the Wireless School’s Wallaces, Wapitis and Valentias.
Off duty, sports were highly rated, and I was able to indulge myself to the full in those which interested me. With the compulsory boxing bout over I shunned anything further in that line, similarly soccer and rugby, but was to the fore in cricket and tennis. Where golf and croquet were concerned, however, I found myself pretty much a loner.
We finished the course on 12 July 1935, and, having found no difficulty in learning to send and receive morse at 20 words a minute and having been comfortable enough in my airborne sessions, I was able to replace the Boy-service wheel with the Signal’s arm badge, a hand clasping three , electrical flashes.
On passing out my posting was to No. 58 squadron at Worthy Down, near Winchester, a major bomber station which was to achieve singular distinction some years later when its Naval tenants, having re-christened it HMS Kestrel, the traitor William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw, announced that it had been bombed and sunk.
When I joined the squadron was operating Vickers Virginias, twin-engined biplane bombers which
even to my eager eyes appeared distinctly venerable. Nor was the wireless equipment any more youthful. This was the transmitter-receiver combination known as the T21083/R1082. Unfortunately it was not only unreliable but difficult to operate, even altering frequency requiring a coil change in both transmitter and receiver
One everyday problem was that to get any range at all we had to trail a wire aerial from beneath the aircraft, remembering to retract it before landing for fear of garrotting some groundling.
Except that the pilot would get engrossed in his own concerns and forget to advise when he was about to set down. Either that or, with the intercommunication system being so poor, his advisory wouldn’t get through, leaving me to bawl ‘ You’ve lost my bloody trailing aerial again’ even though my bloke was an officer.
Just the same, I counted myself luckier than a gunner colleague who felt a pattering on his helmet. On turning he got a face full of pee, his desperate pilot, far forward of him ,having stood on his seat to relieve himself into the air rush.
To a large extent then we were all learning, pilots and crew members alike. Although I doubt this showed when we flew our Virginias in tight formation over the packed stands of the Hendon Air Display. In reality, however, it became more the case a few months later when we began receiving the Handley Page Heyford, held to be very speedy, and the last word in design, with all-round protection that included a dustbin-like turret which could be lowered from the ventral –belly – position.
What the new aircraft brought with it, however, was a stepping-up of the flying task, with more and more long-range navigational exercises and bombing and air-firing by both day and night, the communications side of all these being my pigeon.
It quickly became evident too that , although trained as a dedicated wireless operator, I was still expected to fill in as a gunner: not the first evidence of the way the Service was being strained by the expansion.
For expansion necessarily meant a dilution of the experience embodied in both training school and squadron, with much of the training being left to the squadrons. And as these, in turn, lost their most capable men on posting –either to command or to bolster up new units – so their own experience level dropped. For example, new boy though I was, even I could tell that to have so many prangs – minor though most were – was not the way things should be. So many, indeed, that we never bothered logging them.
I was not in a position to know, of course, but not long after this the new chief of Bomber Command, the C-in-C, Air Chief Marshall Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt, would stir resentment in the very highest echelons by reporting upwards even more fundamental shortcomings.
Foremost among these was the lack of a definite policy regarding the crewing of aircraft, only pilots being considered full-time fliers. Observers and gunners, the other two categories of flier, were drawn from volunteer airmen, highly qualified tradesmen who, after a flying duty, would pocket their one or two shillings a day flying pay and return to their workshops. True, there were already moves afoot to employ full-time gunners, but like those we had trained alongside, these were then to double as wireless operators. Indeed, it was to be 1942 before gunnery and signals were to become completely divorced.
Blissfully ignorant then of the true state of things, what we all knew was that, just like the war, newer and longer-range aircraft were only just over the horizon. And with that in mind we did not complain when pushed yet harder.
What did not improve, and totally disrupted continuity, was the number of times they had us upping sticks: another thing the Commander was to comment upon! Our first uprooting came on 13 May 1936, when we relocated to Upper Heyford, near Bicester in Oxfordshire. At least, though, this heralded the arrival of the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, the monoplane bomber which, through Marks One to Five, was to see us well into the war. Even so, it has to be admitted that Whitley crews suffered a fair amount of ribbing because of the aircraft’s characteristic nose-down ‘sit’ which was especially pronounced at high speed. But by and large we were happy with it.
True to form, however, my current bloke, a flight lieutenant at that, cost me four teeth on our first landing as the undercarriage, only half-extended, folded beneath us. I suppose he was busy congratulating himself on having remembered that he now had retractable wheels – many pilots didn’t remember. But as the blood streamed from my mouth all he could offer was ‘I didn’t realise the selector had to go so far’.
From the wireless operator’s standpoint the major benefit brought by the Whitley was its state-of-the-art Marconi radio installation, the transmitter/receiver combination known as T1154/R1155, a vastly more flexible equipment than those we had struggled with before. It still incorporated a trailing aerial, but otherwise it was far more sophisticated than previous gear, although the gaily coloured knobs of its transmitter belied its complexity.
Certainly my dedicated training came into its own and ‘Send for Mitch’ became the cry of the day, so that, although still a newish-joiner, I found myself acting as what I would soon become, the squadron’s signals leader.
Upper Heyford, however, afforded us only a breathing space, for by the end of August 1936 we had moved again, this time to Driffield, near Bridlington, in Yorkshire. And in February 1937 we were off down south once more, to Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
Here we did settle to some extent, although there was a bombing detachment at Aldergrove, in Northern Ireland, where we were permitted to drop live bombs into Loch Neagh, followed by a stint which took us to Pocklington to the east of York at West Freugh, near Stranraer, for gunnery. On that detachment, having done a gunnery course at Catfoss, near Hornsea, I was able to exercise my new found skills from all our gun positions, front, dorsal (top of fuselage) and the ventral dustbin of our Mark Threes, firing 300 rounds from each, largely at sea markers. Another gunnery detachment took us to Pocklington, to the east of York. But on 20 June 1939 we moved north again, this time to Linton-on-Ouse, in Yorkshire.
Such detachments gave us a flavour of what our war might be. But the results were not always that comforting. My gunnery scores were consistently deemed satisfactory. But we did hear that whereas the previous year’s averages for air firing had been an acceptable 20%, this year, with fewer experienced instructors in the schools and competent gunners spread more thinly on the squadrons, averages were running closer to 0%.
Equally concerning, we had noticed that even when we were permitted to drop live bombs – for there always seemed to be some rare wild bird or other which took precedence, or some influential landowner - a high proportion proved to be duds, or at best ineffectual. In lieu of the real thing, however, we dropped practice bombs, or trained on the camera obscura.
This was an optical training aid which had us fly towards a building – identified by a flare at night – with a large hole cut in its roof. A lens would then project the approaching aircraft’s image onto a table where instructors would assess the accuracy of the run-in. At his calculated release point the pilot would press the button, when either coloured smoke or a parachute flare by night would enable the wind effect to be calculated and the likely striking point ascertained.
Other noteworthy exercises we flew at this time involved dropping very powerful flares, the forerunner, as we were later to realise, of the Pathfinders’ target markers. Arguably even more significant was the detailing of a squadron aircraft to patrol near the BBC’s Daventry aerial, a perambulatory sortie that led directly to the development of radar.
We were great moaners, of course. But even where the unsettling moves were concerned we conceded that some were dictated by extra construction work, most of our roosts having come into being under the expansion programme. For essentially, while we noticed shortcomings, we saw it as our part to master the equipment we’d been given and leave others to worry about the rest.
Even so, though one might push shortcomings from the mind, the international situation could no longer be ignored. More particularly when, on 1 September 1939, Hitler’s forces attacked Poland which, to the surprise of many, turned out to be our ally. But nobody on the squadron was surprised when, next day, we were dispatched to Leconfield, near Yorkshire’s east coast and so that much nearer Hitler’s Reich.
At 1115 hours on 3 September 1939 we listened to Chamberlain’s fateful broadcast, and as darkness fell ours was among ten Whitleys laden with propaganda leaflets which got airborne for Germany, my log book recording that the ‘Anti Nazi War’ had begun.
On that first operational sortie I was flying with my regular pilot, Flying Officer ‘Peggy’ O’Neill, aboard a familiar Whitley, K8969. Even so it was the most surreal of experiences to be droning over a blacked-out Germany where millions of people were both ready, and willing, to kill us. Not only that, but to be doing so carrying nothing more lethal than propaganda leaflets. And leaflets intended to do what – destroy the resolve of a nation already cock-a-hoop over its Polish blitzkrieg?
We could not know that Churchill had only grudgingly conceded that leaflets just might raise Germany to a ‘higher morality’. Or that our future leader, ‘Bomber’ Harris, would declare that the only thing such ‘idiotic and childish pamphlets’ accomplished was to satisfy a requirement for toilet paper. Again, though, our job was to drop leaflets. So on we droned.
The route was to be wide-ranging across the Ruhr, specifically targeting both Essen and Dusseldorf before overflying the Maginot Line and turning for home. I suppose, at a certain level, we were on edge the whole seven and a half hours we were airborne, but training sustained us. Then, too, besides feeding our leaflets from the dustbin turret, we had set other tasks.
These included assessing the effectiveness of the German black-out. Was it broken by any well-lit areas, which would, therefore, be dummy towns? Additionally, were the airfields active? What road, rail or waterborne movements did we notice? Were searchlights evident? And was there any anti-aircraft fire? In fact, the latter question led to an animated on-board discussion. Until we concluded that what we had seen was some transient light flashing on low cloud. And just as well, for when we eventually got back to base this was a point they really grilled us on.
Once more, of course, we were not to know that Higher Authority had accepted that the RAF was not yet up to bombing by either day or night, any lingering doubt being dispelled by the losses early raiders sustained. That, as a consequence, our nocturnal paper delivery was now being pragmatically viewed as a means of building up an expertise in long-range navigation that might eventually allow Bomber Command to achieve most of its war aims through precision attacks by night.
Certainly, a little later, we all heard the broadcast Harris made, warning the Nazis of ‘a cloud on their horizon’… presently no bigger than a band’s width, which would break as a storm over Germany’. And hearing it we realised that we, of course, were that cloud, the seeders of that storm, the attendant fosterers of its fury.
Unfortunately, the Whitley soon proved unsuitable to the task. Early evidence of this being supplied on that first foray when, having crossed the Maginot Line, an engine faltered, committing us to a descent. Fortunately, although there was a pre-dawn mist, Peggy was able to put us down near Amiens. Nobody was hurt, but the aircraft was in a sad state. And so our first op finished in a French field, with a civil Dragon Rapide biplane being sent to pick us up and return us, initially to Harwell, near Oxford, from where we were recovered to Linton.
The Whitley’s engine trouble proved to be symptomatic, and although the squadron was tasked with leaflet drops for a few more days, there were so many problems, not least the dustbin turrets freezing in the lowered position – they could provide belly defence when needed but caused enormous drag whenever extended – that at the end of October 1939 we were reassigned to cover the English and Bristol Channels, and the Irish Sea, as convoy escorts.
This tasked diversion finished in early May 1940, when we moved back to Boscombe Down, by which time I had flown 12 patrols and a further 53 operational hours. More significantly, we had also received Mark Five Whitleys which, newly powered with the more dependable Rolls Royce Merlin Ten engines, finally enabled our crew to feature on the bombing battle order.
Ops then followed in quick succession. Initially we raided objectives in Norway, bombing Oslo aerodrome on 17 May 1940 and landing after a 9 hour 15 minute flight. Results, however, were said to be disappointing, the target having to be revisited the next night. After that we attacked Stavanger, a seven hour forty minute flight. And what fraught trips these were, often wave-hopping following a snaking fjord with cliffs disappearing into the darkness above. But again, training paid off, and we doggedly pressed on through to our objectives, although from the outset we had little faith in the outcome of the expeditionary venture itself.
Then too, the phoney war was over and events to the west were moving swiftly. So it was that we faced about, being tasked to bomb the Albert Canal bridges at Maastricht – a day after the debacle of the Fairey Battles, and the suicidal gaining of two VC’s – before passing on to raid a bridge at Eindhoven and then Schiphol aerodrome.
Following that we switched to the Ruhr, to Gelsenkirchen and Dusseldorf, returning after a night or two, this time pairing Gelsenkirchen with Duisberg, each sortie taking between six and seven hours. Only now, in an unsettling taste of things to come, I was obliged to record ‘Heavy ack-ack’.
At this juncture I should, perhaps, mention that the contemporary entries in my flying log book do not specify the actual targets, but only ‘Operations Norway’, ‘Operations France’ and ‘Operations Germany’. RAF crews, of course, are always restricted in this field, log books being official documents and scrutinised monthly by flight commanders. At that particular period, though, there was an extra dimension. For invasion was very much on the cards. ‘You don’t want some Gestapo thug reading that you bombed his Auntie Olga in Berlin’, we were told, ‘so just make it ‘Operations Germany’. Which we did.
Even so, an incorrigible rebel, I kept a separate record of those early ops, entering the actual targets later in the war.
As the Germans advanced, so we were reassigned to the interdiction bombing of roads and railways. On 21 May 1940, for example, we attacked the rail junction at Julich, dropping 4,000 pounds of bombs and coming away satisfied that we’d significantly disrupted communications, although achieving nothing like the destruction of a few years later.
We also returned the Ruhr, to Hamm, and again to Essen, dropping 10,000 and 14,000 pounds of bombs respectively.
After that, as the Battle of France intensified, we visited more and more French targets, bombing railways, roads and convoys at La Capelle, Amiens and finally Abbeville. The situation was often fluid and on at least one occasion I received a timely recall signal which stopped us bombing our own troops.
And on 11 June 1940 we did a special flight – purpose unspecified – to Guernsey, spending the night there before returning to Linton. To learn two days later that the decision had been made to give up the Channel Islands without a fight!
France itself fell on 26 June 1940, after which we switched to German targets once again. Notably a seven hour op to the Kiel Canal when I flew with a different crew, piloted by a Flight Lieutenant Thompson, on a sortie which moved me enough to declare in my log book, ‘Hell’ova Night’.
An outing that did not receive a similar accolade – though why I cannot recall – was the next one I flew with Peggy O’Neill. We successfully raided a factory in Turin, but on returning over the Alps flew into rougher weather than any of us could have imagined. There was so much snow, ice and turbulence that the engines started playing up, one temporarily cutting out altogether. Our co-pilot wanted to abandon, but Peggy gamely soldiered on, somehow retaining control of the machine and eventually winning clear. But what a trip that was! Possibly too traumatic for me to face entering anything but ‘Operations Italy’.
By now ops had become a way of life. With fear as its natural concomitant, for cringe down though we must as flak and bullets tore through the airframe, fear had to be lived with. Indeed, we received a master class on the subject from one particularly persistent fighter. Pass after pass he made, riddling us on each, with Peggy desperately sacrificing height for any speed we could muster. ‘He’s determined to get us’, he gritted, as the wavetops prevented further descent. Only abruptly the attacks stopped. For a while, communally holding our breath, we watched the fighter holding off. Then, finally, concluding that he had run out of ammunition, we scurried for home, well aware that it had been our narrowest squeak yet!
Such things were wearing. But they had to be borne. For back then there were no set tours of operations. The squadron bosses, though, knew the score. And on 1 July 1941 I was posted away, off ops, to No. 19 Operational Training Unit, at Kinloss, near Inverness.
Since January 1940 all gunners had become full-time aircrew and, in theory at least, sergeants, with the ‘AG’ beret being introduced in the December. So I had become a reluctant wireless operator/air gunner, first a sergeant and then a flight sergeant. The instant aircrew senior-NCO, understandably enough, was not that popular with the regulars. ‘You got promoted pretty swiftly, didn’t you?’ became a common jibe in the sergeant’s mess. But you couldn’t win, for when I received an overnight commission it was to be greeted in the officers’ mess with ‘And where did you spring from?’ As for the commissioning, naturally I’d always known that I was upper-crust material, even so I was disturbed at being summoned by my commanding Officer – not on this occasion, the Head, but the feeling could be similar when you put out as many little blacks as I habitually did. This time the interview was not protracted, just friendly. But still resulted in my travelling to London, only this time to Messrs Gieves and Hawkes of Savile Row, to be fitted for a new and shiny rig. ‘And your bank account, sir? ’ ‘Barclays , has been for years’ An NCO with a bank account! Upper crust, you see! Only there was still that pilot’s course…
At Kinloss the task was to train Whitley crews for No.6 Group using both the main airfield and its satellite at Forres – Balnageith. I was to spend just four months here, and not uneventful months at that, for training had its share of excitement, not least on 3 September 1941 when I was in another crash, this one significant enough to be logged!
In mid-November 1941, however, I was sent to Enniskillen, in Northern Ireland, to deputise for the established station commander. The area was a political hotbed – I had to tote a revolver! – so although the RAF had flying facilities at both Aldergrove and Killadeas and both a maintenance and a group headquarters at St Angelo, the predominant presence was army. As it was, my caretaker duties were not particularly onerous, the mess I frequented at Killadeas was sumptuous and I got myself happily involved with some sailing craft I found on Loch Erne.
This detachment gave me a break from the routine of training, but it was to set a pattern I was to find increasingly irksome as the years went by. I was assured, of course, that each stores check or unit inquiry befitted me just that little bit more for higher command. As it did. So why did I invariably feel ‘joe’d’?
Certainly I had periodically applied to return to ops, my hopes soaring whenever signals arrived requesting aircrew for ‘special duties’. In August 1942 these were for the proposed Pathfinder Force and in early 1943 for what we were eventually to discover was to be No.617 Squadron. However, all such applications were blocked by my immediate boss. ‘They want the best’, he would say. ‘But I do too, Mitch, so you stay’.
Eventually, however, an Air Ministry posting arrived for me and on 20 May 1943 – with every front page screaming ‘Dambusters!’ – I was posted to No. 207 Squadron.
I found the squadron at Langar, near Nottingham, still relieved to be rid of their Avro Manchesters – a disastrous machine – and happily settling with that queen of the skies, the Lancaster.
As signals leader I might have chosen my own captain, but having accepted the first to be programmed with me, Flight Lieutenant Brandon-Tye, I never had cause to regret it. And so, after just four hours of acclimatisation flights, I began my second tour of ops.
Initially we concentrated on the Ruhr, so that in short order I became re-acquainted with Dusseldorf and Bochum, although this time around in the Lancaster, taking about an hour less over such sorties, just over 5 hours. Yet how adversely so much else had changed!
Certainly the defences had really got the hang of things now, with droves of searchlights and seemingly impenetrable box barrages on every run up. Not to mention the radar-guided predicted flak! As for the night-fighters..!
Not that I was surprised – shocked, I’ll allow, but not surprised! – for two years back we’d prowled the night sky alone, whereas now we offered the defences score upon score of targets.
Shortly afterwards, on 20 June 1943, we bombed an industrial objective at Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, after which we overflew brilliantly lit Switzerland – a wonderful, fairytale sight! – to set down after nearly ten hours at Blida, on the northern coast of Algeria. And to show no favour to any Axis power, next day we bombed La Spezia, the Italian naval base, the homeward trip taking just nine hours and ten minutes.
After that, though, it was Happy Valley again – the Ruhr – and to Gelsenkitchen, a place I had last visited in May 1940, over two years before, and on successive nights. So perhaps they bore a grudge. For as we ran in we were well and truly caught by flak and then shot up by a whole procession of night-fighters.
Not nice! But the rear gunner, a commissioned lad from another crew, proved to be a good man to have along. As each fighter came in I was able to use the Monica rearward-looking radar to warn him, so that he was not only able to beat them off but, I fancy, to destroy at least one. Just the same, we were so badly shot up that we had to put down in Coltishall.
Though used to dealing with fighter aircraft, Coltishall’s groundcrew chaps pulled their fingers out – when didn’t they! – and patched us up, enabling us to return to Langar later that day. Our Lancaster, ED 627, had certainly done us proud. As for the rear gunner, he received a Distinguished Flying Cross for this spirited defence and would later, flying with his own crew, receive a bar to it for a similar exploit.
There was no such kudos for me, but I was well content with the way Monica had served us. Only I was already aware of whispers and a few months later, when it was actually proven that the Germans were indeed using its pulses to both locate and then home on us, it was hurriedly withdrawn from service.
Back at Langar, however, with ED627 spick and span once more, we were off a-raiding over Munchengladbach. And two nights later it was the Big B, my first trip to Berlin! 7 hours and 35 minutes simply packed with interest. And this would not be my last visit, some taking a whole hour longer than others and so packed with even more interest.
This initial Berlin outing, though, was our swan song from Langar, for in October 1943 we moved to newly-opened Spilsby, near Skegness, in Lincolnshire.
I was back over Berlin again, though, in the New Year, on 15 February 1944, and penetrating even further two nights later when we raided Leipzig, landing back at Spilsby eight hours later.
At this point, however, our tasking was changed and from April 1944 – shades of May 1940! – we were set to pounding communications networks. On 10 April this meant a wide-ranging series of strikes on Tours and Bourges in central France, and on Antwerp. Then, within the next few days, it was St-Valery-on-Caux, followed the next night by Paris.
It was clear to everyone that things were hotting up. Only at this point the boss handed me a signal. I knew what it was. But there was nothing to be said. For by now I had flown 830 hours by day and 439 by night, the majority of the latter being operational. I had also completed 66 ops – over two tours’ worth – and counting OUT callouts, 15 operational maritime patrols. Further, on 18 January 1944, I had been gazetted with the Distinguished Flying Cross. But alongside all this
I had also been part of a squadron which, by the war’s end, would have lost 154 of its crews; at the very least 1,232 men.
Even so I would love to have flown on D-Day, but it was not to be, and somewhat sadly shelving my flying log book for a while, I dutifully departed, on posting, to No. 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at Winthorpe, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire.
Neither of my operational tours had been all work and unremitting dicing with death, of course. There had been periodic leaves. And in off-duty times there had been favourite pubs, the Flying Horse and the Black Boy in Nottingham coming to mind. Then, too, there had been sport. Lashings of it. Except that wheneve called upon to fill a soccer or rugger slot I’d unfailingly responded ‘Not likely, they’re too bloody dangerous’.
Only suddenly, it was all over. And between June and August 1945 I was able to fly on three ‘Cook’s Tours’, taking in, among other old haunts, Hamm, Duisberg, Wesel, Munster and Dusseldorf. It was not a case of gloating. On the other hand, both outbound and inbound we would overfly so many of our own towns blitzed unmercifully in those dark days when the Germans were riding high, when they had derided our leaflets and refused to adopt Churchill’s ‘higher morality’!
Though the Service was shedding personnel wholesale, my continuance seemed to be taken as read, and on 16 December 1946, after a spell with No.1363 Heavy Conversion Unit at North Luffenham, near Oakham in Rutland, I moved on to No 91 Group Headquarters as a staff signals officer.
The headquarters was situated at Morton Hall – nowadays a women’s prison - very close to RAF Swinderby, in Lincolnshire, my two-year stay giving me a deeper appreciation of the way the Service was run. But a headquarters was ideal too for getting things done, and as my tenure drew to a close, I resurrected the matter of my pilot’s course. I was certainly not too young any more, not after 14 years and a world war. So on 9 august 1948 I gleefully reported as a pupil pilot to No.6 Flying Training School at Ternhill, near Market Drayton, Shropshire.
I suppose maturity – in 1946 I’d met and married Joan – and a wealth of experience, allowed me to approach pilot training without fear of failure. And it clearly paid off. Starting on the delightful Tiger Moth biplane I completed my course on the American Harvard, an excellent advanced trainer, being very demanding and only too ready to take control.
And so, having begun my aircrew career with a wireless-operator’s arm flash, reluctantly enough supplementing this in late 1939 with an air gunner’s ‘AG’ brevet; readily swapped in its turn, in January 1944, for a dedicated signaller’s ‘S’ brevet; my chest finally bore the full wings so proudly worn in those old photographs by Bishop, Madden, McCudden and Ball!
The operational phase of my pilot training saw me back on Lancasters, this time at RAF St. Mawgan, Coastal Command’s training station near Newquay in Cornwall, where I was also checked out on the Avro Shackleton. This was a spectacular aeroplane – a great, grey-painted roaring machine outside, but with an interior hushed by jet-black drapes – which was eventually able to patrol for up to 21 hours. In every respect a far cry from the Virginia and Whitley! But aeroplanes are aeroplanes are aeroplanes. And for all that I held an above-average rating it was not that long before I was clambering out of a Shackleton whose tailwheel had collapsed after landing!
But aviation has a multitude of tricks. So that, on joining my first maritime unit, No. 2 Squadron at Aldergrove it was to find that, alongside the ~Shackleton, they were operating the Handley Page Hastings, essentially a transport and notoriously ungainly. As a new joiner I was to start off on these as a second pilot, which, at that time, meant raising and lowering the flaps – and watching. Once I had built up enough hours on type, only then would I be checked out on landing the beast. And I say advisedly, for I had watched pilots on their first landings skidding sideways, shredding tyres and even sliding off the runway.
As it was, my first Hastings sortie involved flying at 18,000 feet for some considerable time. Halfway through, however, my captain fell ill and passed out. And suddenly there were eyes on me from every corner. In the end, though, it worked out well, even to landing away to expedite medical aid, with my squadron commander recommending me for an Air Force Cross, although having to settle for a green endorsement.
Our bread-and-butter task at both St Mawgan and Aldergrove was to exhaustively patrol the Atlantic. But in July 1954, after a spell back at St Mawgan – by then the School of Maritime Reconnaissance – and six months on No. 220 squadron at nearby St Eval - I was posted overseas to No. 224 Squadron in Gibraltar. And what a tour it was! No longer just the Atlantic, but flights ranging through Ceylon, India, Iraq, Libya and both Madeira and the Azores. Except that in October 1957 it was back to freezing-cold Britain - with a decision to be made!
It was clear that the RAF had an interest in me and, indeed, even as I pursued my internal debate they sent me to Worksop, to No. 4 Flying Training School, for a jet familiarisation course. Twenty hours on the single-engined, twin-boomed Vampire. What a mind-blowing experience from the simplistic engine control to the swiftness – and unbelievable smoothness – of jet flight. Flight, moreover, with never, ever a mag drop!
A great interlude! But still my problem nagged. I was well aware that I had suffered a sea change. Possibly from seeing so much of it. For although further advancement in the RAF and even a new career in Civil Aviation offered, neither attracted.
In part, it was the ground jobs, the rationale for which remained the same; indeed, more so since I had become a squadron leader. For as I was a senior officer the RAF was primarily interested in my command and administrative abilities, not my flying skills. Yet being hived off to an admin job had always made me feel put upon.
Of far greater moment, though, Joan and I had never had the opportunity of setting up a real home together - and that really weighted. But – to give up flying…..?
Then again, since 1934 I had flown 1,400 hours as crew, a good proportion of it on wartime operations, and 1,600 hours as a pilot, almost all on operational patrols. Only….wasn’t I true that for some time now the zest had gone?
And that, when it finally found expression, I recognized as the crux. Accordingly, on 4 November 1957, I submitted my resignation.
Getting used to civilian life took some time. Eventually, however, unable to find a niche at any level I found acceptable, I sought advice from a golfing acquaintance who persuaded me to try my hand at vehicle sales. Initially this meant my matching commercial and agricultural vehicles to the needs of prospective customers. And it all went very well, so that within a matter of months I had developed a lucrative, countrywide chain of client contacts. Only to remain fundamentally unsettled. Until I confessed to my boss that I didn’t like my image as a flash-Harry car salesman. He was enormously amused. Yet puzzled also.
‘But ‘ he reasoned, ‘everything hinges on the company sales director.’
Company Sales Director! Ah! Suddenly all doubt vanished. Indeed, I rather think my golf improved too!
Above all, I finally had a real family home. - essentially for the first time since meeting Joan, back in Nottingham in 1946 (Joan Ball, as she had been then). Her father was Cyril Ball, a former RFC-cum-RAF pilot and brother of my boyhood hero, Albert Ball, VC.
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Seeding the Storm
Description
An account of the resource
Account of John Mitchell's career in the Royal Air Force from Oct 1934 until November 1957. Writes of his early ambitions to fly, and joining the RAF as a wireless operator. Describes his training and early postings to Worthy Down on Vickers Virginia. Mentions difficulties of using early wireless sets and of lack of policy on aircraft crewing. Continues with describing his time on Whitley, having to qualify as an air gunner and comments on his first tour of operation in bomber command at the beginning of the war. Mentions flying from several bases and various targets up until the fall of France. Writes of career after completing his first tour in November 1941. He was posted as signals leader for his second tour on Lancaster and he goes on to describe operations from June 1943. Mentions doing three post war cook's tours and goes on to describe his career after the war when he retrained as a pilot.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J E F Mitchel
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Sixteen page printed document with tree b/w photographs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BMitchellJEFMitchellJEFv2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Hampshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
England--Hampshire
England--Winchester
England--Wiltshire
Norway
Norway--Oslo
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Essen
France
France--La Capelle-en-Thiérache
France--Amiens
France--Abbeville
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Italy
Scotland--Moray
Northern Ireland--Enniskillen
England--Nottingham
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Berlin
England--Rutland
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
England--Shropshire
Gibraltar
Italy--Turin
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
England--Cornwall (County)
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Nottinghamshire
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1934-10-10
1935-07-12
1936-05-13
1939-09-03
1940-05-17
1940-05-21
1940-06-26
1940-06-11
1941-07-01
1943-05-20
1943-06-20
1944-01-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
19 OTU
207 Squadron
220 Squadron
58 Squadron
6 Group
air gunner
aircrew
animal
anti-aircraft fire
Cook’s tour
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
Harvard
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operational Training Unit
pilot
promotion
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Driffield
RAF Kinloss
RAF Langar
RAF Morton Hall
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Pocklington
RAF Spilsby
RAF St Eval
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Ternhill
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF West Freugh
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Worthy Down
Shackleton
sport
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
wireless operator
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Title
A name given to the resource
Guernsey [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
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1623/24997/PCothliffKB15110021.1.jpg
fb84ed50c87d7c3d776b939822d8dc31
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
Cothliff, Ken. Folder 1511
Description
An account of the resource
77 items. The collection contains photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ken Cothliff and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is 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
Cothliff, K
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
D Day – June 6th 1944
Route taken by aircraft A of 429 Sqdn
Pilot -Steve Dukas
Navigator, Jas Still
Bomb aimer ‘Turk’ Bowles
Wireless op. ‘Gopher’ Wilson’
Flight Engineer. Jack Phillips
Mid Upper AG. Harry Venn
Rear AG. Al Williams
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
'D' Day Route of Steve Puskas
Description
An account of the resource
A route, with times, flown by Steve Puskas in 'Sweet Adeline' on D Day. The route starts in Yorkshire then Kings Lynn, East of Eastbourne, SSE of Caen, N of Gurnsey, SE of Exeter, E of Porthcawl, W of Stoke-on-Trent then back to base. The aircraft and crew are named on the map.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed map with annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCothliffKB15110021
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 Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--King's Lynn
France--Caen
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
England--Exeter
Wales--Porthcawl
England--Stoke-on-Trent
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands
France
England--Devon
England--Norfolk
England--Staffordshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
429 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
flight engineer
Halifax
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
pilot
wireless operator
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1631/26354/PHarringtonBR17030015.1.jpg
2bfabed1d1502ac827c14fb922bb5a87
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1631/26354/PHarringtonBR17030016.1.jpg
d700bb1aff97c07eae7feb2d8eb1a99b
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
Harrington, Harry
Basil R Harrington
B R Harrington
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
2017-05-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrington, BR
Description
An account of the resource
30 items. The collection concerns Basil 'Harry' Harrington (621165) and contains his log book, photographs, a memoir, documents and letters. He flew B-25 on 226 Squadron and completed 43 operations as wireless operator/air gunner between September 1943 and May 1944.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Carol Marsh and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
RAF personnel on parade
Description
An account of the resource
Ten RAF personnel stand in formation at ease. A St Bernard dog sits on the left. Behind is a large crowd of spectators and in the background town houses. On the reverse 'Guernsey 1952'.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Guernsey Press Co Ltd
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1952
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHarringtonBR17030015, PHarringtonBR17030016
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
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1952
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.
animal
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2148/36460/PStandivanAG17010008.1.jpg
9de6241f96ec4c03d0cf1398624b9cd5
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
Standivan, Arthur George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An album of Arthur Standivan's service in the UK and in France.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-29
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Standivan, AG
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
German cemetery
Description
An account of the resource
Top left: two rows of white crosses set in long grass.
Top right: an individual standing inside a building.
Bottom: a group of three white single story buildings in the distance, low walls either side of the road /track leading to the buildings. Caption 'German cemetery (Guernsey)'.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wehrmacht
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PStandivanAG17010008
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
final resting place