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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1359/45995/MSmithRW425992-230825-02.2.pdf
934a1d70a17a0697f9ce5b48153226fb
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Title
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Smith, Bob
Robert Wylie Smith
R W Smith
Description
An account of the resource
125 items. An oral history interview with Bob Smith (b. 1924, 425992 Royal Australian Air Force) photographs, documents and navigation logs and charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 15 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-03-25
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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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Smith, RW
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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Prologue
Voices of the Past
O, There are voices of the past
Links of a broken chain
Wings that can bear me back
To Times
Which cannot come again
Yet, God Forbid that I should lose
The Echoes that remain. Unknown.
March 2003
Five years ago, after listening to friends, young and old, as well as journalists, editors and historians requesting War Veterans and Pioneers to write their memoirs I realised that perhaps it was a duty to my descendants that I should do so. Accordingly, I ‘bit the bullet’ and started a draft of “My Service during WW11 in the Royal Australian Air Force”.
It soon became apparent that I should have done so many years ago when the memories were still fresh, although there could be some wisdom in the fact that sometimes the perspective is better if viewed from a distance. Much time has been taken in getting back in contact with old mates and crew members to ensure that what I have written is as historically accurate as possible. I have even had researchers and historians in the UK verify some of the detail, as well as refer to a few publications that have covered the period of my ‘Operational Tour’ on XV/15 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command. I did keep a diary for a while, but discontinued same when I started Operational Training in the UK, as diaries were then forbidden. I did have, however, a good diary in the form of letters home and which my Mother kept. Unfortunately these were lost or mislaid before she died in 1979. I do have all my logs and charts as well as photos, other items and notes from mates that have assisted greatly. On a few matters the original draft had to be amended, but after a few years of revision and the acquisition of a computer I was able about six months ago to commence on the final record. There will no doubt be some further amendments and additions as more confirming information comes to hand. I will cover same in a ‘summary’ at a later stage.
The question will be asked, “Why didn’t I write my Service History soon after the war?”, and why have so many not put their experiences to paper? Some did, and they are to be congratulated and thanked for their efforts. For many there was the old service adage that it was “Infra Dig to Shoot a Line”. I consider it was a common decision of most who returned from active service in any theatre of war to get on with life and leave the war behind.
My father served in WW1 as an ‘original’ in the 41st Btn A.I.F. and went through a number of the great battles in France & Belgium. He was wounded 3 times and gassed. His younger brother was in the 9th Btn A.I.F. that landed on Gallipoli on 25th April 1915, where he was severely wounded, and later fought in France & Belgium. Their youngest brother, after whom I was named, died on active service in France after being wounded 3 times. As a boy I often wondered why Dad and his brother never talked much about the war except between themselves and other returned soldiers. I now understand. I have now been in the same position. With your mates who survived you can recall facets of your experiences in an atmosphere of mutual understanding.
War has made me a realist. Indeed there is a season for all things. Yesterday is history and there is nothing you can do to change it, although we do see some historians trying to sanitise the past. It is to-day that is God’s Gift in your hands, and Faith that gives you hope for tomorrow.
I hope that what I have written about my service in the Air Force will be a valuable record for someone in the years ahead.
Official Identity Card for the Royal Australian Air Force
Date of Issue 23 December, 1942
Letter from Employer Giving Approval to Enlist in the Airforce
Enrolment in the Reserve
Certificate of Enlistment
Enlistment in the RAAF
Rookie-AC2
When war with Germany was declared on 3rd September 1939 I was a student boarder at the Ipswich (Boys) Grammar School in my ‘Junior’ years of study. I had been enrolled at I.G.S the previous year under a Qld R.S.S.A I.L.A Scholarship that I had won because my father was a returned soldier from WW1 and I had attained a qualifying standard in the 1937 State Scholarship exams. At that early stage, although under the age of 16, I had ambitions of joining the Air Force if the war were to carry on for many years, which it did.
After sitting the “Junior Public Exams” at the end of the 1939 school year, which I passed with above average results (4 A’s, 4 B’s and 1 C) I was accepted for employment in The National Bank of Australasia Limited at its Harrisville Branch. I took the place of Gordon McDougall who had enlisted in the RAAF. He went on to graduate as a pilot and lost his life in a flying accident in East Lothian, Scotland on Monday 6th September 1943.
The war did continue in Europe through 1940, and in early 1941 when I turned 17 years of age I took the opportunity to enrol as a correspondence student with the Air Force Cadets. I received educational material and exercises in Physics and Mechanics, incorporating the theories of flight and navigation etc. Exams were set for each lesson and in my case these were checked and marked by the Headmaster of the Milora State Primary School where I attended and sat the 1937 State Scholarship exam. Early in 1942 on reaching the age of 18 I was given the opportunity to make a formal application to enlist in the RAAF, subject to parents’ and employer’s consent. I made the application to the Bank and their approval was forthcoming on 31st January 1942, subject to a few qualifications as I was still a temporary clerk on probation which meant that my re-employment after the war would be subject to reassessment at the time. My parents gave their consent on my promise not to start smoking or drinking in the Air Force until I reached age 21. This promise I kept well beyond that time, as I have never been a smoker, and only a moderate drinker since into my 30’s. When I returned from active service in 1945 I realised what an enormous stress I had placed on my parents, particularly as my father had seen active service on the battlefields of France & Belgium in WW1 and my mother prayerfully relied on the strength of her Faith. Her prayers were answered.
Armed with the necessary consents I forwarded my application to the RAAF Recruitment Centre in Brisbane and on 13th February 1942 had completed the RAAF’s Form P/P/39A for Air Crew entry I was now on stand-by as it was policy for actual flying training not to commence until the recruit was of age 19.
In 1942, after the entry of Japan into the war and posing a real threat to Australian territory the government of the day was actively engaged in calling up qualified males into the Militia Forces. Apparently to keep a priority on Air Crew ‘hopefuls’ the RAAF instituted a call-up of those on ‘the reserve’ by creating the mustering of Air Crew Guard in Queensland, New South Wales & Victoria. It was under this mustering that I received my call-up to report to No.3 RAAF Recruitment Centre in Eagle Street, Brisbane on 21st May 1942. My position at the Bank was taken by John Neville Keys, the son of the then Manager at Boonah Branch, Neville Keys. He went into the next RAAF call-up, was given the number 426112 got his ‘wings’ as a Bomb Aimer and lost his life with No.466 Squadron Bomber Command on 11th April 1944 when shot down by a German night fighter on a raid on the railway installations at Tergnier in the lead up to the “D” Day invasion of Europe. I reported to No.3 Recruitment Centre along with 191 other recruits who were passed medically fit and duly enlisted, with service Nos from 425819 to 426010 inclusive, and proceeded on posting No.3 Recruit Depot at Maryborough, Qld with the rank of AC2. Authority P.O.R.135/42. I was given the No.425992, placed between No.425991 Bill Washbourne and 425993 Des Webster. Bill came from the Warwick district and Des from the Kilcoy area. This was to avoid surname of Smith under consecutive numbers. The same applied to the Jones & Murphies. The only Smith who remained in strict numerical order was 425891 Robert Angus Martin Smith.
We proceeded by train that evening to Maryborough where we were issued with uniforms, dungarees, boots, toothbrushes, razors etc and settled into barracks with palliasses and introduced to the Air Force life on 6 shillings a day for 7 days a week with free meals, accommodation, medical & dental treatment. In those days the Bank made up the difference in pay, which was not great but amounted to a bit of compulsory saving.
I Settle Into Life as a Recruit
Soon settled into a daily routine of a route march early in the morning while there was frost on the ground before breakfast, drills, lectures and vaccinations. Leave was granted most evenings and over the week-end. It was quite a common practice for the airmen to commandeer a push bike after going to the pictures in town, ride it out to the station gates and leave it there. The recruit depot was situated on the Maryborough aerodrome. Maryborough in those days was a town where everyone rode bikes, and the locals soon got to know where to look for their missing mode of transport. After three weeks intensive initiation into air force life we were passed as suitable recruits for Air Crew training and were split into several groups and posted to various RAAF stations in Queensland & New South Wales to serve as Guards until posted to an Initial Training School.
Bill Washbourne, Des Webster, Col (Snow) Wheatley and myself were posted to No.1 A.O.S at Cootamundra N.S.W. on 13th June 1942. Authority No,140/42. We travelled by train from Maryborough and arrived in Sydney only 2 weeks after the Japanese midget submarine attack on that city. We had to change trains in Sydney. At Cootamundra we were joined by Air Crew Guards from other States. Duties at Cootamundra included guarding the Ansons parked on the station aprons overnight, station perimeters, main gate guardhouse and the fuel depot about a mile out of town. Guard duties were usually 4 hours on and 4 hours off. The winter chill was a bit of a shock to the Queenslanders but we were treated generously with the issue of an extra blanket. Ice creams taken on duty at night to help you through your 4 hour shift could be left on a post, or tail of an aircraft and would not melt. If there was a sneaky wind blowing and the opportunity was judged safe we would crawl into one of the aircraft for a bit of a break. It was a fair risk that no one was doing the rounds to check on you.
Duty at the fuel dump was more relaxed. We stayed in a tent, and had trained the possums to eat fruit and chocolates out of our hands until they became a real nuisance. Horse riders, probably going home from the pictures or a dance in Cootamundra and travelling along the road that passed by the dump would be challenged “Who goes there?” Most took it in good humour, but occasionally one would get a bit stroppy but remain cautious in case we decided to fire a shot into the air and scare their horse. To relieve the monotony one night I fired a couple of shots at something flying overhead in the moonlight. Unfortunately these were heard back at the station and in no time a vehicle with more guards for reinforcement turned up. To the N.C.O who arrived I had to give a quick explanation. Told him I had challenged a person who had come through the fence, and when he didn’t stop but went back through the fence I fired a couple of shots after him. A bit of a recco of the area was made but nothing found, so I was instructed to report to the C/O’s office the next day. This I did along with others who were on duty at the time. They supported my account of events, but we were ordered to go to the rifle range for target practice and assessment. I was given 5 shots at the 200 yard range and scored 2 bulls and 3 inners, and explained further to the C.O that I would have fired close enough to the intruder to give him a fright. He ordered a close inspection of the site in daylight to see if there was any evidence of clothing caught in the barbed wire fence but nothing was found. I should imagine the C.O’s report on the incident would make interesting reading. Bill Washbourne was on guard duty with me at the time and at a reunion of the Air Crew Guards in Brisbane in the 1990’s he was surprised when I told him there was no intruder. He confirmed that at the time they all thought I was serious.
My first encounter with an aircraft accident and death was at Cootamundra on 21st September 1942. A Beaufighter from No.31 Squadron stationed at Wagga Wagga flew into our circuit and on turning to come in to land stalled and crashed about a mile from the station. The squadron which had been equipped with Beauforts had changed over to the Beaufighter only the month before. It was flown by F/Sgt. John Evan Jenkins (No.407435) and the second crew man, possibly the Observer, was Sgt. Vivian Sutherst (No.35755). Both were killed instantly on impact and are buried in the Cootamundra War Cemetery. I was with a few guards who were sent immediately to the scene of the crash, which we had to keep under guard for a couple of days. It was a sobering experience and I vividly remember the advice given to us at the scene by a senior sergeant that we were not to dwell on the death of the crew, but put it behind us, do our duty and get on with life. There was nothing we could do to change what had happened. That advice stood me in good stead through the experiences ahead and indeed through my life. It was while on guard duty at the crash site that we had some amusement shooting at rabbits. On one occasion a bullet ricocheted off a rock and as it whined its way across the country side it was amusing to see flocks of sheep scatter in its path.
The Presbyterian Church in Cootamundra had a very active Youth Fellowship Association to which I went with Bill Washbourne and other airmen. We were made most welcome and enjoyed many a happy time
On 16/9/42 we were officially attached to the newly formed No. 73 Reserve Squadron, but our routine on the station did not change.
On 11th October Des Webster and I were posted to No. 2 Initial Training School at Bradfield Park (Sydney) as our first step to Air Crew entry. There were also Air Crew Guards from other stations on the same posting, including Keith Mills, Noel Hooper and Eric Sutton who were at Maryborough with me. Since we enlisted our mustering was Aircrew V (Guard), with rank of AC11.
We were part of No. 33 Course at I.T.S. It was an intensive course of lectures on many subjects, but mainly on basic theories of flying, navigation, gunnery and bombing. Physical training played an important part and you were under constant observation for overall assessment as suitable for air crew and put through various tests to gauge reflexes and co-ordination before being interviewed by a selection panel to be mustered into a particular category.
A wide range of sports was available, including sailing, and evening leave passes were generous. Queenslanders who were issued with the tropical uniform were not allowed to wear it into the city (South of the Harbour Bridge), but that was not strictly policed. We would mostly go to the Anzac Club for a meal and then to a show. Then buy a packet of fruit, say 4 lbs (2 kilos) of Cherries for 2 shillings (20 cents) to eat on the train back to Lindfield and walk to the camp. If you fell asleep on the last train and got carried on to Gordon it was a long walk back to camp- had to hurry to make it by 2359 Hrs. Through the Anzac Club interstate and country servicemen could be introduced to residents in Sydney who were willing to extend home hospitality. I availed of this offer and came to meet Miss MacPherson, a retired Nursing Sister who had a unit on the slopes of the harbour at Neutral Bay. Mac’s place became a home away from home for a few young airmen. She was a dear soul and was like a second mother to a few of us. It was a great joy to visit, have a home cooked meal and occasionally sleepover on a Saturday night. She would make up a bed on the lounge and be amazed to find us sleeping on the floor in the morning. I kept up a regular correspondence with her while overseas, as did a few others, and 3 years later made a quick visit on my return in-transit back to Queensland after disembarking in Sydney.
While on the course a few of us including Keith Mills, Eric Sutton, Des Webster, Noel Hooper and myself were detailed to go to the University of N.S.W. where they were doing research into air sickness. We were good guinea pigs, as we were given vouchers for a meal of roast lamb and baked vegetables before the tests started. The tests involved being strapped into a stretcher and swung from ceiling to ceiling to see how long you lasted. I lost my meal after about 10 minutes as did most. As far as I can remember Noel Hooper was the only one who did not part with his meal.
The course finished on 1st January 1943 when we were assigned into various air crew categories for further flying training. The Selection panel tried to get me to accept a pilot’s course as my tests confirmed I was well suited to be a pilot. I pressed hard to be given a Navigator category as I was ‘interested in mathematics,’ and got my wish. Actually the main reason I applied for a ‘navigator’ was the good gen circulating at the time that those chosen for Navigator and Bomb Aimer courses would be going to Canada for flying training with the plan to go on to the U.K. to fly in Lancasters or Halifaxes. There was a proviso that you had to be 19 years of age by 10th January 1943, the date they would have to report back from pre-embarkation leave. (That was my 19th birthday and how I became to be the youngest of the draft). This was confirmed when we were given 10 days leave with instructions to report back at Bradfield Park No. 2 Embarkation Depot on 11th Jan 1943. As from 2nd Jan 1943 my mustering was Air Crew 11 (Navigator) and rank L.A.C. (Leading Aircraftman—not Lance Air Commodore).
It was not hard to take a weeks leave at home. It was a busy week visiting a few relations and then having to say farewells with many a prayer for a safe return from the war. I had made a good friend of the bank manager’s daughter, Jean Hall, and I had a feeling that many thought our friendship was more serious. I took Jean to a dance at the Harrisville School of Arts on the Friday night 8th Jan, but it was not like the old dances as it was overrun by RAAF and American airmen from Amberley which had now grown into a large air base servicing the Pacific war zone. Jean promised to write me while I was away and we did keep up a regular correspondence. A neighbour, Mrs Adams, gave me a poem with a sprig of white heather that I kept with me always. She had given the same to my father when he enlisted in WW1. My leave at home finished on my 19th birthday anniversary, Sunday 10th January 1943 as I left on the morning rail motor from Harrisville on my way back to Sydney, with a heap of goodies from home including a birthday cake.
At Home on Embarkation Leave with Mum, brother Alex and
sisters Margaret and Joyce – January 1943.
A Rookie Airman – No. 425992 ACII R.W. Smith
1942 – In Sydney
Embarkation Depot Sydney & To Canada
From embarkation leave at home I travelled on the “Kyogle’ line, 2nd division, from South Brisbane station arriving in Sydney and No. 2 Embarkation depot at Bradfield Park on Monday 11th January 1943. Leave was granted that night, so I went to visit Miss Mac with a piece of my birthday cake. The rest I shared with mates.
Leave arrangements while at Embarkation Depot were very generous. If no drafts for overseas postings had been issued and no particular duties allocated we were stood down after the mandatory morning parade until the next morning, or even over the week-end if it was on Friday morning’s parade.
The Waiting Period – Stand Downs, Outings and Farewells
There were a few of us who spent a lot of time together during this waiting period, mainly the youngest on the group to be sent overseas. Besides myself there was Keith Mills who had turned 19 only 8 days before me, Lou Brimblecombe whose 19th birthday was about 2 weeks previous to Keith’s, Eric Sutton who had his 19th birthday the previous August and Des Webster whose 19th birthday was in July. We all went on to train as Navigators and Keith, Eric and I became known as the 3 musketeers on the course in Canada. Des went on to train as a Wireless Operator. A few were over 30 years of age and we looked upon them as old fellows. Early in our stay Keith somehow met a girl whose father was a Fijian Envoy Representative in Sydney. Her name was Pat, and on the first Sunday there he asked me to join him and Pat and her friend Merle Green to spend the day at Cronulla and then go to Luna Park at night.
The next few days saw us assigned to some wharf duties at Waterloo and on Thursday 21st January we were detailed to the unloading of mustard gas bombs from an American liberty ship at Glebe Island. Keith Mills, Des Webster and I saw no future in this so we went A.W.L that night and stayed at the Allied Club in town. Stayed in town on Friday and went to the pictures at night with Pat and Merle. Took Merle home to Punchbowl and her parents insisted I stay the night with them. Went back to camp on Saturday morning to learn that we hadn’t been missed. As there was still nothing doing about overseas postings and leave had been granted over the week-end I went back into town, had tea and spent the night at Miss Mac’s. Went into town on Sunday morning to meet Keith, and we went with Pat and Merle for a train trip to Lawson in the Blue Mountains.
The next week saw the usual routine of parade, stand-downs, sports etc. On Friday we were placed on a draft with all leave cancelled and no telephone calls allowed. After lunch the unexpected announcement was made that leave was granted and extended to 1300 Hrs on Sunday 31st Jan. So I went out to Punchbowl to say my farewell to Merle and her family and thank them for their hospitality, and then on to see Miss Mac and the two girls who boarded with her. They insisted I stay for a home cooked dinner and stay overnight. Slept on the lounge room floor. Got back to camp at midday on Sunday to learn there was no further news on our embarkation and that leave had been extended to 0730 Hrs on Monday. As I had said my ‘Good-Byes’ I stayed in camp and wrote a few letters.
On Monday morning we were paraded and went on a long route march before breakfast and after lunch at 1300 Hrs given another stand-down. On Tuesday morning it was a swimming parade and early stand-down again. Wednesday morning was another swimming parade, a film on “Next-of Kin” after lunch and then stand-down until the next morning. Keith had got word out to Pat that we were still around, so we arranged to meet Pat and Merle in the evening and take them to the Prince Edward theatre to see “Reap the Wild Wind”. On Thursday morning we had another route march, pay parade (“The Eagle sh.. on each 2nd Thursday”) and stand-down at 1330 Hrs. It was the usual swimming parade on Friday morning, 5th Feb, and another stand-down after the 1330 Hrs parade until Monday morning. By this time we were beginning to wonder if were ever going to get on board a ship.
With a free week-end ahead I took the opportunity to contact Merle and meet her in town after work and go to the pictures and then see her home to Punchbowl. Again her parents insisted I stay over the week-end. On Saturday morning I went into town to buy a few magazines etc for the trip over to Canada and back to camp to change into tropical uniform of khaki shirt and shorts and back into town to spend the afternoon in the Botanical gardens and go with Merle to the pictures at night to the State Theatre to see “They all kissed the Bride”. Slept overnight at the Green’s and had a very quiet day on Sunday playing draughts and reading a very funny publication titled “One Big Laugh”. On the way back to camp that night the M.P’s boarded the train at Wynyard station and anyone wearing tropical uniform had to surrender their leave passes and were ordered to report to the guard house the next morning. Big trouble?? Wearing of shorts in uniform was not allowed south of the Harbour Bridge.
The Wait is Over
Monday 8th Feb 1943 dawned with guards on all gates at No. 2 Embarkation Depot, an early call to parade and orders given for clearances to be completed. All leave passes were cancelled, so no further use for the passes that were taken from us the previous night. This is it at last. After attending to clearances we were instructed to report back on parade with kit bags packed and ready to move on to buses at 1700 Hrs for transport to Woolloomooloo to embark at 1900 Hrs on the troopship “U.S.S. Hermitage”. It was a ship of 23000 tons which cruised at 18-20 knots. It was formerly the Italian cruise ship “Count Ciano” that travelled around the Mediterranean Sea as a floating casino on pleasure cruises. It had been captured by the American forces and had taken part in the landing of allied troops in North Africa and was on its way back to the west coast of America. We embarked as planned and had a good night’s sleep on board.
We were up at 0600 Hrs on Tuesday morning, detailed on to mess duties and instructed in ‘Abandon Ship’ drills while we lay at anchor in Neutral Bay to take on fuel after taking aboard fresh water, fruit and vegetables and other food supplies at Woolloomooloo. Spent the night at anchor in Neutral Bay and at 0830 Hrs on Wednesday 10th February it was ‘up-anchor’ and away, waving to the passengers on the ferries and sighting many hammer head sharks in the harbour. It was not long before we were out through ‘The Heads’ and setting course Nor-Nor-East into choppy seas with two Dutch Destroyers in escort. I started to feel a bit squeamy? But yes, managed to hold on to my breakfast. We are now under American terms for troops in transit—only two meals a day, but the canteen is open for an hour twice a day. As the Australian landscape slowly dipped from view everyone bravely sheltered their own feelings-generally a mixed feeling of adventure and uncertainty. Everyone realised and acknowledged that as we all went into flying training and operations over enemy territory not all would be returning to see their homeland again.
The destroyer escort left us at 0600 Hrs the next morning and we continued on a zig-zag course through choppy seas in light rain. I was detailed on to mess duties that afternoon and issued with Aussie Comfort Fund parcels. Soon settled into a routine. Those not on mess duties had to attend lectures-a good bit of armed forces psychology to keep the troops moulded into a unit with a common cause of complaint. A couple of albatrosses followed us for the first few days but they then peeled off formation on us. Sharks and flying fish were sighted and on Saturday a pod of whales was sighted on our port side. On Sunday morning we had church parade at 1000 Hrs and then ‘stand down’, but I was detailed on guard duties. Certain duties were allotted to the troops in transit such as mess duties/kitchen hand, deck patrol and shifts on the ack-ack gun at the stern. The ship’s officers were a bit concerned about the Aussies on the ack-ack gun as they were too keen to shoot at the ‘Met’ balloons that were released at regular intervals.
Monday 15th February, 1943, a memorable 2 days. We crossed the International Date line. So, we had Monday twice and the thought of only one day’s pay was given much discussion. Sufficient to record here that after our arrival in Canada due submission was made to RAAF Headquarters and suitable adjustment was made in our paybooks. A compensating adjustment was made on our return to Australia in October 1945. One of the Mondays was the end on my guard duty detail and the idea of lectures to fill in the day did not appeal, so I took a stroll around deck without my life jacket and was promptly apprehended and given 3 day’s kitchen duties, along with a couple of others who realised the opportunity to avoid lectures and enjoy more than two meals a day as we passed along the corridors with trays of hot food yelling “Hot Stuff” to warn others to be careful.
Pango, Pango
On Tuesday morning we sighted land ahead. American Samoa. Berthed in Pango Pango harbour in the late morning to take on fuel, fresh water and unload canned food for the American troops based there. Also embarked a contingent of American Marines. Those not on duties were allowed ashore for a couple of hours but had to remain in the vicinity of the wharf. As I was on kitchen duties I had to take on the scene from the deck, watching some of the fellows enticing the native girls in bright floral dresses to climb the coconut trees. Don’t think they were interested in the coconuts. Cameras were not allowed, under very strict orders, but some did manage to take a few snaps from the ship. We left Pango Pango at 0820 Hrs next day, Wed 17th Feb, and I finished my kitchen duties after midday. Had first good bath and change of clothes for a week, then strolled around the deck again minus life jacket and got another 3 days in the kitchen. Good Show!!
The next morning we sighted a cruiser and a passenger ship heading south-west, the opposite to our north easterly route. There was a rumoured submarine alert that night as the ship’s engines were stopped and we drifted for some few hours. Woke early on Friday morning to the sound of the ship’s fog-horns but there was nothing in sight. Crossed the equator that day with King Neptune coming aboard to put the rookies through the customary initiation ceremony. We all got a liberal coating of shaving cream. On Saturday morning I finished my kitchen duty ‘penalty’ and as the news on the bush radio was that we would be calling into Honolulu by Tuesday next, decided to stay away from penalty duties in case shore leave was granted. Lectures had been toned down a bit by now to make the days less boring. On Sunday, church parade was held at 1000 Hrs and then all were given stand down. So the “Bum Nut” club gathered around Russ Martin’s gramophone to hear Glenn Miller playing “In the Mood” for the umpteenth time, along with ‘Corn Silk’ and other hit tunes of the time. Just can’t remember how the group got the name “Bum Nuts”. Probably from Gum Nuts sitting on their bums on the deck listening to that one record and almost for sure would have been one of Russ Martin’s screwy ideas. Monday 22nd Feb saw the celebration of George Washington’s birthday with dinner of roast turkey, baked vegetables, salads and ice-cream. A welcome variation from the usual navy beans, saveloys and sauerkraut. A concert was held in the afternoon when we were presented with our ‘Crossing the Line’ certificates.
Honolulu
Sighted land early on Tuesday 23rd Feb and at 1000 Hrs berthed in Honolulu. Half of the RAAF contingent was granted shore leave that afternoon. I was in the other half who were given ‘liberty’ from 0830 hrs to 1200 Hrs the next morning.
So we were up early on Wednesday and down the gangplank at 0830 Hrs. I went with Keith Mills, Russ Martin and a few others primarily to buy new gramophone needles. On shore, the first thing we noticed was the number of shop assistants of Japanese descent and the heavily armed guards on all premises with a strong naval and military presence on the streets. We were wearing our tropical uniforms of khaki shirts and shorts and were taken as ‘boy scouts’ by many Americans, which did not go over too well. It was our first encounter with vehicles driven on the right hand side of the road and the ingrained habit of ‘look right’ before crossing soon had to be adjusted. I went very close to being hit by an army truck being driven by an Afro-American. It was a close shave, but fortunately my parents were not to receive that dreaded telegram.
Nowhere could we find gramophone needles-sewing needles, knitting needles. All sorts of needles, but no gramophone needles. Then it dawned on Russ Martin to give a play-acting role of a record spinning around on a turn table. And the shop assistant with a very serious expression said “You mean Phonograph needles”. Problem solved and mission completed. So the old record was going to cop a hiding for a few more days. There was other shopping to do, so we split up and went different ways. I stayed with Noel Hooper and we met an American Army Officer who took a real interest in us and invited us to have a look at the Pearl Harbour Naval Base. After going through a few check points, and might I add, given star treatment, we had to explain that we had to be back on board by 1200 Hrs and by then there was not enough time to go any further. We did get a view of the harbour and the devastation that had been caused and he agreed to take us back to the ship.
While we were ashore many seriously wounded and shell-shocked G.I’s from the Pacific Island battle zones were embarked for repatriation to their homeland. Many required full time medical attendants to apply necessary therapy to teach them to walk again and regain normal physical co-ordination. The ship was now crowded for the rest of the trip.
A band played on the wharf during the afternoon, and then it was ‘Aloha’ as we sailed away to strike rough seas and cold weather all Thursday and Friday, which kept us in our bunks and under blankets for most of the time. We were issued with sheep skin vests from the Australian Comforts Fund which were well received. The seas calmed down a bit by Saturday morning so I was able to enjoy breakfast of beans and an apple. Got some entertainment in the afternoon with the ack-ack guns firing at flak bursts. The Aussies also got some entertainment hearing the G.I’s calling their mates ‘cobras’ after hearing us call ours ‘cobbers’.
On Sunday 28th February, four days out of Honolulu, complaints were lodged about the breakfast because it was not hot. The weather was still cold and rainy. Church parade was held at 1000 Hrs. At 0100 Hrs we had advanced clocks by 30 minutes. In the afternoon I sewed some badges on Ben Smith’s overcoat and was rewarded with a sandwich-can only guess that he got it from the canteen. Clocks were advanced by 30 minutes at 0100 Hrs on Monday morning. We again woke to cold and cloudy weather but the sun managed to break through late in the morning. To keep us on our toes we were put through ‘Abandon Ship’ drill which didn’t go over too well with the American troops who embarked at Honolulu.
Up on deck after breakfast on Tuesday morning 2nd March to see a convoy ahead and a welcome to the sea gulls that had started to circle the ship as we moved towards land. Soon as it was a very spectacular view as we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge to enter San Francisco harbour and berth on the southern side opposite the famous Alcatraz prison island at 1600 Hrs when the tide was favourable. We were promptly disembarked, assembled on the wharf and marched to a ferry terminal to board the ferry across the harbour to Oakland where we were entrained and departed at 2000 Hrs for Vancouver.
We enjoy Our Trip to Vancouver Through to Edmonton
After a bit more than 3 weeks on the ship, it was luxury accommodation and service on the train, and I really enjoyed a good night’s sleep. It was breakfast in style on Wednesday morning as we sped through the foothills of the Cascade mountains, and we enjoyed the view of snow capped hills and frozen lakes for the first time. We descended on to the plains and farming communities of Oregon, fruit, chocolates, ice-cream papers and magazines (you name it) all available from the waiters on the train. We went through Roseburg, and on to Eugene, Albany, Salem (the Capital) and arrived in Portland just on dusk, with the snow capped Mt. Hood on the eastern horizon. The things we noted most during the day were the absence of fences between houses in the towns and cities, and the lack of paint on nearly all the wooden houses. Of course the Queenslanders could not help but notice the luxury of the train travel at speeds and stability that were unknown on the Queensland railways at that time. After such a full day of interest it was no trouble to settle back into the bunk for a good sleep as we travelled on overnight to Seattle and on to Vancouver.
Thursday 4th March was another memorable day. Woke at 0700 Hrs in Vancouver, had breakfast at the station then a pay parade to be issued with Canadian Dollars. Leave was granted from 1130 hrs until 1800 Hrs when we had to be back at the station. The Canadian hospitality came to the fore as we were approached by a Mr Keeler who introduced himself as a Rotarian (my first contact with Rotary) and offered a lift for a few of us into town to the tourist bureau and the YMCA where we enjoyed a meal for 5 cents. He arranged with us to call back at 1400 Hrs to pick us up and drive us around the sights of Vancouver and back to the station by 1800Hrs. There were three of us and as far as I can remember, although I am not sure, the other two may have been Ben Smith and Russ Martin. We were taken over the Lions Gate Bridge, through Stanley Park with its Indian Totem Poles and views of the snow capped Lions Head mountains as well as past the Houses of Parliament and through a few suburbs to be back at the station on time. After tea (what the Canadians called the evening meal) at the station we left by train at 2100 Hrs via the Canadian National Railways route through the Rockies to Edmonton.
We woke the next morning to be greeted by the most spectacular scenery as the long train snaked its way alongside frozen rivers and lakes and snow laden conifer tress in the foot hills, climbing all the time. All around were the majestic Rockies with not a tree on them but capped in snow. It was cold outside but we were in heated carriages with the same service that we enjoyed on the train from Oakland to Vancouver, but the waiters were Canadians. When we did stop at a station for the engine to take on water we could not resist the temptation to jump out and romp in the snow. Most were wearing their dungarees over the singlet and underpants, so it didn’t take long before the freezing temperatures scuttled them back to the warmth of the carriage. At our stop at Avola for 20 minutes it did not take long for a snow fight to develop and by some fluke or by accident a hard packed snowball hit the window of a carriage and broke it. (Jim Bateman it was). Anyway it made that carriage too cold for comfort so the occupants herded into adjoining carriages when we got under way again. Then we saw a bit of organization that you would not see on the Queensland Railways. As we pulled into Jasper the train stopped with the broken window right beside a ladder and a couple of tradesmen with the necessary tools and materials to repair the damage. In less than 20 minutes the new window was installed. We had now climbed to a good height and at Jasper there was a lot of sheet ice on the ground which caused us a few problems to stay on our feet. Three young boys gave us a bit of amusement as we threw our spare Aussie halfpennies along the ice and into snow drifts. After Jasper we crossed the Athabasca River and the highest point on the trip. From there it was downhill on to the prairies of Alberta. We had to stop for some unknown reason near Edson, before going on to Edmonton where we arrived early in the morning of Saturday 6th March 1943.
Avola – Where a carriage window was broken
Jasper – Where the window was fixed
During our 20 minute stop
We stayed on the train until 0600 Hrs and the arrival of a few canvas topped 3 ton trucks on to which we were loaded. The temperature was Minus 23. Fahrenheit and I soon realised that the best option was to be among the first to throw your kitbag in and jump in after it with others piling in after you to keep the cold at bay. We were taken immediately to No.3 Manning Depot (as the RCAF called it), given breakfast and allotted to barracks. We then had to assemble in the ‘Arena’ for a lecture on what to expect in our future movements and to remind us that in the RCAF the flag in front of HQ had to be saluted. This did not impress the Aussies. After that we were given leave until Monday morning. As a general rule most of the trainees under the Empire Training Scheme in Canada were given leave over the week-end. After a shave and a shower I teamed with an Ian Scott (RCAF) and went into town to the pictures and then to a dance at the Memorial Hall. It was very cold coming back to camp on the tram.
On Sunday morning we slept in until 1100 Hrs, then shaved, showered and had dinner before a few of us went into town to the YMCA which was well equipped with a ten-pin bowling alley, heated swimming pool, gymnasium, dance floor and dry canteen. Came back to camp reasonably early with Ben Smith and John Honeyman.
It was down to business on Monday morning as we were issued with flying suits and other gear needed. Photographs were taken for Identity Cards, Dental & Medical checks after dinner and then back into town with Bub Sargeant for a while before coming back to camp to write a few letters to home. On Tuesday morning we were paraded at 0900 Hrs and those mustered for training as Navigators were transported to Edmonton Airport where No.2 Air Observer School was situated, to be signed in, allotted to barracks and issued with text books and settled in after a quick trip into town to buy a few necessities. Three Australians-Jim Bateman, Bill Bowden and Geoff Cohen were assigned to Course No.71N1 along with a number of New Zealanders and Canadians. The remainder of the Australians, including myself, were assigned to Course No.71N2.
Navigators Course No. 71N2
No. 2 Air Observers School - EDMONTON, Alberta, CANADA
On Tuesday 9th March 1943, one month after embarking in Sydney, we started on the above course for training as Air Navigators. It was a rather quiet day, with the issue of text books and some navigation instruments. Even had time to write my first long letter home.
The following day however saw the start of what was to become a regular routine of breakfast, parade, lectures, dinner (at midday), more lectures, tea (evening) and study at night, interrupted on occasions with sport’s afternoons and later on with daylight and night flying. All interspersed with visits to the canteen where we soon learned to enjoy waffles with maple syrup, coke and ice-cream. On Friday at the end of the first week we experienced a very heavy snowfall, got issued with our navigation watches and had our first ‘Dry Swim’ as navigation exercises in the classroom are called. Leave was granted over most week-ends.
On Saturday morning we had another ‘dry swim’ to prepare us for our first flight and then it was stand-down until Monday morning. Church parades were always held on Sunday mornings. Went shopping on Saturday afternoon with Bub Sargent and to a show “Journey for Margaret”. Had a sleep-in on Sunday morning to 1100 Hrs, then shaved and showered and had a big dinner before settling down to write a few letters. Bub Sargent was doing the same and Keith Mills came by to try to get us to go out for tea.
On Monday 15th March we had the usual lecture periods, a pay parade at which the Red Cross managed to get a donation of $5- from us; study at night to keep up with the course. Between lectures the next day we were paraded for issue of battle dress, during which there was more snow fighting. For some reason Bub Sargent and I missed out on the issue that morning-they had probably run out of RAAF-Blue battle dresses in our size. Went to the pictures that night to see “In Which We Serve”. Bruce McGiffin came over from the Manning Depot while we were at lectures on Wednesday just to see how we were going. He was still awaiting a posting on to flying training. He was one of the “Bum Nut Club” on the troopship coming over. Got a letter from cousin Danny, in the Army in New Guinea, and answered it that day as well as writing home again. Lectures on Thursday included one on the camera which was very good. Made a visit to the barber before tea. On Friday we had more ‘dry swim’ exercises and at 1500 Hrs had a Wing’s parade for passing-out of earlier courses of Navigators and Bomb Aimers. Bub and I were issued with our battle dress, had a ‘signals’ lecture and I was put on my first duty on “Watch parade”. Cannot remember for sure now, just what that involved, but I think it meant you were not granted leave over the week-end. Had our usual lectures on Saturday morning, during which there was some excitement when a Boston crashed on the ‘drome. There was a false fire alarm in the barracks that night, probably something to do with Ben Smith smoking in bed. Was not feeling 100% and could feel the flu coming on. Still not feeling well of Sunday, just mooched around and went to bed early.
I Have a Spell in Hospital
On Monday 22nd March I was quite sick and stayed in bed, and was admitted to the Station Hospital with a severe attack of ‘flu. Bub Sargent and Ben Smith visited me after tea. The next day in hospital gave me something to write home about, particularly to Jean Hall who was a nurse in the Ipswich General Hospital. A nurse came and stripped me to the waist to wash me down, as she said, as far a possible. Then does likewise from the other end to wash me up as far as possible. Finally says “I now have to wash possible”. Slept most of Wednesday. Keith Mills and Ron Etherton dropped in with some mail that had arrived and on Thursday. Scotty Gall dropped in with some writing gear so that I could write a letter or two. Got discharged on Friday morning-missed the C.O’s parade. A couple of lectures in the afternoon and early to bed. Recuperated a bit on Saturday morning by sleeping in (no lectures) and then went into town after dinner with Bub Sargent. Met Ben Smith at the YMCA and went to a show at night. On Sunday morning did some study to catch up and after dinner went for a walk with Keith Mills and Ron Etherton, playing with some kids ice-skating in the frozen over gutters on the way.
Woke on Monday 29th March, (sister Margaret’s 18th birthday) to a great blanket of snow. 9 inches had fallen overnight, so the snow fights were alive again. This was when we experimented and discovered that an orange left on top of the ground froze solid in a very short time, but if buried in the snow took a long time to freeze We were due to have our ‘orientation’ flight the next day after muster and pay parade. The weather was dirty however, and this was scrubbed. Instead, we were given lectures on the layout of the Avro Anson, (the “Aggie”), and the 2nd navigator’s job of winding up the undercarriage after take-off, some 130 odd turns of the handle. For our training flights we were paired, the 1st Navigator did the log and plot charts and the 2nd Nav practiced map reading. I was paired with Scotty Gall, aged 30. After tea Keith Mills, Ron Etherton and I went to see “Random Harvest”.
Airborne at Last
Wednesday 31st March 1943 Whooppee!!! Airborne, Took off at 0907 Hrs in ‘Aggie’ No.6074 with bush pilot Mr Anderson on a flight plan: XD (Edmonton)-Wetaskiwin-Camrose-XD. Landed 1034 Hrs. What a familiarisation flight!!. Got a bit airsick and no wonder. The pilot thought the ‘Aggie’ was a fighter plane and shot up the school house at Looma where his girl friend was a teacher. Circled it a few times and could see through the windows as we flashed by.
Next day was April Fools Day but avoided being caught out as we had a packed day of more lectures. Then on Friday we had a few lectures and reported to the Records Office to have our fingerprints taken. Then in the afternoon we had our first photo flight taking hand held obliques. We were given a number of landmarks to photo and the pilot just went from one target to the next which was always in view because of the good visibility and the pilots local knowledge. No directions from the navigator were needed. In spite of the many banks & turns involved I did not get airsick, but others did suffer effects.
It was back in the air again on Saturday morning for another photo flight. This time it was taking vertical cross-country line overlaps from the school house at Namao to a bridge 2 miles S-W of there. Good fun-watch the drift. On these flights the duties of 1st and 2nd navigator were shared. Under strict instructions of course, not to let go of the camera when taking obliques out of the rear window. In the afternoon we relaxed—Ron Etherton, Keith Mills, Russ Martin, Lou Brimblecombe and I went into town, had two games of ten-pin bowling at the YMCA (Won the 2nd game), had tea at “Tony’s” and went to the pictures to see “One of Our Aircraft is Missing”. Back to barracks on the 2140 Hrs bus. As the weather conditions earlier in the week had set back the flying programme, some time was made up on Sunday. Church parade was held in the morning, and after dinner we were briefed for our first navigation exercise which was a flight of about 3 hours with 1st and 2nd Nav duties shared. Route was: XD–Fort Saskatchewan–Camrose-Lougheed-Mannville-Lake Yekau-XD. Took off at 1400 Hrs with Mr Ireland as pilot.
Training Continues
Included in lectures on Monday 5th April was a special talk from a Squadron Leader on the conditions prevailing in Britain. A signals lecture was held after tea, but I did not attend. On Tuesday morning, more lectures {classes on various subjects}, and after dinner we were transferred from “D” Barracks to a new barracks building across the road. Real ‘5 star’ accommodation, with central heating and bathroom/toilet facilities incorporated as well as the sleeping quarters. We still preferred to have some windows open and a bit of fresh air coming in, and Ben Smith still smoked in bed. It was quite a change, as before we had to run from the bath/toilet block back to your hut in temperatures that were unfit for brass monkeys. It was supposed to be a sports afternoon, but that had to be scrubbed.
On Wednesday morning we had another photo flight, this time with a female passenger, probably a friend of the pilot, Mr Lawrie. Then on Thursday we had a review and discussions on our first photo flight, as all the films had been developed and printed. This was followed by practice on the drift recorder. Leave was granted after dinner, from 1400 Hrs, but most of the class stayed in camp to catch up on studies and letter writing. After lectures etc on Friday I was rostered on Duty Watch parade, strolling around that night in rain & mud. More lectures on Saturday morning and more studies in the afternoon as we prepared for “Maps and Charts” exam. Duty Watch Parade before tea. Sunday was still wet and miserable and we studied most of the day, with Duty Watch Parades at 1000 Hrs and 1800 Hrs. A football appeared from somewhere, so a few fellows managed a game in the mud.
Got mail from home on Monday 12th April, with the photos that were taken when I was home on pre-embarkation leave. As the weather was still unsuitable for flying on Tuesday and Wednesday we were occupied with more studies and lectures as well as a game or two of football in the mud. I had to go over to the Manning Depot to have a photo taken and more fingerprinting. Got back in the air on Thursday for a photo exercise with the Ft. Saskatchewan bridge as our target. It was a very bumpy flight. On Friday it was back in the air again on Nav. Exercise No.2: XD- Bremner-Willow Creek-Beynon-Millet-Yekau Lake-XD. A very good trip. Got a telegram from home, and as it was the end of Duty Watch was granted 48 Hrs leave.
So on Saturday morning it was into town to do a bit of shopping, and while browsing through the book department of the Hudson Bay Company store I met a Mrs Gillespie who had some association with Australia, and she invited me out to tea that night, which I gratefully accepted. Went back to camp for dinner, and catch up on a bit of washing etc. Then went to Mrs Gillespie’s place, met her daughter Marsh who showed me over the nearby University after tea. Walked back to camp-about 6 miles. Caught up with studies on Sunday morning, and after dinner a few of us went on a long walk out past the riding ranch. It was about this time that John Stopp was posted from the course to another A.O.S. to complete his nav. course. (He went on to No.166 Squadron, and was shot down and killed on 13th June 1944 on a raid on Gelsenkirken-would have been very early in his tour)
On Monday 19th April we had our first exam in the morning on “Maps & Charts”. Got some mail, including Don Grant’s circular to the Bank staff in the services. Lectures that night on the stars-introduction to astro-navigation. More lectures on Tuesday morning and study in the afternoon to make up for the Easter Friday holiday at the end of the week. Collected my RCAF ID Card. Into the air again on Wednesday on Air Exercise No. 3 Took off at 0830 Hrs on route: XD-Bremner-Lloydminster-Marwayne-Bremner-XD. Almost went without my parachute harness, but it was a good trip. Went with Keith Mills to the pictures at night to see “Reunion in France”. Lectures all day on Thursday, and preparation for Air Exercise No. 4 which we were to fly next Sunday (Anzac Day). Stand-down on Good Friday so went out to tea with Mrs Gillespie & Marsh and met Lin Gilmore, a friend of Marsh’s and a brother of a Mrs Cairns who lived in Ipswich. Lectures again on Saturday morning and went into town shopping in the afternoon, met Lin and Marsh. Had tea with them and came back to camp to study. On Sunday (Anzac Day) we flew Exercise No.4 which was the first time we did an air-plot-previous flights were mainly map-reading. Route was: XD-Ft.Saskatchewan-Hughenden-Czar(Recce)-Wainwright-Ellerslie-XD. In the afternoon the Australians and New Zealanders held a remembrance service at the Cenotaph.
On Easter Monday, 26th April we had lectures in the morning and a photo flight in the afternoon. Then on Tuesday we had lectures all day. In the mail I got a letter from Don Grant with news about the bank employees who were in the services. On Wednesday we had an exam on “Magnets & Compasses” and flew Air Exercise No.5 in the afternoon. To Trochu & Torrington with a ‘recce’ of Three Hills. A very rough flight and most of us got air-sick. On Thursday we started studies on Astro Navigation and had a good lecture on Radio D/F Navigation which was very interesting. On Friday morning we had an exam on “Meteorology”, pay parade and an informative talk on the war in the Middle East. Late in the afternoon we took part in a Victory Loan parade through the streets of Edmonton with a pipe band leading the parade, and all the services involved.
Then on Saturday morning we flew Air Exercise No. 6 which was quite an experience. Mr Lightheart was the pilot and the route was: XD-Bremner-Scapa-Coronation-Bremner-XD. We climbed on track through cloud and heavy rain. Good experience in D.R.Navigation and instrument flying for the pilot. Most of the aircraft turned back but we soldiered on. At E.T.A Coronation came down through broken cloud and there under us was a small town and railway station that the pilot thought was Coronation, but he wanted to make sure and made a low level run past the station to see if we could read the station name. Too close the first time, so around again and stood off a bit further, when we were able to confirm that it was Coronation. So back into the cloud and D.R. Navigation back to Bremner and Base. I think at the end he may have homed in on a radio beam, but anyway I was pleased with the navigation exercise, and earned some brownie points for it.
The rain kept up in the afternoon so I went into town with Noel Hooper where we met Russ Martin and Bub Sargeant, and went to a dance with ‘Ivy” and a few of her friends that Russ and Bub had chatted up. On Sunday morning wrote letters home before dinner and in the afternoon went with Scotty Gall and Alex Taylor on a hike with the 20th Century Club. Here we met Alice Grosco, Mary, Isobel, Helen, Joe and a few others. Had a great time making a fire to toast marshmallows, and spin a few yarns about the ‘hoop ’snakes, and ‘wampoo’ pigeons in Australia. Alice became quite a good friend and kept up correspondence with me until I returned to Australia. On later hikes with Aussies on later courses she met Jim Cossart, who was on a Bomb Aimers Course, and was a friend of mine at Ipswich Grammar School in 1938-39. Jim lost his life on 14th March 1945 flying with 106 Sqdn on a rai to the oil plant at Luitzkendorf.
On Monday 3rd May it was lectures as usual and a crack at a D.R. Test in preparation for a mid-term exam on Friday. More lectures on Tuesday morning and two sports periods in the afternoon, when I would go out to the university track for athletics with a Canadian middle-distance runner, who was a good coach and gave me some good advice on the tactics of 440 and 880 Yard running. Brought my times in the 440 down to about 51 secs and the 880 to just on 2 mins. Called into town on the way back to camp and did some shopping. After tea did study on subject of ‘Photography’. Had our photography exam the next morning, it was an easy paper. In the afternoon we did another D.R. Test - ‘dry-swim’ for a bombing raid on Duisberg. Little did I realise then that I would bomb this target twice in one day seventeen months later. After that, prepared for a flight scheduled for the next morning. But the weather conditions worsened on Thursday and flying was scrubbed for the day.
In terms of arrangements made with Alice last week-end I phoned her (No.83882) to make a date for Saturday night. On Friday morning we had a C/O’s parade and our mid-term D.R. exam. Weather remained bad and flight scheduled for that night was scrubbed. Saturday morning was filled with lectures and after dinner it was flying again on Air Exercise No.6 that so many did not complete on the first attempt (to Scapa & Coronation). I had the job of 1st Nav. again, leaving Scotty to wind up the undercarriage and get a bit of map reading practice this time. It was a rough trip. Then, as arranged, I took Alice to a dance at the YMCA that night. Walked home in the rain.
A ‘phone call diversion during the week. Early in the week during a lecture the ‘phone rang and it turned out to be a girl wanting to speak Eric Sutton, or one of his pals. Somehow, I got the job, probably because I was nearest the phone and Eric saying that she would be referring to either Bob Smith or Keith Mills as he had mentioned those names to her when he met her last week-end. Three of us were regarded as the 3 musketeers, Keith & I were the two youngest on the course, and Eric was only a few months older. We had all enlisted on the same day as Aircrew Guards, been on separate postings for a few months, and then re-united at No. 2 Initial Training School at Bradfield Park to commence training as aircrew and mustered together to train as Navigators. To come on this course we were required to be age 19 by 10th January 1943, which was my nineteenth birthday, so I just made it as the baby of the course.
So to the phone I go - “All for one and one for all”. She explained that she had two very good friends and wanted to know if Eric and his two mates would like to join them one evening and go ‘shagging’. With a bit of quick thinking and with survival uppermost in mind I asked her to hang for a moment while I checked. It called for some reference to our Canadian Instructor which caused a bit of hilarity among the class and a few remarks about how you can be so lucky etc until he explained that in Canada the term meant ‘dancing’. With that bit of clarification and referral to Eric & Keith, I told her that we would be happy to meet them on Sunday afternoon. Had the usual church parade on Sunday morning and after dinner set off with Keith and Eric as leader to meet Mildred, Charlotte and Maureen. Spent some time with them at the YMCA and came back to camp in time for our first night flying exercise. It turned out the three girls became very good friends, I partnered Maureen O’Connor who was a primary school teacher. Took off at almost midnight on what was called exercise No. 21 for a 2 Hrs 45 mins flight, sharing 1st and 2nd Nav duties with Scotty Gall.
Monday 10th May saw us sleeping in until dinner time as we didn’t land from our night exercise the night before until after 0300 Hrs. Had lectures after dinner. Did very well with mail from home over the next two days. On Tuesday morning we flew exercise No.7, as 2nd Nav this time, and in the afternoon got the results of our mid-term D.R. exam. I got a mark of 87%, with which I was pleased. Had lectures all day Wednesday and a late night studying. On Thursday morning flew Exercise No. 8 “navigation by track error”, as 1st Nav. After dinner we were given leave. Went out with Maureen to the Capitol cinema and walked home with Keith who had taken Charlotte out, after we had seen the girls home. Made it a late night as it was an hour walk back to camp. Got more mail from home on Friday morning and had lectures all day. Detailed on Duty Watch Parade that night. Spent Saturday (15 May) in camp as I was on Duty Watch Parade, studied in the afternoon and prepared for night flying Exercise No.22. Took-off at 2305 Hrs, but had to return to Base with trouble in the starboard engine. Changed over to a ‘photo’ plane and took off again at 0045 Hrs (Sunday) for a 3 hours solo night flight. Didn’t get to bed until 0500 Hrs, but up again at 1030 Hrs to prepare for Air Exercise No.9, as 2nd Nav, that afternoon. Took of at 1335 Hrs, with Mr Barnard as pilot for a fight of 2 hrs 55 mins.
Had lectures all day on Monday 17th May and wrote 7 letters to friends at home to catch up on some of my mail. Also had to prepare for Air Exercise No.10 scheduled for the next day. It was lectures in the morning on Tuesday, and Air Exercise No.10 in the afternoon. Took off at 1355 Hrs with Mr Luyckfassel as pilot for a flight of 3hrs 15 mins as 1st Nav. It was a bumpy trip but a good navigation exercise as the pilot flew the courses given and didn’t tend to track crawl.
Wrote more letters and cards that night. Had lectures all day on Wednesday, and after tea prepared for Night Flying Exercise No.23. Took off at 2300 Hrs with Mr Rathbone as pilot on a trip that took 3Hrs 15 mins down to Little Fish Lake. It was time off in the morning so we slept in. Had 2 lectures after dinner and went swimming at West End before tea. It was then more evening lectures and preparation for Air Exercise No. 11 the next morning. This consisted mainly of preliminary work on the flight plan. On Friday morning took off at 0855 Hrs for a 3 Hrs trip as 2nd Nav, enjoying the scenery and pretending to be map reading with the pilot Mr Neale keeping an eye on your performance, as the pilots had to file a report after each flight. Had two lectures after dinner, and as it was the end of my stint on ‘Duty Watch’ I went out with Maureen to the Capitol cinema and saw “Hitler’s Children”.
On Saturday and Sunday had 48 Hrs leave pass after duty watch. Went into town and banked $40 in to an account I had established with the Royal Bank, to bring my balance up to $80-. It was Red Cross day in town so I bought a fountain pen, then called on Maureen to say I could not go out with her that night as I had accepted an invitation out to tea with Mrs Gillespie. After tea went for a walk with Marsh while Mrs Gillespie went to the pictures with a friend. Slept in as usual on Sunday morning and did some preparatory flight plan work for a flight scheduled the next day. In the afternoon went hiking with the 20th Century Club and we were joined by several Aussie Sergeants from RAAF No.30 course who had their wings and were in transit through Edmonton.
On Monday morning 24th May 1943 we took off at 0830 Hrs On Air Exercise No.12 with Mr O’Hanlon as pilot. I was 1st Nav and was satisfied with good results. It was a 4 hour flight and we had to plot a square search and leading line search patterns. Study after dinner, and then after tea I did my laundry that had been soaking for a few days and wrote a few letters home. Lectures on Tuesday morning and sports in the afternoon when we played softball and got beaten by one run. After tea we were up till late doing Aircraft Recognition. Had lectures all day Wednesday and prepared for flight that night. Took off at 2355 Hrs with Mr Craig as pilot on a 3 Hr 15 min flight navigating by D/F. Not a very satisfactory result as the pilot was obviously track crawling. After the night flight slept in until dinner time and then had a couple of lectures in the afternoon. Before tea went round to the University for athletics training (running & high jump). Got a telegram from home and at night it was practice with the sextant shooting a few stars. Called on to C/O’s parade on Friday morning and a passing out parade for Bomb Aimers. Sent a telegram home in the afternoon and as I was feeling a few sore muscles after yesterday’s athletic training I had a rub down and went to bed early. Had lectures on Saturday morning and moved to new classroom in new G.I.S. Buildings. Attended a Highlands Games in the afternoon where I represented the station in both High and Long Jumping. With not much success, but our team managed to come second overall. Met Marsh Gillespie at the games, who was there with two friends Pat and Betty. Flying was scheduled for that night, but had to be scrubbed owing to bad weather. Usual sleep-in on Sunday morning, and after dinner Keith Mills & I went out to Maureen’s home. Walked home in the rain.
On Monday 31st May it rained all day, but did not interfere with a full programme of lectures, but did cause night flying to be scrubbed again. Wrote home, and at night went out with Keith and Charlotte; Maureen was unable to come. The girls were going to Vancouver the next day. Bad weather continued all day Tuesday, so it was lectures all day and study at night. Got a card from Maureen on Wednesday to say the girls had arrived in Vancouver, and also got a letter from my old boss, Mr Lindsay Hall. We were supposed to have an Army Co-op exercise but that was washed out. Aldis Lamp tests in the afternoon and study at night. Put my forage cap in for dry cleaning. On Thursday (3rd June) had P.T. first thing in the morning and the “Synthetics on Astrograph”. Cannot remember what that entailed, probably an astro navigation dry swim. A morse test in the afternoon and two letters from home, one form Jean Hall and the Bank’s ‘Nautilus’ magazine. Answered Jean’s letter and also wrote one to Merle Green. It was usual C/O’s parade on Friday morning and our 13th week Navigation Test in the afternoon. Got a letter from Maureen, and after tea went in to town, went to a show, came back to camp and wrote a few letters. On Saturday morning we had more lectures, and after dinner wrote a couple of letters and did my washing. Went out to tea at Mrs Gillespie and went in to town with Marsh, bought progress numbers of Journal and Bulletin to send home. Usual sleep-in on Sunday and wrote more letters in the afternoon. Study after tea and preparation for a flight schedule for tommorrow.
On Monday 7th June we had lectures in the morning and flew Exercise No. 13 in the afternoon, as a 2nd Nav. Took off at 1425 Hrs and were airborne for 3Hrs 15 mins. More study after tea. Lectures most of the day on Tuesday with sports in the latter half of the afternoon. After tea went for athletics training at the university and came back to camp to prepare for tomorrow’s scheduled flight. Took off at 0855 Hrs on Wednesday on Air Exercise No.19 with Mr Williams as pilot on a low flying exercise of 3 Hrs 20 mins. It was great-best trip yet. After dinner got a letter from Maureen which I answered and also wrote some letters home. Had lectures all day Thursday as it rained all day. More running around in the mud, and athletics training at the university was cancelled. Friday saw lectures again all day, and start of another duty watch which I hoped would be my last time. The weather cleared up in the late afternoon and we were able to fly night exercise that night. Took off at 25 mins after midnight (Sat morn) with Mr Real as pilot. Usual 3 Hr trip as 1st Nav, being a night exercise. It was an interesting one on which a few got lost. Didn’t get into bed until 0430 Hrs so slept in until dinner time. Studied all afternoon as the study load was getting heavier, and it was early to bed as we had a flight scheduled for Sunday morning. Took off at 0855 Hrs with Mr Real as pilot, as 1st Nav on a flight of 2 Hrs 50 mins. Had dinner when we landed and slept all afternoon. Wrote a long letter home after tea.
For the week starting Monday 14th June we had a heavy programme of lectures and study as the weather continued to be poor, scrubbing all flying. I was on Duty Watch until Friday. It was still drizzling rain at the end of the week and on Saturday morning we had more lectures. After dinner Keith Mills and I went to a show, and then after tea we went to another show with Charlotte and Maureen, who were now back from Vancouver. Walked home from Charlotte’s home through large pools of water and mud. Was able to tell Maureen that I had received her card that morning that she had posted the day before in Calgary on the way home. Usual sleep-in on Sunday morning and study in the afternoon. Went to tea at Mrs Gillespie’s with Ian Pender and Don Plumb. Ian was on another course, and I cannot remember how Don came to be invited. A night flying exercise was scheduled, but had to be scrubbed.
On Monday 21st June it was still raining, so we had another full day of lectures and study. Got 2 letters from home. After tea managed to go to the university track for athletics training as the weather cleared during the afternoon. This enabled us to get airborne on Tuesday morning on Air Exercise No.15. Took off at 0855 Hrs, as 2nd Nav, with Mr Stewart as pilot on a flight of 3 Hrs 05 mins and managed to get some practice with the bubble sextant by taking a few shots on the sun. Rain came on again in the afternoon, so went to a film on the station “Road to Tokio”. It was still raining lightly on Wednesday, so it was lectures and study during the day, and after tea met Maureen in town and went to see “China”. Lectures all day on Thursday and training at the university track after tea. Saw Maureen and Charlotte on the way home. Weather cleared on Friday and was good enough to fly, so at 1435 Hrs took off with Mr Rungel as pilot on Air Exercise No.16 which was for only 2 hours.
On Saturday we got called for 2 lectures in the afternoon. Got letters from both of my sisters. Just after tea Maureen and Charlotte came riding bikes past the barracks so we had a bit of a yarn with them, but could not go out with them that evening as we had a flight scheduled for early the next morning. Immediately after breakfast on Sunday morning took off at 0910 Hrs with Mr Tibbets as pilot on Air Exercise No.17 as 1st Nav on a trip of 3 Hrs 25 mins to Cremona and a look at the Rockies. A very good flight. More athletics training at the university in the afternoon and then over to a sports ground where Keith Mills and Eric Sutton were playing cricket. Maureen, Charlotte and Mildred were there watching them. Took photos.
On Monday morning 28th June, we had ‘magnetism & compass’ exam and after dinner two periods of instruction/educational films. Two letters from Aussie in the mail. More training at the university after tea. On Tuesday morning another exam on Instruments and D/F. Went to the pictures after tea with Maureen, Keith and Charlotte to see “Happy go Lucky”. Was supposed to do Aircraft Recognition that night but missed it. Lectures all day on Wednesday and at 2355 Hrs took off on Air Exercise No.26. This exercise had been scrubbed about 6 times owing to bad weather. It was a 3 hour flight, which meant we didn’t get to bed until about 0400 Hrs on Thursday morning. So it was a sleep-in until 1045 Hrs.
Thursday 1st July was “Dominion Day” After dinner went to a sports meeting conducted by the Southside Business Ass’n, at the Southside Sports grounds which had a straight 220 yard track and a lap of about 880 yards. Ran in the 440 yards race and won it, for which I received the grand sum of $80-00. Soon after competed in the high jump, but could only manage 4th, which paid nothing. This was my first experience of a professional sports meeting that also included cycling. Athletes were not permitted to wear ‘spikes’. The dirty tricks played by the cyclists in team events really opened my eyes. Maureen and Keith and Charlotte came to the event and we celebrated afterwards by going out to tea at the Royal George on my winnings. At the meet 3 parachute jumpers put on a very interesting display.
Friday saw us with lectures all day and flying Air Exercise No.27 at night. Took off at 2355 Hrs with Mr Lannon as pilot on a good flight of 3 Hrs 20 mins. At this time of the year in Edmonton it is nearly midnight before it gets dark, so night flying is fairly restricted. Usual sleep-in on Saturday morning after night flying. Saturday afternoon and Sunday saw the usual week-end chores, study and letter writing.
Monday 5th July saw the start of 2 weeks of intensive lectures, study, flying and exams to complete our course on time. In peace time the course would take over 12 months but in the urgency of the war situation had to be concentrated and focus on the essentials. Flew Air Exercise No.18 that morning. Took off at 0900 Hrs with Mr Real as pilot on a trip of 3 hours. Then on Tuesday afternoon we flew Air Exercise No.20. This was blindfold exercise that took us all over the map for almost 3 ½ hours. We took off at 0900 Hrs with Mr Filby as pilot. Air Exercise designated No.19 must have been cancelled. Bad weather prevented any flying from Wednesday to Friday. Got a long letter from my brother Alex on Wednesday and then one from Miss McPherson in Sydney on Saturday. Lectures all day on Saturday and study at night before flying Air Exercise No.28 which was a night navigation on the same course of daylight exercise No.10. Took off at 2300 Hrs with Mr Barnard as pilot. Flew through storms and cloud out to Frog Lake. Slept in on Sunday morning-you were excused from Church Parade if you were flying the night before. After dinner studied meteorology for an hour or so and then went to watch Keith and Eric playing cricket and then we all met Maureen, Charlotte and Mildred at the corner of 109th and Jasper later in the afternoon.
On Monday 12th July we had our final D.R. (Navigation) test. Wrote home and did preparation for more flying tomorrow. A large bag of mail from Australia came in but I did not score a thing. Maureen phoned just after tea. On Tuesday(13th July) took off at 0835 Hrs with Mr Luyckfassel as pilot on Air Exercise No.21, which was a special, incorporating evasive action, designed to prepare us for active service conditions. More lectures in the afternoon and studied meteorology at night. Supposed to fly on Wednesday morning, but this was scrubbed-raining again. So we had our final meteorology exam. The rain kept up through Thursday and Friday so time was passed with sessions of lectures and study more lectures on Saturday morning, usual laundry chores and letter writing after dinner and as the weather had cleared prepared for flying that night after tea. This was night flight over the route of Exercise No.9 that we had flown in daylight two months ago. Took off at 2355 Hrs with Mr Kellough as pilot and as 2nd Nav. I had to practice astro shots with the bubble sextant. That meant a sleep-in on Sunday morning and as we had some catch-up to do in order to finish the course on time another night flight was scheduled that evening. Took off at 2325 Hrs with Mr McCall as pilot on the route of Exercise No.11 that had previously been flown in daytime.
It was the usual sleep-in after night flying on Monday morning 19th July. In the afternoon and on Tuesday & Wednesday we had a few final written tests. On Wednesday night our final night flying test was scheduled. Took off at 2300 Hrs with Mr Cusater as pilot on the route of Exercise No.12 flown in daytime. This flight of 3 Hrs 05 mins was the final air exercise on which we were assessed. On Thursday 22nd July after dinner we were advised that all had passed the course, and got instructions to attend to clearances for medical and dental and to hand in any equipment that had been issued to us. ‘Wings’ passing out parade would be held on Friday 23rd July 1943.
On Thursday night Keith, Eric and I took the girls out to The Barn and then went walked them home. We invited them to the ‘Wings’ parade, but they could not attend. Friday was a big day with the presentation of our ‘wings’ and the sewing of Sergeant’s stripes on our sleeves. At the pay parade after ‘wings’ presentation I was given a slip of paper with the instructions “Here is your Commission, it is now up to you to arrange for the issue of Officer’s Uniforms etc”. Also commissioned off course were Ivan Biddle and “Inky’ Keena who were posted to other Air Observer Schools as instructors, Ken Todd, Ted Hall, John Honeyman, Noel Hooper and Les Sabine. Ben Smith was on line-ball about passing and had to go to a review committee as at this stage he had admitted he had put his age back to enlist, and he was in fact aged 35 Yrs-not 30 years according to the records. Ben did eventually go on the fly in Bomber Command and lost his life on night of 24/25 Dec. 1944 on a raid on Cologne with 166 Squadron.
With kit bags packed and left at ‘despatch’ as instructed, I went to Maureen’s for tea. Her father drove me to the station where we left Edmonton by Canadian National Railway at 2130 Hrs for Toronto.
Reflections on leaving Edmonton
Thoughts that would be shared by all now on their way to the European Theatre of WW11.
All shared a sense of satisfaction and relief that we had earned our ‘wings’ as Air Navigators after a very intensive course of 4 ½ months that involved a total of 75 Hrs 55 mins of daylight flying and 34 Hrs 45 mins of night flying for the average member, and instruction and exams in 12 subjects such as Navigation, Maps & Charts, Magnetism & Compasses, Instruments, D.F/Wireless Telegraphy, Meteorology, Aerial Photography, Signals, Reconnaissance, Armament and Aircraft Recognition. In all I managed an overall pass of 82.4%. A few found the going hard towards the end of the course, as it was not easy and acknowledged the support, encouragement and assistance given by the chief instructor F/O. Brown (RCAF). He did encourage a few to hang in and was rewarded with their dedication and success. All realised though that there was still a long way to go with further training after our arrival in the UK before we were fully trained to assume the roll of a navigator in a crew on Bomber Command.
The main memories most of shared:-
• The extreme cold and snow covered prairies when we first
started flying, which made it difficult to judge height from
the air.
• The mud and slush when the snow did melt, and the river
thawed, and the great swarms of mosquitoes-large scotch
greys.
• The fields turning to green when wheat was planted and to
yellow as the dandelions came into bloom.
• The brown bears coming in close to town in search of food in
the late winter and playing with their cubs who often got a
disciplinary clout.
• Gophers popping in and out of their holes in the field beside
our barracks.
• Young children ice skating on the frozen gutters in the streets’
• Our own first try at ice skating on a frozen flooded tennis
court and being conned into playing ice hockey, which was
good because it gave you a hockey stick for support.
• The pain that a few suffered from frost bitten ears- in spite of
warnings.
• The Indian quarters that we passed through when walking to
town.
• The hospitality of the people.
• On a few reported occasions being mistaken for “Austrians’.
• The beauty of snow laden trees early in the morning.
• For Queenslanders—the 4 distinct seasons.
• Saluting the flag in front of HQ. The furore caused when an
item of female underwear was hoisted thereon one night and
the Aussies had no objection to saluting that particular
standard.
• The skill of the ‘Bush Pilots’ They were all civilians who had
good permanent work because of the Empire Training Scheme, but they were very competent at their job. True Canadian Geese-born to flying.
• Waffles and Maple Syrup and Coke and Ice Cream in the
Station canteen.
• Strictly taboo. But some made it** Flying under the high level
bridge.
• The sports facilities at the YMCA.
• Ben Smith’s accidents from smoking in bed.
Personally, there was the joy of wonderful friends made. The gang of the 20th Century Club and at the YMCA where I met Alice Grosco who kept up correspondence with me for two years after the war, until I told her I was going back to Scotland to marry Alma. Alice did have a special reason to keep in touch, as from a later Bomb Aimer course she met Jimmy Cossart on one of the Club’s regular hikes. He came from Boonah and was a boarder with me at Ipswich Grammar School 1938-39 and she was quite surprised when Jim told her he knew me. Later I was to meet Jim at the Boomerang Club in London on a few occasions until in the last months of the war he lost his life in a raid over Germany.
Perhaps the most cherished memory was the wonderful friendship that Keith and Eric and I enjoyed with Charlotte, Mildred and Maureen. They really treated us more like brothers and I would say did not put any pressure on us for a lasting relationship. We were welcomed into their homes. They truly were three girls who enjoyed the simple pleasures, and were good companions to each other. What you saw was what they were.
As we left Edmonton we were all aware that we were now on the way to the big adventure with its inevitable risks. Also we would soon be split up to go various ways. In fact when we got to Embarkation Depot at Halifax, after leave, a few of us would move into the Officers Mess, whilst the rest would be in the Sergeant’s Mess. But for the period of leave, and until we got to Halifax, those who were commissioned would continue with Sergeant’s stripes on our uniforms and stay as a group. Most important in our minds was to enjoy leave as we journeyed to Halifax across Canada with a break to visit New York. We had completed a course of flying training, all with over a 100Hrs up, and without an accident and with no loss of life.
These Were Fellow Course Participants
Following is a summary of the participants on the course and a brief detail of the operational experience of most, with pertinent information on those who lost their lives in training and on operations over Europe as well as those who were shot down and were taken Prisoner of War, or, in one case evaded capture.
After the war I kept in regular touch with Keith Mills, and since the late 1980’s with Lou Brimblecombe. We were the three youngest on the course. Eric Sutton did his tour with 622 Sqdn which was also based at Mildenhall where I served in XV/15 Squadron. And I did not get in contact with him again until December 2002, when he was traced living in Victoria. Roy Olsen moved to Tasmania after he retired as a school teacher and we had contact each Christmas. Noel Hooper, who came from the Nambour district died a few years after the war. Scotty Gall returned to work with the Bank of NSW and on retirement moved to Cooroy in Queensland, where I resumed contact in the early 1990’s. After his wife died he sold his property and moved to a retirement village in Brisbane, where he also died in 1999/2000. In one of those co-incidences in life, Scotty (or Vernon as he was known to his family) turned out to a brother of a friend we have known in the church at Alexandra Headland for many years.
It is interesting to note the service history of the ‘Todd’ Brothers, Ernie and Ken. They were both schoolteachers from the Newcastle area (both born in Canada). They enlisted together and went through initial training and operational training together and served on the same squadron flying in Wellingtons out of Foggia in Italy. They returned to their pre-service vocation. Ken, who was shot down and taken POW, died is 1986 at the age of 71 and Ernie died in 2002 at the age of 89.
Don Plumb “Bluey” did a tour in Halifaxes and died of acute leukaemia about 1987.
Course No.71N2-EATS-at No2. A.O.S EDMONTON, Canada. All members of RAAF
Duration 10/3/1943 to 23/7/1943,
Instructors:- F/O.W.H.Brown & P/O. Pogue ??? (both R.C.A.F)
NAME Number Birth Enlisted Discharged D.O.Death Posting on Rank Awards SeeNotes
Discharge ***
BIDDLE Ivan R. 424905 13/10/1913 09/10/1942 09/10/1945 8 O.T.U F/Lt Instructor in Canada
Goulburn Sydney
BRIMBLECOMBE C.L. 425592 23/12/1923 25/04/1942 07/12/1945 9 A.H.U F/O (218/514 Sqdn)
(Louis) Brisbane Brisbane
ETHERTON Ronald H. 423088 02/11/1921 20/06/1942 13/08/1944 76 Sqdn F/Sgt ***No.1
Sydney Sydney
GALL V. Scott 424915 08/08/1912 09/10/1942 16/04/1946 1315 Flight F/O (467Sqdn)
Mosman NSW Sydney
HALL Ernest T 406976 17/02/1914 26/05/1941 25/02/1946 9 A.H.U F/Lt Instructor in Canada
Perth Perth
HONEYMAN John 429498 23/05/1923 08/10/1942 15/02/1946 1656 C.U F/Lt D.F.C.
Deepwater Brisbane
HOOPER R. Noel 425851 16/12/1923 21/05/1942 21/08/1945 1 P.H.U F/Lt *** No.2
Nambour Brisbane
KEENA Ilford N. 424870 12/10/1912 09/08/1942 22/06/1945 9 A.O.S F/O Instructor in Canada
Ballengarra Sydney
LEWIS John H. 423142 27/01/1923 20/06/1942 08/11/1943 3 A.F.U. Sgt. ***No.3
Broken Hill Sydney
MARTIN H. Russell 418289 28/12/1922 15/05/1942 13/12/1945 21 O.T.U F/O D.F.C
Melbourne Melbourne
MILLS Keith C. 425954 02/01/1924 21/05/1942 27/10/1945 78 Sqdn W/O ***No.4
Mackay Brisbane P.O.W
MURTHA Harold H. 429473 30/05/1922 08/10/1942 05/09/1945 12 O.T.U F/O (463 Sqdn)
Brisbane Brisbane
OLSEN Roy P. 429479 10/07/1920 08/10/1942 15/11/1945 640 Sqdn W/O ***No.5
Bundaberg Brisbane
PALFERY Noel J. 424920 16/05/1914 09/10/1942 18/07/1945 467 Sqdn F/O (467 Sqdn)
Brisbane Sydney
PLUM Donald A. 424934 17/12/1919 09/10/1942 17/12/1945 96 Sqdn F/O (466/462 Sqdns)
Inverell Sydney
NAME Number Birth Enlisted Discharged D.O.Death Posting on Rank Awards SeeNotes
Discharge ***
SABINE C.W. Leslie 426165 08/12/1917 23/05/1942 01/07/1946 466 Sqdn F/Lt. D.F.C.
Brisbane Brisbane
SARGENT Allan J. 410098 19/10/1918 08/11/1941 22/01/1946 1 M.R.U W/O ***No.6
(Bulb) Williamstown Melbourne 44 Sqdn-P.O.W.
SMITH Benjaminn H. 424891 24/03/1914 09/10/1942 24/12/1944 166 Sqdn F/Sgt ***No.7
Merriwether Sydney
SMITH Ian H. 423913 20/10/1922 18/07/1942 18/06/1944 115 Sqdn F/Sgt ***No.8
Katoomba Sydney
SMITH Robert W. 425992 10/01/1924 21/05/1942 12/12/1945 32 Base F/Lt (XV/15 Sqdn)
Brisbane Brisbane No.3 Group RAF Bomber Command
SUTTON Eric C. 425910 04/081923 21/05/1942 17/09/1945 84 O.T.U F/O (622 Sqdn)
Gympie Brisbane
TAYLOR Alexander 424804 04/08/1920 09/10/1942 02/01/9/1946 R.A.F. F/O
Arncliffe Sydney Dumbeswell
TODD Ernest 424942 30/12/1913 09/101942 10/08/1945 3 A.O.S F/O (142 Sqdn)
Canada Sydney Italy
TODD W. Kenneth 424878 16/07/1915 09/10/1942 06/12/1945 142 Sqdn F/Lt ***No.9
Canada Sydney
General Comments
All participants in the above course were members of the RAAF, and many were recruited under the “Air Crew Guard” category in May 1942. They left Australia (Sydney) on the USS “Hermitage”, departing on Wednesday 10th February 1943, arriving via Pago Pago and Hololulu at San Francisco on Tuesday 2nd March 1943, where they disembarked and then entrained at Oakland to go by rail, via Vancouver, to Edmonton in Canada where they disembarked on Saturday morning 6th March 1943 when the temperature was reading –23 (Fahrenheit).
Course No.71N2 started on 10th March at No.2 A.O.S at the Edmonton airfield with Avro Anson aircraft flown by civilian “Bush” Pilots. Passing out parade and presentation of wings with promotion to Sergeant was held on Friday 23rd July. Eight members were commissioned off course to rank of Pilot Officer. No casualties were recorded on training.
All but 3 were posted to “Y” (Embarkation) Depot in Halifax Nova Scotia (spending some time on leave in Montreal & New York on the way) where they embarked on the R.M.S “Queen Mary” on Friday 28th August 1943 and sailed to the Clyde in Scotland where they disembarked at Gourock on Tuesday 31st August 1943 and entrained for overnight travel to the RAAF’s No.11 Personnel Despatch and Reception Depot at Brighton. From here most were posted to various advanced training units to be incorporated into a crew and fly in Lancasters & Halifaxes of Bomber Command.
Postings as listed in the above schedule are the postings as recorded at the time the airman was recalled to No.11 P.D.R.C at Brighton for repatriationto Australia, or upon date of death, or at time of loss on operation and taken POW. Sqdn reference under notes is one they did tour with (where known).
Course 71N2- Details of Casualties, either loss of life or shot down and taken P.O.W, or Evaded Capture
No.1. Ronald Henry ETHERTON No.76 Squadron. In Halifax 111 LL578 MP-H Bar on night of 12/13 August 1944 took off from Holme-on-
Spalding At 2129 Hrs to bomb the Opel Motor factory at Russelsheim. Crashed 2Km N.E. of Hamm (Germany)
and all crew were killed. They rest in France in the Choloy War Cemetery, which suggests their graves were
investigated by an American Unit. Of the 297 aircraft (191 Lancasters, 96 Halifaxes 7 10 Mosquitoes) that took part
in the raid 7 Halifax & 13 Lancasters were lost. 6.7% of the force. Local reports stated the factory was only slightly
damaged.
No.2. Rupert Noel HOOPER No.463 Squadron. In Lancaster 111 LM597 JO-W on night of 24/25 June 1944 took off from Waddington at 2229
Hrs on their first ‘op’ to bomb flying bomb base at Prouville. Crew, with exception of the F/Eng, were all
RAAF; believed shot down by night fighter. B/A, W/O/P and both gunners were captured and taken POW
Pilot, F/Eng & Nav (Noel) evaded capture Pilot W/Cdr D.R.Donaldson RAAF was among the most senior officers
to evade capture in 1944.
.No.3 John Hedgley LEWIS The Course’s first casualty, in training, on 8th November 1943 at No.3 Advanced Flying Unit, Halfpenny Green.
Buried in Chester (Blacon) Cemetery, Cheshire, England. Section A Grave No154
.
No.4 Keith Cyril MILLS POW. No.78 Squadron. In Halifax 111 MZ692 EY-P on night of 22/23 June 1944 took off from Breighton at 2230 Hrs to
bomb railway yards at Laon. First operation for most of the crew. Shot down by enemy fire and baled out. 5 were
taken POW and 2 evaded capture. All the crew, with exception of the F/Eng, were RAAF. Keith was arrested in
France and taken into custody by the Gestapo, being held with other members of his crew for about 3 months in
Buchenwald Concentration Camp until ‘rescued’ by the Luftwaffe and transferred to Stalag Luft L3 Sagan and
Balaria. POW No.8018. 4 Halifaxes were lost on this Laon raid.
No.5 Roy Peter OLSEN POW. No.640 Sqdn. In Halifax 111 LK865 C8-Q on night of 27/28th May 1944 took off from Leconfield at 2356 Hrs to
bomb Military Camp at Bourg-Leopold. Shot down by night fighter and crashed 0228 hrs near Antwerp. Pilot,
F/Eng & M/U/G were killed. Roy was taken POW and held in L7 Stalag Luft, Bankau-Kruelberg. POW No.95.
No.6 Allan Joseph SARGENT POW. No44 Sqdn. In Lancaster 1 LL938 KM-S on night of 21/22nd June 1944 took off from Dunholme Lodge at 2325
Hrs to bomb synthetis oil plant at Wesseling. Shot down by night fighter Pilot, B/A, W/O/P and R/G were killed
and are buried in Nederweert War Cemetery. Bub was taken POW and held in L7 Stalag Luft, Bankau-Kreulberg.
POW No.236. Of the 133 Lancasters & 6 Mosquitoes that took part on this raid, 37 Lancasters were lost—27.8%
of the force. 10/10 cloud was encountered and planned 5 Group’s Low-Level marking of the target was not
possible so H2S was used with only moderate success. 44, 49 & 619 Sqns lost 6 aircraft each. This was the last
occasion on which Bomber Command would suffer such a severe loss in operations to the Ruhr.
It is believed that above crew was the only Bomber Command crew lost in the war that comprised airmen from the 3 Commonwealth & Dominion air forces, plus a USAAF representative.
No.7 Benjamin Hartley SMITH No.166 Sqdn. In Lancaster 1 NG297 AS-K2 on night of 24/25 December 1944 (Christmas Eve) took off from
Kirmington at 1515 Hrs to bomb railway communications at KOLN-Nippes (COLOGNE). Crashed in the target area. All the crew were killed and buried locally, since when their bodies have been interred in the Rheinsberg
War Cemetery.
97 Lancaster & 5 Mosquitoes took part—5 Lancasters were lost over the target area and 2 more on return to
England owing to bad weather. Oboe marking was used with very accurate results. Local reports showed that
railway tracks were severely damaged & an ammunition train blew up. Nearby airfield,(Butzweilerhof) also
damaged.
No.8 Ian Harrison SMITH No.115 Sqdn. In Lancaster 1 HK559 A4-H on night of 17/18th June 1944 took off from Witchford at 0102 Hrs to
bomb oil installations at Montdidier. Dived into the ground and exploded with great force at Gannes (Oise), 5 Km N of St-Just-en-Chausse. All lie buried in the Gannes Communal Cemetery.
317 aircraft (196 Lancasters, 90 Halifaxes, 19 Mosquitoes & 12 Stirlings) took part in this and a similar targets at
Aubnoye and St Martin-l’Hortier. Targets were covered by cloud. Master bomber called off raid at Montdidier after
Only a few aircraft had bombed. Above was only aircraft lost on this operation.
No.9 William Kenneth TODD POW No.142 Sqdn. In Wellington Bomber took off from Foggia in Italy to bomb airfield on outskirts of Vienna. On 10th
May1944. It was crews 10th “Op”. Shot down by fighter in target area. In hospital in Vienna for short period before
going to Frankfurt for interrogation and to Stalagluft 3 at Sagan. And later to Luckenwald from where they were
repatriated to England..
NOTE
About 4/5 weeks after the course started John Henry STOPP, No.419738, born 3/7/1915 in Cairns Qld, Enlisted 10/10/1942 in Sydney was posted to another A.O.S to complete a Nav Course from which he was commissioned off course. On the night of 12/13 June 1944, flying with 166 Squadron on a raid on GELSENKIRKEN their Lancaster crashed in Holland and all on board were killed They were buried on 16th June 1944 in the ZELHEM General Cemetery It would appear that would have been very early in their tour of operations. .John Stopp was transferred when his flying Training-partner was hospitalised. I think it was Doug Rogers No.424609 who was commissioned off a later course and served in No4 Group RAF Bomber Command in Yorkshire - he was attached to 41 Base before returning to Australia.
Three other trainee navigators who sailed to Canada in the same draft were assigned to Course No.71N1. They were Jim Bateman No.423042 (149 Sqdn- awarded D.F.C), Bill Bowden No.424728 (261 Sqdn) and Geoff Cohen No.424725 who was commissioned off course and remained in Canada as an instructor at No.3 A.O.S.
Course 71N2 - Empire Training Scheme
No. 2 A.D.S. Edmonton – Alberta – Canada
10 March 1943 to 23 July 1943
Back Row: Keith Mills, Bob Sargent, Lou Brimblecombe, Noel Hooper, Eric Sutton, Alex Taylor
Middle Row: Ken Todd, Ernie Todd, Don Plumb, Noel Palfrey, Ron Etherton, Roy Olsen, Les Sabine,
Bob Smith, John Honeyman, Harold (Roy) Murtha
Front Row: Russ Martin, Ted Hall, Scotty Gall, Ian Biddle, W.H. Brown, ? , Ben Smith,
John Lewis, I.N. Keena, Ian Smith
We’ve Got Our Wings – Rookie Sergeants
The “Three Musketeers”
Eric Sutton, Bob Smith, Keith Mills
23rd.July 1943
As an L.A.C. in Edmonton
In Front of Wilsons Stationery Shop in Jasper Avenue
24 April 1943
Air Photography Exercises “Spring”
Bridge Over North Saskatchewan River about 1 ½ miles S.W. of Fort Saskatchewan
Looking S.W. in Direction of Edmonton Which is Visible in Distant Background
Notification of Selection for Appointment to Commissioned Rank
Effective 23rd July, 1943
1st July 1943
Dominion Day Sports – Winning the 440 yds
Eric Sutton, Keith Mills, Bob Smith
- at University Sports Ground
Keith said the Wrong Thing!
Have Wings *** Will Travel
From Edmonton, Canada to Brighton, England
We left Edmonton, with “N” Navigator wings and Sergeant’s stripes sewn on to our tunics, by train, at 2130 Hrs on Friday 23 July 1943. After the busy day of Wings Passing-out Parade and getting clearances we soon settled down to a good night’s sleep. Woke up in the early hours of Saturday at Saskatoon and travelled all day across the prairies through what seemed like endless fields of wheat and grazing country. It was almost express through Watrons, Rivers, Portage, La Prairie and arrived at Winnipeg at 1845 Hrs. Had a stop-over there and left again at 2000 Hrs. Into the bunk at 2230 Hrs for another good sleep. The scenery was different on Sunday as we moved into Ontario with mostly coniferous trees and a few Indian settlements. Arrived in Toronto at 0830 Hrs on Monday morning where those of us going to New York detrained and wandered around to have a look through a few shops before catching a train leaving at 1330 Hrs for Niagara. Had a few hours there to look over the Niagara Falls and then catch a train that left an hour late at 2230 Hrs down the Lee-High valley for New York. This was another train trip in the U.S. that went too fast to even count the telephone poles as they flashed by, and with the best of service from the Afro-American waiters on board.
New York and Sightseeing
Arrived in New York at 0900 Hrs on Tuesday 27th July and most of us including Keith Mills, Noel Hooper, Roy Olsen, Lou Brimblecombe, Russ Martin, Ian Smith, and Eric Sutton and myself made our way to the Anzac Club (somebody had the directions) where accommodation was arranged at the Wentworth Hotel-on the ground floor. Settled in to our rooms and had something to eat somewhere before we went to Madison Square Gardens where a circus was performing. After that we went to the Stage Door Canteen for tea, where we received a hospitable welcome and were given complimentary tickets for a few tours and shows the next day. Met the actress Connie Hayes there. On Wednesday morning we went on a sight-seeing tour during which we called into a few shops and I purchased a 2 ¼ X 2 ¼ Voigtlander camera which gave me good service for many years. After that we went to the Empire State Building and rode the elevator to the top. What a ride that was and what a view from the observation deck at the top. Keith, Roy, Lou, Noel, Russ and I then went for a stroll around Central Park where I took the first photos with the Voigtlander and on to the Stage Door Canteen for tea and more free tickets. The show that evening featured Xavier Cougat and his orchestra, the Andrew Sisters and other acts. We then went to a broadcast at the CBS studios before going back to the hotel.
Stayed in the hotel until midday on Thursday and then went to the Rialto on free tickets and on to the Rochefeller Centre to view an exhibition. Had tea and came back to the hotel to write a few letters. We were on the ground floor and it was hard to get a good sleep, the street outside was as busy at 0300 Hrs as it was at 1500 Hrs.
We Return to Canada
Noel Hooper and I decided that we had better do something about our Officers gear in Montreal and to leave New York a couple of days before the others. So on Friday morning we went to the station to enquire about trains. Met two girls going to the Statue of Liberty so went along for the ferry ride, back to the Anzac Club and a show at the Roxy. Caught a train by the skin of our teeth at 1850 Hrs. Had to change trains at Depew at 0500 Hrs on Saturday morning to go on to Toronto where we arrived at 0915 Hrs and left 30 minutes later for Montreal where we arrived at 1910 Hrs, running about 30 mins late as the train had hit a woman walking on the track about an hour out of the city. When we arrived we went to the YMCA where they arranged accommodation for us at 1491 Bishop Street.
On Sunday morning, 1st August, we went for a circular tour of the city by tram, jumping off at places of interest. Noel was bit non-plussed by the priests stopping on each step of a long climb up the hill to a large cathedral at the top. They appeared to pause briefly on each step in prayer. So, he taps one on the shoulder and recommended they install an escalator-a suggestion that was ignored. Asking directions on the tram was almost useless as the conductors gave the impression that they only conversed in French. We had tea at the YMCA and then went for a walk through the heart of the town. We must have given the impression of two lost souls as two girls approached us and started a conversation. Their names were Dorothy and Kay. They were students at the McGill University in Montreal and invited us to meet them the next afternoon and they would take us up Mont Royal to view the town by night.
We did our shopping on Monday morning where RAAF uniforms etc were available. Got issued with P/O’s braid, badges and cap, but decided to leave issue of quality uniforms and overcoat until we arrived in England. Met Dorothy and Kay as arranged in the afternoon and went up the mountain. As we had to meet up with the rest of our course on a train leaving Montreal at 1930 Hrs the next day the girls agreed to have dinner with us and then meet us again the next day at 1730 Hrs to show us over the University where they resided in one of the colleges on the campus. This we did on Tuesday after more sight seeing around the town and checking out of our accommodation. After our visit to the University it was a quick trip to the station with the girls to see us off and to catch up with the rest and board the train departing at 1930 Hrs. On the way to No.3 ‘Y’ Depot at Halifax. That was the Canadian designation for an embarkation depot.
Wednesday 4th August saw us travelling all day along the St.Lawrence River with its lumber mills, log jams and fishing villages and arrive in Halifax close to midnight raining cats and dogs. We were settled into barracks. Those who were commissioned off course were directed to the Officers Mess and Quarters and all others to the Sergeants Mess.
Halifax
Our late arrival did not prevent us being paraded at 0830 Hrs on Thursday and then attend to usual clearances etc. It seemed that there were still clearances whether you were arriving or departing. After dinner we were put through decompression chamber tests to assess our reactions to lack of oxygen. It was quite an experience as the chamber was decompressed to a height equivalent of about 18,000 feet. We were equipped with oxygen masks. At this height we were instructed to take off our oxygen masks under the supervision of trained personnel and to see how many times we could write the alphabet on the paper that had been issued. Supervisors kept an eye on each individual. I can remember being very pleased with myself as I visualised the alphabet written about six times on my piece of paper before I was told to put my oxygen mask back on again. Then I couldn’t believe my eyes-there was the alphabet written once and then down to about ‘m’ or ‘n’ before the pencil trailed away into a real scribble. Your mind had been telling you that all was well, so the danger of losing oxygen at heights over 10,000 feet was impressed on us. Most of us were non-smokers and had very similar results, but the smokers capacity to cope was really restricted and a couple had to be put back on oxygen very quickly.
On Friday we had a C.O.’s parade at 0800 Hrs and then it was back into the decompression chamber again for 2 hours, with oxygen masks kept on and listen to the supervisor giving more information on what we could expect flying for more than two hours at heights of over 20,000 feet. During this exercise the chamber was decompressed to a height equivalent of over 25,000 feet. After dinner it was P.T. exercise and games. Wrote a letter home and attended to a pile of washing that had accumulated.
Games of tennis and softball filled in most of Saturday morning. After dinner went into town with Ken and Ernie Todd (Ken had been commissioned off course but his brother Ernie was not) to the Anzac Club to give it the once over, and see what services and freebies were available there. Back to camp for a wash and change into clean clothes and after tea went back to a dance at the Anzac Club for a couple of hours. Slept in late on Sunday and spent all afternoon writing letters.
On Monday, 9th August, we were called on parade at 0800 Hrs for P.T. exercises and games. After dinner we underwent night vision tests, which I had trouble in passing and then back to more letter writing to catch up with my correspondence. Got a letter in the mail that day from Maureen. What seemed to be the established routine of parade, P.T. and games was the dose on Tuesday morning. For games, a rugby league match was organised for the Aussies and Kiwis between the Officers and the N.C.O.’s. It was a match that Keith Mills has not forgotten. I was playing on the wing for the Officers and going flat out for a certain try. I heard Keith behind me call out, “here Bob” when he had no chance of catching me. Not thinking I passed the ball back to Keith, who promptly propped, turned and set off back in the other direction. Unfortunately for him however, I was being supported by Kiwi P/O. Simon Snowden, of Maori descent and well built, and who was in the right position to effect a heavy tackle. Simon and I became good friends after that. Keith, I am sure learnt a lesson and did not appreciate the obstacle course we were put through after dinner.
On Wednesday morning, to keep us fit, we were employed on trench digging, and after dinner some of us were put through another night vision test. With a bit of assistance from a mate I did better than the test on Monday. Night vision was for gunners and not for navigators. Did my ironing after tea as we did not have the luxury of a batman yet.
Did well with mail on Thursday - 6 letters from home. After dinner went on a harbour cruise. I was on duty as Reception Officer that night and didn’t get to bed until 0430 Hrs on Friday. Received a telegram from home on Friday morning and another letter from Maureen. We had pay parade after which I went into town to buy a suit case, and did some ironing at night. On Saturday morning we had a lecture on ‘Rehabilition’ and I spent the afternoon writing letters to reply to those I had received during the week. Sunday was a very quiet day and a few of us went to a concert in the evening at the Anzac Club.
Monday 16th August was another good day for mail with 7 letters in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. So my correspondence was not up-to-date for too long. Pictures in the Officers Mess at night, “Desert Victory” and “The More the Merrier”. Usual parade and P.T. on Tuesday morning and into town after dinner for shopping and on to the Anzac Club for tea and a dance at night. More P.T. on Wednesday morning as we were waiting for a draft to embark. Went to see “Stage Door Canteen” at night with Simon Snowden. Since our football match we had spent a few times together looking around the sights of Halifax. Although he was of Maori blood, because of his surname he had become known as “Snowy”. Thursday afternoon was set aside for more sports and in the late afternoon we marched through town with a brass band at the head of the procession. It was into town again on Friday to buy a dressing gown and then to pictures at night to see “Jungle Book” Football practice occupied some time on Saturday morning. The bush telegraph was passing on a rumour that the “Queen Mary” was on the way from New York and would be calling within a few days, so I packed one of my kit bags in the afternoon. Slept in late on Sunday morning and after dinner went for a walk with Les Sabine around Mt Pleasant Park, and to the pictures in the Officers Mess after tea.
After mandatory parade at 0800 Hrs on Monday 23rd August we had lectures and a test on Aircraft Recognition. Managed to pass the test, but only just. After dinner went into town with ‘Snow’, met one of his mates and went to the Anzac Club for tea and a show afterwards. It was P.T. on Tuesday morning and we were given notice to be on parade again after dinner. That was a fair indication that a draft had been issued for embarkation. The draft was read out and as far as I can remember all the navigators from Course 72N2, except for a couple who did not come on to Halifax, were on it. We would be embarking within 48 hours. Broke off parade to have medical examinations, and then it was into town with ‘Snow’ again, who was also on the draft, for tea and the pictures to see “Song of the Islands”. On Wednesday morning we had to take our ‘Not wanted on Voyage’ baggage on parade and complete clearances. A few of us went to the Anzac Club that evening just to say good-bye to the place.
On Thursday 26th August 1943, we had pay parade in the morning, dinner and then our final parade with our ‘Wanted on Voyage’ baggage. We were then transported to the harbour and embarked on the “Queen Mary”. I was billeted in Cabin A24 with 14 others.
We Sail to the UK
Sailed early on Friday morning into good seas. It was back to two meals again while ‘in transit’. The ship had taken on a large contingent of American Servicemen in New York and it was very crowded. With such a large number on board, all were assigned to particular areas with coloured lines to follow to different venues to which they were allowed, such as sleeping quarters, bathroom facilities and Recreation and Entertainment areas. We had a limited deck space allotted to us and yellow lines to follow to the dining room and other colours to the toilets etc. On the lower decks the ‘other ranks’, mainly American troops, were assigned to sleeping areas on a shift basis.
The “Queen Mary” proceeded at full speed of over 30 knots on a zig-zag course and was unescorted. If you were walking down a passage-way when ‘she’ changed course by about 30 degrees you were pinned against the wall until ‘she’ got on a steady course again for another 15/20 minutes or thereabouts. You certainly had the feeling that a submarine would have very little chance of a torpedo attack. Time was passed playing cards, listening to music, reading the daily newspaper that was printed on board, writing letters and attending entertainment provided on board, which mainly favoured Officers. The seas stayed good all day on Saturday and at night most of us in Cabin A24 followed the relative coloured line to the large theatre on board to see a movie. Church Parade was held on Sunday, and another show in the theatre at night.
We continued to zig-zag through good seas at full speed all day Monday and enjoyed a concert in the lounge at night. On Tuesday we came around the north of Ireland and were greeted by friendly aircraft overhead and land in sight by mid-morning. This first sight of ‘the Old Country’ will remain in the memories of most on board for the rest of their life. There was a band of The Royal Marines on board and as we sailed up the Clyde past Arran with the Scottish coast of Ayrshire on our starboard the band played “Land of Hope and Glory”. As indeed it was at that time in history. There were not too many dry eyes on the decks, even among the American troops. We weighed anchor off Greenock and at 1900 Hrs were disembarked onto barges to be entrained at Greenock to travel to Brighton by rail.
Brighton, England
Travelled overnight and got our first encounter with a country at war with the blackout. Early in the morning the train steamed into the large railway yards at Crewe, then on to Rugby and the outskirts of London where we witnessed bomb damage for the first time. Arrived in Brighton at midday and were transported to No. 11 Personnel Despatch & Receipt Centre. Have never been able to work out how the despatch came before the receipt. We were assigned to billets. The N.C.O.’s to either the ‘Metropole’ or ‘Grande’ on the esplanade near the famous West Pavilion and the Officers to the Lions Head a bit further along to the east. Those establishments had been commandeered by the War Department and allotted to the RAAF’s No. 11 P.D.R.C, which had been transferred to Brighton from Bournemouth. So, on the 1st September 1943 we were officially disembarked in the United Kingdom. We spent the next two days attending to the requirements of reception, records, leave passes etc, and writing letters home as we awaited delivery of our ‘Not wanted on Voyage’ baggage.
In Central Park, New York
Roy Olsen, Keith Mills, Lou Brimblecombe, Bob Smith
Along the St Lawrence River - Part of the Aussie Contingent
Ross Martin and Ian Smith at the ‘Door’ in Tropical Uniform
In the Gardens – Halifax
P/O Bob Smith
Advanced Training-United Kingdom
Brighton, Sidmouth (Devon), West Freugh (Scotland)
Settling into No. 11 P.D.R.C. at Brighton, by midday on Saturday 4th September 1943 I had completed most of the requirements for reception and after lunch (now back to the system of calling the midday meal lunch and the evening meal dinner) I was rostered on my first duty as O.I.C. of one of the light ack-ack batteries on the esplanade, from 1400 Hrs to 1800 Hrs. Almost got court-marshalled when I gave permission to the two N.C.O.’s on the guns to fire a couple of rounds to test them. An English Army Major was soon on the scene to check on ‘the emergency’. After a bit of discussion he accepted my explanation and didn’t take the matter any further. After dinner I met ‘Snow’ who had also come over with the R.N.Z.A.F. contingent on the Queen Mary and who were also billeted with us in Brighton. We went to a dance at ‘The Palais’ that night. Had a very interesting conversation with a girl aged in her early twenties who came from Israel and was working her way through to a degree at an English University, as well as a couple of other girls who were more interested in ‘Snow’. They seemed to think he was a real heart throb. He was a good looking and good natured bloke.
This duty on the gun positions got me out of an awkward position on Sunday. We had Church Parade in the morning, usual roll-up, with quite a few Roman Catholics joining the Presbyterians. After lunch, by chance or design, Snow had met one of the girls we were talking to at the dance on Saturday night, and she suggested that he bring his friend along (that was me) as she had a friend to come with her and we could go to the pictures at night. Being a good friend I went along with him to the cinema on this blind date. Her friend turned out to be about 40 and did not appeal. There was no way I was going to be involved so I called Snow aside and explained the position. He saw my point of view and then backed me up with the explanation that I could not stay as I was rostered to go on Gun Duty in less than two hours. So I made a diplomatic departure and beat it post haste, feeling rather satisfied. Saw Snow the next morning and he told me I had made a wise decision.
On Monday morning I had more matters to attend to at reception. Mostly this was to deal with the issue of Officers uniforms etc. Got measured for my great-coat which was to be made by a tailor on Saville Row and issued with headgear-Officers for the use of.
Up to this point I had kept a small pocket diary since leaving Australia but discontinued the practice forthwith when it was brought to our attention in lectures and sessions held in connection with our reception at Brighton that diaries were not to be kept. This would be particularly enforced once we got on to operational squadrons. As a result from hereon I have to rely on memory and reflections with mates as we recalled our experiences in later years. For the next few weeks it was a daily routine of morning parade to hear who had been drafted to advanced flying schools etc, rostered on to duties such as the gun positions, or orders to attend lectures on the Brighton Pavilion. The beaches were heavily mined and this kept us on our guard when we were on gun duties, particularly when a stray dog wandered on to the beach. The Pavilion was also booby-trapped and was accessible only by walking a plank from the Esplanade.
When not on duties and on stand down we made regular trips to London on the train to get acquainted with the Boomerang Club in Australia House, and enjoy some food that was not available elsewhere. It also gave us an opportunity to explore that area of central London that was within walking distance and included many of the well known and historic buildings and landmarks. Here also, I was introduced to the Overseas Club whose members hosted Commonwealth servicemen on leave. I also had to go to London to be fitted and issued with my Officers Uniforms and Greatcoat. We were also introduced to sirens signalling an air-raid alert and ‘all-clear’, and the lives of Londoners who slept in the underground stations platforms. At Brighton the only enemy action I saw was one day when a German twin-engined bomber came in low over the channel, climbed to about 1000 feet over the town and as it circled around the outskirts dropped a stick of bombs and headed out to sea again. It was all over in less that two minutes and the gun batteries on the esplanade did not get a chance to fire at it.
I Go to Scotland On Leave
On 11th September 1943 I was given 7 days leave (authority POR 174/43) and headed off to Aberdeen to stay with Jim and Nan Joss to whom I had been referred by the Overseas League at the Boomerang Club. I wished to go to Aberdeen to have the chance to visit Kintore where by father and uncles spent leave during WW1. It was a wonderful introduction to Scotland, and the fore-runner of a few more happy times there when on leave which eventually led to meeting a lass who stole my heart, but more about that later. That’s in the future still. Got back from leave to learn that some of the course had been posted to Advanced Flying Units. Keith Mills and Eric Sutton and a few others had been posted to No. 4 Observer A.F.U. West Freugh, Scotland and John Lewis and Lou Brimblecombe had been posted to No. 3 A.F.U. at Halfpenny Green. A few weeks later John was to be our first loss of life when he was killed in an accident flying over Wales on a training exercise. A few days after I got back Noel Hooper, John Honeyman and myself were instructed to attend Course No.14 Aircrew Officers Training School at Sidmouth in Devon.
With necessary travel warrants and instructions we arrived in Sidmouth on Sunday 26th September. The three of us were impressed with the beauty of the English country side as we travelled through Hampshire and Dorset to Devon. It was hard to realise that the country was at war, until you passed an airfield or a large military establishment. We were met at the station and transported to the Training School that was situated in a stately mansion that was probably an up-market holiday resort in peace time.
More Training in Devon
The course was an intense period of lectures on Air Force Rules and Regulations, Physical Exercises, Field exercises with live ammunition, escape procedures and parade ground drills under an iron-fisted disciplinarian R.S.M. from one of the Guards Regiments, whom we referred to as the ‘screaming skull’, but not to his face. None of us was that brave. We were put over an obstacle course on the second day there and only a few of us managed to complete it in the approved time. I was still reasonably fit from athletics training and managed to go over all the obstacles except one, but within the time allowed. After 23 days we were put over the same course again and everyone passed, all the fittest they had ever been.
Field exercises included live ammunition with shots fired at medium range, hand grenades, firework crackers etc and it was our observation to identify the type and direction from which the detonation was heard and make quick decisions on evasion tactics. We were also given exercises in techniques of camouflage and the use of the terrain to move and avoid detection. In the event of being shot down over enemy territory it was your first duty to avoid capture. Parades and Parade-ground drills were real masterpieces with the R.S.M. in charge. The short straw must have had my name on it when it came to parade-ground drills. When we were given duties for colour parades and reviews. I landed the duties of S/M of Parade, Adjutant of Parade, C/O of Parade and Reviewing Officer of Parade. It is a mystery how I was not promoted immediately to rank of Air Commodore or above. Noel and John felt sorry for me-like b.hell they did!
On our first day we were fitted out and issued with khaki battle dress, army boots etc, and this was our standard dress for the course, except for evening meals when the traditions of dining in the Officers Mess were observed. A few got postings from the course either to A.F.U. or back to their unit. I remember one Aussie pilot who was sent to the course as a disciplinary measure after he pranged a ‘Wimpy’ on take-off at an O.T.U, apparently without injury to any of the crew. After about ten days he was posted back to his unit to take up further training with the crew. Nine Aussies started the course but there were only five of us there at the end. Leave was granted most nights and at week-ends, so we were able to spend some time in town and go to the pictures or a dance. Met a girl, Irene Collins, at a dance one night who asked me to escort her home-what a walk; I think it must have been to the next village. She worked in a shoe shop in town, and I did see her a couple of times after that when I went down town.
Most vivid memories of the course relate to small arms firing practice, throwing live hand grenades, and the cross country exercises when we somehow managed to make tracks through an apple orchard, stuff a few into our jackets and get back to discover that we had a sort of crab apple used for making cider. Also tried our hand at toasting chestnuts, but not much satisfaction there either. Drilling the squad when under the instruction of the ‘screaming skull’ provided a bit of entertainment, particularly when he decided to take over and show us how to do it. He would give the order ‘Quick March’ at the top of his voice and let the squad get down the road about 70/100 yards before giving the order ‘About Turn’. By the 50/60 yard mark the squad had agreed that from a certain person forward they would disregard the order, the ones at the crucial point would hesitate, and behind them they would do the about turn. That really curled the ‘mo’ and sent a string of invective over the countryside, when the ones in front said they did not hear him. He didn’t fall for it-had been through that mill many times before. We got the feeling that he would liked to blame the Aussies and give them a bit of extra drill, but as they were of higher rank he had to play it cool.
At week-ends we were given leave, although the whole course was de-facto stand-in for the local Home Guard Unit, we were given details of the mined areas on the beaches, most of which were at the base of high cliffs and difficult to reach. Generally it was the area immediately below these cliffs that were not mined. On our first Sunday Noel and John and I headed off west close to the coastline along the tops of the cliffs, almost to Exmouth from where we could see Torquay in the distance. As we had been walking for a bit over 2 hours, we decided to veer north to a village that had golf links nearby where we found a café and had lunch. We crossed a railway line, into a village called Otterton and followed country roads and lanes back to Sidmouth. The next Sunday we headed north towards Honinton and got as far as Aflington. On this walk, following roads and lanes off the main road we stopped to talk to some villagers to enquire if a village about 2 miles further north had a café that was opened on Sundays. They did not know, had lived there all their lives and had never been to that other village.
We would have walked about 20 miles on each of those Sunday hikes, and that kept us in good physical condition. Knowledge gained on the Sunday hikes proved very valuable later on and was put to good use. On the Tuesday of the last week we had our final test on the obstacle course. No problems for any of us, even up and over the poles that were fixed horizontally at varying heights between the trunks of two pine trees to a height of about 30 feet, the only obstacle that stumped me on our run over the course on our first day. I did not go over the top then, but under it. The next day we were given our final test of escape techniques. We were despatched at 0830 Hrs to go to a spot near the village of Axmouth which lay just south of the road to Lyme Regis and north of the seaside town of Seaton. It was up to us whether we went singly, or in small groups like a crew from an aircraft that had been shot down. But we had to get to the destination without being observed by the instructors who would be in positions at a couple of points along the way. The sergeant in charge of the exercise, when informed that Noel and John and I would stick together and go as a team for the exercise said that was a good idea and even recommended to the others to learn from these Aussies who often did well in this exercise. We did well, but it involved a bit of cunning.
Our plan was to let the field get away and ahead of us while we went to a café for morning tea to formulate our tactics. We had to be at the ‘target’ by 1600 Hrs. That gave us a bit over 7 hours to do about 9 or 10 miles measured in a straight line. We had prepared a bit beforehand, and by fair means or foul John had obtained a woman’s hat and shawl. After morning tea we set off walking to the village of Sidford less than 2 miles north of Sidmouth where we knew we could get a taxi and were sure that no scouts would be stationed along that route. I have a suspicion that John had had a discussion with a taxi driver in this village on one of our Sunday walks because we found him very co-operative and willing to help, although he was going to use up a bit of his petrol ration. Sometimes crosses my mind if he got a voucher from John to say his taxi had been commandeered for defence purposes. For him it was going to be a round trip of about 20 miles. I cannot remember what the fare was, but probably in the 5/10 Pounds range, and that was probably the best fare he had made on a Wednesday in war time. In the taxi we set off on the main road towards Lyme Regis and after about 5 miles turned right along a road that went past a quarry and then north-east to Colyford our destination for the taxi. On this last stretch we had a fair idea that scouts would be stationed, so John donned the hat with the shawl over his shoulders and sat up and surveyed the scene while Noel and I crouched down so as we could not be observed. With a bit of luck John spotted our friendly Sergeant sitting under a tree about 15 yards inside a field with a ditch between him and the road. No other scouts were seen. We left the taxi at Colyfield and walked the last mile or so to Axmouth and the designated meeting place. No one was expecting escapees to come in from a northerly direction so we arrived without being spotted to the amazement of the team that had congregated there. We timed things so that we did not arrive until just after 1530 Hrs. A few had already arrived carrying flags to indicate they had been spotted by one or more look-out scouts. Not long before 1600 Hrs the Sergeant, and other spotters arrived and were about to announce that no one had spotted the 3 Aussies, when he looked around to spot us and cried “How the hell did you three get here??” We told him we did not spot any other look-outs, but we did see him under a tree and where he was.
We had our story ready that we were coming up a ditch beside the road when we spotted him and realised we could not pass along that ditch without him seeing us, so we back-pedalled a bit using trees along the road as cover, and then crossed the road and away a bit to the north, which brought us in from that direction. We told him we were within the length of 2 cricket pitches from him, and that really had him flabbergasted. Somehow or another he got the correct information by Friday morning, and told us he was not very impressed, but couldn’t decide whether to admonish us for not entering into the true spirit of the exercise or just acknowledge that we had exercised initiative that we had so often been instructed to do.
Sunday 24th October saw the completion of our Air Crew Officers Training School, and on Monday morning we set off by train back to Brighton. We went via Salisbury where we had a stop over to have a look around the town and visit the famous cathedral. During WW1 my father had been billeted on Salisbury Plains with 41st Battalion A.I.F. and used to talk about the Cathedral and his visits around the area. I did not know it then, not even until the 1980’s, that my paternal great grandparents had come from East Hagbourne in Berkshire about 20 miles from Reading in the area that we were to-day travelling through.
Back at Brighton on Tuesday it was a return to the usual routine of morning parade, lectures and stand-downs as we waited for a posting to an Advanced Flying Unit. During this time we were attending a lecture in the old ball room on the Pavilion when the whole pier was rocked by an enormous blast. Someone had detonated one of the booby-trap mines on the end of the pier and really started some activity. We were evacuated very quickly. Never heard any more reports and whether there were any casualties apart from a few sea gulls. At Brighton a new contingent of EAT’s N.C.O.’s and Officers had arrived and the duties on the ack-ack guns had been assigned to them which gave us more time to take visits up to London.
My Posting Comes Through - Scotland
On Parade about 6th November my posting came through to No. 4 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit at West Freugh, near Stranraer in Scotland. There were other navigators on the same posting that were on a course after No. 71 and arrived in Brighton about a month or so after I did. These included Keith Nunn, Hector Craig and Soapy Campbell. Noel Hooper and John Honeyman were posted to an A.F.U. affiliated with No 5 Group Bomber Command. I seemed assured to going into No. 3 Group which operated in East Anglia.
Those going to West Freugh left Brighton by train on Monday 8th November, travelled overnight, changing trains probably at Carlisle, and arrived in Stranraer and on to West Freugh by RAF transport on Tuesday to attend to the usual requirements of reception for a course that was due to start the next day. Keith, Hector, Soapy and I were all billeted in the same Nissen hut in the Officers quarters.
We certainly got our introduction to the Scottish weather coming into their winter. The famous Scotch Mist just hung on and on, in fact for the first six weeks we were there we never saw the sun from the ground, but at 2,500 feet you were above cloud and in clear sky. For the first few days we were kept in the lecture rooms for revision in most of the subjects we had studied at Edmonton and talks on what to expect as we moved on to become acquainted with new navigation aids etc that were coming into use in Bomber Command. Our air exercises at West Freugh over the 8 weeks we were there comprised 30 Hrs 35 mins of daylight flying and 18 Hrs of night flying atSS heights between 1500 feet and 5000 feet. The air exercises over routes as detailed in my log book were mostly over the Irish Sea area to landmarks in Northern Ireland, Wales and the Carlisle area to the East. In most cases the exercise started from Ailsa Craig, a landmark island in the Clyde Estuary. You had to be wary of your height and track to ensure you did not come to grief on the Isle of Man.
A great advantage of flying with RAF Staff Pilots was they flew the course given to them. They couldn’t see the ground anyway most of the time. This gave good experience in D.R. navigation and was a great help in charting an air plot. They were mostly very experienced pilots who had served with the RAF in India as well as on operations at home and were very experienced in flying Ansons and Oxfords.
Some Flying “Incidents”
The starting point of Ailsa Craig nearly caused an accident on one of our exercises. We had climbed through cloud and on course etc, when I said to the pilot we would proceed on our first course of the exercise from E.T.A. Ailsa Craig, which would have been not far out because of the short distance we had flown. He insisted on going below the cloud to get an accurate fix from which to start our exercise. Our course was nearly too accurate, as when we broke cloud at about 800 feet Ailsa Craig was almost dead ahead, and the faithful “Old Aggie” as we called the Anson flew past the cliff face too close for comfort. The pilot circled the island, flew a bit north of it and then came back on the course we were to fly on the first leg and climbed back into the cloud over the island with a satisfied look on his face.
On another exercise the first course was eastwards to Wigtown, and then on to Silloth, past a mountain that was about 1500 feet high near Gatehouse-on Fleet I think it was called ‘Crefell’ and it had claimed a few aircraft crashing into it, so we had to make sure we were at least at 2000 feet. For the exercise we had been given ‘met’ winds of 30/49 Knots from the west. By the time we got near Gatehouse-on Fleet it was obvious that the true wind was over 70 knots and in response to radio message we were recalled.
A flight of less than 30 minutes out took over 2 hours on the return with the Aggie at maximum air speed. Coming over the top of one of those high mountains you had the feeling you could just have jumped off like from a moving tram. A night exercise was scheduled to fly to Newcastle to give us navigation experience and the air defences there some dry-swim practice. Before we got as far as Silloth we were recalled as Newcastle was in fact being raided by the Luftwaffe. Sometimes I have wondered about the co-incidence. It was on one of those exercises that I had a bout of air sickness and on landing the pilot put it in his report. The O.C. Training ordered me to report to the M.O. for an assessment. I cannot remember what his examination involved but I was not scrubbed from flying.
On 30th December we were detailed on navigation exercises flying at 5000 ft. Two navigators were assigned to an exercise flying over the Irish Sea due south to Holyhead in Wales and then north west to Ballyquinton Point in Northern Island. This had the Isle of Man along this path. The two navigators on this route were Keith Nunn and Harold ‘Hal’ Peters, both graduates of No. 74N course. Most of the route was covered in cloud with base at about 1000 feet. It turned out to be a tragic day. The aircraft in which Hal Peters was flying must have descended through the cloud too soon and crashed into a mountain on the island. Hal was 33 years of age and came from Bentleigh in Victoria. He was buried in Andreas (St Andrew) Churchyard on the Isle of Man. My last navigation exercise at West Freugh, a week later, was over this same route.
Another flying incident at West Freugh that remains in my memory concerns the crash of a Hampden twin-engined bomber. A few of the RAF pilots were discussing the flying capabilities of this aircraft, a few of which were stationed at West Freugh for coastal surveillance work. A F/Sgt. pilot was arguing that the aircraft would not pull out of a spin. One of the ex-India RAF Officer pilots disagreed and said when the weather was clear enough he would take one up to about 5,000 feet, put it into a spin and pull out. He did this a few days later in sight of a few onlookers - but unfortunately the aircraft did not pull out of the spin and went down to crash into the sea. One of the ex-India pilots was heard to remark “That is only four of us left now”.
Leave in Oldhall – I meet Alma
As I had advised Jim and Nan Joss in Aberdeen that I had been posted to West Freugh, Nan wrote back to say that she had been in touch with a Friend/Cousin in Paisley and she and her husband would be happy to host me if I went to Glasgow. We were given 48 leave pass one week-end so I took the opportunity to go by bus, getting off at Oldhall between Paisley and Glasgow to visit Ronnie and Molly Whyte and their daughter Alma who lived at 39 Tylney Rd, Oldhall. This led to many enjoyable leaves in Aberdeen and Paisley when I came to be accepted freely by both families over the times ahead and which was eventually to see Alma and I marry. I think that we would both agree however that it was not love at first sight.
Hector Craig, who had some relatives in Glasgow came with me on the bus on our two week-end leaves. We were not happy with the smoke filled busses filled with farm workers in heavy sweaty smelling clothes, and not a window opened. It was winter, damp and cold, but some fresh air was desirable, so we would open the window a bit near our seat to get a look that only a Ranger’s fan would give a Celtic fan. Ronnie Whyte was a staunch Ranger’s follower and I was soon to learn of the rivalry between those two sides. The passion for football, what we called soccer, was new to us.
Our course at West Freugh was completed on 7th January 1944. Our posting came through the next day and we were given a few days to complete clearances-the usual medical, dental etc and pack our Officer issue steel trunk for despatch to our new station. Keith Nunn and Hector Craig and I were posted to No. 84 Operational Training Unit at Desborough in Northamptonshire. We realised then that we were destined for No. 3 group Bomber Command that was equipped with Lancasters. We were given 7days leave and travelling time and had to report to Desborough by 24th January (Auth POR 2/44). Travelling warrants were issued at the Adjutant’s office on 11th January, a day after my 20th birthday anniversary, and I went on leave to Aberdeen for a week and then to London for a few days to catch up with mates at the Boomerang Club.
Now it was on to joining a crew, further training as a crew with more advanced aircraft and at heights above 10,000 feet. As it turned out it was to bigger and better things and experiences that made men of us. ......
West Freugh – Laundry Hung Out to Dry In Our “Heated” Quarters
At Aircrew Officers Training School
Sidmouth, Devon
Noel Hooper, Bob Smith
Bob Smith, John Honeyman
Training as a Crew
Crew Formation at No. 84 O.T.U. (Operational Training Unit)
Desborough, Northamptonshire
For operational training I was posted to No. 84 O.T.U at Desborough in Northamptonshire, an Operational Training Unit under the control of No.3 Group, (RAF Bomber Command) as from 25th January 1944. This Unit was flying ex-operational Vickers Wellington X’s, with unit identification “IF”. This was our introduction to flying above 10,000 feet in aircraft equipped with oxygen. Radio I/D was “Foodramp”.
Along with Keith Nunn and Hector Craig I was accommodated in the Officer’s Quarters and went through the usual reception procedure. A programme of lectures and ‘dry-swim’ exercises started immediately and went on for two weeks. Flying exercises started on 15th Feb, crewed with a staff pilot and flying as a 2nd navigator under supervision, to gain experience on new special navigation equipment and flying at heights of 10,000 to 15,000 feet, wearing oxygen masks. Instructors, mostly with operational experience, assessed our work and passed us as satisfactory to proceed further into the formation of a crew and on to further training towards posting to an operational squadron. Over that first month lectures and tests occupied a lot of time, and were most interesting as we were instructed in new equipment coming into use, some of it still on the secret list. During that second fortnight we flew 2 daylight flying exercises and 1 night exercise of between 4 and 5 hours each. On 28th February after flying a special daylight exercise of 4 ½ hours at 15,000 feet all the aircrew under operational training were assembled at 1700 Hrs and told to sort themselves into crews by the next afternoon.
On 1st March 1944 our crew was formed. In the morning pilot F/Sgt. Ron Hastings approached me to see if I had been claimed yet and when he said he had obtained another Aussie as a Bomb Aimer and two RAF fellows who had come through a gunners course together and wanted to be together in a crew, I agreed to join them. Soon afterwards we approached a Wireless Operator who had many flying hours to his credit and had come from a unit where he was an instructor. So, for the time being we had a crew, with a Flight Engineer to be added when we went on to conversion to four engined bombers:-
The Crew:
Pilot F/Sgt Ronald William Hastings RAAF No.423112 Born 11 Nov 1922
Nav. F/O Robert Wylie Smith RAAF No.425992 Born 10 Jan 1924
B/A F/Sgt Harold Edward Burns RAAF No.422144 Born 5 Nov 1915
W/Op.F/Sgt Victor Frederick Pearce RAF No.1196145 Born 17 Jul 1920
M/U/G Sgt George Henry James Malyon RAF No.1432616 Born 7 Jan 1923
R/G SgtDonald George McFadden RAF No.1387716 Born 26 Feb 1923
All aircrew were volunteers, so the RAF fellows were in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Between ourselves we were called respectively, Ron, Smithy, Bobby, Vic, Mike and Mac.
On 2nd March most of the newly formed crews, including us, were sent to the satellite ‘drome at Harrington, about 4/5 miles away, to fly a high level bombing exercise in daylight and then about 6 hours on circuits and bumps (which gave the navigator nothing to do) over 2 consecutive nights, and on the next night 2 ½ hours on high level bombing. Having completed these exercises it was back to the main ‘drome on 8th March to start a very intense month of flying training in daylight and at night. These exercises were always over approved set routes, sometimes with an experienced pilot as we went on long night flights, fighter affiliation exercises and high level bombing. Lectures still continued at times during the day and there were breaks for sports and evening/week-end leave.
Dealing With an Emergency
On 13th March, flying in an older Wellington 111 No. X3995 and letter coded “U” for Uncle we had an emergency forced upon us on take-off after lunch. Just as the aircraft started to lift off the runway the flap over the port wing fuel tank inlet sprung open, causing that wing to stall. As that wing started to drop it was only the quick corrective action by Ron that saved us from disaster. It took the combined effort of him and the Bomb Aimer who was standing beside him to hold the joy-stick hard over to starboard to keep the plane on level flight. The control tower had noticed our wild take-off, and before we could gather our wits they contacted us with a call “Foodramp Uncle-are you in trouble”. Ron replied with a brief description of the problem and immediately got a message back to circle if possible and come into land immediately as they would have emergency vehicles standing by. An experienced pilot was put in direct contact from the control tower to assist Ron. Although we did not know it at the time, sirens were sounded on the ‘drome and a fire tender, ambulance and crash wagon were rushed on to the tarmac. Ron instructed me to keep the runway on our starboard wing in sight and guide him around to the downwind end. Then, as he lined the aircraft up on the runway and started a landing approach he ordered all except “Bobby” Burns, the B/A, to take up crash positions, leaving the intercom to all positions open. With the two gunners I took up the crash position. Vic, the wireless operator, was tuned into a BBC radio broadcast and was not aware of the emergency, although he admitted later he thought the flying was a bit rough. I learned a lesson from this as I should have tapped Vic on the shoulder as I went past him to the crash position and beckoned him to join me.
Ron and Bobby managed to control the aircraft sufficiently to make a reasonable landing although it gave a severe lurch to port as we touched down, causing Mac, who was next to me in the crash position and had started to get to his feet as soon as the wheels touched the ground, to fall against me and force my head on to the side of the fuselage resulting in a bit of a lump on my right temple. Mac thought for a minute that he had severely hurt me as we both ended up lying on the floor. This lurch caused Vic to look around and see Mike, Mac and myself in the crash position and to wonder what was going on. So we had a bit of explaining to do. We were all O.K, and saw a certain humour in what happened next. As soon as we came to rest Ron contacted the control tower with their sign and the message “Foodramp Uncle here—we have pancaked”, only to get the immediate response “Foodramp Uncle, if you have pancaked you have not pancaked here”. A quick look around and we recognised the surroundings—we had landed at Harrington, the satellite strip. As they say, all is well that ends well, (in spite of Murphy’s Law). Transport was immediately sent out to the aircraft to take us back to the base ‘drome for a quick medical assessment, but we said we were O.K. The M.O told me I would probably get a black eye if any bruising came out and that my flying helmet had probably saved me from more serious injury. In reflection, it is possible that if Ron had attempted a full 360 degree turn back to the runway we had just taken off from, the outcome could have been much worse.
The M.O did not say anything about not flying for a day or two. The experience certainly strengthened our confidence in and respect for Ron, and taught us valuable lessons. We did not hear what happened to the ground crew responsible for fuelling the aircraft and ensuring that the wing flaps were properly secured. Probably went on a charge and received some form of punishment. The aircraft was given a thorough inspection, before it was moved and flown back to the base ‘drome. The undercarriage must have experienced some stress when we touched down. We flew again in the same aircraft four days later on a high level bombing exercise and had no problems.
By 8th April we had completed all the requirements of the course at O.T.U and were passed as fit material to proceed to conversion to four engine aircraft. We were given about 11 days leave (Auth POR 15/44) and instructed to report to No. 1653 H.C.U (Heavy Conversion Unit) at Chedburgh in Suffolk on 21st April. A signal had come through that a crew was required for an Australian Squadron in No.5 Group with a condition that it must comprise at least 4 Aussies in the crew. The only one to qualify on our course was P/O. George Edwards (Pilot) who had crewed with Keith Nunn as his navigator. Both had known Ron Hastings prior to this time. Keith had known Ron and his father before the war. Both Ron’s father and Keith were employed in the then Union Bank of Aust- later to become the ANZ Bank. Ron & George had trained together as pilots. That crew eventually went on to No.467 (RAAF) Squadron at Waddington in Lincoln and were shot down on their second ‘Op’ on 29th June 1944, bombing the flying bomb base at Beauvoir in France. George was killed and Keith was captured and taken POW. After the war Keith resumed his career with the Union Bank. I have no recollection of where Hector Craig and crew were posted to.
Previous Service history of our Crew members
Pilot “Ron”
When he was born in 1922 his family surname was ‘Heuzenroeder”. His father was employed in the Union Bank and in the mid-1930’s with the world scene focussing on the Nazi regime in Germany, and the bank considering his transfer to Manager of a country town, they requested him to change his surname. Ron was in secondary schooling at the time and chose the name ‘Hastings’.
Ron enlisted in Sydney on 20th June 1942 and was posted to No.2 I.T.S. at Bradfield Park. On 15th Oct 1942 he went to No.5 E.F.T.S at Narramine in N.S.W and on 17 Jan 1943 to No.8 S.F.T.S at Bundaberg in Queensland. On 7th May 1943 he graduated with his pilot’s wings and posted to No.2 Embarkation Depot with rank of Sergeant. Embarked in Sydney on 25th May 1943, travelling via the USA and arrived in the U.K. on 7th July 1943 at No.11 P.D.R.C at Brighton. On 7th Sep 1943 posted to No.15 (Pilot) A.F.U at Andover before posting to 84 O.T.U at Desborough on 25th January 1944.
Nav. “Smithy”
Enlisted 21st May 1942 at No.3 Recruit Centre, Eagle St, Brisbane in an intake of ‘Aircrew Guards’ and posted same day to No.3 Recruit Depot Maryborough Qld. On 13th June 1942 posted as ‘Air Crew Guard to No.1 A.O.S. Cootamundra N.S.W. where on 16th Sep 1942 was posted into No.73 Reserve Squadron. On 11th Oct 1942 posted to No.2 I.T.S. Bradfield Park , Sydney and on 2nd Jan 1943 to No.2 Embarkation Depot, Bradfield Park. Embarked Sydney on 8th Feb 1943 on troopship “U.S.S. Hermitage” to San Francisco and then by train to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. On 7th March 1943 posted to No.2 Air Observers School at Edmonton. Graduated with wings as a Navigator and granted a commission on 23rd July 1943. On 4th Aug 1943 posted to No. 1 “Y” (Embarkation) Depot at Halifax, Nova Scotia. On 26 Aug 1943 embarked on the “Queen Mary” to the UK. Disembarked on 1st Sep 1943 at Gourock, Scotland, and then by train to Brighton, England and posted to No.11 P.D.R.C. on 2nd Sep 1943. On 27th Sep 1943 attended Air Crew Officers Training School at Sidmouth, Devon, for a 4 week course. Posted 0n 9th Nov 1943 to No.4 (Observers) A.F.U at West Freugh, Scotland and on 25 Jan 1944 posted to No.84 O.T.U, Desborough,England.
B/Aimer ‘Bobbie’ or ‘Rabbie’
Enlisted on 25th April 1942 at No 2 Recruit Centre in Sydney and on same day posted to No.2 I.T.S at Bradfield Park. On 15 Aug 1942 posted to No.2 Embarkation Depot at Bradfield Park. And on 21st Aug 1942 posted to No.1 E.D. at Ascot Vale, Victoria. Embarked in Melbourne on 7th Sep 1942 and ‘disembarked’ No.3 Manning Depot, Edmonton Canada on 2nd October 1942. On 11th Oct 1942 posted to No.5 A.O.S at Winnipeg and on 29th Dec1942 posted to RCAF station at Trenton, then on 21st Feb 1943 posted to No.4 Bombing & Gunnery School at Fingal and on 16th May 1943 to No.4 A.O.S at London Ontario. On 13th Oct 1943 posted to No.1 ‘Y’ Depot at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Embarked at Halifax on 22nd Oct 1943 and ‘disembarked’ 31st Oct 1943 at No.11 P.D.R.C. Brighton, England. Posted to No.4 A.F.U. West Freugh, Scotland on 23rd Nov 1943 and on 25 Jan 1944 to No.84 O.T.U. at Desborough, England.
W/Op. Vic.
Enlisted in the RAF 2nd Dec 1941. Commenced flying training in August 1942 after transfer to the RAF V.R. After completion of Wireless Operator’s course was posted to Bobbington as an instructor prior to posting to No.84 O.T.U. Desborough on 25th Jan 1944
M/U/G. ‘Mike’
Enlisted in the RAF on 5th May 1941, in the RAF Regiment. Initial Training at Cardington, and on 30th June 1941 posted to White Waltham and Cranwell for a ground observers course before posting to the Outer Hebrides and Orkney Islands. In June 1943 volunteered for flying duty (R.A.F.V.R) I.T.W Bridlington ,Yorkshire and Air Gunnery Schools in Shropshire and Bishopscourt, Northern Ireland. Graduated with wings in Dec 1943 and posted to No.84 O.T.U, Desborough on 25th Jan 1944.
R/G. ‘Mac’.
Enlisted in the RAF on 5th Feb 1942 and served in the RAF Regiment until June 1943. when he volunteered for flying duties and had the same postings in flying training as ‘Mike’, which is why both wanted to stay together in the same crew. Both came from London.
The Crew in front of a ‘Wellington X’
Ground Staff
Mac, Vic, Mike, Bobbie, Ron Smithy
Hours flown at No.84 O.T.U.
Daylight – 34 Hrs 30 mins Night – 30 Hrs 30 mins
No. 1653 H.C.U. (Heavy Conversion Unit)
Chedburgh, Suffolk
This unit was equipped with ex-operational Stirlings 1 & 111. Unit I/D. H4.
On 21st April we were posted to No. 31 Base (No.3 Group R.A.F.Bomber Command), Stradishall, Suffolk, under whose administration were No.1653 H.C.U. and No.3 L.F.S. Feltwell for training in 4 engined heavy bombers. A Flight Engineer, straight from training at a Rolls Royce training school, was appointed to the crew. As a general rule this was a Flight Engineer’s introduction to flying. Sgt. Ron Partridge was added to the crew, and immediately earned the nick-name ‘Pheasant’ by Ron. His training in the Merlin engine at the Rolls Royce establishment was not put to use while we were flying Stirlings with radial engines, but was going to be valuable when we graduated on to the Lancaster Bomber. Ron was destined to stay with our crew only for our first 6 operational sorties.
After 3 weeks of extensive lectures, introductions to and instructions on the special equipment that we would be using on a squadron, most of it specialist to a particular crew member, and general information that applied to all given by experienced personnel on what to expect on operations over Europe as well as survival and escape techniques it was back to practical flying exercises. At first these were with an experienced pilot for dual familiarisation flights of circuits and bumps and then on to a high level navigation and bombing exercise before Ron was allowed to go solo with his crew.
We did not escape the now accepted ‘emergency’ that can crop up on training flights. On our last ‘dual’ flight on the morning of 18th May we had a F/O. Gill as Captain. On take-off he cut one engine to give Ron the necessary experience in that situation. It almost backfired as the aircraft we were in, R9287 H4-Y (Yoke) was rather sick on 3 engines and refused to climb while the under carriage was still down. Fortunately Chedburgh was on a plateau and the ground fell away from us. The under carriage was retracted and we did manage to gather a bit of speed to give us a safety margin above stalling. The ‘killed’ engine refused to re-start, so Ron also had experience with landing on 3 engines. An eventful 25 minutes. After lunch we were transferred to another aircraft and Ron was allowed to go solo with the crew for 2 hours of circuits and bumps.
Involved in a Diversionary Flight at Time of Normandy Landing
Over the next 18 days and nights we did a number of special cross country navigation and bombing exercises and then flew what was an ‘Op’, but it was not credited as such. It was on the night of 5/6th June 1944, the eve of “D.Day”. We took off at 2310 Hrs on a special exercise flying at 12000 feet which took us out over the North Sea, approaching the Belgian coast near Ostend and at about 20 miles from the coast altered course to roughly Nor-East for 15 mins, before turning to port and then heading back to base crossing the English Coast near Orfordness. We had been on a diversion raid to draw attention away from the landings on the Normanby Coast of France. When we got back over Suffolk we were given a triangular course to fly, still at 12,000 feet, until it was all clear for us to descend and land. Below was an extensive procession of aircraft heading towards France, so we soon realised that the invasion of German occupied Europe was under way. We landed about 0130 Hrs on 6th June, “D.Day”, and were informed that General Dwight Eisenhower would be broadcasting a special announcement later in the morning.
A day or two later we were paraded and given the duty of scouting through a near-by ‘wood’, as there had been a report that a parachutist had been seen to jump out of a German aircraft that had flown over. About 30 to 40 airmen hiked through that wood and surrounding fields, but found nothing. Later in the afternoon two farmers walked up to the guards at the station’s main gate with a suspect in tow. One was carrying a hay fork in a menacing manner. They found him on the edge of the wood, probably waiting for night to fall before moving on. Never did hear what the sequel to that was.
On 12th June, in the afternoon, we were detailed to take an aircraft on a flight test. On arrival at the aircraft we were met by a senior officer who informed us that an important passenger was on board who we had to deliver to Tempsford, the base of No.161 Special Duty squadron, and to fly below 500 feet all the way there and back. So I had to prepare a quick flight plan to Tempsford. When we got on board we discovered that our passenger was a very attractive young French lady, probably in her early 20’s, who was to be parachuted out over France that night on a special mission. What a girl?
No. 1653 Chedburgh – Suffolk
F/E Sgt Ron Partridge Added to The Crew That Went to “Ops”
Smithy, Bobbie, Ron, Pheasant?,
Mac, Mike, Vic
Two days later we completed out training at Chedburgh with a high level bombing and fighter affiliation exercise which involved corkscrews for which the Stirling was not particularly suited, and neither was my stomach. I have to admit that I did suffer some air-sickness on such occasions. On 14th June we were advised of our positing to No. 3 Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell in Norfolk and to attend to our clearances from Chedburgh.
Hours flown at No.1653 H.C.U.
- Daylight 27 Hrs 25 mins, Night 20 Hrs 25 mins
No. 3 L.F.S. (Lancaster Finishing School)
Feltwell, Norfolk
Still under our posting to No.31 Base, Stradishall we were attached to No.3 L.F.S from 18th June 1944 for a concentrated 10 day course of lectures and instructions and our introduction to the “Lancaster 1”. The squadrons of 3 Group were equipped with the Lancaster 1 and Lancaster 111. The course was mainly for the pilot. Instructors were pilots who had completed tours on the ‘Lanc’.
P.O. Treasure was assigned to our crew for 3 hours of dual and solo circuits and bumps in daylight on 23rd June and for the same at night the following day. The next day we were on our own for a test flying a triangle over Norfolk for over an hour and 2 days later flew a cross country navigation test of over 3 hours.
It was a great thrill to eventually get on to Lancasters. A vast improvement on the Wellington and Stirling and truly the most successful heavy bomber of WW11. It was a ‘plane that gave the crews a feeling of confidence. Its power and manoeuvrability and load carrying capacity exceeded all others at that time. As far as I was concerned I had reached my goal. After some operational experience, you wee convinced that every one who operated in the light and medium bombers in the early years of the war deserved a ‘gong’.
On 27th June 1944 we were advised that we were posted to No.XV/15 Squadron at Mildenhall, Suffolk, a permanent RAF Base and one of the jewels of Bomber Command.
Hours flown at No. 3 L.F.S.
- Daylight 4 Hrs 20 mins, Night 6 Hrs 20 mins
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Bob Smith's Memoirs
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bob Smith
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-03
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Turkey
Turkey--Gallipoli
Australia
Queensland--Brisbane
Queensland--Ipswich
Queensland--Maryborough
New South Wales--Cootamundra
New South Wales--Sydney
New South Wales--Wagga Wagga
New South Wales--Lindfield
New South Wales--Blue Mountains
New South Wales--Neutral Bay
American Samoa
American Samoa--Pago Pago
United States
Hawaii--Honolulu
California--San Francisco
California--Alcatraz Island
California--Oakland
Canada
British Columbia--Vancouver
Oregon
Washington (State)--Seattle
British Columbia--Vancouver
Alberta--Edmonton
Alberta--Jasper
Alberta--Fort Saskatchewan
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Alberta--Calgary
Germany--Cologne
Tasmania
Italy
Italy--Foggia
Great Britain
Scotland--Gourock
England--Brighton
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
France
France--Laon
Belgium
Belgium--Antwerp
Germany--Wesseling
France--Montdidier (Picardy)
Austria
Austria--Vienna
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Queensland--Cairns
Saskatchewan--Saskatoon
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Ontario--Toronto
North America--Niagara Falls
New York (State)--New York
Québec--Montréal
Nova Scotia--Halifax
Scotland--Greenock
Scotland--Aberdeen
England--Sidmouth
England--Salisbury
Scotland--Ailsa Craig
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man
Scotland--Gatehouse of Fleet
England--Newcastle upon Tyne
Wales--Holyhead
Scotland--Paisley
France
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
Queensland--Bundaberg
Victoria--Melbourne
Ontario--Trenton
Ontario--London
Saskatchewan
Québec
Nova Scotia
Manitoba
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 Australian Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Bob's memoirs from his early training until he became operational.
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
107 printed sheets
Identifier
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MSmithRW425992-230825-03 copy
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
106 Squadron
115 Squadron
142 Squadron
15 Squadron
1653 HCU
166 Squadron
3 Group
4 Group
44 Squadron
467 Squadron
49 Squadron
5 Group
619 Squadron
622 Squadron
640 Squadron
76 Squadron
78 Squadron
84 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aerial photograph
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
Beaufighter
bomb aimer
bombing
Boston
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
flight engineer
H2S
Halifax
Hampden
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
mess
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
navigator
Nissen hut
Oboe
observer
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Breighton
RAF Bridlington
RAF Cardington
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Cranwell
RAF Desborough
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Feltwell
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Harrington
RAF Kirmington
RAF Leconfield
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Silloth
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tempsford
RAF Waddington
RAF West Freugh
RAF White Waltham
RAF Wigtown
RAF Witchford
Red Cross
sport
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 7
Stirling
training
V-1
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1359/45930/SSmithRW425992v10001-0002 copy.2.pdf
e098f17297286de16d0e6e087a3e2aad
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Smith, Bob
Robert Wylie Smith
R W Smith
Description
An account of the resource
125 items. An oral history interview with Bob Smith (b. 1924, 425992 Royal Australian Air Force) photographs, documents and navigation logs and charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 15 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-03-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Smith, RW
Dublin Core
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Title
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Bob Smith's Memoirs 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bob Smith
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-03
Description
An account of the resource
73 pages of Bob's memoirs. Concerns his recruitment and training. Includes a list of RAAF recruits.
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 Australian Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
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
73 printed sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SSmithRW425992v10001-0002 copy
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Queensland--Brisbane
Queensland--Ipswich
Queensland--Maryborough
New South Wales--Cootamundra
New South Wales--Sydney
New South Wales--Wagga Wagga
Canada
New South Wales--Blue Mountains
American Samoa
American Samoa--Pago Pago
United States
Hawaii--Honolulu
California--San Francisco
Oregon
British Columbia--Vancouver
Alberta--Jasper
Alberta--Edmonton
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Nova Scotia--Halifax
New York (State)--New York
Alberta--Fort Saskatchewan
Ontario--Toronto
North America--Niagara Falls
Quebec--Montreal
Great Britain
Scotland--Greenock
England--Brighton
Nova Scotia
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.
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
Pending review
115 Squadron
142 Squadron
15 Squadron
166 Squadron
4 Group
44 Squadron
463 Squadron
466 Squadron
49 Squadron
5 Group
619 Squadron
622 Squadron
640 Squadron
76 Squadron
78 Squadron
aerial photograph
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
Beaufighter
bomb aimer
Boston
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
H2S
Halifax
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
observer
Operational Training Unit
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Breighton
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Kirmington
RAF Leconfield
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Waddington
RAF Witchford
recruitment
Red Cross
sport
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 7
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1769/31040/BCleggPVIsaacsonPv1.2.pdf
ba487b62028e63735e7613a38953c436
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Clegg, Peter Vernon. Isaacson, Peter - folder
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. Contains photographs, biography of Wing Commander Peter Isaacson AM, DFC, AFC, DFM RAAF and extracts from his log book covering a journey from England to Australia.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Clegg-PV
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Title
A name given to the resource
Extract from Peter Isaacson's log book
Description
An account of the resource
Covers his flight from England west via the United States to Australia in 1943.
Format
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12 b/w photocopied pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
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BCleggPVIsaacsonPv10012
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 Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Canada
United States
Kiribati
Australia
England--Cheshire
England--Wiltshire
Scotland--Prestwick
Québec--Montréal
Ontario--Ottawa
Ontario--Toronto
California--San Francisco
Hawaii--Honolulu
Kiribati--Kanton
Queensland--Brisbane
New South Wales--Sydney
California
Hawaii
New South Wales
Queensland
Ontario
Québec
Kiribati
Korea (South)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
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Great Britain. Royal Air Force
aircrew
Lancaster
pilot
RAF Lyneham
RAF Prestwick
-
Dublin Core
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Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Hawaii--Honolulu
Title
A name given to the resource
Honolulu [place]
Description
An account of the resource
This page is an entry point for a place. Please use the links below to see all relevant documents available in the Archive.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1236/17972/PThompsonKG15010118.1.jpg
8c13da89689a6eed7c4702264ab97dfd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1236/17972/PThompsonKG15010119.1.jpg
55771ee0d19448c08a70622013b55bb3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1236/17972/PThompsonKG15010120.1.jpg
47f36a521c8a33317d0c46a2ef700b3d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1236/17972/PThompsonKG15010121.1.jpg
37cf86d8e16680aaa89eb919081c3440
Dublin Core
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Title
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Thompson, Keith G
K G Thompson
Description
An account of the resource
95 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Keith Thompson DFC (1238603 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, photographs and training material as well as his navigation logs. He flew operations as a navigator with 101 and 199 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mark S Thompson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Thompson, KG
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Honolulu and approach plates for Honolulu and Canton airfields
Description
An account of the resource
Three photographs captioned 'Canton going to see the fish in the lagoon'.
Two photographs showing Christmas Island from the air, captioned 'Christmas Island the runways 19 June '56' and '28 Jan '57 After rebuild'.
Small map showing Christmas Island.
Two photographs of Christmas Island taken from Shackleton.
A Shackleton, with airfield background captioned 'unloading'.
Approach plate for Christmas Island.
Approach plate for Honolulu.
Receipt from U.S.A.F. Hickam NCO mess for 25 cents,
Four colour postcards of Honolulu, one captioned Waikiki Honolulu, one 'Coast road by blue Pacific', and two, 'Hula maidens'.
Three photographs featuring motor cars one captioned 'Mike with "U-drive" car, and one 'Going sightseeing'.
Two individuals with hangar and palm trees in the background captioned' Shirts RAF issue Hawaiian [sic]'.
Two individuals standing on a beach, surf boards and palm trees in background, captioned 'Mile Dane (Sig), (Flint) Pountney (Eng).
Photograph of waterfall
Photograph of an individual in field of pineapples captioned 'Pineapple field'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1956
Format
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14 b/w photographs, 5 colour photographs and two maps on two album pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Photograph
Identifier
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PThompsonKG15010118, PThompsonKG15010119, PThompsonKG15010120, PThompsonKG15010121
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. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Pacific Area
United States
Hawaii--Honolulu
Hawaii
China
China--Guangzhou
Christmas Island
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1956
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
hangar
mess
runway
Shackleton
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1359/22529/ASmithRW190325.2.mp3
d4141e837d5350df08734bd3233cd24b
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Smith, Bob
Robert Wylie Smith
R W Smith
Description
An account of the resource
125 items. An oral history interview with Bob Smith (b. 1924, 425992 Royal Australian Air Force) photographs, documents and navigation logs and charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 15 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Smith, RW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
LC: Okay, this is an interview with Robert, Bob, Wally Smith 425992, navigator, 15 Squadron, Royal Air Force. The interview is being conducted at the residence of Bob and Alma Smith [redacted] Boulevard, Queensland, on Monday 25th March by myself, Wing Commander Lee Collins of People’s History and Heritage Branch. This interview will be recorded and may be transcribed and will become property and part of the Historical Collection of the Royal Australian Air Force and Bomber Command and be available to future researchers. So Bob, thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed. It’s my privilege to interview you and to obtain your personal account of your experiences of service in the RAF and particularly as a navigator on ops with RAF Bomber Command during World War Two. So, I’d like to maybe begin the interview by, if you go back to your early childhood and upbringing, and your family and schooling before you joined the air force. So, your early life, so where were you born? Where did you grow up?
BS: Well now, I was born in Brisbane, back in 1924. My father had been in the World War One, he was a, wounded three times, and he was original in the 41st Battalion.
LC: 41st Battalion, okay, yeah.
BS: He came back and he, when he got married to my mother, you know, she was also in that, from that district, they rented a corner shop, at the corner, a corner shop, was at the corner of Ipswich Road and Victoria Terrace in Annerley in Brisbane.
LC: Yeah, yeah, yep.
BS: Now, well we grew up there, normal thing, and started school I think it was 1928, at the Junction Park State School. Now his mother had another daughter and a son-in-law who were managing the farm for her, the old family farm known as Greenwood, in Harrisall.
LC: And where was that?
BS: Harrisall, ‘bout two and a half mile, or a couple miles south east of Harrisall on the Malara road, on the road to what they called Malara, or on through to Kalbar, and Boonah, you know.
LC: Boonah. Yup.
BS: Well at the end of 1932, he had to, he sold the business and we went back to the farm. Went to, took up the farm, so the family, we went, while he was arranging transfer, my mother took the family, myself and my two sisters and young brother, went on holiday up to Maleny while dad organised the thing and he, he drove the horse and cart from Annerley up to the farm.
LC: And how far was that?
BS: Oh all day. And we come up, take it after there, well of course then we followed, we went up to the farm then and settled in with Granny Smith. Now we thought at the time, woah great, Granny Smith, you know, she must be famous, she’s had an apple named after her!
LC: Exactly!
BS: But we soon found out, but she was a wonderful person, mum, granny; she was an original. Between Granny Smith and myself, Granny Smith, migrated to Australia as a young girl in 1855 while Queensland was still part of New South Wales, you know. They moved to Queensland then a couple of years later and with her father she moved up to the, near to the district what they call the Pink Mountain Holding in about 1858, ‘59, something like that. They were then since at Churchill, a place called Churchill down where there was a cotton ginnery established, ‘cause cotton was the main thing in those days, you know. And that’s how they, the Smiths had to, worked up to Harrisall ‘cause they were given a grant and land to grow cotton. Now we started school then at Malara. In 1932 get on and I did a, went through there and did scholarship at the Malara School, at the Malara School and now by virtue that dad was a returned Digger, I won a Naracelle scholarship to attend the Ipswich Boys Grammar School as a boarder for two years, so ‘cause dad couldn’t afford to be, at the end of that, I did, I finished and while just before -
LC: What years were that, your last two years of high school?
BS: ‘38, ‘39.
LC: So that was your last two years at high school.
BS: Yeah, ‘38, ‘39, the, and when we finished, ‘39 just before we finished the junior exam, war had been declared over Britain, you see. Now, I came back with the scholarship and with the tertiary education opened up room for me to apply for work in the public service or the bank or thing, which I did, I applied to commence work in the bank in Harrisall, and I was accepted. Accepted as a temporary clerk on probation I think it was, whatever it was, and I was still a temporary clerk on probation when I went to join the air force two years later!
LC: So you are what, about seventeen, seventeen years of age at this stage?
BS: Yeah, now where, I went into the bank then. Now just after I joined the bank, I got a communication from school and from the air force, we were given notification to apply, if we were interested in joining the air force, ‘cause I always stated I would be, we could apply to be registered as air cadets by correspondence.
LC: Okay, yes, yes.
BS: So I took that offer up. I asked, got my parents’ permission do that there. Dad was quite happy that I go in to the air force in a way, although I realised what, what strain I did put on him, to go in, but not into the army, you know.
LC: So did you have any, what was the reason you were more interested in the air force than the army? Your dad was a Digger in the 41st Battalion.
BS: The air force, so I did that, I did the courses with the air cadets, get this thing, when I finished the tests each, as each step went along, the air tests, took ‘em to the headmaster at the Woolora School, he ticked them off, that okay and advised the air force, the air cadet training system okay, see me right, carry on.
LC: And that’s that exercise book you showed me.
BS: Now, when Japan raided Germany, raided -
LC: Pearl Harbour.
BS: Pearl Harbour then in December ‘41, there was a bit of a panic among the air force, because all of us, we couldn’t join the air force until we were nineteen, that means you, in those days to be, you had to go into initial training at about two months before your nineteenth birthday, so that you were ready then for flying, you couldn’t fly till you were nineteen, you know, or go overseas anything like that, volunteers, so and then also on the reserve at that time were a lot of unprotected occupations, school teachers, a lot of school teachers had applied and they were very keen to get school teachers to do the course and they could go on as instructors ‘cause they needed them for the Empire Air Training Scheme you know. The air force jumped at the crews then, that they would form what they call air crew guards and that means that we could go in and that avoided us being called up into the militia. It was quite good. So with that I then had to apply to the bank for leave then and that was granted and so in May 1942, it didn’t take ‘em long, air crew guard callups were held in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to bring up a lot of these, make sure the militia didn’t get us, you know, the army didn’t get us at that age. Although some blokes did, were called up for the militia apparently and, but they then told the militia to go to hell. They went in to the air force.
LC: Can I just step back one? You mentioned where you were when, you were at the bank when Germany, we declared war on Germany in ‘39 and then when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941, do you remember those times well? Do you remember sort of, you know in September 1939 when war was declared do you remember what you were doing or did you have any particular thoughts what were you thinking when something was declared? What was Bob Smith thinking?
BS: Just put the thing into working, getting organised in the bank, you know, winding the office clock every Monday morning, getting out the fresh blotting paper, gradually working in, getting on. No, but that was right. Still carried on, played a bit of sport around Harrisall, lived on the farm, where you learned a lot.
LC: What about December 1941, when, so, Australia had already been at war for a while-
BS: Yeah, that’s right.
LC: So in, suddenly you hear Japan has attacked Pearl Harbour, do you remember where, what you were doing when you heard that news?
BS: No, no, not much, we just thought ah, well things are coming and then of course we found out on the news about it, this going on and coming out and then it was all in the papers, conscription was gonna be brought in.
LC: Was there much an awareness before that of any concerns about Japan before war was actually declared, for a number of years?
BS: Yeah, there was, bit like, in 19, back just after we went to the farm there was a bit of concerns going on about Germany, you know, because we had German occupations and I remember an old German farmer that lived near us, we used to meet him now and again and ‘Oh you’re joining the air force eh, you’re going to go over there, good show, that Hitler he bad man’, you know things just sort of rolled one thing into the other. Then when we, when the call came up and we went in to, in May 1942 we were called down to Brisbane, to the recruiting depot. Went through all the jazz there, then that evening given our numbers and whatnot, told us to take the oath and all this business, and sign up and shoved on a train that night up to Maryborough.
LC: Right. So then when you then signed on do you remember where exactly in Brisbane that was? Where did you actually sign on?
BS: Eagle Street in Brisbane.
LC: Eagle Street, okay.
BS: Recruiting Depot. Number, number whatever Brisbane number 3 Recruiting Depot in Eagle Street in Brisbane.
LC: Now that stage, you were going in the air force, but did you actually have confirmation that you were going in as aircrew or were you just joining the air force and see what?
BS: No, we were going to be training as aircrew under Empire Air Training Scheme.
LC: Right, so you knew that when you went and put your hand on the bible.
BS: I asked that earlier about the thing there at that stage when you went in air crew were you aware of the dangers of flying over in Germany, things like that, you know, I said, well we were. Because I had two cousins from, who lived up in Maleny, they were both shot down in England, one in 1940 he was in early in a Blenheim, flying in a Blenheim, the other one, no he was in a Whitley and the other one was flying out of Libya, he crashed, he was shot down off Tripoli, rescued by an Italian ship, navy ship and taken to Italy. When they came down into the sea, he was badly damaged, these reports as they say, in Germany, in the German reports for the thing ‘received in damaged condition’, but he couldn’t walk, okay. Now he thanks the German doctors for getting him back to walking. Their spinal treatment, that was way above. They came, he was shoved from hospital to hospital in Italy and one night a Luftwaffe officer came in there, looked at him, and looked and he says we’re taking you back to Germany, I we think we can fix you. To a German Luftwaffe -
LC: Hospital.
BS: Which they did, and they got him. I think the bloke was a bit like Douglas Bader, I think they might have been sorry they did fix him up.
LC: [Laugh] So he caused more trouble after they fixed him!
BS: I tell you what, he caused them a bit of trouble! He was that sort of bloke.
LC: So he’s wonderful. What was his name?
BS: Cuthbertson. Guy Cuthbertson.
LC: And the other guy that was shot down in the Whitley?
BS: The bloke was Bill McLean.
LC: Did he survive?
BS: No, no he was killed. He was killed. They shot down, they’ve since found out the pilot that shot him down and got a rough idea of where he crashed into the North Sea. That’s all right.
LC: Okay, but you knew about this.
BS: Then my others, my brother’s, my mother’s other sister that lived in Ipswich, she had a son who was in the navy, he was in, he went down with the Perth, actually didn’t go down with the Perth, they found out later that he did get off the Perth, and they got ashore and they were murdered by the Indonesians who thought they were Dutch.
LC: Is that right? Okay. You know a lot of the survivors of the Perth were captured by the Japanese.
BS: Yeah, yeah. We more or less knew the dangers we were going in to, you know.
LC: So knew, all this occurred when you, before you enlisted. Okay, so you put your hand on the bible, you’ve gone up to Maryborough. So what happened at Maryborough?
BS: Route marches in the morning. First thing out, you’re up, got issued with your dungarees and stuff like that and a route march first in the morning, quite try to remind them we didn’t join the air force to march.
LC: What was that unit called?
BS: Eh?
LC: Do you remember the name of the unit?
BS: No, just Recruit Depot.
LC: Recruit Depot, okay.
BS: No, no, in that thing there, Maryborough, yeah, at the Maryborough airport, yeah.
LC: Okay right. Fair enough.
BS: We quick learnt to go into town, get a, probably walk in to town or get a, don’t know how we got in to town half the time or something, but to come home at night all you do was pick a, outside the pictures grab a bike, ride it home and leave it the main gate. Of course Maryborough soon got used to it I think if your bike was missing you went down to the base and there it was the next morning!
LC: You went down to the base. It was like an honour system.
BS: It was quite good. So when we finished our course there we were assigned to guard duties and I was posted through to Cootamundra, Number 2 AOS at Cootamundra.
LC: Cootamundra?
BS: Yeah. They, they looked upon the Queenslanders quite freshly, they gave us an extra blanket, we used to say they should also give us a WAAF, but they wouldn’t be in that.
LC: No, no, no!
BS: No, no. So we decide the better thing there was a newspaper in between the two blankets and that was quite warm enough, you know. Down to Cootamundra.
LC: It gets a bit nippy down there doesn’t it!
BS: It was a bit nippy, yeah. We found out. You could go on guard duty at least, but at least you could take a, have a heart or an ice cream, type of thing out leave it on top of a post or something it stayed frozen for the night, you know. Bit cheeky, you could crawl up in to an Anson or something now and again, and have a bit of a sneak look or if nobody was around, nobody looked around.
LC: What was that school there? What was Cootamundra, what was the purpose?
BS: Air Observer School, Number 2 Air Observer School and also 75 Squadron was formed there at the time. Now when we were at Cootamundra, a couple of things happened there, that’s the first experience we had of death in the air force, crews from the training unit, one of I think it was about 76 Squadron, or something like that, in a Beaufighter come in and they landed at Cootamundra, but must have done a tight turn in the thing and stalled and then crashed on take off. Well we were called out to the scene and I’ve got to thank an old, he was a fatherly sort of a corporal in charge of the guards or something like that, when we got out there he said to us young blokes, he said ‘Now listen you young fellers, don’t take this to heart. There’s nothing you can do for these fellers now, they’re gone; death is death. Accept it. That’s it.’ And it was wonderful advice, for what we.
LC: Yeah. Because they’re beyond suffering at that stage.
BS: We sat out there at the beginning of that and it was, it was a mess.
LC: You were guarding the aircraft were you?
BS: I can still remember the pilot, he was thrown out of it and his body was, what was left of it, was about well probably a couple of chain away. The second officer, it’d be his observer, was just a, every bone in his body had been smashed, he was just a lump sitting in that, in there, and they moved it out and what struck us then too was they come in, they picked up the pilot, bits, they come in and they looked out and on the thing and to make up a bit of weight, put in a bit of a sand bag, to make it look okay and that. So they’d get it back to the thing.
LC: To go for the burial later.
BS: While we, while we sat there, we, while there, time passed during the day with, I can still remember once, we had a young bloke from, he was from Sydney or something, looked out and he saw these rabbits running around over there, he’d like to shoot one. He said, ‘Well there’s one under the fence over there’, but we looked out and said ‘No, can’t see a rabbit there’, but there was a fair size of a stone, a stone there. ‘No, I’ll have a shot.’ Well he did. He was pretty good: he hit it, but the bullet ricocheted off that stone, and the whine of the bullet, well what was the funny part of that was, just after that whine there was the sheep all over the place, scattering, the whine then sheep going everywhere.
LC: Didn’t have to account for the bullet? He didn’t have to account for the bullet?
BS: Then also at night they’d have to occasionally send us out to the fuel dump which was about a mile out of town or something on the road and we’d live in a tent there, and unfortunately, we’d take a bit of fruit out or something and we trained the possums to eat out of our hand which we regretted later ‘cause they’d get up on the top of the tent and bash up and down and make a hell of a racket! They were a nuisance. Then to fill in a bit of time one night, we get on with things that, oh this is boring and whatnot. I’m to blame for this, the, I don’t know what it was that flew overhead us, something went overhead, but I upped with the rifle, had a shot at it and missed. Well it wasn’t long before boy they heard it back at the station, come flying out and we had to report to the CO the next day. So I told ‘em at the time, I said, ‘No, no’, I said ‘Look there’s a bloke coming along the fence there, and he was trying to get through, I gave him the order, halt or fire, and I fired a shot in the air, there were two shots and he didn’t get, so I fired another one’ and ‘Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, okay, righto, well you better get out the range tomorrow, you blokes, the company.’ So went out to the range. I don’t know what the report was I think, ‘cause when we come to the range they put us on two hundred yards. I got two bulls and three inners, and four inners with me six shots!
LC: That’s all right.
BS: When he said to me, ‘Oh’, he said ‘Don’t worry, that bullet wouldn’t have gone too far off him.’
LC: Excellent.
BS: I got him. But they tried to look through the fence to find a bit of clothing, and wander round the fence, but nothing was there.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Of course.
BS: That was all right. But that went off and then eventually came before, a few months to go we were called up to Number 2 ITS at Bradfield Park for initial training school.
LC: Where’s Bradfield Park?
BS: Bradfield Park at Ipswich, in Sydney.
LC: In Sydney.
BS: Linfield I think it was, the name, it was a, it didn’t have a very good name, old Bradfield Park apparently.
LC: Can I just ask a question first before you go there. You mention when you went to Cootamundra was the Air Observer School, now at what stage, did, how did they make the decision, you knew you’re going in as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, at what stage was the decision made which guys would go off as pilots and which ones would go off as navigators?
BS: At the initial training school.
LC: Right. How do they make that decision?
BS: That’s the idea of the Initial Training School, you go through all this training, various things, you know. They used to have a thing like a pilot, like kicking around to adjust your thing and I, I came through that when we went to the selection committee for the, after that, they just looked at it and say, they looked at it and say, ‘Oh, you’re a pilot.’ God. You’re above average at everything or something, like that you’re going to be a pilot. I said ‘I don’t want to be a pilot’ because not long before this came out rumour was getting around that those who were selected as navigators and air bombers were to go to Canada for training and then to go on to the new four engined aircraft that were coming in to operation over in England, you know. I said, boy go to Canada, that sounds all right to me. I said ‘No, no I want to be a navigator, my thing’s set on being a navigator’. ‘Why do you want to be a navigator?’ ‘Well I’m just interested in maths’, you know. He said ‘Well you got a good high score in your maths stuff like that. All right’, he says. So I went off happy as Larry.
LC: There you go.
BS: So we went off on leave then, home for pre-embarkation leave. And we had to be back at the embarkation depot number two it was, in Sydney, wasn’t it, embarkation depot, on the 10th of January. That was my nineteenth birthday.
LC: That was ‘43. January 1943. Yep.
BS: Yeah. 1943.
LC: That’s pretty quick from you know 7th 8th of December when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour to early January, that’s very quick.
BS: 19, yeah. So we got sorted out then. So that was us at the embarkation depot. While I was at home, of course naturally our farewells and whatnot, moving around and the normal things, you know, and I suppose one of those things but I was, somehow I never doubted, that I’d, that I’d be killed; I’d come back. It was just there, something, something told me and I believed it. So that stood by me.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Well it worked obviously.
BS: Never knew fear when I was operating, we never worried. We had a crew that, all the while, we only had one, but had a pilot, I can tell you more about him later on, but he was excellent and he always believed in: “you’re not in trouble till you’re hit”. You just carry on as normal; things are normal. There could be flak flying around you, could be fighters looking, lurking around. Until he hits yer, you just carry on, then you treat the position as it is.
LC: That’s right.
BS: That’s well, and he, I suppose this is what stuck to us when we, when we went into Canada, forgot now, oh where were we there?
LC: You’re at the embarkation point. Can I just ask one further question? At the Air Observer School, was there any flying training there or was that all ground school? At the Air Observer School did you do flying training there at Maryborough or was that-
BS: No, no, no.
LC: That was all ground school.
BS: No flying training, we weren’t allowed to fly, until you’re nineteen. Through Initial Training School at Bradfield Park, there’s no flying training there, anything like that.
LC: That didn’t really start till you got to Canada.
BS: It’s not till you go to, then if you’re a pilot you go to what they call an Elementary Flying Training School.
LC: Then on to the, you know, Tiger Moths and that sort of thing.
BS: Or a navigator to a nav course, to a bomber, to a bomb aimer’s course, to WAGs course, or wireless operators course, that sort of thing.
LC: So you’re at embarkation, so at this stage so you’d had some period on leave, some embarkation leave. So you got back to Queensland.
BS: Yeah, yeah, got back to Queensland and I went, caught the train then went down to Brisbane on the train and down to Sydney and while we’re at, attached to the embarkation depot at Sydney, we were allowed, leave was pretty good, lot of sports and that. A few, they put us through a bit of a experiment there. We were called up one day to go out to the University of Sydney, they were doing experiments on sea sickness.
LC: Okay.
BS: And what they, what we done, we were strapped to, we were put into stretchers and they were swung from ceiling to ceiling.
LC: Are you all willing volunteers for this?
BS: Out we went, oh, we’re given a lovely dinner, roast lamb and peas and whatnot sort of. Mine didn’t last too long I can tell yer! [Laughter] But we had one bloke there, they couldn’t make him sick. That was this.
LC: And that was handy training before you jump on board the ship.
BS: Yeah, and a lot of other things you could do, you could go on, there were lessons in sailing and swimming and all various things you get to do.
LC: So how long was this period?
BS: And then a few lectures during the day from blokes that coming back from England, that had completed all the latest on the war, or something like that, you know, intelligence reports, various subjects going through there while you’re on embarkation, but leave was pretty good, over weekends.
LC: So how long was that period, you know, of embarkation?
BS: We were there not all that long, about a month I got. We, I embarked on the 10th of February.
LC: 10th of February.
BS: On the Hermitage.
LC: The Hermitage.
BS: On a ship called the Hermitage. It was an Italian ship that had been, when war broke out in England and it was in the Suez Canal port and it was interned there, so it left.
LC: Okay, yeah.
BS: When Japan bombed Pearl Harbour the American government commandeered it, they took it over, moved it to the east coast of America to a place called I think it was Norfolk or something.
LC: Norfolk, Virginia.
BS: Yeah. For it to be converted to a troop ship.
LC: Okay.
BS: Armed, armed with guns on the rear and stuff like that, you know, it could do about, travel about twenty four knots or something like that I think and was regarded, it could zigzag a course and fast enough to dodge submarines, you know, so we ended up on the old Hermitage.
LC: Right.
BS: Now, get on the Hermitage, landed there, Woolloomooloo on the night, on the day of the 10th I think on the 9th, it might have been the 9th of February and sailed on the 10th anyway, of February.
LC: Did it sail on its own or were you part of a convoy?
BS: Eh?
LC: Was there any escorts or did you sail on your own?
BS: No, we sailed on our own. We, out of, the first day out of Sydney, we sailed from Woolloomooloo, the first day out of Sydney we were escorted by two destroyers. One was a Dutch destroyer and they get out but the next morning they’d gone.
LC: Yeah, ‘cause there was the submarine threat.
BS: More or less the zigzag course, then they got, put us on to lectures during the day and stuff like that, you know.
LC: Were you aware of the submarine threat, of the submarine threat while you were on board the ship?
BS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
LC: Did they have special, any drills?
BS: They did because they, on these lectures and that, we thought well this is a bit of a gem of an idea, the lectures, I thought, and I went round once on the deck, we’re allowed the deck space, you’re on a Yankee ship, now you only got two meals a day when transit, the American ships, you know, and I wander around looking, I’m on the deck and didn’t have a life jacket on, you see so I’m nabbed, Oi! No life jacket on the deck, down to kitchen duty. Three days kitchen duty but I tell you gee this turns out all right.
LC: All right!
BS: You can have three meals a day, you cart hot stuff around and although that’s where I got to like sauerkraut and saveloys and of course baked beans, typical Americans. And then after the three days, we get on, get up to wander round the deck, [unclear] I got nabbed again, back down the kitchen duty you see. But then we’re getting to on then, was on the last day of that when we called in to Pango Pango.
LC: American Samoa.
BS: No leave there, and word got around then the next stop would be Honolulu, we’d be given leave there, we would be stopping overnight you know, Pango Pango we stopped overnight. So I said well no after this we won’t worry about this ‘cause you know we better have a bit of leave in Honolulu, when we get there, if we get there. But just before we got to Pango Pango, I think it was about two days before, we drifted for quite a while one night. Now what it was there was some rumours around they think there was a sub in the area and they shut the engines off, something like that, but the next day we get going again and whatnot, if they’re worried about a sub or leaving any remark, then woke up during that day that it had taken on a lot of supplies for the north, to take the troops over for the North American landing and they had a lot of supplies on board, you know, but they had a lot of chocolates on, Chorley’s chocolates, and they’d gone bad in the Tropics, stuff like that, so these Chorley’s chocolate bars, they were leaving -
LC: Leaving a trail of chocolates.
BS: Leaving a trail of Chorley’s chocolates out, oh god.
LC: I can just picture that, a Japanese submarine following a trail of chocolates to the Hermitage!
BS: But they wouldn’t have caught up with us anyway ‘cause they were doing twenty four knots and that, they cruise along pretty well, it was not a bad ship like that.
LC: So when you’re not getting nabbed and doing kitchen duty, what was the standard routine on, you had lectures, training, PT?
BS: Yeah. You were on training or you could be assigned to gun duty at the back, but they soon gave that away to the Aussies, ‘cause they used to have to put up a weather balloon every so often, if Aussies were on the gun crew they shot at it.
LC: Took pot shots out of it.
BS: They popped at it. They’d get it. So we were out of favour. [Laughter]
LC: So the crew was all American were they?
BS: Yeah, but they had the canteen was open for an hour a day, you could get sandwiches there, and we’d generally get on. Now, while we were going across there, we had a group we called the Bunduck club, I don’t know how they got that name, but they used to, they sat around the deck. Well I never had much to do with them ‘cause I got sent down for kitchen duty. But this bloke had a gramophone, only had one record, it was “In the Mood”, and of course by the we time got down there and get to Pango Pango and going off on this one record the needle had had it, you know, [unclear] so when we go on the leg up to, going up to Honolulu they reckon they’ve got to, on back on the Bunduck Club, they reckon right we’ve got to get a gramophone needle when we get to Honolulu, you know. So we cruise along to Honolulu all right, with odd lectures and stuff like that. We managed to get by.
LC: So how long was the cruise?
BS: Eh?
LC: How long did it take to get to Honolulu?
BS: Four weeks.
LC: Four weeks to Honolulu.
BS: Well no, three weeks, we got the, we got six days, it was a week to Pango Pango, another week to Honolulu, another week to, or just about a week.
LC: Okay. So your time in Honolulu did it that, you said you had some leave. Did the ship go in to Honolulu Harbour or did it go in to Pearl Harbour?
BS: No, into Honolulu Harbour. Now we were split into two, one lot were given leave the afternoon we arrived there, it was about midday we arrived there about then, they were given leave till about eighteen hundred hours or something like that, then in the morning we were also given leave till 23:59 hours. So away we go, few of us, and this bloke out chasing this gramophone needle, you know. Now that’s the first time I’d ever struck traffic driving on the wrong side of the road.
LC: Oh yes, of course you did.
BS: So my mother went close to receiving that telegram!
LC: Oh dear!
BS: You look right and step out and the next minute, this thing come phoom, great negro driving this truck, bloody hell! Oh boys we got to look the other way! So we go round looking for this gramophone needle. Well, we’re getting shown everything: bloody knitting needles and darning needles and sewing needles, and all sorts of needles, you know. We had this bloke Russ Martin, Russ was a bit of a wag, real outgoing bloke, so we go into one place, and of course what we couldn’t understand, what we noticed also there was the large Japanese population in all the stores, and guards on every door, on every shop door.
LC: American guards.
BS: Yeah. And of course If any, they they stuttered they get shot, no muckin’ around. So we go in to this place, and old Russ no, no gramophone needle, you know, you’ve got to think thing you turn round and round and you put the thing down – ah you mean a phonograph needle!
LC: Oh right, yes!
BS: So then we’re right, we got our phonograph needle.
LC: Once you know the American lingo you’re all right.
BS: So we got that and another bloke and myself, Noel Hooper, we come out, and we’re wearing our tropical uniforms, Noel came from Nambour and he was shot down too, but evaded capture and died not long after the war, but he, we’d come on back and this Yankee bloke come and talk to us, what you got to do, would you like come and have a look at Pearl Harbour? He was a Yankee officer. Well, that’ll be great, but he took us to, we went through two check points, now at the last checkpoint we’re looking down on Pearl Harbour and now at this time it was about half past eleven, you know, we said to him ‘Listen we can’t go on we’ve got to be back on the ship by 23:59’, ‘Oh okay’, he said, no, no but we’d got that far, you know, he was quite willing to, take us down there. Generous, so he took us back to the ship then.
LC: But you didn’t quite get to Pearl Harbour.
BS: We got a chance to look down on Pearl Harbour. Just to look down on.
LC: Oh, you looked down on it. Could you see the damage?
BS: Yeah, yeah. So that, that was a bit of an experience.
LC: Well it would have been, yeah, only months after.
BS: Then we went, went back on to board the ship then sailed. And as for sitting out on the deck playing the gramophone record that was out of the question, ‘cause God it was cold! The seas were rough and cold eh, once we left Honolulu, oh, just lousy. Fortunately at Honolulu they must have anticipated this, we were issued with sheepskin jackets those, from the Australian Comforts Fund. They come in handy.
LC: Yeah. They would’ve. So where were you sailing to now?
BS: Going to San Francisco.
LC: San Francisco, okay.
BS: So we met then, came into San Fran after a couple of days of that, getting the seagulls around and whatnot, come in to San Francisco, under the Golden Gate Bridge, coming up the Golden Gate Bridge, the ship’s not going to go under there! Look that! But there was tons of room.
LC: Oh yeah, just a bit!
BS: Oh what a sight, you know. Pulled up opposite Alcatraz, the prison camp, and we were unloaded pretty quickly and put on to ferries to go over to Oakland, where we were put on to a train, we got a meal and put on to a train and then sent north to go up to, through, Oregon, Seattle and Vancouver. That was a⸻
LC: You didn’t get any—
BS: So on the train--
LC: So you didn’t get any time off in San Francisco, just normal movements.
BS: No, no, we caught the ferry across. We were away that afternoon on the train from Oakland, you know, and just with our wanted on voyage luggage or something, you know, not wanted on voyage would have been unloaded, it was following us somewhere. So we get, and that was an experience ‘cause to get on to the train then oh god it was comfort, it was warm and negro walking around, magazines, ice cream, anything, oh god everything, you’re whipping through, the damn thing’s going that fast you couldn’t count the telephone poles going past, you know. Boy this is not like the Queensland ride! [laughs] What a great trip that was.
LC: Did you do any stops on the way to Vancouver, did you stop on the way?
BS: Yeah, couple of stops at Salem or something.
LC: Or Seattle.
BS: All the meals were on the train. One thing we sort of noticed a lot, no fences between buildings, and a lot of them not painted, you know really a difference you know, different, fir trees right on up till we got nearly to Seattle and then we couldn’t get over, that’s when we first sighted Mount St Helens, blew up later there.
LC: That’s the one, yes.
BS: All the snow on top of it.
LC: Yeah, yeah.
BS: And then in to Seattle and then moved on then up to Vancouver.
LC: Right.
BS: Got to Vancouver and then, that was early morning, the meal, breakfast at the station, issued with Canadian currency and given the leave for the day. Now that was my first contact with Rotary. A bloke, a Rotarian, said you blokes come round, you like to look around? So he drove us around town and out to the Capilano -
LC: Yup. The Narrows.
BS: Where it is, the park out there, you know and looked out at about mid-day, he says ‘What I’ll do’, he says ‘I’ll take you round’ and he went away, come round, then he arranged to come back and pick us up, ‘You go out and wander around the park there, you know, I’ll come back and pick you up at about three o’clock or some [unclear] and take you back to the station, give you a look around town and take you back to the station so you can meet, you’ve got to be there at 1800 hours or something and head off up over the Rockies to Edmonton.’ So he did that.
LC: And he was with the Rotary.
BS: We had a pretty full day.
LC: So you’re back on the train again heading to Edmonton.
BS: That was one of the greatest days out, that trip up through the Rockies.
LC: Yeah. It’s still winter isn’t it?
BS: Yeah. The middle of winter, go outside, and all the rivers frozen.
LC: At this stage were given you any extra clothing? Had they given you any extra cold weather clothing at this stage?
BS: Oh no, the trains were air conditioned, we were warm as toast in there. We were just sitting there in our dungarees more or less, looking out, getting over and some of these blokes, the waiters on the train there too, looking out, look all the snow cover and down between the trees there’d be a clean line of snow, down, you know. And they’d tell us: oh the bears keep that clean so they can skid down. I don’t know whether they were pulling our leg or not, might have been. But we believed them anyway.
LC: Oh yeah well, why not.
BS: Then we got to this place called Avola, and they had to stop there, we had a couple of stops before that, you know, going past Mount Robson but we couldn’t get over not a tree on them, you know, just bare rock and snow. What a great water, water resource that is, you know, we could do with that here, just then it melts quietly during the summer and sends it all down through the Prairies and whatnot, and down through the Mississippi and whatnot. So I did, we eventually got to Avola, got there into things, fixed it up in camp and then we set off from Jasper to Edmonton. Now, there’s a bit of a hold up just outside of Edmonton when we get down a bit, and then we arrived at Edmonton. I tell you, you blokes are lucky, the temperature’s twenty six below, now you’ve gotta get out, there’s trucks here to take you out to what they call the Manning Depot at Edmonton, you know, M Depots, they don’t call them reception depots or anything, it’s like the embarkation depots were called Y depots, I don’t know what the Y stood for, but the Manning Depot. I get this, the temperatures this side and they’re gonna get the trucks out, I said the best thing to do is make sure you’re about the first on. I’m grabbing the back and everybody else piles in behind you, they went out and they told us there the truck driver said there, if you were, if the temperature was two degrees cooler, that was twenty six degrees Fahrenheit, minus twenty six degrees Fahrenheit, if two degrees further and everything would be closed, everything would stop, okay so. Anyway we got out, we got us to Edmonton all right. We back down, put into some barracks there. The first barracks we were in, they were older barracks and the ablution blocks and that were, oh, about a chain away or something, you know, twenty, thirty, forty yards away, something like that.
LC: In the cold weather.
BS: If you had to race across to ‘em, you know, if you did, you had a shower or anything like that and you’d come out and your hair was wet, time you got back to the barracks it was all ice! You got back in a hurry. But not long after we were transferred to new barracks just across the road and they were all air conditioned and the toilets, everything was inside all in the one building, you know, and then we got issued first of all at the Manning Depot got called and then to issue our battle dress and our instruction books, text books and that on various, meteorology and navigation and whatnot, you know, and the first day like that, we didn’t get, another bloke and myself we didn’t get our battle dresses that day because they’d run out of Australian battle dresses there, so we had to go back oh, about a week later and get ours, back to the Manning Depot.
LC: So this would have been the dark blue.
BS: So this was out of the aerodrome, yeah. This was out of the aerodrome. So we settled in then.
LC: So your course was starting there then?
BS: Settled in to lectures.
LC: And Go!
LC: Oh yeah, right on, you know. It was on.
LC: Almost the day you got there, you went right into it.
BS: Right into it, yeah. They didn’t muck about. They get on and you did certain amount of lectures before your first flight, you know and they had to be ready for that and got issued with flying gear and whatever. And all various things and that’s where I had, I mentioned to you there before, where one of our blokes, the three of us that were good mates and stayed together we, and one of them had gone out and met this girl or something, we went into the, what we couldn’t get over there, we went into the YMCA, the YWCA rather, no YMCA over there, YWCA. Terrific facilities, you know, indoor heated swimming pool, dance floor, bowling alley, cafe, you know, dining facilities, dance floor and all, oh, terrific, you know. And Eric, who met up with one girl there too the first day and tied up with and we were invited then to be the, there was a group called the Twentieth Century Club, this girl was Italian and she used to organise hikes and that of a Sunday and we would go on them you know and that, Eric must have been out somewhere and he met this other girl, and just on the lectures a couple of days later this, the phone rings, wanting to speak to Eric Sutton or one of his friends, and this is this girl, ringing up, going oh yeah, well look Eric’s told me about you two friends look I’ve got two lovely friends too she says and they’re quite interested in meeting, how about come out and come meet us and we can go shagging one night. And you know shagging. I come back to the instructor and of course after the haw-haws about the shagging and whatnot going on, the instructor explained that shagging in Canada is dancing! So we said yeah.
LC: That’s all right though still. [Laughter]
BS: So we went out. They were great kids, they put no pressure on us, they were just - we were brothers, and that’s the way it was. Now the girl I went with, her father, told us when we left, he come out, he couldn’t thank us enough, now look, I can’t thank you boys enough for what you’ve meant to our, these three girls. He said none of them have got brothers, and they’re good friends, you’ve put no pressure on them, apparently, well it’s, I don’t know whether he explained, there’s never any pressure like this, they couldn’t attend all the things, they couldn’t come to our passing out parade because they were occupied, one was away, on holidays, one was a schoolteacher, you know they had their thing, but they were great kids, and their parents.
LC: So the locals were very happy, very happy to have you around.
BS: Yeah. He was great. When we left, when we had to go on to embarkation depot when we left from there, he come out to the train, we went to his place, to go along, thing is he said ‘I’ll drive you all to the train. I’ll take you in to the train’ then, but the girls didn’t come with us. They just, well, said goodbyes at the house.
LC: So you’re training at Edmonton, so now what aircraft was that on? What aircraft are you on?
BS: Ansons.
LC: Ansons, yeah.
BS: And you did, you flew in pairs, you had two, you had a flying mate come in. The second one, the first one did the navigation, you did practical navigation, you’re on set courses. There were a number of set courses which you flew by day then you flew the same course by night. And they were all bush pilots, Canadians, leased out, the bush pilots and they, they flew by the seat of their pants, I’ll tell you that, they were good pilots.
LC: Was this medium level, low level navigation?
BS: No. Very, very seldom went above two thousand feet.
LC: Okay, right, so it was very much visual.
BS: Yeah, bit of cloud that forced you up, but no, down low.
LC: So what you are learning is primarily visual and dead reckoning and that sort of thing.
BS: Yeah, just dead reckon navigate. The second bloke, the second nav on that trip, you’d do the first trip and he’d do the second. Second nav sat there, he did map reading. He practised his map reading and the old Ansons there didn’t have automated wind up the undercart, he had to wind up the undercart, hundred and thirty six turns.
LC: Oh bloody hell!
BS: Bloody. They were good. The er, we had a couple of trips there I think were, were memorable. The first trip we went on, well, our first flight, we had a bloke, his girlfriend was a schoolteacher at a school just outside of Edmonton, something business well did he do that turn up, I was starting to get a bit airsick by the time we was finished, he’s getting [unclear] was down there looking through the window of the school.
LC: Is that right? Beating up his girlfriend.
BS: That poor old Lanc he must have thought it was a Spitfire I think, the Anson, you know.
[Other]: I’ll give you two minutes. I’ll give you two minutes.
LC: Okay. Alma’s just entered the room and we’re being told to take a break in a few minutes.
BS: Right oh.
[Other]: [Unclear] we haven’t even left Canada yet!
LC: Yeah, we’ll get there, oh we’ll get there!
BS: That was, you know, gave us the two minutes. Then we had a trip later on, which is a, which a pilot, one of the few pilots who didn’t, who was not always on course ‘cause the thing there, for training and for navigation over in England was a bit rich ‘cause you go, your first leg’s to Ellerslie, well Ellerslie, that’s the three wheat silos down the line there, so you see it, and of course they know it’s there. But we had a trip, we had to go to a place well down, was a long way down and we were over ten tenths cloud and a lot of them pulled back, they came back. We had to go to two thousand feet to get above, I said ‘No we’ll carry on’ [unclear] and the pilot gets there, I said right we should be over, oh hang on [pause] no, I just, oh Coronation, a place called Coronation, and he looks around, he come down, there’s a break in the cloud there, yeah, we went down. ‘Oh’, he said ‘We’ll have a look at the railway station there and see, should be there’s a railway station there’, so he gets down. So he runs along, I think he damn near ran the wheels along the train track, Coron-wheesh, just went like there, no chance, so he goes round again and we shot off a bit, yeah, Coronation, he said ‘Righto, we’ll climb back up.’
LC: You’re reading the signs on the station were you!
BS: Yeah, yeah, read the name on the station to make sure. ‘Oh’ he says, ‘That’s good.’ Well I think I got brownie points for that trip, come back the old nav kind of thing. You’ve got to thank the pilot, he flew the course you gave him, you know, not tracking it, you know. Well he had to, he couldn’t see the ground anyway.
LC: So how many training trips did you, flights did you do on the course before the end?
BS: I think, I think the course was about twelve days, twelve or fourteen day trips and twelve or fourteen night trips.
LC: Okay. And how many a day, was it sort of you know, fly, day off, fly, day off?
BS: Oh we finished there the end of July, it was only over a couple of months, it was solid.
LC: Okay so you’re flying almost every day?
BS: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, quite a few, weather’d stop you quite a few days stop you, then you’d have catch up, night time and whatnot.
LC: Okay, we might take a break in a second, but so basically we’re up to, you’re coming to the end of the, coming up to your passing out parade so when we come back after the break we’ll go from there to Halifax and then we’ll get stuck in to operations in the UK.
BS: To Halifax. We’re going on holidays to New York [unclear].
LC: Okay, this is part two, we’re reconvening at half past twelve after a very, very nice lunch and a cup of tea. Okay welcome back, Bob, okay, now we got to, we’re talking about the time at Edmonton on the Ansons, the, so at the end of your training there, so was that the stage where you passed out, with your passing out parade. Was that the stage where you actually, did you get your wings, your brevet at that stage.
BS: Wings, yeah. Navigation brevet and then we get on, [cough] and after we left as I said with, we had that, spent the last day with the families of the girls, the three girls we were friendly with there. One of the fathers drove us to the station so then we left Edmonton then, by train, at night, all across the prairies, down through Winnipeg to somewhere got off, changed trains then to go on down to New York, via by Niagara Falls had a few hours at Niagara Falls and a couple of days at New York, looking around there sort of. And then Noel Hooper, one who along with myself were commissioned off course, we came back early from New York to Montreal to pick up our pilot officer ribbons and that, you know, we were given our slip on the pay parade, last pay parade at Edmonton, here’s your commission, sort things out yourself, something like that. Then we decided there in Montreal no, we’ll just take that, we’ll just do the pilot’s thing hang on to our present uniforms and wait till we get to England to be issued with officers uniforms, you know [cough] and then we caught up with the rest of the crew, the rest of them coming back from New York, coming up to Montreal and then we head off by train then again and along the Hudson river to Halifax, arrived at Halifax at the Y Depot.
LC: Right, that’s embarkation depot.
BS: Yeah, we were, completed our clearances, as they say in Canada they’re clearances whether you’re arriving or going, they’re all clearances. Completed there and settled in to officers quarters and whatnot, you know and pretty well straight away the first day, the first couple of days exercises in the decompression chamber. The Y Depot, the air force’s Y Depot emigration there, was situated on the naval station so they had those facilities so we did the decompression chamber and then a bit of practice or what to do, how to get into a dinghy from off the wing sort of. Generally leave was pretty good, mucking round there. After a few weeks we suddenly got the call yeah, go on parade: we’re on to the Queen Mary.
LC: Right, okay.
BS: So right, get on to the Queen Mary and we were billeted, there were twenty four of us, we were up on A deck, A24 and run by the, under the Americans [unclear] sort of thing and as you know on the Queen Mary the top decks were reserved for Commonwealth troops, officers and even men, you know and non-commissioned officers and the ship’s crew and American officers like that, and I think they went down to about the first four or five decks and below that you were then below decks where the main force of Americans, ‘cause after we boarded the Mary, the Queen Mary we went then straight to New York to pick up Americans. They, and I believe on that trip we go, there were fifteen thousand personnel on board the Queen Mary for that trip over.
LC: Bloody hell! Oh dear.
BS: So you can imagine the Americans, particularly the negroes, and that who were confined to below decks.
LC: Yeah.
BS: Conditions there were rotten.
LC: Because it had been refitted, it wasn’t like normal passenger cabins.
BS: No, no, they were rotten. At our deck we had, we soon learned that we had to follow the yellow line down to our eating, our mess as you call it sort of is, and I think it was the green line down to the big cinema where they showed pictures at night, the entertainment area and stuff like, and another red line to go somewhere else. But it was sort of colour coded where you go.
LC: So how long was that cruise across to?
BS: So we arrived in America late one afternoon, they loaded all night I think, and got away late the next afternoon. Then for three days went on a zigzag course across to -
LC: And you’re with a convoy as well?
BS: No, no, no, on your own, the Mary was on her own, see the Mary operated, from, its regular run at that time was from Gourock in Scotland, across to Halifax to New York back to Gourock. I think the Queen Elizabeth was also on the run but I got an idea the Queen Elizabeth operated from Southampton, and come down south of Ireland, you know, across there. We come in to north of Ireland. Then coming in to north of Ireland we cruised in lately and we were greeted pretty well by few low flying aircraft coming in to meet us round the north of Ireland and in towards the, the Ayrshire coast, moving up into the Clyde into Gourock and the most moving part of that was the Band of the Royal Marines which was aboard, down on the open deck, just below where we were standing, thing we were standing on, played Land of Hope and Glory.
LC: Oh, okay, for the Yanks, for the Poms.
BS: Well you can imagine, the Americans, there were tears in their eyes because Britain then was the land of hope and glory, there’s no doubt about it.
LC: Hope and glory, yeah that’s right.
BS: Anyway, so into Gourock lined us up on to lighters straight into, early in the morning, ah, that was about midday when we came, straight on to lighters, over on to the railway station. I think we got a meal and stuff like that, waited there, then set off that night down to England.
LC: So what was your first -
BS: So that was, travelled all through the night and then in the morning woke up, we’re getting in to the outskirts of, down past the Midlands a little bit and the first evidence of bomb damage I think, and what struck us most too, was we sped through the Crewe railway junction, that train just rattled through there at a reasonable speed and you suddenly realise in those days all the signals that were probably operated by hand, no automatic stuff or anything like that. Rattled down and then further on after we come into the real bomb damage and into London and on down to Brighton where we were accepted. The officers in Brighton were taken in to what they called the Red Lion Hotel, along and then the NCOs were billeted up in the, the Metropole and one of the other hotels further up, bit west. So we settled in there for a while, then about the second night come in, I’m suddenly given the job on duty, officer in charge of one of the guns on the front. Right, on the front, go down to this gun and a couple of other gunners come there, sort of looked at it, what do we do now? I says ‘Well I hope they’re working. Well, we’d better fire a couple of shots just to make sure’, you know, so bang, bang bang, ‘Oh they’re right’, okay. Well of course it wasn’t too long before some officious looking English sergeant major of some sort came flying, ‘What’s going on here, what’s going on here? You’ll have to be court martialled’, I said ‘What’s the sense of us being here if we’re not out testing the guns?’ We’ve got to make sure they’re working.
LC: This is on the main, when you say the front, that’s that main area on the foreshore.
BS: That’s right, the long the esplanade. Along past the main, what do they call it? The pier. So anyway he settled with that, it was all right. You can do that. Then with, we’re on to lectures that day on the pier, and I think one of the lectures on the pier, we’re on there one day, and all of a sudden there’s, you had to go up a plank on to the pier and all of a sudden there’s an unholy explosion, something happened. They were mined and one of the mines on the pier had gone off.
LC: Oh bloody hell!
BS: Got off there okay, that was all right and then it was only a few days later most of the crew we went, suddenly got their transfers, a couple of us went to London to organise our uniforms, officers uniforms and stuff like that and get to know the Boomerang Club and what it meant, had a look around.
LC: Where was the Boomerang Club?
BS: Eh?
LC: Where was that?
BS: In Australia House.
LC: In Australia House, okay, yup.
BS: I opened an account at the National Bank there as I was a bank officer, and it was then all the, the bank was all boarded up and that, there was a bit of bomb crater damage across the road with the St Martins in the Fields and that is now the official air force.
LC: Certainly is.
BS: Organised the Boomerang Clun and got the way, air force headquarters were up in Kodak House, Kingsway. We’d come in to Kingsway on the train up and come down to Boomerang House and then do the runs around, did the run up through there, to Buckingham Palace and around, got to know a bit of the area sort of thing.
LC: So getting your uniforms, were there tailors there just did standard work?
BS: Yeah, uniforms were fitted, in Oxford Street I think it was.
LC: Was that one of those places like Gieves and Hawkes or Johnsons?
BS: One of the great ones, yeah, all made to measure, beautifully made and got that settled. [Cough] It was only after a couple of days then Noel Hooper and Johnny Honeyman and myself were transferred to an Officers Training School down in Sidmouth.
LC: That’s, where’s Sidmouth, what’s close, where’s that, that’s down on the south coast?
BS: In Devon.
LC: Devon. Right. Yeah.
BS: So right, we got shot off to there, that means we then got shot behind the rest of our blokes who went through the course with us, they all got, while we were away there they nearly all got transferred to advance training schools and round about. So down to the Officers Training School and that was an absolutely solid four weeks training, in air force history, protocol, everything, you know. Run by the RAF Regiment and largely designed to train you to, if you were shot down to escape. Now, first day there, we’re put through an obstacle course. Now I’d been doing a lot of work as an, because before we left the squadron to, to go to Halifax, no wait a minute, no that’s later on, no, and in Edmonton you know, that’s the next squadron, [unclear] group there, and the, I got through the, I did the whole course within the time.
LC: Yep. That’s the obstacle course.
BS: The obstacle. But only one thing the, one thing was two pine tree poles something long enough with bars across, you had to climb up one and go over the top bar, come down, I looked when I got up there and I thought I’m not going over bloody top of that: I went underneath it. They spotted it!
LC: Oh bugger!
BS: They got it. Now there’s only one other bloke that was within the time. Now about three days before we left, the course finished, we were still there, the whole course did that course and they all completed it, in time and everything, so it showed you how they built up our fitness, the fitness of all those blokes. We would do, get on this training course was how to avoid - if you were shot down and somebody shot at you - to avoid so you go through all this drill all using live ammunition.
LC: Oh, okay.
BS: So you had to know what a 303 bullet felt like that whizzed past you a foot or two away, you know, from the rear. No mucking round.
LC: Health and Safety wasn’t very big there.
BS: So right we go on a route march one day, come along, there’s a bang, crack, crack, bang! You‘ve got to, bang! Now I get back, tell us on that route march what did you hear, what was that first one as you were coming up? Oh, some bloke, somebody let off a couple of double bangers. Oh that sounds reasonable. The second one? That was a rifle. Where was he? It was behind us, to our right. Now, if you think he’s going to shoot again, what do you do? Which way do you go? He says you go to your right, you don’t go that way, to avoid the chance of hitting you again, you go this way, right, and down, that, and down. So do that. What was that? A grenade. You’ve got to know a grenade. So we do grenade practice, get in a sandbag area, and the blokes get in, and of course half way through the grenade practices you’re told what to do, if grenade falls, you get out. Half way through, what does the instructor do, oh shit! I dropped one! Your reaction has to be straight away. Boom. Out!
LC: How long did that course at Sidmouth go for?
BS: Four weeks.
LC: Four weeks and then straight from there to -
BS: Now when we, they give you an exercise to go on, on that practice. Now you set off at the, at the school or you go to a place just outside Sidmouth, there, set off to go to school, start from here, now you got till three o’clock this afternoon to arrive here – told you where you had to go – up was a place about oh, I suppose ten or twelve mile up to the north east. So right, away you go! And we get off, you can go individually or you can get into a group, this is, you’ve got to use your own judgement, you’re own, right. Well Noel Hooper and John Honeyman and myself, the three of us said okay, she’ll be right, well we were, of a Sunday morning we’d all go, the three of us would go on hikes around, we knew a place with a bit of a cafe up just north of the thing and that and talk in there and we’d hike, we’d do twenty or thirty mile of a Sunday; we were pretty fit. So we go to this cafe and Noel, John Honeyman come up with an idea, he said, ‘I’ve got something, I was up talking to a girl the other day and I’ve got this woman’s hat’, Noel takes out a woman’s hat, thought about it, so we go to this, cafe, sitting there, do you think we can get a taxi, can we get a taxi? The taxi says, ‘Yeah, I think there’s a bloke’, organises this, this taxi turns up, so we explained to him what we wanted, oh, you beauty, says, I can do that for you, we probably gave him five months of [unclear] we get it so we worked out, we get in this taxi. So Honeyman sits up in the back seat of the taxi like they do in English taxis, come in and you sit in the back seat not beside the driver, I’m in the front seat with the driver, lying down, Hooper’s in the back seat, lying down. So we’re driving this taxi round, up they get, gets along, we knew the route, we had a fair idea where this instructor would be too, you know, so we’re coming up, up along a road and there’s a ditch along this road and a tree up along there and Honeyman looks over there: there he is, over against that tree over there, look, oh yeah, okay make a note and we just, we kept going. And the taxi let us off, went up, went up to a place and dropped us off about two mile north of where we had to go and we walked that last two mile, came out of there so we’re coming in as a group. So three o’clock comes about, it’s about a quarter past two, a bit before three o’clock, he turns up, to this point, this instructor, and a couple of others. ‘Now right, are they all here? Who’s not here – the three Aussies.’ Next minute we walked in – ‘Where the hell did you blokes come from?’ Ah. ‘How did you get past me?’ ‘Oh we got past you all right, oh, we’re coming up this road and there’s a bit of a ditch along there, we’re coming up this road and we looked and we see and there you are up against a bloody tree we lie down again and we said oh no we can’t go on past there, look around, so we crawled back down the ditch and went down further along, along past a tree, there’s bit of a dip in the road went up past there went, come a bit past and a bit north again and then come out.’ Oh bloody hell, fair enough. ‘Well’ he says, ‘Bloody amazing how these Aussies always seem to put it over us in these things isn’t it’, he said, ‘But you did, get you went together, well okay you used your initiative.’ The day later he found out what happened.
LC: Well, it’s still initiative.
BS: And he still accepted it.
LC: Good! Well you used your initiative!
BS: That ended up, so anyway we ended up, passing the course and getting out. Got pretty good. The course had a screaming skull, there was, you gave certain duties. They felt sorry for me because, I know now why, but one was Sergeant Major of Parade or yeah, Commanding Officer of Parade and Reviewing Officer of Parade: they were Colour Parades. Now, what bloody happens, but who’s, when this time when they come on, Commanding Officer of Parade one week, who’s Commanding Officer of Parade the first? Me. You’re sort of the drill sergeant of parade, you see, sort of. Now, you’ve got to parade, you’ve got to be awake here, this is parade ground drill this is, ‘cause now you’re here and the parade’s there. Now, this is advancing, that’s retiring. That‘s to the right, that’s to the left. Now, if they’re advancing if marching, if they’ve to move to the right they’ve got to do a left turn, to the left of the, you know a left turn to the right of the parade, you’ve got keep your wits about you to get right turn, parade off, [marching commands] retreat or something like that there, about turn, there, quick march, come on, yell out, they’ve got to bloody hear you! [Laughing]
LC: You’ve got to make sure you got your left and right turns right.
BS: The, get down there, the parade will advance, about turn! Come on. Parade will move to the left, or to the right, left turn. You got it right, you got it right, that same instructor. And he was, yeah, that’s all right. There’s the same as CO on parade, you’re doing other things, Commanding Officer on Parade with bloody nothing to do but stand round.
LC: Exactly.
BS: He gets on, we trained a couple of those, one day before this, we were out when he was teaching us how to yell, you know. How to, you’ve got to throw your voice, now come on, get out here now. You’d get the blokes out, line up, march them down the road, he’d hang on till they’re about eighty to a hundred yards away. Right, give ‘em, tell ‘em about turn, about turn, well of course your voice wasn’t too good, they wouldn’t do it. He’d show you. Come on, I’ll show you how to go. Right, he’d get up, he’d get one of the other blokes there, up about turn so we’d head off this day, we’re going down, there’s three of us there and then another bloke, he was a Canadian I think, he said listen, us and the ones in front hesitate. All you blokes behind do an about turn, the other blokes in the front there the three four ranks in front keep going, so he’s there, well, about turn! well back he bloody comes. You buggers, I know what’s going on here! You organised that, didn’t yer! He knew bloody well. Oh yeah, there’s a good YouTube thing on the return of the Black Watch to Glasgow and that’s got, that. I’ve often wondered why one unit of the Black Watch carries the shoulders on the right arm and other one carries them on the left arm, you know that screaming skull there, it was a screaming skull there, you bloody heard his voice, they threw that voice. Bloody terrific.
LC: Amazing. So that was, was that all practice for your passing out parade, was it?
BS: That was all the thing. And they said review, now I found out later towards the end, find the thing it was, squadron, the CO after we were in training to bring the squadron back here, that I was supposed to be navigator of, and be promoted one above substantive rank, you know, which would have been to squadron leader. Now, when my report comes back was recommendation about if ever approved for rank above or substantive rank by wing commander or above to be approved, without further question.
LC: Okay. Is that right?
BS: Yeah.
LC: Oh, that would’ve been right.
BS: Now, none of that records on your things. It’s like those records come through, it’s like the nav records from training. I’ll get to that when I get, when we got to the squadron. So we got that, we come back then. And then when I got them we were transferred up to Scotland, to West Freugh. I was with a course, blokes that went through, also went through Edmonton but they were two courses behind us.
LC: Yeah. Because they didn’t have to do the officer training.
BS: Eh?
LC: Because they didn’t have to do officer training?
BS: No, no. They didn’t. Not too many did that. There were a few Aussies on it. A couple were there for disciplinary reasons.
LC: Okay!
BS: Well, one was a bloke had pranged a Wellington on take off at an OTU. He was sent there for disciplinary reason for some reason or other; I suppose he wiped the bloody aircraft off, you know. But he was only there for a few days, he was recalled back to the Operational Training, to the OTU because he was upsetting the staff, his crew, see they’d already had a crew organised he had his crew so he didn’t last too long. He went back and there were others who were called off the course back to squadrons or back to courses or something like that, yeah.
LC: Okay.
BS: But it was an excellent course on the history of the, the psychology of the British Army, the British and the history of the air force, protocols and whatnot. I was set up. So you know you benefited a lot from it. So we went back then, so we went to West Freugh and then that’s where you started training with staff pilots. They were air force pilots, not like the -
LC: Bush pilots.
BS: Bush pilots in Canada, yeah, they were air force pilots and so on. The first courses there were set courses too, on the navigator, they also had set courses that you flew at day and flew at night, about a half dozen courses.
LC: What aircraft was this on?
BS: Most of them were over the Irish Sea, back out, over to Northern Ireland, back of Bangor, or across to, towards Newcastle from Ingham, where they were allowed, they didn’t interfere with operations or you know.
LC: So what aircraft were you flying?
BS: So they were sort of training areas for flying schools and that. So right, we did those, we and in the old Anson the main things there was the, going on Anson once we had to watch the hills round Dumfries and that, Scotland, something there called Criffel, which was a fairly high peak you know it claimed if you had flown into it you know, like around Wales there and the old Anson wouldn’t fly through a hill.
LC: Not real well.
BS: We set off one day on a flight, actually I think it was to, to Newcastle. We had two flights, we had trouble to Newcastle. We, we start off, all of a sudden, the met winds were supposed to be about, I think only about twenty five knots or thirty knots or something, but they got up to about sixty or seventy knots, you know, bloody hell we’re flying along we, and suddenly they woke up, no, no, we were recalled, we’re gonna get there too soon, you know, recall. Well by that time we were, what the hell we were getting pretty close to round about Gretna Green or somewhere, round Dumfries there, something like that, we had to come back. Well, we’re going, coming back that bloody Lanc we had a ground speed I suppose, of twenty mile an hour at the most.
LC: Yeah, with that wind, yeah.
BS: Twenty miles an hour. We come back, now we come over couple of these high peaks and you could have damn near jumped out. And then on our night exercise to go to, we had a, go to Newcastle. That was to combine the Newcastle anti-aircraft with a practical exercise, you know.
LC: Okay yes, so they can have, they can see an aircraft.
BS: They get, do a thing, probably do a camera thing or gawd knows what. So we head north, but we had the same thing, getting pretty well along about Carlisle something, we were recalled - Newcastle was having an actual.
LC: Oh okay, having a real air raid.
BS: Air raid, a proper air raid.
LC: So the anti-aircraft guys having some real practice, okay.
BS: Then we had another interesting flight which was, one of our flights used to take us -
LC: And this is still on the Anson. This is still flying the Anson.
BS: On Ansons, these were on Ansons, nearly all our navigation exercises from West Freugh would start from Ailsa Craig, that was a well known landmark, off the coast of Ayrshire, you know, Ailsa Craig. You go there, and of course they’d take off, they get over Ailsa Craig and away you go, down to Anglesey, Wales and across and come back to Ballyquintin Point or somewhere in Northern Ireland. Now on that leg you’re flying straight over the Isle of Man. This day, crew one, mates the, one of the crews they were over cloud on this, they flew that, and coming down, coming back to the Isle of Man they’re over cloud and the Ballyquintin Point had to be back below under cloud at a certain height, you know, do something, and the, come down through cloud, what do they do, straight into the mountain on the Isle of Man. Killed.
LC: Oh dear.
BS: That was the first, first accident of on that crews in flight now on that course. Then when we got to, when we finished that course, okay -
LC: What was that course called?
BS: Advanced Flying.
LC: Advanced Flying Course.
BS: Over there, yeah, and flying and bit of conditions you get over there, crook weather and half the time you can’t see the ground. Now, I’d say the six, it was about five or six weeks we were at West Freugh we only saw the sun about for a couple days, on the ground, [emphasis] at twelve hundred feet, or fifteen hundred feet you’re up in sunlight.
LC: Was that just fog or low cloud?
BS: So we were then transferred to Chedburgh so that was the first indication that we, we’re heading for Bomber Command. Because Chedburgh’s Number 3 Group’s training, training, Operational Training Unit and where crews are formed, you know.
LC: Starting to feel a bit real now was it.
BS: Settle in to Chedburgh, went down, got in, settle into Chedburgh, settle in to officers quarters there, as they, so called, and straight on to a few exercises and a crews, and to train crews, instructors, fly with other pilots and stuff like that, you know. We’d be under as a navigator, they’d check your nav courses on the bomber, do a couple of exercises, nav you know. Come back and your logs would be checked, same as the pilot, he’d be under instruction or something like that. To do, that conversion on to Wellingtons, they’d be doing circuits and bumps and you’d be doing with odd crews circuits and bumps, navigator.
LC: On the Wellingtons.
BS: And then after that they’d say right, all passed, you passed, everybody’s passed the thing. Now, into that hangar and by tomorrow morning sort yourselves out into crews. It worked. It was the best, it was the preferred method. So I go along, get on a crew and next minute Ron Hastings come up to me he says, he says you got a crew? No. He says I’ve got two, two English air gunners here who’ve been through courses together and want to stay together, they were all right and another bloke was there which the name of the bomb aimer [unclear] bomb aimer, he hadn’t been taken to a crew, Bobby Burns, we take him, and then there was another, older bloke there Vic Pearce, nobody’d take him, came up to Vic. Vic had come off, an instructor, been an instructor for quite a while so he didn’t come through with crews that had been training, you know, so he didn’t have mates or anything get him sorted out with others going through. Now Vic said - oh God yeah, Vic, Vic had so many hours experience, so we formed a crew. And they said we’d be right.
LC: Okay, so it was basically as you said, that you’re just put in the hangar, and just sort it out amongst yourselves.
BS: So we set out. Then once you’ve got a crew, and then you’re under instruction out to the, out to the satellite ‘drome to do a few circuits and bumps with the pilot on his own you know.
LC: That’s still on the Wellingtons, still on Wellingtons.
BS: Still on Wellingtons, then back to the squadron, back to the squadron. Now the first exercise we had to go on, nav exercise, bombing and high level bombing and nav exercise supposed to be, you know, from that, from Chedburgh, we were in this aircraft – it was U Uncle the same as the first aircraft we had in the squadron. And so it was, the first thing Ron on his own and that, us all as a crew, so right we’re taking off, and I’m sitting as you do in the Lanc, you know looking at the runway flying past and all of a sudden the runway goes wheet, what’s that, the runway didn’t do that, the aircraft did that, the wing dropped. The fuel tank flap on the port wing flew open and stalled that wing.
LC: Oh god.
BS: And that wing stalled. And how that wing didn’t touch the ground, if it had touched the ground we would have been killed, would have piled in, probably gone up in flames, you know.
LC: Fully loaded aircraft.
BS: No, no bombs.
LC: No, no. But full fuel load.
BS: Right, and it took the pilot straight away, we get a call for [unclear] Uncle, that was our callsign [unclear] Uncle you’re in trouble, yeah we can see that, we’ll hand you straight over to a pilot, to a trained pilot, an instructor pilot to guide you in, guide you now from now on, you know. So he come on to Ron. Now Ron at that time, and he needed the, the bomb aimer to help him hold that stick right, right over down here, low, hold that stick to get that aircraft flying level ,to keep that wing up, you know. And I’m standing up at this time and he said, ‘Smithy, see that strip ahead of us keep your eye on it and guide us around to it will yer?’ So I, looking at it, yeah, yeah, she’s right, keep going, we’re right now, we can see it okay, get back to crash positions! So I get back and I crawl past the wireless operator. Now this is where I learned something. I should have tapped him on the shoulder and told him come down to crash position, but I just walked past, and got down to crash position, sat on, the two gunners were sitting there and I sat on the edge over beside the fuselage, out on the starboard, or the port side and there we go, next minute down, down, down, come in there, landed, you know. That instruction was to come around again. Now what we didn’t know, and I didn’t know, till thirty, forty years later until another bloke that was on that second nav course that went to, went to Chedburgh with us, they weren’t flying that morning, and the word had soon got around, ’cause all the sirens went, the fire brigade had to get out, the ambulance everything out on to the runway to meet this aircraft coming in to crash land you know and it soon word got around that it was Hastings’ crew and of course Keith Dunn, there was a navigator, this navigator that I met thirty years later, he knew, he knew Brian Hastings, our pilot ‘cause Ron’s father was in the Union Bank of Australia, and Keith was in the Union Bank of Australia, and they both worked at the [unclear] Hunter Street Branch of the Bank of Australia at the time you see, so he knew of Ron. And they thought oh god, don’t tell me it’s Ron, it’s Ron and Bob Smith because we’d become good friends and next minute goes on, we land. Just as we land of course, the land, the sometime, my son said to me at the time he says, and the pilot, the plane swerved, because the rear gunner left go of the, and the pilot couldn’t hold the stick there again, we’re still at flying speed and the son said to me once, that wonder the undercart didn’t collapse I said no, no weight on the undercart, that’s still at flying speed, the weight’s still all on the wings. You know. But it swung. Now, I felt the wheels touch the ground, [unclear] and went to stand up to get out, and the rear gunner had done the same, and he was a big bloke, and of course when we swung, when it swung there, he fell against me and bashed my head against the - well I got a blunt trauma.
LC: Is that what that scar is?
BS: Led to all my troubles later on, you know. Yeah. So, I’d been knocked out, I know that, ‘cause they told me then, they were laughing, what you laughing at, they said the field ambulance had just come back, Chedburgh, just came back [unclear] Uncle, if you pancake you haven’t pancaked here! So Ron took a look around, he looked around and he, and oh no, took a while, the wireless operator looked around said what’s going on, ‘cause wireless on, sitting on, listening to some bloody -
LC: So he didn’t know what because you didn’t tap him on the shoulder.
BS: No, no. He’s away in another world, what’s going on, so with the joke and I’d got up then too and we looked out and I could get up stand up well I said we’re back at Honington, this is, we recognise the screen, went out, so we told them then, they worked out, they sent a crew out to take us back, we had to go straight to the medical guy to get checked. A feller there told me there, he says well you’ve got a bit of a bump there, you got and, bit of a bump there and oh god, that eye’s bloodshot, that should come all right, if you get a bruise come out and a bruise comes out probably okay, but he said if it doesn’t you might have trouble later on and that’s what did happen. It had damaged the optic nerve as well, you know, and caused pressure and also caused that cancer, meningioma core something, which didn’t happen till I retired, you know, just after. I never mentioned, the bloke treating for me glaucoma the ophthalmologist in Brisbane, I never mentioned to him that I’d had a trauma there and he couldn’t work out why I was getting, you know. And with the, about three days later the skipper said to me, he says ‘You’d better go and see about that eye again, it’s still bloodshot’, I said ‘Oh it’ll be right, we’re not bloody losing you as a pilot, the way you handle this.’ So it just went on. It never worried me then till oh, 1960, oh about twenty years after, when I was at Cumbria, you see I noticed driving that little smirr in the vision of the eye, you know, so I went to the optometrist. Oh he said I’ve got to send you to an ophthalmologist, a specialist down in Brisbane he says you know, you’ve glaucoma, high pressure, glaucoma there, if I’d mentioned it then he might have said, you know, he said yeah, he did that, put in a bit of a valve up there, which was supposed to last, only supposed to last for twenty five years but was still going fifty years later!
LC: Bloody hell! That’s all right.
BS: But it looks as though, no, he says it’s been damaged under that optic nerve and he says it’s gradually getting worse, he said no, you’ll gradually lose sight there, then when I come up and got out, that tied the two together and went, put in for disability with it, you know, with the, the Vietnam boys got on to me, they went through with it and then they said that could see no evidence of sharp trauma or something, we’re not talking about a sharp trauma, we’re talking about a blunt trauma sort of thing, but the he come in had me allowed, traumas, these traumas they can move too and also are allowed that can form non-malignant growth, tumours can form, you know, on the skull if the skull’s been damaged slightly somewhere there.
LC: But at the time though that didn’t preclude you, obviously didn’t preclude you from flying after that.
BS: No we had, the old bloke, the, Ron always reckoned we disturbed the medical officer and his WAAF assistant, he couldn’t get rid of us quick enough!
LC: Okay.
BS: So we got that out of the road anyway and we kept going and completed the tour there, went on and had a few quick trips in the old Wimpeys, good experience, get on, nothing more greatly unusual, just the usual thing, lectures and stuff like that.
LC: So that point then -
BS: And of course a lot of lectures from blokes that’d already completed tours or had escaped, been shot down and escaped given a few clues on what to do, what happens over there you know and the present position [unclear] shot down and whatnot. Then from from Chedburgh then we were shot through to what they call 31 Base at Stradishall. That attached us to Chedburgh which is Stirlings, we were flying Stirlings to convert on to four engines and they, we also picked up a flight engineer there, you know. That was our first flight engineer that we had the problems with. Our troubles with, or Ron’s experience, unusual experience with aircraft went, now Chedburgh was on a plateau and it happens there one day they’ve got to do a take off, they’re doing the engine failure on take off see, so right, taking off and the old the instructor cuts an engine. What happened then? So Ron, put a little bit of extra revs on, not getting anywhere, couldn’t start the bloody thing again.
LC: Oh dear.
BS: But fortunately it’s on the plateau, the ground fell away from us.
LC: Of course, ‘cause you’re on the plateau
BS: So the ground fell away from us to give us a couple of hundred feet to do a bit of a dive to get up speed, get a bit of flying speed and then the engines would, so that, that worked out all right, you know, so he had a go, so he, he had a, so the instructor said well you handled that all right he says you might as well try a three engined landing. So righto, I know I’m no [unclear] right now, so he’s got’d to do a three engined landing, that was good experience. So that was a great, we got the [unclear] of Ron.
LC: How flights did you take?
BS: So we weren’t going to let him go.
LC: How many flights did you do then on the Stirlings, four engine on the conversion.
BS: Oh, between circuits and bumps and I wouldn’t know, probably about twenty. It’d be quite a few.
LC: Okay. Over two or three weeks.
BS: Quite a few various ones. We, one day there we had to deliver, we had a, got an instruction out just Ron, Ron and the flight engineer and the wireless operator, I think there’s only three of us. Ron come, said ‘Come out here we’ve, we’ve got to go out, we’ve got to do an air test,’ he said to me, ‘The CO’s taking us out’, so we get out to the Stirling, we’re told there, you got to go to Stradishall, well we knew Stradishall you can do a pub crawl to Stradishall. So we got in. There’s this gorgeous looking girl sitting up in the Stirling, on the nav seat. You’re to go over to Tuddenham.[pause] Don’t fly over five hundred feet, so Ron didn’t take any notice that extra nought, that means fifty feet, so right we go over, in your log book you don’t say landed, and then took off again, just come back and land back here, you’ll be met over there. So over we go, landed Tuddenham airfield, this girl to come in, she’s to be dropped over France that night, one of the Special Duties Squadrons, you know.
LC: Okay, so she’s one of the SOE agents.
BS: Yeah, yeah. Whether she’s parachute, or drop her by parachute or drop her or a Lysander or something, jumps in and jumps out, you know, well of course she was a lovely girl, could speak perfect English and French I suppose.
LC: Was she French was she?
BS: What?
LC: French was she?
BS: She was French, I think, I think she was French. I’ve got an idea she was. Yeah, yeah she was, that was an experience on the old Stirling, get on, and then once we got the flight engineer then, he’d come off straight on, well he was just straight to the crew come in from the course somewhere, plumped on and well I don’t know what good he does on Stirlings, on Pratt and Whitney engines or whatever they had, I don’t know, but then we went across to the Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell for a few days and that was just circuits and bumps with the pilot under instruction. We get on to and a for a, oh I think about a few hours each, a couple of days up. That’s when I first met Keith Miller, cricketer. Ray Lindwall was there at the time and I think that’s where they met and Keith came over, something to do with the cricket, or something like that, and yeah, we had a game of cricket and get on and then we come along, we’re told then right you’re appointed to 15 Squadron. We pack up, there’ll be a, get your clearances, called round here, there’ll be transport, there’s a couple of other crews, I think there was one other crew went to 15 Squadron and another one came from another Lancaster Finishing School or something I think at the same time you know. So we moved across to 15 Squadron, got settled in.
LC: And where was that at?
BS: Went round to the nav section.
LC: Where was 15 Squadron located?
BS: At the nav section, that’s where these, where you realise how the training under the Empire Air Training System and then with the RAF was pretty damn thorough. Now, I walk into the, I go in to the nav section and our flight lieutenant, the nav looks at my things, oh you’re the sort of nav bloke we could do with, good on yer, we’re not going to have any problems with you, okay, so led away. There was another navigator there who’d just finished school, a bloke called Flying Officer Johnny Moore. He was the first Australian that finished a tour with 15 Squadron. He said ‘Well now listen, you blokes should be right. I’ve just broken the hoodoo on Aussies on 15 Squadron, I’ve finished a tour, I’m the first Aussie that’s finished a tour on 15 Squadron.’ And of course the two English blokes that were with us, they thought that’s a bloody good idea, if he’s got, finished a [unclear], we’ve got a fair chance of getting back too sort of business. But and [unclear] sort them out, but now.
LC: That was at Mildenhall.
BS: Yeah. Now at Mildenhall. On that, on that report it comes in for the flight engineer must have been a report to the flight engineer as well, there was some concern about our flight engineer, ‘cause in our first op the flight engineer came with us as a instructor. See the, on the squadron the nav officer can’t fly with the crew for some unknown reason, don’t know what that is, the, the COs can, I don’t think the flight officers can take a sprog crew, but the gunnery officer can take ‘em, the wireless officer doesn’t need to I don’t think [unclear]. So right, so we had the nav officer, the flight engineering officer, now which was fortunate, ‘cause change of wind, we were on the short runway, which comes out and goes in, went pretty well over the officers quarters, the old Mildenhall officers quarters, you know, and, on the short runway, now this is the first time that a pilot takes off with the full bomb load and full petrol load and we’re just starting to take off and he says ay, ay, ay get those things through the stick we’re on the short runway you’ll never take off, you’ll never get off if you don’t, so he rammed it full through, we got off.
LC: But this was your first operation.
BS: Yeah, yeah, this was our first op. But after that things were pretty good, was down to flying bomb base there, a good trip down, individually, flew in, we were on the second wave on this flying bomb base, dropped our bombs, light bit of, there’s a bit of light flak, no fighters things like that, they had a turn off down to the right and dive, go down towards where the troops had landed after D-Day, you know, and then go out over, that’s our first sight of the Mulberry.
LC: Oh yeah, Mulberry Harbour was it. Aramanches.
BS: What a sight, so we got down, good sticky at that and back to England.
LC: Now you mentioned to me earlier on that you did a sortie supporting D-Day. While you were still on your training, on Lancasters.
BS: Yeah, we went to north of France, that was down up off the north of France, went to, had to fly down and stop five miles short, well Gee set was operating good, and it was all right so five mile short, if you were out, if the navigator was out and he overshot by five mile, he could have been in trouble, he would have been in the defences on the coast, you know, but no, it was all, we just cruised along the coast dropping the Window out there. So then on the, after we did, there, that was in Uncle, which was a brand new aircraft, oh it was a great old aircraft, first one and our next trip there in Uncle, we did a couple of trips after it that Ron came with us, he was all right, he went in to to Fleurie de Louche, was an oil dump in the north of France and that was okay, no flak or anything like that. Then we went to Chalon sur Marne a railway marshalling yards just north east of Paris, or north west.
LC: Yep. And this was in support of the D-Day landings.
BS: Yeah, yeah and it was a pretty solid trip for navigation dodging the defended areas and stuff like that, and the, got over there, bit of flak, fair bit of flak, got back and the flight engineer, Ron, that flight engineer Ron then, he, he reported sick the next morning and he was still sick when we, when we were, went to Kiel. Now Kiel was an unusual target, the place we only got flak and searchlights, were a problem, you only got, the flak there was what they called flaming onions. Now it wasn’t the anti-flak gun, you know, the 135mil or the 128mil, it was rocket propelled 38mil because the rocket was over Peenemunde you know where they experiment with the rockets and that, Peenemunde, rocket, and this thing, and we took, and so we get to Kiel, now just as well when we arrived, Ron wasn’t with us - we got caught in searchlights.
LC: Ron Hastings
BS: Yeah. We got caught in searchlights, and these flaks, they’re amazing things, you’re looking at it, you get a light pinkish sort of a glow, and looking at it from the aircraft they just seem to go “deeee, wheest”, explode a few hundred feet above you. Right, we got out of that, got out of the flak all right, got back, okay, well, and then the next trip, one more trip I think was okay, he was all right with us, down to, that might have been Falaise, down to the Falaise Gap or something like that then we were sent mining down to the Gironde river.
LC: You’re dropping mines?
BS: Sea mines, into the sea lane of the Gironde river.
LC: Okay. I actually didn’t realised Lancasters did that.
BS: This was where Uncle’s, that Gee set in Uncle was a terrific Gee set. And I only used Gee, like most of us did, on, where you had a coastline. There were a couple of blokes could use it inland, they could pick up a lake, or a town or a slightly different signal from a forest, but I never got down that, picked up a Gee set, you know.
LC: That’s just, gives bearing doesn’t it.
BS: And so we go down, we had a fly over ten thousand feet over the Brest Peninsula ‘cause the Yanks were in there then, then drop down to eight thousand feet, down fast, the estuary of the Gironde river, bit below the estuary, cross the, cross over the river then, go on to a course 010 into the shipping lane, you know, now I’ve got the, the old Gee set was good, looking out and as soon as we crossed the coast a bit there, the bomb aimer gave the skip, said righto skip go on to 010 now on to the thing to drop the mine. And I looked at this if we’re on that we are going to be over the narrow part of the thing we’re gonna drop on the narrow lane, we’re not be on the thing, no, I said no, no, no, no, we can’t do this, we’re not in the lane, we’ve got to go round again. So round again we go. I said I’ll tell you when to turn. We went across, I watched it on the Gee set, and then this is it, righto, now, so right, we’re on course, beautiful, with the Gee set one thing we were right on target with it, you know. Now up we go, drop the Gee set, and it went, the instructions were there, to, on the last, on dropping the last mine to turn sharp to port and dive at two hundred and forty mile an hour, now, that’s what it is, sharp to port, and that’s what happened, just after we dropped the mine, the bit, they couldn’t get this straight away but when they did, we must have, there must been a hill, or were defending that gun position at Royan to the aircraft, where we were to drop the mines. By the time he was up, we were on a dive, and we had oh, tracer and that’s going, that only seemed to be going that far above the aircraft, but I suppose it was a bit higher, you know, but he couldn’t get down quick enough, we were driving too fast for him, and got out of his range, you know, and now by the time we got out through the estuary, Hastings was just about down in the mists of the waves. [Laugh] And of course when we get out there, I got cursed at, Smithy, you don’t do that again.
LC: Was that go round again?
BS: Now, what happened, [unclear] will know that either, when I was doing those cruise ships there and going through the history of there was a raid on Royan in January that cost five aircraft. Now, and the position of Royan, what it is, now if we had been on that first round, we were flying straight at that garrison, at that, he couldn’t have missed us. We’d have been straight at him, straight for him, at eight thousand feet and then when we turned on the thing, he couldn’t have bloody missed us. We’d have been gone for sure, you know. And at Royan, it’s very interesting the history on Royan, cost five aircraft, that garrison. A German, a French officer committed suicide over it. He got word to the Yanks that this Royan, they should get a message to the Bomber Command, they should bomb Royan, the garrison at Royan, is the only, the only French are left there favoured, on the side of the Germans see.
LC: Collaborators.
BS: Yeah. They were collaborators, yeah. Now what happened is, they did two, did two raids on that, the first raid went, bombed it, did bloody lot of damage, not too many civilians were killed, they were all, the warnings were given, they were all in air raid shelters stuff like that come out, and then when that stopped, they all come out of the air raid shelters, the guns are quiet, next minute another raid comes and a lot of them think, and a lot of them were still the old French, the German garrison’s still all right and of course a lot of in that area of France they were, they supported the Germans a little bit, round Bordeaux and that, ‘cause they provided employment, you know, bought their fruit and their vegetables, and the farmers, so. And those, in the second wave they were [unclear] by time the second wave, the a lot of the aircraft, I think there were five Lancasters went down, a couple of them collided and a couple didn’t make it, they had damage over the thing and had to prang [cough].
LC: Amazing yeah. [cough] So could you -
BS: Amazing. But what, see what happened there, when the, when the Yanks took over, when they took over Paris, and the Vichy French, you know, sort of come in and de Gaulle’s troops, the Free French forces up in the Brest Peninsula, they were given control of that area but they were not given the equipment to go and bomb, go and get stuck in to these other units at Royan and those places, you know, they just held back and held back and held back, they didn’t have the equipment. So when we came back we had to climb back over ten thousand feet over the Brest Peninsula again.
LC: Oh, bloody hell.
BS: Because at night time, the Yanks, anything up there’s not theirs so they just shoot at ‘em!
LC: So could you give me a sense then, of a, could you just run through a typical day if you’re on ops, how your day would start or [unclear].
BS: If you start like this. Well, I’ll give it you like this then, the, yeah, well after that we had no in flight engineer for a while, you know we got to do so – I’ll cover that in a minute - and then one day this engineer turned up, a Jock Munro, a Scottish lad, he turns up, Jock comes and straight into it. Well there’s, now Jock’s first flight was a trip to Stettin, nearly ten hours, in old Uncle again, and with its good Gee set, we got wonderful fixes all along the north coast of Denmark and that, you know, and down across Malmo and over Sweden, across Malmo, what happens over Malmo, anti aircraft sets up a fair dinkum, shot down about five of us, but there’d been a bit of story something before that they were, the Yanks had got stuff in to the Swedes about they were shooting and they were shooting going too low and not being fair dinkum and the searchlights were pointing towards Germany and all this sort of whatnot, but they and the Swedes must have thought they’d better do something about it, you know. So they shot down a lot, they were Sweden now.
LC: They were Swedes, okay, Malmo of course.
BS: Over Malmo. Yeah. So Jock sitting there, this is all right, we get over Stettin, and over Stettin was another target, the flak was heavy, searchlights again, searchlights got us, we got coned there again, it’s an experience being coned in searchlights, oh god, you just, you just, but they weren’t quite as severe in Stettin as they were in Kiel, ‘cause the atmosphere was pretty clear and stuff like that. In Stettin, by the time we’d bombed, I think we were on second wave, you know, and time we got there there was a fair bit of smoke down the ground, it was cloudy over the target area, the searchlight were rendered a bit ineffective, you know, so anyway then we got back, and when we get back over Stettin, over Malmo, there’s quite a few had held up one of their thousand pound bombs, was quite obvious, now and again boom, boom, and then all of a sudden -
LC: Oh dear.
BS: I’m looking out, I’m looking out and next minute this bloody almighty explosion, now, that was more, either that or he hit an ammunition dump or something down there or, or somebody saved his cookie.
LC: This round by Malmo, this is Sweden.
BS: Somebody saved his cookie, there’s this almighty explosion. What’s next? A blackout. [laughs] So now we go, now we’re headed out across over Denmark, down low over Denmark and that’s where we come out over Denmark, out, no we’re still a fair height then, we had to drop to two hundred and forty mile an hour down across the North Sea, to beat the sun, you know, so right, Ron sets the must have set it on Gee set two forty down to eight thousand feet, so right down to eight thousand feet, seven and a half thousand feet, seven thousand feet, oh look at Ron, give the old flight engineer a ring, see if Ron’s asleep – he was! Flight’s on Gee.
LC: Oh no! Single pilot too. Bloody hell!
BS: So what does that do? That, that gives us, puts us ahead of the rest of the squadron or anybody else that wanted to do the same, get back, you know, anyway, back we get and get back and I’ve got a note on one of those log sheet of mine, you’ll see the notice by the nav assessment officer - good trip spoiled by uncontrolled speed on the way home. But we arrive back a bit before the rest of the crews, which was, did happen a bit later, [unclear] but old Jock, Jock just stood there, as calm as you like, we said well, boy, this is the flight engineer we want on the crew.
LC: Oh, brilliant.
BS: And he did, he proved himself, another one Ron then, just after that was, we were on, was it more or less, wasn’t a typical day, out of typical day, one day we were on the battle order to bomb Stettin in the morning, a m raid on Stettin in the morning. Wake up at two o’clock for, get out of bed, get down to the mess and have a meal at three o’clock, half past three four o’clock, be at briefing at four o’clock, you know, over to briefing, stuff like that, get all that down. So away we go, this is all right, and we’re on the second wave here, this is on the second wave on Stettin, on Duisburg, Operation Hurricane, on the morning raid, the Yanks were following us, after, they bombed after us, and so we come in, old Jock’s carry on, but Ron this time, time we come up, our turn to bomb, just before we released our bombs, the Master Bomber gave the code word for “bomb at your own discretion,” ignore the, don’t worry about the thing, the target area’s been hit hard enough and bomb at your own discretion and now as soon as he said that, Ron come out, I can still, I can still hear it: he didn’t call the pilot, the bomb aimer by bomb aimer, ‘Hey Burnsy don’t bomb, don’t bomb a residential area!’ Just screamed like this, you know. Now, Burnsy, oh Burnsy said ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a target ahead the same as this aircraft that’s just up in front of us, there’s a ship berthed beside a dock up on the Ems canal up just ahead of us’, I can see him, and this bloke I think has got the same thing, he did, and both our sticks of bombs get in there, but I can still hear Ron with that -
LC: Don’t bomb a residential area, yeah.
BS: Now I didn’t know till fifty years later when we met Ron over in Perth, went over Ron in the 1990s, to meet him: he was German descent.
LC: Okay, yeah.
BS: His father was, his family name was Hohenzonberg, it’s in the thing there, he was in the ANZ Bank, and had been transferred to Dubbo I think it was, well one of those places in New South Wales, in 1936. At the time when Hitler was starting to get a bit unpopular and the Germans, and the ANZ recommended to him that he anglicised his name, the family anglicise his name and Ron picked the name of Hastings, he was at high school at the time, Ron picked Hastings. That just explains it. I can see a lot of German in Ron: he was methodical, very methodical. The German methodical business. We’re not in trouble till we’ve finished. Old Ron. So there we are. And then we get back from, from Duisburg, what happened, about midday, get up and go and have dinner, you know, after debriefing and dinner, there’s another battle order out: we’re on it to bomb Duisburg again the same night.
LC: You’d only just finished!
BS: Back at, back at the darned briefing again at about seven o’clock or something, and too late to go to bed, just going, so we hung on kind of thing, go to briefing, get sorts out, and away we go.
LC: Did that happen often that you’d -
BS: No, no, no.
LC: It was just a mistake in schedule.
BS: Just the way it was, yeah, just the way, we had to catch up a bit I suppose. There were a couple did the two trips, maximum efforts, you know. It’s a saturation raid, and on we go. Over on the night, well of course going down no trouble finding it that night, the fires are still burning, you carried on and carry on and you look down on there and say how the hell would you like to be in Duisburg tonight, today, come back out, then on the way back out, it was bloody cold night, I think that might have been the night we got to a temperature about thirty five degrees centigrade outside, you know Lancs, the instruments, the temperature instruments were in centigrade, the speed, that was in miles per hour!
LC: Just to confuse things.
BS: So we’re on the way out, at twenty thousand feet and cloud tops and whatnot come out, and just I suppose oh, ten, fifteen minutes later, out of the Ruhr and then by that time, getting over probably over you know the top of Belgium, France somewhere, out of the Ruhr anyway, going, over France and there’s these cloud tops and all of the sudden there’s a bright moon shining on the cloud and this great canyon between the two clouds and the moon, you took one look and said what beauty. Now you look back there, now there’s what man has made, and look at that: what God has made.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Contrast.
BS: Just hits you, it just hits you, you know. You’re not meant to, and the Lanc with the purring you know old engines didn’t seem to interfere with it. You just sat there. You’re sitting on a platform and a lot of people never got the chance to see that, only now you know, night time. Beautiful sight. We got back to bed I think, got back to bed about two o’clock, four o’clock in the morning. We had to get over it, it was a long way, bit of a route out, come out four o’clock in the morning, we had to, we held up, no we weren’t held with briefing or anything. See a lot of, you’ve probably seen in a report with ninety five aircraft were shot down over, over Nuremberg one night, you know, the greatest loss in one night and somebody, they come out on the record books and operation books, ninety, over five hundred aircraft reported no problems; didn’t see anything. They won’t use their nous like. Now, you’re about a seven or eight hour, nine hour trip, you know, by the time you come back it’s got to be something bloody important before you tell these these interrogation, intelligence blokes, ‘cause when they get their teeth into something, they hold you up there for about a flamin’ hour, you know! No, nothing to report.
LC: Exactly, just want to get to bed.
BS: No, nothing to report, bombed on the markers, we think they were out a bit, but we bombed on the marker, get out and get back and get your cup of tea and get back into bed! [laughter] You’ve got to be practical. You’ve got to be practical.
LC: Yes. They probably knew it too.
BS: That was Bomber Command.
LC: Bob, do you want to take a short break?
BS: See that was a short, like a typical day, would be up, you’d be on the battle order, when you’d have to report for meals, then your briefing, then out to the aircraft and go and some things. Intelligence was quite good, we were always warned, after, some book I read once after the thing they went back to the mess and the hotel for a couple, [unclear] that was out, no way in the world would we go, ‘cause we’re always warned the old Bird in the Hand Hotel, they had ears in the walls and this was proved a couple of times, blokes would come back that were shot down they told us, we’d only given our name and numbers but they told us who our new CO was and he’d only been there a couple days.
LC: Is that right?
BS: Intelligence, we were put on to a target one night there when we flew in Sugar. Now Sugar was, Sugar’s dispersal point was out right against a sugar beet block, a bit of an old wire fence against it, so we get out and just as we’re ready to go out intelligence bloke comes flying in. Hold on, he says, time on target’s been put back an hour, word had just come through that Jerry’s changed the changeover, changed the shift an hour. So the idea was and then he woke up after a while, that if there were the shift coming on didn’t come on till half an hour later till that other shift had gone, the two shifts weren’t there together, that’s the idea [unclear]. So we go out to Sugar and we’re killing time you know, that’s when I took that photo that’s on the, and walked over to the fence to have a yarn to a couple of Land Army girls there and these two blokes, I don’t know where they come from, Cornwall or something I think, chipping the sugar beet - you boys flying tonight? Yeah. [Rural accent] You won’t be coming back here in the morn, be foggy. They were right too. Now this was, now what happened this night we got we went, on the way back we got recalled to - Mildenhall was closed for fog - and we were diverted to Honeybourne, down near Devon somewhere or some thing, Honeybourne, Honeybourne. Now you might realise Mildenhall is nearly on the Greenwich Mean Dateline, you know, and this night took us all, we’re never going west anyway, so you had nothing west on your chart, that was, so soon as that comes up, everything lines up greatly and sweetly must have lined up around Bomber Command, where the hell’s Honeybourne, what’s the lat and long of it, you know? But fortunately they came back with a Gee set, with the Gee reading for it, you know, so you got to a Gee on a certain channel, on 18.2 or something 18 02 or something, and follow that till you come to and you see the pundit, so that that worked out you know.
LC: Okay. You got in there and were okay.
BS: Yeah. So we got it and then we flew back the next day, you know. And then the last op, when we thought we were on the last one that was Dortmund. We come back, I, I got called up, the skipper come to the, down to the nav section, we’re on a bomb, on a battle order again to go to I think it was Gelsenkirchen I think it was, on the battle order that night, to go there and in this, after Uncle was shot down I didn’t tell you about the one we had the trouble at Homburg with after Uncle was shot down over Hindburg, you know, we got given another new aircraft: N Nan. So Nan, we’re in Nan for this to go to this event in to Dortmund in Nan, and get back, the skipper comes to us: we’ve got to go up and see the CO. He said well listen, you blokes, you’ve done your thirty trips, you’ve done one more as a matter of fact, he says now will you do another two to see the mid upper gunner finishes his tour? And Ron, that night over Hamburg when we got badly hit, Ron wasn’t in the best of things for that, that’s why he didn’t, wouldn’t take the, I think the CO could see, didn’t want him, want us to take him to as the Master Bomber to Hindberg, you know, so he Ron said no, no, no I can’t do any more, and I backed him, ‘cause I could see he was no good and also we had to consider three of the others, there were three others in the crew had completed.
LC: That was it then.
BS: Anyway, they, they saw their crew out and anyway, it was getting to a time when the risks weren’t all that great. Just, just the odd one, where the petrol became available to the thing, or the weather went against or something. weren’t all that great you know, or that unlucky shot, which does happen. Does happen, yeah.
LC: So when you’re officially told okay your tour’s over, what then happens, what then happens to you, once you’ve done your tour what do they do with you?
BS: Well, I was, we were given a fortnight’s leave, fourteen days leave. So I went back up to Scotland, moved around about, then when you came back, we were, I was posted as a navigator to a place called Husbands Bosworth, great name.
LC: They’ve got some great names in UK, don’t they.
BS: Husband Bosworth. So went and got our clearances, another bloke: Jim Claresbrook, he finished his tour. We used to fly together, we were the two lead navigators. There were three of us who were appointed what they called wind navigators. After a couple of trips when Met winds were out to billyo, they decided they’d have, get their main navigators to send back their wind, their wind speed what the wind they’d calculated at, and give it to the wireless operator and he would transmit it in code, right. So he was another wind navigator and the two of us always led the squadron on DH raids over the last few, last few six weeks or so. So Jim and I come in, so we go up to the CO’s office: he’s not in! But his offside is there, you know the old adj, he said oh the adj’s not in, but I’ll, just take a seat there if you want. He said there’s a bit of, bit of a mess, signal in from Bomber Command that might interest the two of you, better have a look at it on the table. We read it and this read two commissioned navigators who have just completed a tour of operations are to be retained on the squadron. One as a navigation assessment officer and one as a GH officer. Well Jim used to usually be at the GH lead, so we looked at them, so the adjutant comes in, we looked at him, and said look hey that job’d suit us, well you bloody beauties, he said, that solves a problem for me, doesn’t it, he said, I’ll cancel your postings, get back to the nav section!
LC: Okay!
BS: So Jim and I went back to the nav section where Flight Officer Webb couldn’t have been happier. Oh you beauties! I can do with you two back here so he’s laid down what he wanted. We could go, as long as one of us was there, that was right, the other one could be on holidays or do whatever he liked, as long as he was doing his duty wherever he was wanted somewhere else, that’s all right, and as long as we didn’t disturb him, he would, we could do briefings that he might not be, but he’d be there when the crews returned from operations, he’d pick up the turn, he would do that and he would always be in his room for an hour, an hour and a half after meal time, after meals, after he had his meal every day, he apparently he stood on his head behind the door or something and he had some separate yoga system or some bloody, he was an odd bod in some ways, very good bloke, but boy was he pleased to see us back there. So that was, that got him good.
LC: All right, okay well we might take a break now and then we come back just for a bit more final session and then maybe just cover the last stage of the war and the end of the war and demob and return to Sydney.
BS: That won’t take long, I’ll just cover that.
LC: Do you mind if we just take a quick break?
[Other] I’ll make another cup of tea, cheers.
LC: Okay, this is now part three, at twenty to three. So where were we Bob? Just sort of you’d done the end of your tour, you’ve gone back as a -
BS: Finished the tour, yeah.
LC: You’d been back there as one of a couple of navigators working back on the squadron.
BS: Yeah, yeah.
LC: So I asked you earlier on, what was your feeling though, when you, when you landed after that final mission on your tour how did you feel? Was it just, did you get out of the aircraft and sort of just -
BS: No well we didn’t know.
LC: Oh you didn’t know!
BS: The last time. We didn’t know until the CO told us, no.
LC: So did you know, did you know at the beginning how many missions you had to do to complete the tour or did they change that?
BS: Thirty. Though they lifted it at one place at one time to thirty five. Yeah.
LC: Okay,
BS: But that didn’t last long, they withdrew that.
LC: Okay, all right. So you hadn’t, had you been counting your missions as you went along, number eighteen, number nineteen.
BS: Put them in your log book, op one, op two, op three. Better not call them missions!
LC: Oh sorry. Ops, sorry! [Laughter]
BS: So we went down and then six months in I was called in to, after we settled in to the nav office with the nav officer outline what he’d be happy for us to do. Got tied up in a couple of enquiries about, one about a WAAF who had been promoted but it didn’t work and then another about an Aussie aircrew who had more or less referred to one of the girls in the Parachute Section as a Malvern Star who lodged a complaint when somebody explained to her what Malvern Star was in Australia!
LC: Oh dear! [Laughter] Oh dear.
BS: Called in all sorts of things, you know, but quite interesting, kept going, you know, kept up our our athletic training, we had a good athletics team there that sort. [Cough] At the end of the war after the end of the war when the, when the British Games were back in, the News of the World British Games at White City were on we entered a team for the 4 x 880. We come fourth in that, we should have won it, but we came fourth, we made a bad blue in the order of the runners, that worked out all right.
LC: Wonderful.
BS: Just with filling in time more or less, waiting, coming out here, you know. And then I, we got, eventually got called, they called down to Brighton then at about the end of May or something it was, time went around, at that point gave us leave weeks to do, up to Scotland a few times, round, just just more or less time was your own, got a bit boring as a matter of fact ‘cause you’re more or less waiting for a draft for a ship to come home.
LC: So at this stage, was the war in, Germany hadn’t surrendered at this stage, it was still the war in Europe’s still going.
BS: Europe had finished, yeah.
LC: Europe had been. So did it at any stage look like you may be posted or 15 Squadron deployed to the Pacific?
BS: We were, when we were called back I was in line then, 15 Squadron and 622 Squadron were forming a squadron of Lancasters and be supplied with Lancasters designed to carry the larger bombs, you know, to come out here to Australia, but when the RAAF or the Australian Government recalled us all to Brighton you know, that fell through.
LC: Okay.
BS: So if, if it was a decision made at the time without knowledge that the nuclear bomb was on the way, it was a very risky decision.
LC: Yeah, yeah. So would you have potentially then, so you said you were waiting for a draft to get on the ship to come back to Australia, was there any, was it definite at that stage you would demobilise or would you then come back and be part of the Royal Australian Air Force in Australia and go on operations with RAAF in the Pacific.
BS: You could do, some of them re-enlisted back in the air force, but no I, I wasn’t at that stage.
LC: So which stage, you mentioned earlier on you went up to Scotland when you’re sort of biding your time there, is that where you met Alma?
NS: Oh no, I’d met her before locally but then it wasn’t till we came back till, I was, after the tour and then, oh, a few month before we left home and was on leave, we sort of realised we had soft spots for each other.
[Other]: Ah!
BS: And agreed and worked out then, if when we eventually got the call to, on to the troop ship to come home, agreed that we’d correspond for a year, just give a year, kind of thing, and if we still felt the same way after twelve months we’d announce our engagement.
LC: There you go.
BS: And then get married. So that stuck to it, you know. Come back and got stuck into the war, I went back and we got married.
[Other]: Courted by correspondence for two and a half years.
LC: Two and a half years!
BS: Went through a heap of dry gullies and whatnot since, up and down like everybody else does.
LC: Yeah. Outstanding! So how many years have you been married now then?
[Other]: Seventy!
LC: Seventy years!
BS: A bit over seventy years.
LC: You’ve got your little card from the Queen and the Governor General and all that. Sixty.
[Other]: Sixty and seventy.
LC: Sixty and seventy, yeah.
BS: I got that from Queen Elizabeth, Bessie. When I got transferred to the squadron, I didn’t mention there before, but just a few days after we were there, the Royal Family paid a visit, that was one of the most interesting days I’ve had in my life.
LC: Yeah, is that right. Young Princess Elizabeth.
BS: When we found out that the old King he was, well, how he enjoyed talking to us, no errors in his speech, something like that.
LC: No stuttering?
BS: After he had visited the squadron and made an investiture over in the, in one of the hangars, and after lunch, we’d course we had all been given the protocol we had to follow with the royal at lunchtime: we couldn’t finish our meal before the King and we had to address him as Sir, the Queen was Ma’am, strict rules and tried to hide ourselves in the, in the lounge area after meal, till the visitors came in, was about three or four Aussies together, stood together over the side, the window near the main entrance to the officers mess, and when he come in to it he made a beeline straight for us.
LC: Did he!
BS: Yeah, straight for the, come over, how‘s it going, seemed to be very interested in what we were doing and whatnot, and one of the fellers said to him ‘You seem to be interested in something outside the window there, Sir.’ He says ‘I’m just looking-‘ where we’ve had that thing out there, I said ‘In that garden bed over there, they’ve whitewashed all the stones’, he said ‘I’d like to go over there and see if they’ve been whitewashed underneath!’ And that’s what his aide de camp told us, he says he’s with it all the way. He just get on, and when he explained a few things to us, to about Elizabeth was, made some remarks about one of the fellers gone up, we said to him well she could have come up and talked to us, he said oh no, there are -
[Other]: Are you recording this?
LC: Yes, yes.
BS: He says, there is a restriction he said, that made the Queen mother with the restrictions, but better not mention that.
LC: Not at all. Okay.
BS: But he was, he enjoyed it, and we gained the impression from him and from the aide de camp - that he’d given specific instructions that Elizabeth was not to be commissioned, she had to be, go through the ranks, and both her and, both him and her mother, were quite aware that since she’s been in the army and as a driver, she was learning quite a lot about boys. She had a real, he gave the impression she had a real fun attitude about her I can understand why she married a bloke like Philip, who’s the same as [unclear] tells things as they are.
LC: Yes. Exactly.
BS: The situation as it is.
LC: They only got married a couple of years later.
BS: Eh?
LC: They only got married about what, 1947.
BS: Yeah, yeah, you know just before that. Good on.
LC: So can I just get a general question then? You experienced some initial time training with the Royal Australian Air Force in Australia, and then you did the Empire Training Air Scheme, training and Canada, ops then, do you have any general observations of the efficiency of it all? The Empire Air Training Scheme?
BS: The whole, the general idea I think of the whole training was tremendous, it was really well thought out, it was tremendous. A Bomber Command squadron was a unique family: ground crew, aircrew they depended on one another and they treated it that way. I was on the squadron, there were two COs, the commanders of both squadrons made it quite clear that we were a family, [emphasis] we were brothers and sisters, the WAAFS. Now probably, might realise in all families now and again there is a black sheep brother and a black sheep sister, accept them, but that’s it. The ones that are, you’d treat them as sisters and I’d like to think that Bomber Command in particular goes down as one of the main factors in winning the war.
LC: Yup. That was going to be my next question.
BS: Because they tied up, they tied up so much of the German defences protecting their cities, that great heaps of guns and ammunition and manpower was not available to fight on their other, the African front or the Western Front., you know, gets on. When you look at it and I think some of their leaders recognised this at the end of the war, they suddenly realised that if they’d had this equipment available on the Russian front, or on the, down in Africa and the Middle Eastern Front, they’d have come out on top there. But they didn’t.
LC: So the, looking back at it now, while you were there on ops, did you get, you saw the sort of the targets you were bombing on a, you know, on a regular basis. Did you get much, were you given the opportunity to get much appreciation of the overall campaign? You got briefings on this is the way, this is what we’re trying and this is your part in it.
BS: At the time, the overall campaign particularly after D-Day and with the American Air Force bombing, we, we could see whether Montgomery and Churchill, or whoever was behind it, or Bomber Harris of Bomber Command, who had a definite strategy, don’t worry about the tactics, the strategy, you know. It was quite obvious to us that the Eighth Army Air Force had adopted Bomber Command strategy of area bombing, and by some great spin as I suppose you might call it, they somehow still got the word back to America they were still tactically, tactical bombing. ‘Cause we know some of their, some of their blues they were well out.
LC: Yeah. Well they bombed primarily, they decided to go mainly daylight bombing while the RAF -
BS: Well they only bombed daylight. Some of the things we‘re aware of, they’re well documented now too, in in histories of Bomber Command and the logs and that come in, the, bombed wrong targets, missed targets all together, didn’t take easy way out of things, you know, sort of. Yeah, yeah. Just got on.
LC: So have you got any observations about general command level, you said you had a couple of COs on 15 Squadron, other levels of command up the chain, did you have any observations and thoughts on, were they good commanders, from Bomber Harris down, were they, did you find them good commanders?
BS: Not really, no. That all seemed to work.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Okay.
BS: The general strategy, they had a good strategy, like I think Bomber Harris’ strategy: right, we’ll fight them on their terms - they started it, they get the same terms back, and that was it. And we backed him, his crews backed him.
LC: And now his statue is outside St Clement Danes.
BS: He never wavered from it, he never wavered from it, he never wasted time going round looking for photoshoots, making things for COs like politicians do today and COs and stuff like that, he had a job to do and he stuck to it and he never wavered.
LC: And was that generally, was that the general feeling on the squadrons at the time? Everybody had a deal of respect for this guy?
BS: Yeah, yeah. With us being the [unclear] squadron, yeah. I’d say so, yeah.
LC: So at the end you’re down there, down at Brighton, you’re waiting for your draft to get on the boat back to Australia so how did that all, that process all go, you eventually obviously?
BS: That’s good. ‘Cause we’d met a lot of blokes that had been taken prisoner of war, and coming back, you know and blokes that served on other squadrons so you met them again.
LC: Comparing notes!
BS: Went through along, yeah yeah. Made up for things. Then we could run around on the beach again, ‘cause the mines had been taken off, and all this sort of business, go to a few shows, and up to the Boomerang Club, a lot of blokes had ended up out in the Mediterranean too, see they’d come back to there, no.
LC: So how did the process work then? Suddenly you would have got a message at some stage, you’d got your slot, a spot on a boat to come home.
BS: At squadron there was a parade every morning at which Daily Routine Orders came out on, on that was, if a draft or duty the Daily Routine Orders who’s the officer in charge of the parade the next day and whatnot, sort of is, and you look at that and quite often you’d see the officer on the parade the next day is Flying Officer Joe Blow or something and you know Joe Blow is going on holidays up to some relatives and he’d be away for another three days so you or somebody else would stand in for him, that’d do and you knew darned well if you went away like that, and you got a leave pass, nobody worries about that sort of thing, and if you were away you’d send back a telegram, want an extension of two days, it was always granted. We’d go in to the Boomerang Club, we had our, collect mail and also we’d collect our pay there, going on your pay would accumulate, you’d go into Boomerang Club and get your pay up to date and then take it around and put it into your bank account at at the bank, you know round in Australia House, National Bank at Australia House. We had our contact, contacts in Australia House who would say to us there was no troop ship available for at least six weeks. So you knew right then any application for leave was going to be approved.
LC: Okay.
BS: No. But it was wasted time. And then when we got, when we did get out, I got home, I got on to the, we were told got to go on the Stratheden to come home, we came home via, through, called at Gibraltar and then at Port Said and Suez and then come around through the, straight around the corner down to Freemantle, you know, then up to Sydney. We had to wait, we had to slow down a bit after Freemantle ‘cause the Andes was coming, it left after us, but it had Queenslanders and New South Welshmen on board as well but the Andes was taking crews through to New Zealand and we had a few New Zealanders on as well that we’d picked up in the, coming through the Suez Canal and Al Quattara so the Andes caught up with us and that docked ahead of us in Melbourne so the New South Wales blokes and the Queensland blokes that were on the Andes got off and come on to, on to the Stratheden and that’s when my pilot, I met my pilot again, coming out, he’d come on the Andes and a couple of other fellers, you know, so we had a good yarn with Ron for a couple of days. We come on then up to Melbourne, shot out of Melbourne the next day up to Sydney, In the morning into Sydney, all on deck again to come through the heads, on to Sydney, into Perth at Woollamaloo again. The Queenslanders and that were the first off there and they got to shoot off out to Bradfield Park again, and told us what we had to do again, we had to be back and to be on the up at the, Gordon, to entrain to go on through to Newcastle and up to Brisbane, you see.
LC: So you did the rest of the way by train.
BS: Yeah, yeah. So when we get there that’s all right. When we come out it, I was, it was a bit confusing in a way, ‘cause when the draft come out, I was still on the draft as Flying Officer R W Smith, you know, but on my pay book and all, my war substantive rank of Flight Lieutenant had been, what they say, had been promulgated.
LC: Promulgated, yeah.
BS: Yeah, and they woke up to that just before I got on to the ship, you know, so right, but that didn’t make it, I didn’t worry about that. We get on to the train at Gordon to come home after killing bit of time. I raced back and saw an old lady I used to made her home available to me before we left, you know, and tell her I’d met a Scottish girl, she was a bit disappointed, she thought I’d pick a good Aussie girl, [laughter] but she said whatever you find probably right. So we got on the train, got in to Newcastle, [pause] Newcastle that night, yeah, that night and this Warrant Officer comes up, looking for Flight Lieutenant Smith, Flight Lieutenant Smith, yeah that’s me, you’re officer in charge of this contingent you know, no I said the first I’ve been told, he had a great heap and wad of papers that he kept to himself anyway, went and gave me through a bit of a run through what had to do sort of, you know, he’d go and then the next morning was the casino or something for breakfast and he come up and he turns up again he said now what’ll do is, we’re to be met, there are cars, RAC are providing cars to take us from the end of what was the junction – Clapham Junction, no - Brisbane -
LC: Brisbane, Run street?
BS: No, no, it stopped at South Brisbane, it stopped before South Brisbane, some there, maybe [unclear] airfield that it was, there was a some junction there, they’d be taking us from there, into the city and out to Sandgate, you know. Now when we get to Sandgate, they’ll take you right through to where you’ve got to congregate. The parents are all be up at this area here. Now I’ll parade them all, line them all, tell them up, call you up in to the front and give the order to quick march up to there and then when you get up to there we will be dismissed. I said righto, fair enough. So right, we get up to and do this: Quick march getting along, quick march, okay, there the parents there, I said well if I’m in charge of this bloody parade, I’ll just dismiss the damn thing! So we get up to court area, Squad Halt! Squad Dismiss! The bloody war’s over! Well I heard, I heard somebody say to dad waiting up there, my sister had said god, dad there he is up front. I heard some bloke say to my father – who was in the army you know in the army - is that your son, yeah, dad said to him I wouldn’t call the King my bloody uncle today. [Laughter] This old Warrant Officer looks over, he just sort of wandered off with a heap of paper.
LC: Brilliant!
BS: That’s what I said to dad, the war was over, the war’s just finished.
LC: The war is [emphasis] over. So what stage -
BS: They picked me up with my cousin who was in, had fought in Woolang Bay and got the, come out, wasn’t too good, and, ‘cause my younger brother now, couldn’t get over how much he’d grown. But now, my cousin Daniel Pampling, before the war Danny and I were great friends, ‘cause Alec was, quite a few years between Alec and myself, you know, a bit, eight years or something and Danny and I, actually we were close, we were as close as brothers, even after the war, we could talk to one another, about experiences, he’d tell of experiences with Japs, he was, he was hooked up all day in a heap of guinea grass with Japanese on the other side of it, they didn’t know, you know, and we could talk to things about that sort of, you know, Danny and I and get on now. When we came back Danny drove us down, he come back and on the way back, Dad used to take the cream into people in Harrisall, a Mrs Fresser, they were German, Karl Fresser and his mother, their son was in, was shot down and killed, about a year before I operated, you know, he’d only done a few trips, but he ended up on a, on a Pathfinder squadron and he was shot down on one of the Berlin trips, you know, in the winter of ‘43 ‘44. Well after that, she used to, I think she more or less adopted me as a son, she said to dad, she was always asking after me, you know. Now before we went home, back to Greenwood, to the farm, we come through Harrisall, dad wanted us to call on Mrs Fresser. [pause]
LC: Yeah. Oh nice, you popped in there did you?
BS: When I think about it I cry.
LC: So how did you -
BS: She was crying.
LC: Yeah. It’s a very, very emotional experience. Very emotional.
BS: Always called on Mrs Fresser. That’s how things change, never called her Pauline; and she always called him Mr Smith. You know, isn’t it amazing. Two sisters that, hey.
LC: So how did you find, you mentioned you were able to, your mate you were able to talk, your experiences with, how did you find communicating with other friends and family who hadn’t been, experienced it, was communicating was an issue or?
BS: I found that hard [cough] Mrs Fresser, but another great mate of mine, Jimmy Cossett from Boonah, Jimmy was shot down too, but he was murdered towards the end of the war, to meet his sister, you know, to meet the sisters or the close relatives of boys that had been killed. I had about three or four of them waiting to meet. It was a bit sobering.
LC: That would be very sobering, very, very emotional too I’d imagine.
BS: Little bit sobering. Anyway, we got, like Bomber Command blokes, we’re trained in the worst place to, it’s a game of life and death. There’s only two things we’re given to by our creator: that’s birth and death and death is it. That’s it. It’s like old Grey’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard: once they’re in there, all their joys are gone that’s it, the disappointments they had, well, and as Napoleon said what’s an honour or can any, any worth mean, what’s a posthumous award mean to the recipient?
LC: Exactly.
BS: Nothing. that’s why they cut out the posthumous awards.
LC: The French Army.
BS: Even with the Croix de Guerre and stuff like that. And they, of course they cut out all the Imperial awards too, like Distinguished Flying Crosses [unclear] and stuff like that. So you settled down there and that was it.
LC: So you were demobbed. Did you, did you have any sort of follow on support from the air force or the government?
BS: [unclear] I settled back into the war and then went back and got married. When we came back, after I married, we married, we shot to, Alma come to a different world, you know. And when we arrived was the best dust storm I’ve ever seen at Harrisall, when we got back to Harrisall to the farm, you know. And dad come in from the Territory, you’d better go into the bank they got a message for you, yeah, they want you to come back. I went back in, yeah, they wanted me to open a branch in Upper [unclear]. I did that, I went down and saw them, I opened that branch with a feller called Paul Gardner and he was a Rat of Tobruk. Now, and with a couple of a, couple of reunions we’ve had with our aircrew guards over later years there, come in, you realise in a way the bloody futility of, wars are not, not between two blokes, the people of the country. Now this Paul was a Rat at Tobruk, now at [unclear] on the corner of Kessel’s Road now where the Garden City or something, I had a relation bit further on had a strawberry farm there, but there were two blokes worked in the Department of Primary Industries as it was called then, you know. One was a, don’t know what he was, the other was a feller called Harry Warnenburg. Now, Harry come in to the bank one day to open an account something, and he’s sitting down talking to the boss, and Harry, he said to the boss, I’ve come out, no, I came out, I applied out here after, I think I was, came out from Germany after the war, and the war I was in Rommel’s Panzer Division over there. Paul said I was a Rat of Tobruk, he says oh we were around at Tobruk and they suddenly started talking to one another and they could remember things that both happened and seen there.
LC: Absolutely fascinating isn’t it, that’s incredible.
BS: Now there’s two blokes, ‘bout ten years before that, eight years before that they were fighting one another, or they weren’t fighting one another. They eventually come to the agreement, you found out the safest place on the war was on the patrol at night. Now, what you do as a patrol at night, if you’re coming round, you know the German’s there, so you maybe whisper something, you want them to overhear it, give ‘em a bit of false information, the German’s not going to let you know that he’s there, so he’s, he’s going to keep quiet too, get right so, and he said that happened on one particular incident that’s been well recorded with the Stuka shot down, with the one ack-ack gun that was there, got him fair and square first shot but it was a fluke, and they they immediately thought hello, hello, they’ve got a secret weapon and they stopped that raid and there were no raids for a couple days after till they worked out, somebody’d worked out for ‘em what it was. But there they are, two blokes, and then that blokes that meet at these things, that were prisoners of war, they’ve had their, over in England now at Bomber Command for quite a number of years there were get-togethers for trips down the Rhine every year. The blokes that shot ‘em down once they found out who shot them down.
LC: Have you every had the opportunity to meet any of the, any Germans?
BS: Only that feller.
LC: That bloke there.
BS: No German. I nearly did have one that had come over but he had gone back.
LC: Well Bob, I think that probably covers it, very comprehensively. But it’s been fantastic sitting down with you and hearing, hearing your experiences, but those, and your records that you’re graciously allowing us to copy, they will be a great complement to the recording of this interview so thanks again, thanks again for that.
BS: If you want to have a copy, a whole lot of those I’ll have a yarn with my sons, where to put them, you know. I happen to be a lad that comes from Harrisall which was on the doorsteps in Amberley, where my things’ll rest up there, with my grandmother that came out, between her and myself, the two of us, we’ve seen the whole development of that district. We overlapped by eight years on, on. But she was a girl, oh some of the stories, she was, she’s a wonderful woman, not like her two sisters. No, dad, bit like her father, they were get on. She had a way of telling you, if you did something wrong, she wouldn’t just chastise you, she’d say you know you’d better think about it, it might be very wise not to do that again.
LC: Yeah, just give you a hint, yeah.
BS: She’d make you think about it. It might be very wise not to do that again you know. I had a, made sure dad, mum sent us to Sunday School every Sunday morning, walk across the paddocks. I had a a Sunday School teacher, he was a Scotsman out here, he was killed later on out here, but you did something wrong in church or Sunday School he’d take you round the back behind the water tanks and give you a clout behind the ear.[laughs]
LC: Well it was effective. It was very effective!
BS: Well my dad gave me effective thing for being bullying. When I was a young lad, the bloke on this place next door, his father was a, was a champion rifle shooter, you know, the Queen’s medal, the King’s Medal they used to call in those days, go over to England, this feller annoying hell out of me, annoying things, I came to dad, said next time he does that heck, sock him one on the nose. Which I did.
LC: Didn’t bother you again?
BS: No, didn’t, not beat me. No, I got stripes in Ipswich Grammar. I’ve always been like that as a lad. Blokes’d have a go and I got caught Ipswich Grammar School having a fight in the in the thing one day, the old Dean come up and no ‘cause I, nobody would pick a fight with me because they thought he’s a bloody boxer! This bloke, when I came, I come in one day, I can still remember this like, how old would I have been ‘bout six, something, covered in bit of blood, so mum cleans me up, you know, I’m getting a hell of a dressing down, stop fighting, then all of a sudden it wakes up to mum that it’s not my blood: it was his out of his nose.
LC: What’ve you been doing!
BS: And of course dad, what you do? I just cuffed him one on the blood, on the nose. Dad said it was the best thing you could have done! I agree with that. Mum had the other one.
LC: Well seeing like Bomber Harris’ strategy, you started it, we’re gonna finish it!
BS: Yeah! Bomber Harris, he used to -
LC: Well that’s probably a good way to finish it Bob, so thanks for, thanks for the time, it’s been an absolute pleasure sitting down and talking about your experiences.
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 Bob Smith
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lee Collins
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-03-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASmithRW190325
Format
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03:30:53 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Smith was born in Brisbane, Australia. He recalls moving to the family farm in 1932 and being a member of the Air Cadets during his school years. Upon leaving school, Smith undertook training as a bank clerk. Following the events of Pearl Harbour, Smith registered for the Royal Air Force as an air crew guard on the understanding that once he turned nineteen, he would train under the Empire Air Training Scheme. In May 1942, he was called up for initial training. He describes his first experience of death, while stationed at the Air Observer School in Cootamundra, and persuading the selection committee at Bradfield Park to alter his crew role status from pilot to navigator. On the 10th February 1943, Smith embarked from Sydney on the USS Hermitage. He recounts the details of the five-week voyage to San Francisco including kitchen duty on the ship, hunting for a record needle in Honolulu, and observing the damage at Pearl Harbour. Smith trained on Ansons in Edmonton, Canada, before traveling to Britain, where he attended Officer Training School in Sidmouth and the Advanced Flying School at RAF West Freugh. He describes the formation of his crew at RAF Chedburgh, training on Wellingtons and Stirlings, and receiving blunt head trauma on a training flight (which he traces health issues in later life back to). While stationed in RAF Feltwell for the Lancaster Finishing School, Smith recollects supporting D-Day by dropping Window along the coast of France, and using Gee during a mining operation over the Garonne River. Smith’s crew joined 15 Squadron, stationed at RAF Mildenhall, where he carried out 30 operations and remained on the squadron as a wind navigator. He details the events of his first and last operation, the process of morning and night-time operations, and flying over the Ruhr, Arromanches, Malmö, Duisburg, Stettin, and Dortmund. Finally, Smith describes demobilisation, reuniting with his family in Australia, and visiting Scotland to marry his wife, Elma.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Anne-Marie Watson
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
New South Wales
New South Wales--Cootamundra
United States
Hawaii--Honolulu
Hawaii--Pearl Harbor
Canada
Alberta
Alberta--Edmonton
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Devon
England--Suffolk
Scotland--Wigtownshire
France
Europe--Garonne River
France
France--Arromanches-les-Bains
Sweden
Sweden--Malmö
Germany
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Dortmund
Poland
Poland--Szczecin
Hawaii
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1932
1942-05
1943-02-10
Language
A language of the resource
eng
15 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
crewing up
debriefing
demobilisation
Gee
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mine laying
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
observer
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Feltwell
RAF Mildenhall
RAF West Freugh
recruitment
searchlight
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1083/11541/APriceSTG151001.1.mp3
1421d71d473b33c64ebc651fe2bbf2aa
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
Price, Sam
Samuel Thomas Gwynne Price
S T G Price
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Sam Price (b. 1925, 1819421 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 and 35 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Price, STG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
IL: Recording on the 1st of October 2015 at the home of Gwyn Price in Colerne in Wiltshire and Ian Locker conducting the interview. Right, Gwyn tell us a little bit about your early life and how you joined, how you became involved in Bomber Command.
SGP: Yeah. I was born in 1925 so we’re talking about some seventy odd years ago when I did my first operation. So, although the mind is reasonably clear and I’ve had a look at things we really have to go back and give you the background. My rural background. Farming community. No — no electricity, no gas, no water, no sewage. Everything done on the range. But plenty of food and not an unhappy life. A very happy life in fact and I feel that with my later experiences that you make the most of what you’ve got and it was an ideal start because there was a determination to keep one foot going in front of the other if nothing more. I was always interested in flying and my main aim was to become a pilot in the Royal Air Force. I enjoyed the —
IL: What sort of age was that Gwyn? Sorry.
SGP: Well, when I was about fifteen — Grammar School ATC. I joined the Grammar School ATC and actually did all my proficiency exams. Did better at that than my academic subjects and became a flight sergeant which was a bit unusual to get that high. So I was then committed to join the Royal Air Force. And when I became seventeen and a quarter I, without anybody knowing I shot off to Birmingham for interviews and hoping to be a pilot. But the situation then was such, this is ’43, there were a lot of pilots being turned out and so I was offered a flight engineer. Which, in retrospect was a very good place to be because I eventually ended up on Lancasters and sat in the right hand seat and did a lot of flying and all the rest of it but — so there I was accepted as a flight engineer in 1943. Because of my age I was deferred until I was eighteen and a quarter which was the 7th of January 1944. And then my world, you have to — from a rural background, never really been out of the county very much, very quiet and laid back and shot into London for all my pre-RAF equipping and inoculations and films on sexual behaviour. People fainting all over the place [laughs] And some people fainting with the sign of a needle. And we suffered all through that and then went off to Newquay to start our initial training which was a three months course initiating us into the history and the aims of the Royal Air Force and the background. Plus all the navigation, engineering and all sundry things. Plus physical exercise. Lots of, beautiful down in Newquay. Very, got very fit. Sitting on the side of the cliff there breaking down Bren guns and things like that. And eventually came out. By this time I think we were beginning to feel a little bit like servicemen. And so then I went off to St Athan for my engineer training. Flight engineer training which was a six months course. And this was extremely complicated in you, you went from talking about engines from the autocycle right the way through to Rolls Royce, Merlin, V12s plus all the, the other equipment. Electrical engine, hydraulics. Oxygen. All the other systems in the aircraft and I eventually decided I wanted to be in a Lancaster because the Lancaster engineer sits by the side of the pilot and I felt then I would have a good chance to get some flying in. So, I passed out in October, practically on my birthday, nineteen year old birthday in 1944. And then shot off to do a little bit of Anson training. About ten hours. A little pilot training on the Anson before I then joined up and went to the Heavy Conversion Unit, Lancaster Heavy Conversion Unit to start my training as, on the job as it were, as a flight engineer. I then only did, let me, I should go back and say that passing from a cadet to a sergeant flight engineer my pay went up from three shillings a day to twelve shillings a day which was a ginormous jump. I’d always been a saving man and I sent a shilling a day, sorry. Yeah, a shilling a week home and saved that so I had a car at the end of the war. But there you go. So, we’re on our way. Flight engineer training. I did twenty four hours training as a flight engineer and then I was then considered fit to join a crew. And this was very, for a poor old engineer you had the boys coming in with their crews already formed, flying Wellingtons, pre-Lancasters, where seven crew were required. And the engineers sat like wall flowers on the side waiting for a crew to say, ‘He looks a decent sort of chap.’ ‘He looks like he might be sensible,’ or whatever. And I didn’t get picked for a while. I think I was probably too good looking actually [laughs] They didn’t want, they didn’t want any, they wanted a dour, down to earth engineer who would sort things out. Eventually this big Aussie, God he was big. Bob Newbiggin. Big Aussie. About six foot five and huge. He was the surf swimmer for Australia. He was in the “Guinness Book of Records” eight consecutive years. He was surf champion of Australia. A lovely chap. And he looked at me and the rear gunner was a bit older than the rest. A bit, he had a bit more savvy. He said, ‘Well I think he looks alright.’ [laughs] And I said, ‘Well, you look alright.’ So, so this Bob Newbiggin’s crew was formed. And then off we went and we did only thirty three hours training as a crew before we started our operations. We were declared fit for operational service which, when you think about it was not very much. After serving the Royal Air Force and flying about, nearly five thousand hours afterwards I realise how green we were at the time and, but how we managed despite that to cope with the difficult situations.
IL: So, had Bob Newbiggin and the rest of the crew been flying together for a while or were they — ?
SGP: They had, they’d only been on Wellingtons and formed a crew. They’d only probably done about fifty hours together.
IL: Right.
SGP: As a crew. So that formation but they had in fact had that advanced experience that I hadn’t had so I had to fit in with these other chaps you know.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And I’d better say a little bit about myself. I used to read my bible every day which was a bit, the lads used to say, ‘Are you coming?’ I’d say, ‘No. I’ve got my scripture reading to do today.’ [laughs] And I didn’t drink very much at the time. I was a good boy. That changed a bit later on but, so anyway we all got on very well and then, in fact we were posted to 195 Squadron at Wratting Common in Suffolk.
IL: Right.
SGP: A beautiful area but of course we were at the — 1944, the winter was severe. We had snow on the ground and there was icing everywhere and it was really, really difficult. And we were living in Nissen huts. Metal huts. Yeah. You know N number, about twenty in a room. Two whacking great stoves burning coke and coal. Absolutely red hot. Talk about health and safety. It just hadn’t come in to being in 1944. They would have gone mad then. The thing would have never got off the ground. Anyway, we were comfortable enough in our way you know. And we were then waiting for our first operation. So, on the 14th of December we were and I’ll go through the operational briefing which was very important. So we’d all go down to the briefing room. Already equipped. And sometimes you’d be selected for a flight and sometimes you wouldn’t. And you would have the CO and all the navigation, signaller, engineer leaders, gunner leaders, all there briefing on any particular trip on any facets that might affect the individual crew members. And a big curtain. A curtain was drawn. Secrecy was tight until then. The curtain was drawn and then you were given a target for the night. Well, it was so vague actually I haven’t even got the name of the target. First target. But because we got half way across, got airborne, fully laden, half way across the North Sea and it was aborted so we had to drop our bombs in the sea and return saying, ‘Oh.’ Oh. Amazing that we were feeling miserable that we hadn’t gone and completed our first operation. Which gives you an idea of the calibre of the people and their attitude to the war.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: We would, we then and now I have no regrets about what I did. And I think when you think about the way the Germans indiscriminately bombed our cities. You had your V bombs. You had your doodlebugs. There was no way that they could be targeted specifically at military targets. It was just pattern bombing. So we never felt any regret about this. Either then or now. And so we were a bit miserable on that occasion. A little bit post the briefing. You then, you had to go. The navigator would plot out his route. Because every, every aircraft was planned to operate individually which was very important. And then the signaller and myself and everybody else would be all briefed in the briefing room. And then the old truck used to come round, pick us up and drop us off at the dispersal point. And this particular one was a daylight flight and my role after all the crew went in the aircraft up the rickety old ladder that we had into the aircraft I would have to go around and check everything. Check all the things were tight. No, no cowlings aren’t loose or anything of that sort. No leaks. All the de-icing paste on the leading edge of the wings and the props was all done. So that we were all ready. And then I do say this and it’ll cause a laugh. You had, always had a last pee on the tail wheel before you went in, for good luck. So I did that and away we went. And then the crew did all the starting up procedures and everything else and pre-flight checks which were very thorough and then eventually taxi-ing out with all the other aircraft and you’d get your green light from the caravan at the end of the runway and away you’d go. And when you think about it we were probably laden with about two thousand seven hundred and fourteen gallons of fuel plus about twenty thousand pound of bombs, four thousand pound plus two fifties and that sort of thing. And so sometimes you were scratching a bit when you were getting off but then away you went and then you were individually working your way to the target. Now, in daylight it wasn’t too bad because you obviously could see people most of the time if the weather was fine and you could obviously avoid them. We did have a system to confuse the enemy radar where we’d drop what we called Window and they were long metal strips in packages. We’d throw, put them through the chute and they would spread all over the air below.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And confuse the radar. But the only trouble with that is that in daylight you could see these piles in front of you and they would tend to get in the, in the oil cooling radiators and overheat the engines. So you’d do the up and down, up and down until the crew said, ‘No. No more.’ [laughs] you know, ‘No more. We can’t have any more of this.’ Anyway, that was a little bit of an aside. So, at night and I’ll go through at night because —
IL: So, because, because presumably most of, most of your operations were night time because obviously Bomber Command was doing the night time.
SGP: Exactly.
IL: And the Americans were doing the daytime.
SGP: Exactly.
IL: Weren’t they?
SGP: Yeah.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: We did a lot of daylight over France supporting the army on the second front and all that sort of thing. So we did quite a lot of daylight ones as well but the majority of them were night.
IL: So were you fighter escorted during the daytime?
SGP: No.
IL: You were on your own.
SGP: Only the, only the Americans had escorts. They had N number of guns, God knows how many fighter escorts and they carried very little, very little in the way of bomb load.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: But Flying Fortresses [laughs]
IL: Yeah.
SGP: There was a song about that but I won’t go into it.
IL: Is it a rude one? [laughs]
SGP: Carrying a teeny weeny bomb. Anyway, the night trips, you can imagine you would take off in a stream, one after the other and then you’d all be heading your own way. Planning your own trip. And so, what happened then if you were in heavy cloud, you’re getting iced up, ice was flying off the propellers on to the fuselage, cracking on the fuselage, and St Elmo’s Fire flashing around. All these sort of things were new to us and I was always concerned about temperatures of engines and things like that. But then you, the thing you have to remember is we didn’t have any naked lights in the aircraft. All the, all the instruments, flying instruments were just luminous dials and with the background a little bit of radium light. And they, I I used a little torch with a pinpoint light from it to do all my logs for the fuel consumptions and all the rest of it. And the navigator was in a blacked out little cabin there behind with his light on the desk. So there was absolutely no light in the aircraft. Absolutely black. So there was no light in the other aircraft either. So you wouldn’t see them. The only thing you would see are the exhaust flames and suddenly you would see exhaust flames and you wouldn’t be too far away then. And some of them were very close. And if they were navigating to get there on time some were probably a little bit ahead so it would be crossing the main stream to be back on time. This sort of thing. So, it was pretty hazardous and if the cloud, you were being iced up and the turbulence was bad and all that sort of thing it was pretty — that’s one of the biggest things was to look out. Just keep the eyes peeled. So, so that gives you a little bit of background of what it was like at night. And I might as well get on now to the difference because at night you’d be flying along in darkness and suddenly the target area would be as light as day. Lit up by fires, by all the flares put down by the Pathfinders and everything that was going on. And you could see all the other aircraft flying around, all the bombs coming down and you’d unfortunately see some aircraft being hit at the time and going down. That sort of thing. And all the stuff coming up as well. I shall never ever forget what it was like ever because it was so surreal. You, you’d go from total blackness into this light and you’d think everybody, you could see everybody you know and it was very unreal, but [pause] So we got our next flight. Let me have a [pause] was, was on the 24th . We did a flight to Bonn and this was heavily defended and we were well tasked, you know, to experience what I’ve just told you about. Both the night flying and the difficulties and also the light over the target area.
IL: So, Bonn was your first night flight?
SGP: Yes. Yeah. And I’ve gone over the [pause] we completed that trip without any trouble and then went on to —
IL: You say it was heavily defended so, you know. Do you mean sort of flak, or —?
SGP: Oh yes.
IL: Fighters? Or —
SGP: Oh yeah. Flak. I didn’t, we didn’t personally see any fighters.
IL: Right.
SGP: Except on one which I’ll tell you later.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Because that was a bit close. But I suppose we had two major problems. One was a little bit later on over Kiel. No. Can I just have that for a minute —
IL: Oh yes. Please do. Please do.
SGP: Yeah.
[pause]
IL: Do you want me to pause for a second.
SGP: Yeah. Pause.
[recording paused]
SGP: We completed five further operations in six days. And the last one to a place called Vohwinkel. And we were, came back to base. The cloud was thick down to base so we were diverted to East Moor in Yorkshire. And I just want you to picture N number of aircraft all being diverted to East Moor. All stacked at five hundred foot intervals up to over twenty thousand feet. All desperately trying to get in and land and the weather wasn’t very good there either. So, we found ourselves in these orbits. Carrying on orbit, orbit, orbit until you were gradually coming down five hundred feet at a time and eventually you were the one five hundred, just five hundred feet and you were then in to land. And they got us down very well. But I thought about it. We’re in this cloud, continuously in cloud all the time but just going on instruments flying around in the orbit and if anybody had had an altimeter wrong or something like that only five hundred foot is the difference between the heights. But anyway, we landed ok and the next thing wasn’t so good. East Moor had only been given a short notice of us arriving. So, we’d had quite a long trip of about six hours. A bit tired out and a bit wound up with the, being diverted and having the towering let down procedure thing. And we arrived in our little huts and all they’d done, God bless them was to put piles of blankets on each bed. With no heat or anything. So [laughs] so we had to make the most of it. And that was the calibre of people we had those days. I should really go back to the beginning because I missed it out at the start. We came from a generation where we had great respect for the history of the country and our, what we’d done throughout the world. And that was still there then in the 44’s. We were very much in respect of the monarchy and the parliamentary democracy that we had and to the extent that even if you were at home we used to stand up when the national anthem was played. So, coming from that background it was a place in history that we accepted and we took it on for the, for everybody really. Because it was in defence of our country which we loved, you know. So, going back that gives you a little bit of a feeling for how we felt at the time. But after the, after the Vohwinkel one we completed eleven operations and then we were selected for the Pathfinder force. Well, we all thought, we were asked if we would be happy to go and we said, Bob said, the pilot said he’d be happy so we all decided we’d be happy to go to the Pathfinders. And then [pause] the, we, we went on our first flight which was a trip to Duisburg. As a Pathfinder. Now, the Pathfinder situation was that you had to go down to about eight thousand. That sort of height. Master bombers sometimes went lower than that and he circled continuously so their problem, they had a bigger problem than us. But we would go down and at least circle the target twice at something like eight thousand feet. So, what you had was, you had things coming up and you also had rather lethal things coming down from all our, the main force going through in their hundreds, sort of thing. Dropping bombs. In fact, our last squadron we had one tail turret taken off by a four thousand pound bomb. Clean straight off but the aircraft got back to base but the poor old gunner didn’t, obviously. So, and we circled around a couple of times and buffeted around. Anyway, we got our flares away because you’d, what you did was you identified the target where the flares were and then re-centred them on the, on the coloured lights that were down on the ground. And we did that a couple of times and we tore off home. A little bit wondering whether we’d done the right thing by going on the Pathfinders side [laughs]
IL: So how many, for a raid how many Pathfinders? Just the one or —
SGP: Oh no.
IL: For each squadron.
SGP: No. You had quite a lot.
IL: Right.
SGP: You had a master bomber.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Who would be there, technically going there and identifying the target and putting down the, the first indicators and then the main force would drop on those indicators. And then you had what they call visual centre’ers who’d come along and replenish the flares so that the rest of the force coming through would have a target to aim for. If it was, the weather was bad and you couldn’t identify the target you had a visual, a marker chap who would have his H2S equipment to identify it through the cloud and then put what they called Wanganui flares. And they would be suspended in the air and you would drop on those.
IL: Right.
SGP: Which was, subsequently these sort of things were done more by the Mosquito because they had Gee and the navigational equipment that was more accurate. And they would be up at, say twenty eight thousand feet. Above everything really. And they would drop their markers accurately on, it was worked out on Gee and they would drop their markers. And that was very accurate. They, they did a lot of that towards the end of the war. But, so, so we, we completed that and the next thing is after five more operations we were over Kiel and we dropped our bombs and immediately we were locked on by three, coned by three searchlights. And we were totally blinded. Couldn’t see a thing. Absolutely unbelievable. Well, Bob then, he went like a maniac and we, we went down and out and around and whoa, and we ended up, we got away from them and we ended up over Kiel harbour and it was amazing. It was almost like heavenly sent as it were in that we went from chaos in one minute, light and chaos and then immediately to peace and tranquillity. And we were only, we were down to five thousand feet by this time and we felt a bit vulnerable sitting there on our own, you know, with no — so I wasn’t too keen on saving any fuel that night so it was full bore and away. But we got away with it and that was up to Bob. He did, he did a marvellous job and I was standing up at the front looking to see what was going on. And that was, so that was that. That was probably our most frightening experience. And then, almost our last flight we were on, enroute to Bayreuth and we suddenly had a Junkers 88, head on, come over the top and nearly took our canopy off. It was so obvious it was a Junkers when it was overhead. And the noise and he was gone and what I said in my little book was we didn’t know whether he had run out of ammo, was short of fuel, was tired and realised the war was nearly over, and thought we’d give them a fright but we won’t damage our aircraft. So we got away with that. I mean he could have taken off our canopy off.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Without any trouble at all, you know. And we were a bit apprehensive about that. Whether he was going to come back or not but he never did so we went ahead and completed the target.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Then on the 24th of April the CO asked for volunteers for a flight engineer on a crew where they had lost their engineer. And it was to drop medical supplies to prisoners of war in a place called New Wittenberg. And I said I’d go. So the crew said, ‘Don’t go Gwyn. You know what happens when you have an odd bod in the aeroplane. Nine times out of ten you get clobbered.’ And anyway, I was a bit pig-headed I suppose and I said, ‘Ok I’ll go.’ We were in fact told, the war wasn’t over then, we were told that there was a, the Germans wouldn’t in fact attack us on the way. Well it turned out there was three aircraft involved and I was in one of them. And we went across Germany. Lovely night. Clear blue sky. Not blue skies, moonlit sky at about five thousand feet. Quietly going across, found the target, dropped all our supplies on the target and then came back without any problem at all. In fact, I did a lot of the flying that night actually but, which was a good experience. And then that was it really. That was my last trip of the war. And —
IL: So you were still a flight engineer at that point?
SGP: I was still a flight engineer. I was at, I became a [pause] I got accelerated promotion. In fact, I would have been, I was on the list for a commission and then the war ended and that was the end of that. But I was a warrant officer at the, at the end of the war. And so that was the end. I should like to say that I’ve always said that the lads who went ahead of us were flying in inferior aircraft. Not good navigational equipment. Not able to get the heights and that that we got and operated under extreme difficulties compared with us. We had a really good aeroplane. Good navigational equipments and carrying a good load of bomb. But the point I’m trying to make is that even on the last day of the war we lost a crew. And he was a very well decorated man. He was in headquarters and he came down to the squadron, booked himself out to do a trip and he picked up all his men. They were all in the eighty, ninety operations and he, they decided they would have this last op but they got shot down and all died.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Right at the end of the war. And I mean, you know so there was no safe operations.
IL: No. Absolutely.
SGP: And so that was it. That was my, my sort of war if you like. And after that I’ll go into the post —
IL: Oh no. I —
SGP: War era.
IL: Just, you’ve obviously you know, as a crew you became, I understand that, you know crews became very close. Tell me about the rest of the crew.
SGP: Yeah. I think we were, we were all very quiet. Nothing —
IL: Even the Australian?
SGP: Yeah. Yeah. Bob. Yeah. Well you did have a little bit where you had Bob was an officer and we were other ranks. The navigator was an officer and the bomb aimer was an officer. And the rest of us were other ranks. So there wasn’t the same sort of get together.
IL: Right.
SGP: Although we did get together. We had fine times but we were all very quiet crew and we operated together as a crew very well. Really well. Without making a fuss about it, you know.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Just getting on. Getting on with the job. And I think that’s the point I’d always make. People ask me were you ever frightened? And do you know I was only frightened if I had a fuel calculation wrong or the oxygen was queer or the hydraulics or something or this and that. You were so involved with the operation, your own operation that nothing else mattered really. You had to, I suppose that was the responsibility of both the crew and to the operation itself that you felt like that which seemed to put everything else to one side. I can’t say that ever, even when we were crashing all over the sky over Kiel with the searchlight on us I didn’t, I didn’t feel any fear then. I think, was it because we were too green to be, to have fear? Because everything was new and was to some degree was quite exciting actually. I don’t know. A lot of people go, go and say they were frightened actually but I will, I will say one thing. As a crew you have all you boys up the front and your two gunners down the back. One mid-upper gunner and one tail gunner. Now, we always felt sorry for the tail gunner. He was out on his own. His, he was away from the centre of gravity of the aeroplane and the centre of pressure and whatever. So everything we did with the aeroplane it would be accentuated back there. I don’t know how he managed to draw beads when you were doing a corkscrew on an aircraft coming in is anyone’s business. And what he did on the night that we were flying all over the sky trying to get out the searchlights I don’t know but he quite got on with it. But we always felt that the rear gunner was a bit special because, one he’d be stuck in the tiniest little cockpit. A little area. Doors behind him. And that was it. He was in there. And he’d have an electrically heated suit. Sometimes he was burning on one side and freezing on the other. Icicles. Condensation. Unbelievable. I mean we did a couple of eight hour trips to the eastern front and he’d be sitting there for, well it would be longer than the eight, the actual flight times were eight hours. By the time you got in and got all your checks done and everything else you were talking about another eight and a half hours or more. Which is a heck of a long time to be sitting in that, those conditions. And so we always felt a little bit sorry for him. By and large we were, we had a reasonably heated environment in the cockpit and from the ground up at night we were always on oxygen. Daylight we went on about ten thousand. But it was reasonably comfortable and we had a nice bottle with a chromium plate with a little lid on the top where we could have a pee if we wanted. And I’ll tell you a funny thing.
IL: For eight hours you need it.
SGP: I’ll tell you a funny thing. Bob, our skipper was desperate for a pee about halfway across one trip. So I said, ‘Ok Bob. I’ll hand you the bottle.’ And if you can imagine, apart from having long johns on, flying suits on, parachute harness on, seat harness on, trying to organise yourself to cope with that. And he tried desperately. In the end, as I said in my little book I think he must have tied it in a knot but he never said anything about it afterwards [laughs] So, no. We, we I think we were always good friends. And I mean I still call the, Frank, the signaller, but he’s not well at all now. He’s older. He’s about ninety three now.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: And he’s just been taken into hospital. He had a fall. And he’s the only one I know who’s alive. And I was looking at the goodwill tour which I’ll talk about later on because they were things that happened later on. I was looking in the book and there was a little note there from a P Farmer and she was the wife of our, our Farmer in the back cockpit. And she’d seen the name Jack Stratten, who was a Newfoundlander, bomb aimer, who flew with us.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And she’d seen his name mentioned. She was writing to this chap to see if he was the chap who flew with Bob Newbiggin and Eddie Farmer the, her husband, who had unfortunately died. And she was trying to get, I only looked, I only found that last night and I’ve been trying to pick up the threads ever since and Frank’s the only one that I’ve been able to contact. So that’s sad you know. Because we did [pause] but I suppose in a way we took it in our stride. I I took the whole thing in my stride and I had a longer term ambition to stay in the Air Force. The rest, none of the rest of the crew stayed and they all went back to civilian life. So, I had plans to be a pilot and so my next, I’ll go through, have a little break. I’ll go through my next period of service.
IL: Yeah. That would be —
SGP: After we’ve had a little break. It’s getting a bit hot in here.
IL: Yeah. It is actually. Might have to open the door for a second. Just, just suspending the recording.
[recording paused]
SGP: Rather than talk about military matters and flying and all the hazards associated with that you want to know a little bit about my personal background. And I’d like to put on tape my wife and I and our association for over sixty five years of married life recently. And it started off when she was evacuated from Liverpool to Herefordshire and was evacuated to my little village of Eardisland. It’s a lovely little chocolate box village of Eardisland. Very quiet. Nothing ever happens. And so she came down and then I eventually went off to start my service with the Air Force. And eight years later I was home on leave. I was actually taking part in the tug of war match for the local village and Muriel and her friend came down. And the, one of the neighbours who knew her said, ‘You know that’s Gwyn Price?’ She said, ‘Oh no. It can’t be him. He looks too young.’ [laughs] Which was always a problem I’ve had actually [laughs] And anyway what happened was we just chatted a little bit together and then there was an outing laid on by the village for a bus to go to a local village to a dance. And I didn’t know this but I turned up in my bow tie and everything else at the bus stop and immediately walked in behind Mu as I call her and sat down by her side. And from that moment on we never left each other, you know. The moment was done and the die was cast. And what I found out later was a friend of mine had actually bought the ticket to take Muriel. And I don’t know but I didn’t feel too bad about that actually [laughs] And after two years and I was on my way to, we courted for about two years and then I was on my way to Singapore and I said, ‘Well, we must get married.’ And the Air Force didn’t recognise you were married until you were twenty five. So, I actually bucked the rules and married just before I was twenty five. And so we were married and that’s the, that’s the start of our married life. And I’ll go to our association. From then on she became an Air Force wife. And we would never be anywhere without our wives because we spend so much time away from home. And I’ll go through all the times I’ve been away. And months on time. And they’re there running the home, looking after the kids, organising everything, looking after finances. Everything. And without a good wife it wouldn’t last which proved its point. So that’s my little bit of fill in. Social life in the middle of my Air Force history. Can I go on now to the —
IL: Oh yes. Please do.
SGP: The next point really is I’d completed twenty eight operations with, eleven with the main force and sixteen with the Pathfinders and then on the 24th of April, before the end of the war — no. Sorry. I beg your pardon. Not the 24th of April. On the 30th of April, before the war was peacefully declared we were geared to drop supplies to the Dutch people who had been starving under the Germans. They were really, they were eating rats and tulip bulbs and everything else and they were really, really in a bad way. Well, hundreds of RAF aircraft, Lancasters were filled up with food. Not any parachutes or anything like that. Just filled in the bomb bays filled with food. And we were, planned to do this and on the 30th of April we carried out an operation out at, in Holland. And I shall never forget this because we came in low from the sea at about a hundred feet and lo and behold there was a little hillock on the coastline and we couldn’t believe it. There were Dutch people there waving flags. Kids and everything else. Waving. And we could see the German soldiers standing there with their rifles down below. And you know, they obviously knew it was over then but we came in and dropped our supplies and then, that was known as Operation Manna. The Manna from Heaven. And ever since then there’s been this association with the Dutch people and the people who operated on Operation Manna and I’ve been there and feted by the Dutch people. I’m talking about fifty years later. And people, old people would come up, put their arms around you and cry. It was so dramatic that they were in desperate straits. The other important thing is and I think this is a reflection on our teaching in the schools. The youngsters were all taught this and were involved in carrying on this knowledge and this history, historical period. And I found that interesting because I find that even my own children are lacking in knowledge of World War Two and what was happening and who was doing what and where. And there’s a general feeling that the British Empire never did any good. And I really do feel strongly about that because I just ask one question. Can you name me one colonial power that was, one colonial nation that’s better off since the colonists went? Is this racist?
IL: No. No.
SGP: I don’t think it is because I’m, I’m rebutting what kids feel and what they generally feel today. What did we give to India? We gave the railways, we gave them a diplomatic service and we gave them the English language. Now, where would the Indian nation be without the English language? I don’t think they’d be as far ahead as they are. I know that they have got their social problems. They’ve got their peaks and lows in terms of riches and poorness but I do, I do have a bee in my bonnet about what we did. And I’ll say a bit more about that when we go to the Congo when I was with the United Nations in the Congo war. So we, we did our drop and Operation Manna was something that’s lived on in the memory of the Dutch people and it also was for us, was very emotional. We’d been dropping bombs on the Germans. Then suddenly we saw how the Dutch people ignored the sentries and were standing out there waving their flags and I thought, and the kids and everything. I thought it was very emotional for us. We felt really very emotional about it and very pleased to be able to help them. And talking about the food supplies because we were all free dropped on the ground. And they talk about the margarine and the sugar and all the rest of the stuff that came down. Scrape it off the grass or whatever. They were so appreciative and that’s stuck on. I mean, we’re talking now, they’re still, in fact doing it you see. Appreciating it and thanking us for it. But so that was Operation Manna and then we had all these hundreds of bombers. Lancaster bombers and we were totally employed then on bringing back our POWs from all over the place. From Belgium, Italy. We had Bari in the south. We had Naples. Pomigliano was the airport there at Naples. And we were in and out. Hundreds of aircraft on the undertaking and we could only carry twenty or so people and they were all sitting on the, on the metal floor in the cockpit. But I probably shouldn’t say this but we used to take Italian prisoners of war out and then bring our own boys back. And I won’t say what the treatment, how the treatment differed between the two because I’d probably be had up.
IL: Oh you wouldn’t. So how did it? How did it differ?
SGP: Well we gave our boys blankets and comforters and we also stayed at a reasonable height where they wouldn’t suffer from an oxygen lack or anything like that [laugh] We were naughty then but of course we were, we were getting over the war actually. It had been a trying period. And the other thing we did apart from all this, carrying all the troops around that was great because we felt we were humanly doing something very important. And we’d get our boys up in to the cockpit and if they were coming back and to see the white cliffs of Dover after four or five years of prisoner of war camp was too much. They all broke down without exception and it was very [pause] but they were so happy as well and had to work it out that way but so that was that and so, that was that. Then we amalgamated with 156 Squadron and primarily to represent Bomber Command in all the celebrations that one does after a war. The Victory Day fly past over London. The VJ day flypast. The Battle of Britain flypast. So we had twelve Lancaster aircraft in white and doing formation flying over these cities. And then we were, we were then ready to go to the good will tour of America. And so we took off from Graveley which was our base in Huntingdon, near Huntingdon and shot off via St Mawgan to the Azores, Newfoundland and then all around America. From right down from, from New York to Colorado to California to Texas. Washington. Giving exhibition.
IL: So was this with the same crew? With the same crew that you’d had?
SGP: We only had the amalgamation of the 156 and 35 didn’t come without its pain because obviously some people, they only wanted half of each squadron.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And we lost everyone except myself and my rear gunner. And the navigator came with us as well. So there was three of us on our crew. And we had another pilot who, in fact was then a Flight Lieutenant Harris who was an ex-master bomber pilot.
IL: Right.
SGP: A very good pilot. And so we joined up with him and flew all around the States. And had a very good time. They feted us but I don’t know whether I should put this in but we found, this is talking about 1946 we are talking about how parochial they are. They read their local papers but their international knowledge and even knowledge of World War Two was unbelievably bleak and barren if you like and they were, you know, they were, amazed to see people, other people who had actually been involved in the war other than the Americans. And this was something that we weren’t very comfortable about because I mean we always get the state where the Americans win the war but they, they’re load of bombs dropped was much less than we dropped. And they also — are you were getting near to the end of your tape?
IL: No.
SGP: Ok.
IL: I’m just checking.
SGP: Yeah. We all get blamed for targets that shouldn’t have been bombed. You know what I’m talking about.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: But the Americans also had a daylight bombing of that, of there as well. I can’t think of the name at the moment. I can’t remember. I’ve gone a bit queer. But so that was one thing about the American tour that I was a bit, we were a bit shaken by really because I mean we were so involved with the war the whole people, the whole nation had been subjected to all this bombing and everything else and the terror attacks and what have you. The Americans didn’t have any of that.
IL: No.
SGP: They didn’t have any of it. All they got was their films and their propaganda, you know. Then of course on the lease lend they made sure the British empire wouldn’t last forever.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: And this went on but I mean that’s a side issue which maybe is my view rather than anything else so.
IL: Just one, just on the war so how do you personally feel about this lack of recognition that you’ve had? Not you personally but, you know —
SGP: No. No.
IL: That Bomber Command has had.
SGP: I should, I will stick my neck out and be quite positive about this in that we only have one man to blame for that and he’s the honoured man Winston Churchill. Winston gave Arthur Harris, Bomber Harris, our great bomber commander the authority to break the will of the German people and Arthur Harris went out and we helped to do that. At the end of the war Churchill didn’t want to know. It was bad publicity to have this hanging around his neck. So, Bomber Command and including Bomber Harris and our Pathfinder chief, none of them were awarded at all. They weren’t given proper recognition and we felt very bad about that because they were, they were good commanders and we thought the world of them. And I think politically it wasn’t, it wasn’t to his liking you know to pursue that glorification if you like, in brackets again, of the war effort by the, by ourselves. That I think has pursued us down the years until we had the Memorial in Green Park which is —have you been there?
IL: I haven’t but I —
SGP: It’s a marvellous Memorial. It’s late but it’ll stand the test of time. It’s wonderful. The architecture. The setting. Everything about it. And I went to a political party meeting recently and I suppose I told the MP there. I said, I had a little bit of a go at him on this because it was not only Winston Churchill but every other prime minister since then. They ignored it. And he said, ‘But we did give you money.’ I said, ‘But nothing like enough to cover the cost.’ It was all done by voluntary subscription. And so I don’t even pinch any glory from that side of it, you know. It’s a political argument. I think it was lost and I do feel strongly about that and I think all my friends do as well.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: Who served at that time. But better late than never and another one is coming up in Lincoln.
IL: Yes. Well tomorrow.
SGP: Which will be good. Yeah. I was hoping to be there actually but you coming in the [laughs] No. It wasn’t that actually. It was a little bit longer. The journey was a problem in itself and it’s a day, it would have probably have taken two days or something. But I’m sorry I’ve not been there, you know. But so that’s what I felt about that. So then I left the squadron and I did a flight engineer’s instructors course. I did a little bit of flying as a screened engineer and then went on and flew about fifty hours on the Lincoln which is the bigger version of the Lancaster. And then the phone call came, ‘You’ve been selected to go for tests for a navigator or pilot.’ And so I went down there and went through about a week of pretty strict physical and mental tests. And then we were all brought out on the parade ground and we were also, I was hoping I wouldn’t be a navigator. I couldn’t stand that. Anyway, I was picked as a pilot. I was selected as a pilot so my day was made and my aim was achieved. I still had to qualify. Go through all the tests and pilot training etcetera but from that moment on I was happy and I started my pilot training and —
IL: Did you, so did you train on the Lincoln?
SGP: No. No. No.
IL: Right.
SGP: We started, oh gosh I started on the only aircraft I think that has ever been, that I would really call an aeroplane. That’s the Tiger Moth. Because it was such fun. And I mean we used to sit up there with our heads out in the winter with the scarves around and the goggles on hanging from your straps in the freezing air. Cutting your engine. Then doing vertical dives to start the engine again. All that sort of thing. It was a fun aeroplane. The only thing was it wasn’t like the Stampe aeroplane which is like a Tiger Moth which the French have.
IL: Yes.
SGP: And that had an automatic [pause] Oh God. [pause] Carburettor. Carburettor sorry, which would allow it to turn upside down and still fly. Keep the engine going where the Tiger Moth would cut out straight away. If you were upside down too long it would just cut out. But no that was a fun aeroplane. So we, we started on that and did quite a number of hours on the Tiger Moth and then we went on to the Harvard. And the Harvard was a wonderful aeroplane too. A wonderful trainee aeroplane and eventually with all the hard work we had nine months of solid training and then you’re going through everything from meteorology to navigation to everything, you know and plus all the tests and everything else. Plus all the flying. It’s quite a, quite a tough, a tough course. Anyway, I eventually passed out and they decided that I would be more a transport man. So I was, I started training on the Wellington which was the old wartime aeroplane with geodetic construction and all the rest of it. And I had a very interesting training on that because I think probably the only person who ever had two airspeed indicators fail. One at night and one in the day. So I had no airspeed at all. I was just flying along on the seat of my pants, you know. And they came up and said, ‘Do you want somebody to come and, come and side by you?’ I said, ‘No. No. I can feel the aeroplane. I can fly.’ Fly the inside. So I landed both happily. I got an above average assessment at the end of the course for that. So, after that I started on the Dakota which was going to be my operational aeroplane and that was a wonderful aeroplane and I eventually passed out on that and went off to Malaya. And of course there was a war on in Malaya. In the emergency, 1950 ‘53. And the, Singapore still hadn’t recovered fully from the Japanese invasion. Changi Jail. We were based at Changi Airfield which was near Changi Jail. And the place was pretty dire, you know. And we were supporting the army in the jungle of Malaya and flying a lot from Kuala Lumpur and Penang. And I mean, health and safety. Oh gosh. I can’t think about it now but we used to do all sorts of things. The army, because I know they’re cutting their way through the jungle and eventually getting tired and wanting to form a little camp with a dropping zone. DZ.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And they would pick them in the most awful places. Sometimes at the end of a valley. We could hardly turn around. I mean we had a wing tip to get around. And I was on one trip and it was on the side of a hill. I was coming in from the valley side, concentrating on the DZ and at the last minute the trees were coming towards me on the top of the hill. So I had everything open, a little bit of flap and I just went over the top. That was the sort of situation we found. In fact, that situation was probably more dangerous than anything I’d ever had during the war. And the other stupid things we used to do we had a big base at Ipoh which is North Malaya. And we would fly from Kuala Lumpur. It was always cloud covered at Ipoh so you couldn’t get down in to drop your supplies for the troops on the ground for distribution. And so what we would do, believe it or not, we’d fly, and at north of Malaya there was a little valley opening and a railway line used to work its way through the mountain up to Ipoh. And we’d go up through there, windscreen wiper on, raining, coming down and you’d wind yourself up, hardly any room for the aircraft to go up and eventually come out at Ipoh at the end underneath the cloud. Drop your supply and then you climb out to sea and you’d be ok. But little things like that, that I mean it wouldn’t happen today I don’t think. Even on operational circumstances it wouldn’t be on. But we had lots of flying out there. We used to travel from Ceylon as it then was or Sri Lanka now. And I had a two months — married my wife in the August, she came out by troop ship on the, on the, in the January. Seasick all the way because we got these boats as reparation from the Germans. They were all designed for river boating [laughs] so they had very little keel on and the sick, unbelievable sickness. Anyway, she came out. She was sick all the way and within a week I was off to Ceylon for two months. That was the beginning of our Service married life. And this was life in the Service. So, I was on air sea rescue out there and then we would go out the other way through, right through Indo-China as it then was. Through Saigon, [unclear] up to Hong Kong. And Hong Kong then was a small [pause] Kai Tak, the airport, the RAF airport there was small. You may know it or not know it.
IL: I do know it.
SGP: And you had Lion Rock up here.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And we’d come in over, along the valley on the south west side and over Kowloon and then you’d do a [pfhtt] straight down, chop everything and land and then the sea was at the other end. And then the Hong Kong Island on the other side. So that was interesting. So that, we were on San Miguels then. the San Mig which was very popular and very, very nice. So I experienced there — weather. I’ve taken off in pouring rain from Hong Kong island, from Kai Tak not from Hong Kong Island.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: From Kai Tak. Pouring rain. Could hardly see the end of the runway. Windshield wipers going like this. Targeting a non-directional beacon on the top of Hong Kong Island in cloud and just climbing like mad hoping that, the indicator going mad and you were trying to keep up and hoping that nothing failed otherwise you’d be straight in Hong Kong Harbour. And it was sort of things like that that made life interesting. So we would then go on to, up to Okinawa and then off to Iwakuni in Japan. And we were up there in the 50s which wasn’t that long after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs. And we were landing at Iwakuni which was quite close to them. So we had a good sight of the devastation that was there. Of the land and the houses and everything else. So that was, made us aware of how powerful — ok Japan houses, Japanese houses were not that resistant to that sort of treatment but it was all vaporised really and it was very, made one aware. We had our group captain [pause] not Townsend [pause] Who was our man? Famous man. A hundred operations.
IL: Not Leonard Cheshire.
SGP: Cheshire. Yeah. Leonard Cheshire. Leonard Cheshire was on one of those flights.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: And they’d made him, he’d done over a hundred ops and got a VC. And he was then seriously worried by using that type of bomb. But there you go. It’s frightening. But so on one trip coming out of Okinawa I’d just got airborne and my port engine seized and it’s from sea to sea at either end. So I had to do, I did a quick dink around and came back in on a reciprocal. Landed. So that was one of the interesting things that we had. And the other route we used to go to the north would be through Labuan in Borneo and then up through Manila. And we were then on Valettas. I transferred to Valettas because the Dakota went out and I did about four hundred on Dakotas out there and about eight hundred then on Valettas. But the Valetta was a different animal. They had the Hercules engines, Bristol engine, and as soon as you get in very cold air the oil cooler would, all the oil would get thick and it wouldn’t run through the engine. So you had to do the opposite. You had to slow down, put revs up and fly at the slowest. And I was going up there just north of Borneo over the sea, engines coring. We call it coring. When you get overheating and you do the opposite to what you would normally do and eventually you get the temperature back down and away you go. So that was one little flying incident. So after that tour I was then made a command flight safety officer at Upavon.
IL: Right.
SGP: I was the trial and command flight safety officer. So I had two and a half years there which was good fun. And I went to [pause] where did I go after that? [pause] No, I’d bet, can I, can I rescind that?
IL: Oh yes.
SGP: Can I rescind that?
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Well can we —
IL: Please do.
SGP: Restart. I jumped ahead of myself on the last. On the command flight safety officer. My next, in fact, in September ’53 I was put forward for an instructor’s course at the Central Flying School at Little Rissington. And then passed through that course flying Harvards and Provosts and was then posted to Ternhill in Shropshire as a flying instructor on the Provost aircraft. I qualified on the Meteor jet and completed the instruction at Ternhill, posted to fly Hastings aircraft at Colerne. This required a lot of time away from home and one of the main trips and the most memorable trip that I did was to, in July of ’58 I flew out to Kiritimati Island. Or Atoll. In the middle of the Pacific. Commonly known as Christmas Island — for transport support for the hydrogen operation, Grapple Zulu which was carried out at the Atoll then from a Victor aircraft. I’d like, just like to say to get out to Christmas Island it took us ninety hours flying in the Hastings. Eighteen days. And so we then arrived from, finally from sort of Brisbane to Fiji to Kanton Island and then up to Christmas Island and then if you get the idea of the space from Fiji was about five hours flying. Six hours. Then up to Honolulu, Hawaii was another six hours. So it’s a long, you can imagine. It’s a little spot. Coral Atoll, in the middle of the ocean. Obviously an ideal place for an atomic explosion. Or a hydrogen explosion that was then. Anyway, on the day of the explosion we were all on the tarmac with our backs to the blast, in flying suits and covered up. And the aim was that it would be dropped from a Victor aircraft and exploded about ten thousand feet. And then when we did anticipate, because they had old buildings and that on the island to see the reaction of the, of different constructions to the atomic bomb. The experience then was something I’ll never forget. We were on the ground. Sitting on the ground with our back to the explosion and hands over the eyes, eyes tightly shut. And yet the light from the explosion was obvious to us even in that situation and then the blast of air coming through was tremendous. And the power happening about thirty miles away was unbelievable. And I’ll never forget it. And then of course when it was safe to do so we turned around and looked at the mushroom cloud which was going, going up at that time. You could see the immense power in the, in the cloud. And the thing which I think there was a bit of naivety about the effect of radiation. But we had two Canberra aircraft with sniffer things on the, on the wings and one of them was in the cloud for about fifteen minutes. Another one flew through it which was less time. And in reflection, on reflection I don’t know what happened to the pilot or what effect it had on him or the other pilot. But of course a lot of people have suffered and there’s been a big fight about the effect of, the effect on one’s skin and cancer from, from the explosion. I’ve only had about fifteen lumps taken off so far and only one was cancerous [laughs] but then that involved five years in Malaya, Christmas Island for months, Ceylon for months, Congo for months and so my, my skin’s been exposed to a lot of sunshine which is not a good thing now. I’ve even got problems coming up. I’ve just had a few taken off my face actually.
IL: So, were you given, was there any radiation protection? Or was it just flying suits?
SGP: Nothing at all.
IL: Nothing.
SGP: Nothing at all. I’ll tell you an interesting story and this is about a doctor. I, I knew this doctor because he was at Farnborough and they’re all a bit mental there anyway because that’s why they’re there. They’re prepared to try anything. I know, I know he had, one of his tests was air sickness. He wanted to test it out. So he would get his mate with a flying machine with an aerobatic ace and he’d have a couple of eggs and, just before the flight, and he’d sit there with his stopwatch and his bag seeing how long it would take him before he was sick. But that was one of his, that was one of his little things he used to get up to. And then they, they he managed to contrive to have a railway track and they had a thing on wheels that had a rocket behind it and these rockets were actually dud ones. And they didn’t know what they were going to do with them. Whether they would go off or fizzle or disintegrate or whatever. I mean it just shows the way they — to see the acceleration. The effect of acceleration on the human body. And that was one. Well, I think he topped it in Christmas Island because he had some special glasses with, that were flicking at a fraction of a second. Timed for when the bomb went off. Looking at it to see what effect it would have on his eyes. And I was standing by to fly him up to Hawaii to a medical, you know, to get treatment. But in the event it wasn’t too bad so obviously he wasn’t exposed for very long. But I mean, his name was Whiteside, a super chap and there were three things I could say. He wasn’t on his own. I mean he was just I think a bit mad actually but he was still prepared for the interest of science to sort of expose himself to such terrible risk. So that was it at Christmas island. We used to fly around there. The frigate bird was obviously getting, we were flying all over the place. We used to be clobbered on take-off. They were a bit of a pain really. And then we had crabs who used to come and, on the island to lay their eggs and things or whatever and thousands used to come and you’d just drive over them because they were just too many. They were everywhere. And it was a very small island, Atoll, you see. And anyway that was an experience that, you know stands out in the memory. And of course, going up to Honolulu. It was very nice up there. Waikiki beach was very nice [laughs] and the food was nice and we’d go around to all the pineapple places. So we used to have a break up there. But then we, I had about three months out there and then we were back and I had one more job which was of interest and I flew the body of the Columbian ambassador from England to New York. And I think it’s probably the worst flight I ever had in my life. I took off at Colerne here on the short runway which was very rarely used, in a blinding storm. Got to Northolt and let down there totally down on the ground, pouring with rain, landed and thought I was going to run off the end because I was aquaplaning down the runway. Stopped there. Took off the next day for Iceland. Reykjavik. And with the body on board of course by this time. He wasn’t worried. No, I shouldn’t say that. However, we landed in Iceland. The weather to Goose Bay in Greenland was diabolical so they said, ‘You can’t go yet.’ So we were in and out of the aeroplane. Eventually got off. Landed in Goose Bay. By the time we refuelled the oil had gone solid and we had to go into the, into the hangar to warm the lot up and eventually got the engines turned over and got airborne. And by this time there were people in New York waiting for us to be there, you see. Waiting for time scale with the reception party and everything else. And then lo and behold we had one hundred knot headwinds going down the east coast of, the west coast of Canada and America and arrived in New York at 2 o’clock in the morning. Terribly late and where the guard of honour took off the ambassador and then we managed to get some sleep after that. The next day we had an engine failure and couldn’t, had to have it fixed before we could turn back. And we had just the same sort of weather all the way back. It was one of those trips you remember very clearly.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: So that was primarily one to think about. Then I did do an attachment to Accra in Ghana as OC Accra. We had one Hastings aircraft there supporting the Ghanaian troops under the United Nations banner. In the Congo. Operating in the Congo. And I went into what was then Leopoldville which is now Kinshasa and I was amazed. You know right in the middle of, I wouldn’t say the jungle that would be —
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Implying whatever, that Africa’s a jungle which it isn’t. But you go to Leopoldville, it was a city. A beautiful city. Wide boulevards with trees. Just like a continental city. And a lovely university on top of the hill. A small aircraft that did DDT spraying every day so it didn’t get any mosquitoes. Beautiful. And what happened was the Belgians said — at midnight tonight you can have the Congo. It’s all yours.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And they moved out lock, stock and, well not lock stock and barrel. They moved out to a man at that time. Left all their houses. We saw villas. Beautiful villas. I mean ok you could make an argument about they were living well but villas with all the tables laid and everything else. They just walked out. And their big mistake was they’d not really promoted anybody above artisan class. So there was nobody really in that sort of echelon to take over power of the country. But then, as so often happens and it’s the one thing I feel about the colonial reign was that because we were able to organise and run a country with very different ethnic people involved we tended to put a ring around. We got it everywhere. You can talk where you like. You can go to Kenya, you can go in to Iraq or anywhere like that where colonials put a ring around. In the Congo you had the people up in Luluabourg in the north who were totally opposed the south. And as soon as the Belgians went they wanted to take over the north. And since then of course the country has really gone down. It’s the richest mineral wealth country in the world and yet it’s in a terrible state. Roads and everything else. There’s been so much corruption and money taken out. It’s, it really is very sad but I mean I experienced that as part of the United Nations and I think, well perhaps it wasn’t perfect for everybody in the Congo when the Belgians were there but at least there was the rule of law as it were. And I believe the people respected it, you know. I mean a lot of people in India didn’t want the Raj to go because the place was organised and run but, and the same happened in Kenya. I mean Mugabe, he drives me up the wall that fellow because there was so many, so many things that, they’ve killed more people than we ever killed there. Opposing tribal, tribal situation. Anyway, I don’t want to go, that was my one little trip to the Congo. And then I did a flight to Gibraltar and that was the end of my flying at Colerne and you know, down the road here, on the Hastings. And my next trip believe it or not was to Singapore again. I came home and said to my wife, ‘We’re going to Singapore,’ and she nearly had a fit. She said, ‘I’m not going back to Singapore.’ She didn’t like the heat.
IL: No.
SGP: And the humidity. Although we had some extremely good times there. Had lots of very good friends. The kids said, ‘Oh great. Going back to Singapore.’ Well, the one, the first child, Debbie was born in Singapore on the first tour. So anyway, we went back out as I went as OC, the transport operations in Seletar. And of course, the upshot of that was that I got myself involved with the Borneo campaign and I went out with the commander out there. And in fact, I was the assistant to General Walker who was the army commander. And we arrived, we’d had a [pause] not a Valetta [pause] oh the big plane. Oh God, my mind’s going. Anyway, we all arrived in Brunei. The first night our accommodation was on a boat on the side of the river there. In the harbour. Not very comfortable. But eventually we set ourselves up as a headquarters in Brunei. And for a habitation, I shouldn’t say this really, but we went into a girl’s private school. Into their accommodation. You won’t believe this. We got in. We found the beds were lice ridden. All around the beds, we all went around with all sorts of things like lighters and things like that to kill all these bugs off. We eventually got ourselves reasonably comfortable there but we did have one chap who came over to visit us and we kept one bed specially for people we didn’t like and then a good skinful of Tiger Beer. Not a very happy lad in the morning. Anyway, that’s by the by. Now, we eventually moved down to Sarawak. To Kuching. Sarawak. And I was OC of the transport so I was, I was tasking all the transport aircraft. There were Pioneers and Valettas and Beverleys. Beverleys the aircraft. It was the Beverley that flew into [Lap?] and took the airport to start off with.
IL: Right.
SGP: That was the beginning of the war and they just got in and the troops got out and sorted it out before anybody else could do any damage to the airport. But so I was tasking the aircraft, mainly twin and single Pioneers and helicopters. And I had an interesting request from an army commander. They used to go up and down the Rajang River with twin outboard motors belting out the longboats you know. Up there. And he got a chief up there that he was wanting to get onside. And so he asked for a helicopter to go out and take the chief for a ride. And I said negative. I’ve got too many operational tasks for that. So he came blazing back down as fast as he could on the Raja, on the River Rajang in this outboard motors and had a go with this commander. The commander said, ‘Not a chance mate. You’ve had it.’ So that was that but the other thing was you get involved with the natives, the local people when you go up and so we all went down to a longhouse up on the sticks with a big hole in the floor for any business that one wanted to do. And you’d sit all around talking to the people. And out would come, the rice wine would come around in the cup. Well I’m not ultra fussy but I’m a little bit fussy [laughs] You come and you see the flies floating on the top and the globules of rice. Things look horrible and you have to take a drink otherwise it’s very unpopular. It’s like eating the sheep’s eyeballs in Arabia or wherever which I couldn’t, I wouldn’t cope with that either [laughs] And but we, we had that was in the interesting aside. They were head-hunters. They were in their loincloths. Very, very good chaps actually. We had no trouble with them. And so that was technically the end of my, my time out in in the Far East on the second tour. Because then we came back home. Then I came back to be command flight safety officer at Upavon. And that was a very interesting time because one had to look at the safety operation of the aeroplanes. And the war was over. And there was a greater pressure, if you like on operating, operating aircraft within safety measures. I mean we’d operated out of Colerne, for instance for years. Fully laden and everything else. Never had a problem. Then they produced Operation Data Manual which required that if you had an engine failure on take-off you’d never be able to cope at Colerne. So they were, Hastings were banned from Colerne although we’d been operating for years just because this Operation Data Manual. And we had the Argosy aircraft come out and the power on that was terrible. When you put the Operation Data Manual you could hardly carry a mouse. And the Beverley wasn’t a lot better so that was one of the things I had to watch was the safety. And we produced a magazine every month which obviously was a bit of a pain because you could never get enough people to put in contributions, you know. So you were always having to scratch at the last minute to complete your [laughs] your book. So, so where are we gone now then? We’re up to —
IL: You were in Upavon.
SGP: We’re up at Upavon. After that I was selected to go to the Ministry of Technology to do a project manager for simulators.
IL: Oh right.
SGP: And I got in the back end of the Belfast liaising with the companies concerned. And also the VC10. And I had a complete management on the navigation and the signals simulator. And I was kept on, in fact for five years to finish that. And that turned out to be a very good training aid for the RAF and they were very pleased with it. So, so that was that really. And after that I, I decided I wasn’t sure about what I was going to do but I felt that the mahogany bomber wasn’t quite me and I did my last tour as a personnel officer at Andover with Transport Command and finished. Retired from the Air Force in [unclear ] after doing thirty one years in the Air Force.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Which I think was, I enjoyed every minute because the big, apart from the operational flying side of it the sport side was attractive to me and I used to play rugger regularly and cricket. And we used to play badminton, squash and all the games, tennis but rugby was my game. I played on the Padang at Singapore. In the, in the heat but I went out as a young flank forward on the open side usually so I was tearing around a bit. And the Tiger beer didn’t do any good. I came back as a front row forward and they didn’t like that very much.
IL: No. It’s —
SGP: I remember playing the police force and I eventually got my arm was hanging like that. My one leg had gone and I thought, ‘I think you’re getting a bit old for this lad [laughs]
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: So we, we packed it up but, and also from the flying in the Lancaster which I didn’t mention, if you can imagine health and safety again I had a seat which dropped down from the side of the aircraft. It had to be moveable. The bomb aimer had to get through. Our escape hatch was just down below us. We had to dive down and a way to go. And so it had to be moveable so it used to fold up just a single seat. A little bit of foam on it and then you had a belt behind you. Yeah. You put a bar up. Put a bar up in front of you to put your feet on and that was your seat [laughs] And I never really thought much about it actually but if we came to a sudden stop I’d be probably, I’d be probably in the next parish [laughs]
IL: Right.
SGP: So there was no, there was no security there. But after that I had a lot of back trouble for a long time. and the RAF at that time had one cure for back trouble. That was lie on your back. PID I think it was called. Something about rest and something.
IL: That’s the current, that’s the current feeling. That’s not the current feeling is to keep going but it was for a long time.
SGP: Three weeks I was on this bed in Cosford in the RAF hospital there. Getting more and more uncomfortable. Not being able to do anything. You know. Back end wise as it were. And eventually they let me up to go to the toilet which was a great relief. But I came out a lot [pause] much worse than I went in, in fact. So uncomfortable and of course on nothing in the way of a mattress. It was just hard. And they wouldn’t let you turn over. You would lie on your back permanently for three weeks. That was hell. And I thought well I can continue, I had continuous manipulation on the back at Nocton Hall and places which used to be another hospital when I was up there. And eventually when I came down here to Colerne I went to Headley Court. Headley Court cured me because the first thing we did I was going there with the sciatic nerve trapped and dragging my leg along. The first thing you do, it was a lovely summer and you get down on, you’d be playing cards and you’d have a penalty — push-ups. So you’d be lying on your tummy on the floor. You’d either have to push up or lift your legs up and they continuously did that. Strengthening the back. Tuning up the back dorsal muscles. Whatever. And also heated pool. And we just had inner tubes. Quite a deep pool. You couldn’t stand up in it and you would have to hang from those. And you didn’t dare move. Just total relaxation. And that plus it’s a lovely place, Headley Court. I don’t know whether you know it. It used to be a house.
IL: I do know it. My brother in law is a physio. Well, was a physio, in the army and he was head of rehab there for a while.
SGP: Was he? Marvellous. Wonderful place. I saw people coming in who were smashed up. Really literally smashed up and they walked away. And it was continuous help and aid and wonderful. I’ve never had a problem with it since. You know, it did the job and manipulation didn’t. I’d have the manipulation, go home and I’d lean across and it would pop again. But, but having said that I now have mobility problems so, but the Service are looking after me well in that respect.
IL: Good.
SGP: Yes. It’s been a fascinating life and, and by and large the family have enjoyed it. It’s given us, I’m talking now about a country lad, farming stock. Rural background with they say two h’s Hertford and Hereford hardly anything ever happens. And Hereford is one of them. Hardly anything ever happens. So, it’s quite a remote place and I’ve moved on I suppose from that into where we are today and we’ve lived a very good life and a very comfortable life actually. And I, I thank the Air Force for that. The only regrets I have is as you say the boys who died, fifty five thousand of us didn’t get recognition earlier and I think that’s very sad. And it’s sad that it should be a political gesture that caused that to happen, you know.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: Yeah. But so here we are. We’re back to square one and how do you think it’s gone?
[recording paused]
SGP: A little reflection. I really intended to start this talk on the basis that I didn’t ask to be a part of this reporting system. And I was asked to do it. And I didn’t consider my service, my number of operations, my general service as any more remarkable than anyone else’s and the fact I was doing a job that I enjoyed was, was fine and I, I wouldn’t like to think that I’ve been courting publicity in putting my history down on record [laughs] Ok.
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 Sam Price
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Locker
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
APriceSTG151001
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:38:25 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Gwyn Price was living a rural lifestyle until he volunteered for the RAF. His dream was to train as an RAF pilot but since there was a surplus of pilots he chose to train instead as a flight engineer. On operations Gwyn observed the surreal feeling of one moment being in pitch darkness and the next being in the bright light over the target. On one operation they were coned by searchlights but managed to get clear by the skill and quick reaction of the pilot. On another occasion, their aircraft had a near miss with a Ju 88. When Gwyn left the squadron he became an engineer instructor but later retrained as a pilot; he went on to fly in the Far East and the Congo. He flew a large number of different aircraft including Hasting, Provost, Valetta, C-47 Meteor and Harvard.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Christmas Island
Hawaii
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Surrey
Hawaii--Honolulu
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
195 Squadron
35 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
C-47
crewing up
faith
flight engineer
Gee
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lincoln
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Colerne
RAF Graveley
RAF Wratting Common
searchlight
training
Wellington
Window
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Thompson, Keith G
K G Thompson
Description
An account of the resource
95 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Keith Thompson DFC (1238603 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, photographs and training material as well as his navigation logs. He flew operations as a navigator with 101 and 199 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mark S Thompson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thompson, KG
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Map and photographs of Keith Thompson's service on Christmas Island
Description
An account of the resource
Two photographs captioned 'Hickam Field, Pearl Harbour is next door'. Photograph of island from the air captioned 'Good bye Honolulu 2 July '56'. Page annotated 19 Jan '57, 5 a/c of 206 flew west to the Azores, Bermuda, across the States to San Francisco (Travis AFB) then Honolulu arriving Christmas Island 28 Jan '57. We flew met recce and anti shipping patrols with S.A.R. stand by duties from Christmas Island. Our crew and aircraft returned before "The Bomb" the aircraft was due a "10,000 mile [sic]" inspection!!! 18 March '57 back home to St Eval.
Newspaper cutting annotated 11/12/58, captioned 'double search off Borneo Plane & Schooner, from our own correspondent Singapore Wednesday'. This story covered the 205 squadron Shackleton that went missing from Borneo.
Photograph of Shackleton airfield background captioned 'Azores fill her up!'
Photograph captioned 'Bermuda married quarters'.
Photograph captioned ' "The Flag" over Bermuda'.
Three photographs one of a sea front two of Shackleton with airfield background and three colour postcards captioned 'Bermuda'.
Planning sheet for the journey westbound from St Eval out to Christmas Island.
Planning sheet for the return journey to St Eval.
Map showing the west-boundabout route.
Two photographs of street scenes captioned Charleston.
Two photographs captioned 'Trailer Park'.
Two photographs from the air showing city with large river, captioned 'New Orleans'.
Photograph from the air from a Shackleton captioned 'Colorado river ht 12,000 ft'.
Photograph from the air, captioned 'Texas Prairie'.
Photograph taken through windscreen of car captioned Franklin Hills El Paso'.
Photograph from the air captioned 'palm springs 11,00ft, "Hills"'.
Photograph from the air captioned 'Snow on "Hills"'.
Photograph from the air showing river delta captioned 'Near Frisco'.
Group of airmen in uniform studying map, urban background, captioned 'Where is it?'.
Colour postcard of coastline captioned Seal Rocks',
Photograph captioned 'Crossing the Golden Gate.
Cartoon of Flight Sergeant suitcase in hand standing at the bottom of the stairs saying to exasperated wife " I repeat a slice of bread and butter and a cup of tea'. Annotated 'Drawn by "Hewey" en route Xmas Island to St Eval 1957'.
Blank Form 2707B Signallers Log.
Newspaper clipping from San Francisco advertising car hire.
Flyer advertising 'Top of the Mark' the cocktail bar at the top of the Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1957
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
23 b/w photographs, 4 colour postcards, navigation planning chart, cartoon advertising flyer on two album pages.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Artwork
Map. Navigation chart and navigation log
Map
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PThompsonKG15010105, PThompsonKG15010106, PThompsonKG15010114, PThompsonKG15010122, PThompsonKG15010123, PThompsonKG15010124, PThompsonKG15010125, PThompsonKG15010135, PThompsonKG15010136, PThompsonKG15010136,
PThompsonKG15010138,
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. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Pacific Ocean
Bermuda Islands
Hawaii--Honolulu
Christmas Island
Hawaii
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1957-01
1957-02
1957-03
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Shackleton