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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46469/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v350002.mp3
719fca18eefa790da4f5e06a0c3bd86b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-19
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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Stan Waite at his home in Cherry Willingham talking about his life regarding his work at RAF Scampton in the 1930s. Ok, Stan.
SW: Well, Scampton was opened in 1916 as a First World War airfield which they used towards the end of the war, 1916 and they used it as a training ground for pilots and then it went into, back into farmland. And I left school at fourteen and went straight on the farm. And then in 1935 the MOD decided they were going to re-arm and they wanted to bring back Scampton as an airfield because in the First World War they called it Brattleby. They didn’t want to get confused with a place called Scampton near Scunthorpe so they called it Brattleby. When they reclaimed it in 1935/36 to build the airfield they decided it would be Scampton airfield although a part of it was, did carry on over into Aisthorpe. Well, when they started building, taking all the crops and the hedges out and grassing it down we had all that job. The farmer that was already on the farm he couldn’t find the capital to pay all the contractors and sub-contractors for clearing the crops and that so a local farmer decided he would take it over and it happened to be the farm where I was working. So we had two gangs of potato pickers taking potatoes up no bigger than marbles. We were taking sugar beet up no bigger, no thicker than your thumb. They opened the factories on purpose to process it to sugar. We got a gyro tillering which is a thing, a machine which people were astounded to see how it used to work. It grubbed all the hedges out and some of them was, was thorn trees and it made no bother with that. It just went along the hedgerow and knocked them down and then dropped his rotors at the back and grubbled them all out. There was rats and rabbits flying in all directions and, and then we had to burn all that. And, and then we got the two gangs of potato pickers, two gangs of Irish labourers taking the sugar beet and potatoes up and that of course threw extra work on us. We were working nearly all hours the Lord sent us and we got all that done and then we had to, we had to work the land down and level it and then sew it down with grass seed and roll it. And then I went back on the farm and it was taken over by the MOD and when the builders started moving in they wanted a lot of labourers up there and the wage I was getting on the farm was a pittance compared to what you were getting on working for the MOD and I was getting as much in a day as I was in a week on the farm.
Interviewer: Can you remember how much that was?
SW: Yes. I was getting, I was getting fifty pence a week which was ten shillings in today’s money and I was getting as much as that in a day. So my brother he had a job up there and he got me a job up there as well so I left the farm and went up there and worked up there digging the sewers, digging the footings out for buildings, the drains for the surface water. And I was still working up there when the first aircraft came in 1936 and it was a mixture of Hawkers, there was, I don’t know whether there was any Harts among them but they was Audax and Hinds and that type of aircraft and —
Interviewer: I think Heyfords were there as well. Did you see those?
SW: Well, a lot of the history books say they came first but they didn’t. The Hawkers came first from up north. And anyway, I was up there ‘til the aircraft came and then our jobs finished. They had one or two tidying up jobs to be done and I went back on to the farm.
Interviewer: Of course, there was no runways laid.
SW: No runways laid at all. It was just grass. A lot of people get the idea that the, later on that the Dambusters took off on runways but they didn’t. They didn’t take it until they put it in grace and favour and it was closed for about two year when they laid the runways and the peritracks and dispersal points. And I was working on the farm when the heavies came down from up north and they came down as Heyfords and Virginias and, and the history books still have it that they came first and it took them three days to come but it didn’t. They all came one afternoon and I distinctly remember that because I had a gang of potato picking girls from Lincoln picking potatoes and I was spinning out for them and one of the girls said to me, ‘Look up there. Look at what’s all that coming down.’ And the sky was black with these heavy bombers coming. And then later on of course they didn’t stop long. They had a disaster when one evening the gales got up and of course the planes weren’t anchored down and three of the Heyfords finished up in the middle of the airfield locked together and another one finished up in the bank at the side of the A15 that runs past Scampton airfield. So they didn’t last very long and they went and the Virginias went. And then after that we had a, we had a fairly rapid turnover of various aircraft. We had the Vickers long range Wellesley which was a bit of a disaster for Scampton because there was four squadrons at different airfields that got four ready for the long distance attack on the, long distance for a single engine aircraft. And of course, we had a haystack at the side of the old Polyplatt Lane and the one that Scampton had got ready he came in and he caught it with his wing and that writ that one off. So it’s just left the three that, they got one for spare you see. So they just had the three then and Scampton took no part in that. I think they flew from in Egypt down to Australia I think it was if my memory serves me right. And then we had the heavy bomber. The new, the new Harrow bomber came which was a high wing bomber plane fixed undercarriage. That didn’t stay at Scampton long before it was, before it was taken away and then after that there was a various mixture and of course I got called up and went into the Army and served with the Royal Engineers serving under three generals. Served under Montgomery of course with the 8th Army, and McCreery, and I can’t remember the name of the other one. Anyway, I served under three generals. We, we was pulled back from El Alamein. We were the first troops in Sicily with the first wave of commandos. I served with the Royal Engineers mine clearing and bridging and that. And then we were the first troops in the toe of Italy. And then we was, we cut the heel off and went straight across to the Adriatic side and we bridged almost every river up the Adriatic side right through. And then when the war came we was, we was in the mountains at L’Aquila which some two or three year back had that disastrous earthquake. We relieved that. Then we was pulled back to the coast and went through into Austria and that’s where I finished up.
Interviewer: So you weren’t here when the Lancasters came and the Dambusters moved in.
SW: No. No. I hadn’t got back home then.
Interviewer: No.
SW: They brought us back home in 1945 but we had to go back to Austria for a year to wait being —
Interviewer: Evacuated?
SW: Reverted to Civvy Street.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: From the Army.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: So that, so we went back into Italy in 1946. September by the time I got, got back home again. But while we was in Italy, while we was in Egypt, while we was in Italy we was three and a half years and our families never knew where we were. Everything was, was checked before when you wrote and everything like that and it was you couldn’t put anything in to give them a clue where you were.
Interviewer: No.
SW: You were either MEF Middle Eastern Forces, or MED Forces. That’s the only clue they knew then. They knew you were somewhere in the Middle East or you were somewhere in Europe.
Interviewer: Did you go back to working at Scampton when you came back?
SW: Yes. I went back but you see in them days if you was called up the person you worked for was legally bound to take you back to work but I didn’t want to go back to the same bloke as I’d been with because he didn’t have a cottage. I’d got married in 1941. So I went to see a friend of mine who was farming the other farm in Scampton, a Mr Anderson, asked him if I could have a cottage. He said, ‘You can have a cottage,’ he said, ‘And you can have a job as well.’ So I went on to that farm. Started on the first working Monday in 1947 and of course we had that terrific snow right through. One of the worst winters the country had seen. In Lincolnshire anyway. And I stayed on that farm for forty two years. I worked with that man for twenty one years and then he sold out and retired and the gentleman that took over put me in full charge. He was a gentleman from Worksop and I was with him twenty one year. So that was forty two years on one farm. And I stayed with him then until I retired when I was eighty four years old.
Interviewer: And did you see the Vulcans come over?
SW: Oh yes. I was stood at the side of the runway when the first Vulcan came because our land at that time the man I went to work for you see he was farming Scampton Cliff as well. So we saw the Vulcan circling and coming around to line up with the runway so we walked across because we were still farming all in and out the dispersal points.
Interviewer: None of that land was needed for the new runways and the diversion of the A15.
SW: Well, no. They put the diversion in before the Vulcans came.
Interviewer: Yes.
SW: The A15. And the runways had already been put down and everything.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: All the dispersals. But we were still working the land in between the dispersals and the runways and all that because there was very little security in them days. I mean a lad who was working with me we walked across and the jeep came around from the hangar and the communications weren’t like they are now. He just had a big board in the back of his van and it said, “Follow me,” and he when the Vulcan stopped he pulled in front of it and the Vulcan followed him into the hangar. And of course, once they’d got it into the hangar you didn’t see any more Vulcans for about four or five weeks because there was so much interior work to be done on them and instrument fittings and all that type of thing. And then of course I watched the build-up day after day and then they finally moved us off the camp altogether. But I got to know quite a few of the crew members and that with working at the side of the airfield then but not on it. And I’ve always been interested in aeroplanes right the way through to the present day.
Interviewer: When you knew that the spectacular dams raid had taken place and they’d flown from Scampton did you —
SW: We didn’t know anything about it where we were.
Interviewer: When you, when you did know.
SW: Yeah.
Interviewer: When you heard about this.
SW: Yeah.
Interviewer: Afterwards.
SW: We thought well it would soon be over now.
Interviewer: Did you, did you feel a sort of well I was involved with that?
SW: Well, that’s right. Yeah. Anyway, I helped to build that place I did. And my brother was the last, probably the last half a dozen people to work up there when the, he was a foreman concreter up concreting the walls on the hangars and that sort of work so he was used to flights like but I was up there when the Hawkers came. They had a disaster one day. We was, we was working on a surface drain between hangars 1 and 2 and they’d already started flying of course. But on the 1398 that run through Scampton now it used to run straight across to cliff top and about fifty yards inside the airfield boundary they’d put a twelve by twelve target up at an angle and these Hawkers used to come along, usually from the north along the line of the road, bank and turn and camera gun it. And this one was doing it one day when there was two taking off [unclear] to starboard. Then he went straight through them and it killed three pilots. The pilot and a passenger in one, probably another co-pilot and the single seater, came and went straight through and killed three of them.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
SW: And, and that was it. And for many years after that the hedge the opposite side of the road to the airfield a lady used to come out and put a, one of them little crosses in the hedge bottom. But of course, the hedges have all gone now so there’s none of that. So that was my contribution to the war effort before I went in the Army and a little bit after the Army.
Interviewer: That’s been absolutely fascinating, Stan. Thank you very much.
SW: Well, I hope it hasn’t wasted your time, Duck. I mean there’s a lot more I could tell you about my life but that’s, that’s gone.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Stan Waite
1042-Waite, Stan
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v35
Coverage
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Civilian
British Army
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:15:27 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Creator
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
North Africa
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Stan Waite worked on one of the farms in Scampton in the pre-war years. He stopped his farming job to help with airfield construction when he found out he could more in one day than he earned in a week farming. He watched the first planes arrive and the airfield become operational again. He then joined the Army and was posted overseas. When he returned he took up farming in Scampton again and watched the new era of aircraft arriving.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
RAF Scampton
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/46459/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v260002.mp3
a8c4c3913704fcbd59b33c5fbdbe204a
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
Rutherford, Les
R L Rutherford
Robert Leslie Rutherford
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. The collection contains four oral history interviews with bomb aimer Robert Leslie "Les" Rutherford (1918 - 2019, 146263 Royal Air Force), his prisoner of war diary, material about entertainment in the Stalag Luft 3 Belaria compound and a photograph. Les Rutherford served as a despatch rider in the army, he was evacuated from Dunkirk and volunteered to transfer to the RAF. He became a bomb aimer with 50 Squadron and completed 24 operations. He was shot down over Germany on 20th December 1943 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Les Rutherford and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-09
2015-10-05
2015-06-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Rutherford, RL
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Les Rutherford on the 24th of January 2011 at his home in Lincoln regarding his experiences in the Second World War. Over to you, Les.
LR: At the beginning of the war I was called up into the Army in October just one week before my twenty first birthday which ruined my mother’s plans of course for a birthday party. I was called up and enrolled in Perth in to the 51st Highland Division, did my training there which we spent a week in Perth then moved to Aldershot and the Corunna Barracks at Aldershot. Then did more training there. We were kitted out in uniforms and all the necessary things and then in January, the beginning of January we moved to France and I was a despatch rider then. We moved to various places in France first and I was attached to a field ambulance. We moved across to first of all we were around about Lille in the Belgian frontier and then we moved to Metz or near Metz on the German frontier. In actual fact over there they used to have these artillery duels across the two different armies and we were in actual fact in the Maginot Line. The famous Maginot Line. We used to go in this line for a couple, a couple of cigarettes the French would let us fire a gun [laughs] you know. But and then when the Germans advanced and began their offensive the, well there was one incident that it was early morning and we were suddenly, somebody said, ‘Look at all these aircraft.’ And we were looking up and there was crowds, scores of these aircraft flying over. Flying over. German aircraft, and I was looking up and these and somebody said, ‘Run for shelter. We’ve got to go up to the shelters.’ So, I was looking up and running to the shelter and I tripped and fell and hit my chin on a doorstep. Split my chin right across. And they came running up with an ambulance and thought I’d been hit. And I said, ‘No. I’m alright. I’m alright.’ Anyway, that was the beginning of the offensive when they went and bombed Holland of course from there in Belgium. And so then they moved us across from Metz to try and stem the German advance. We moved across country and at first we thought we were going to Paris. We were heading straight for Paris. Then about ten miles before we got to Paris we turned off north and went off and were stationed around about Lille and then the trouble really began then. That’s when they, as far as we were concerned that’s when the war started or when the fighting started and with being field ambulances we were busy. And one of my duties was to, when our own field ambulances were all used up we used to travel at night and there was a standby unit which had ambulances for anybody that wanted them but one of my jobs was to go to this unit and guide them back to the, to where our field ambulance was. And another thing you used to have to do was to go up to the forward units and get a list of the injured and whatnot. A lot, a lot of work went on at the time. But of course, we were gradually pushed back and pushed back until eventually we got to St Valery. And by this time Dunkirk had taken place. We didn’t know anything about it of course but it was June 12th in actual fact when we got to St Valery and we were trapped there. There were ships coming and going out, way out to sea on the horizon but nothing could get into St Valery. St Valery was surrounded by cliffs and the Germans surrounded up on these cliffs and they were lobbing mortars and all sorts of things in to us. In actual fact, under the command of Rommel who was commanding the troops there. And I got, I got together about a half a dozen men and said, ‘Look. There’s a door there. There’s a shed side there been blown off. If we take that, go out and perhaps get to these ships.’ So they said, ‘Right. We’ll do that. If there’s no ships get into here we’ll do that.’ So it got to about 11 o’clock at night. The town was blazing by this time and when it, when it came to these men they wouldn’t go. So another chap and I took a door which had been blown off. We belted across the sands with this door between us and launched it and we got to these rocks, put the door in the water and when we got in the water came up to our necks nearly and then it turned out this chap had, he couldn’t swim. So I thought well this is remarkable you know [laughs] you’re going to go and you can’t swim. I could swim. I’d done a lot of competition swimming and I could swim so I parked him on the door and I got on the back and acted more or less as a rudder and a propeller and he had a piece of wood that he used as an oar and off we went. And we put out to sea and oh we got well out. Way out to sea and then it got to be early morning, well, you know, I don’t know what time it was. It would be six, seven o’clock in the morning and we could see these trawlers, these ships coming out from, it turned out they were coming from Veules les Roses and they were going straight out to sea from there and then turning and we were nearly in their path. And in actual fact we could see there was still two trawlers, French trawlers to come and we sort of waved at these trawlers and the first one went past and they threw us a lifebelt. I thought well that’s going to do us a lot of good [laughs] you know. And then the next one came by and they threw us a rope and this chap had been sat on this door all night and he couldn’t move his legs properly. I had to tie the rope around him and they hauled him up. And then I tied the rope around myself and they hauled me up. And we’d had nothing to eat for about three days. In actual fact they’d just got a meal going for us when we got to St Valery and these 109s came over and strafed us and we had to get out of it. So we didn’t, we never did get the meal. And they hauled me up onto this, on to the deck and they gave me a glass of hot rum and I went out like a light. Just out. And the next thing I knew was I was, they were waking me up. I was in a bunk on this ship and they were waking me up and said, ‘We’re transferring you to an English ship.’ So they put a blanket around me. They’d taken all my clothes off and had put a blanket around me and took me down into this lifeboat and transferred me to the English ship. So I got on there and I was pretty well fagged out. But then when I sort of got myself settled down a bit on this ship I found one of the ship’s officers and said, ‘You know I was transferred from that trawler.’ I said, ‘What happened to my uniform and clothes?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Nothing like that came over.’ So I said, ‘Well,’ I said, I’ve only got a blanket here. I haven’t got anything else.’ So he said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I can give you a pair of socks.’ [laughs] So I put these socks on and I landed at Southampton with a pair of socks and a blanket. And they had got it all arranged by this time on the docks at Southampton and we were taken into a big shed and the uniforms were all laid out and you just picked one to fit you know and they’d got everything laid out there. It was wonderfully organised. Then we moved from there to Devizes. We spent about a week there and then moved up to Scotland to a place between Hamilton and Glasgow. We stayed there for two or three days and then we were sent home on leave. Then when we came back we went up to Grantown on Spey and spent the rest of the time up there. While I was up there we formed, I found a chap who played the piano and I played guitar and we found we were in the petrol company then of, when I went up to Scotland I was with a petrol company and there was a supply column and what was another column. Anyway, there were six of us altogether got together. There was me on the guitar and my friend on the unit he was on piano and there was the saxophone, trumpet, a drummer and a violin. You had to have a violin for the Scottish dances. The only thing they had up there at the time for dancing was three old, three old ladies. Not the ones in the lavatory, the three old ladies with an accordion and a drummer and violin. So our band went down a storm you know. We had no musical flare. Just buy in. We played in dances all over the place and we were stationed in Castle Grant and the Earl of Seafield, the Countess of Seafield was still in residence while we were there. And then in the winter when the winter came on she moved to the country house, Cullen on the coast and she asked us, our band to play at her going away party and we played in the big hall in the castle with all the accoutrements. All the swords and everything else around the walls and all the ancestors looking down on us and all the ladies were in Highland evening dress and all the gentlemen were in Highland evening dress with the velvet jackets and all the silver trimmings and things you know. And it was absolutely wonderful. It was a wonderful sight because we were playing all the Scottish dances, Scottish reels, “Strip The Willow,” you know, [unclear] Reel,” “The Dashing White Sergeant,” all these sort of things and of course as the evening went on they got more merry and the CO came to us beforehand saying, ‘Now listen lads,’ you know, ‘When you’re up there we don’t want any jackets all open or, you know drinking or beer and things like this,’ he said, ‘You’re in with the society. You’ve got to keep to the letter.’ We hadn’t been there half an hour when the countess came up with a tray of beers and said, ‘Here you are lads. Get on with it. [laughs] And undo your jackets, you know you’ll be uncomfortable sitting up here in all this heat. Its too warm.’ You know. And she was absolutely charming and, but I’ll never forget, have never forgotten that dance for the spectacle. It was absolutely wonderful. Anyway, shortly afterwards there was a notice posted on the, in the unit asking for volunteers for aircrew duties. So I volunteered. They said you should never volunteer in the Army but I thought well I’ll have a go here and so I volunteered. I was accepted and in June of 1940, 1941. 1940.
Interviewer: ’41 I should think.
LR: Be ’41. June ’41. I moved. I was sent down to Stratford on Avon and sworn into the Air Force in the Shakespeare Theatre there and from there moved up to Scarborough to the ITU, IT.
Interviewer: ITW.
LR: IT Initial Training Unit.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: ITU. Billeted in the Grand at Scarborough right on the top floor. It was, that would be at the end of June we were going up there and the weather was absolutely wonderful. We had a wonderful time there. Did all these lectures. We used to go, come down, the lecture rooms were all at the bottom of course and we’d do half and hour or an hour’s lecture and we had to go back up to our room, up all these steps. No lifts. Up all these stairs, get the lecture book for the next lecture. Back down the stairs again and then the next lecture up the stairs again. Down again. And then in the afternoon we used to go down to the beach for PT. That meant going up the stairs, change into PT kit, down the stairs again and then I don’t know if you know the Grand. It’s up on the cliff and there’s more stairs right, led down to the beach. Doubled down these stairs down to the beach. A quarter of an hour, a half an hour PT, a dip in the sea and double back up all these stairs again. I’ve often said I’d never been so fit in all my life as I was when I left Scarborough. And then we were put on a, we went through all the exams and things and put on a draft to go to California, was it? No. Florida. Florida. So off we went. We went to West Kirby near Liverpool to be transported and then they found they’d got two to many on our draft so they knocked two off. Me and another chap called Roberts who was next to me on the list. They picked the two in the middle and took us off. So off we went back to Scarborough. So then we had to wait for the next draft and the next draft took us to Rhodesia as it was then. And we went up to Rhodesia. We went up, we sailed from Glasgow. We went back to West Kirby and then we went up to Glasgow to get on board ship and strangely enough we went on the King George the 5th docks and while I was in the Army I’d done sentry duty on that, on that dock while we were up there. And so we set sail for land. For Africa. We landed at Durban and then we spent a couple of days at Durban and we went by train. I wish we’d known. I wish we’d appreciated. We did what is now train journey up through Natal and all up through all the old Mafikeng and places like that and up to Rhodesia which I think was three days we were aboard on this train. We eventually got to Bulawayo and we spent some time there. While we were there another thing that happened there which was rather amusing was the flight sergeant in charge of discipline came around after we got this. ‘Any of this new batch, any of you play water polo?’ Well, I had. I’d played for the county of Northumberland at water polo. So, ‘Yes. I’ve played.’ And then there was, actually I think it was five of us and the rest of them were off from well-known clubs. Two of them were from the London Police Club which was well known and another one from the Otter’s Club and all really good water polo players, far better than me and the flight sergeant he just couldn’t believe his luck. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We play regularly. We played the town team,’ he said, ‘And they hammered us every time.’ So we were there about two, three weeks maybe waiting for a posting and in that time we played I think five or six games. We won them all in double figures. And then we, then we were posted and we could see in the newspapers the poor old Air Force team was being hammered again. The flight sergeant, he just couldn’t believe it. Anyway, we went up to Mount Hampden on a pilot’s course and I passed out on Tiger Moths. When I say passed out I mean I passed the course [laughs] passed out at other times [laughs] And I was posted then to, back down to, literally Mount Hampden was up near Salisbury which is now Zimbabwe and I passed. Passed that course. Then went down on twinned Oxfords down at Heany which was near Bulawayo. I was ready to go solo on the Oxfords and the chief instructor sent for me. He said, ‘We’re taking you off flying.’ I said, ‘Oh, why?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Your reactions are too slow.’ ‘Oh.’ So he said, ‘We’ll send you back up to Salisbury and then you’ll go on a navigator’s course.’ On an Observer’s course it was then. Observer. So I said, ‘Oh, alright.’ You know. So off I went. When I got up there a crowd of us all at the same, on the same boat been taken off these courses. So one of them came around. He said, ‘Where were you on ground subjects? The navigation and things like that on the course?’ Because we had taken ground subjects as well of course and I said, ‘Well, as near as I know fairly near the top. So he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘We all were.’ He said, ‘We think what’s happened is that they’ve taken the top two off each course and because they were running, everybody wanted to be pilots and they were running short of navigators or observers as it was and whether that was true or not I don’t know but I like to think so. And so I went down from there. We moved down to a camp between Johannesburg and Pretoria and we spent Easter there. And then we were sent down on a course to East London and did the observer’s course there. The observer’s course was you passed three courses. You passed which you probably know, you passed as an air gunner, a bomb aimer and navigator. You had to pass three courses and so we went through all that then moved down to Cape Town to get the boat home and we came back on our own. We didn’t come back in convoy. We came back on an armed merchantman and came back to this country. We were down in Cheltenham I think it was for a while and then posted up to Finningley on an OTU course ready for operations. And while I was there the OTU disbanded and one of the instructors, a pilot, squadron leader sent for me and asked me to go with him. He was going back on a second tour and he would like me to go along as his bomb aimer. Oh, when we got to Finningley that was the thing, when we got to Finningley we arrived late evening, a crowd of us and the next morning we reported to the navigation office and the navigation officer said, ‘Which of you are navigators and which of you are bomb aimers?’ Because by this time they’d separated the two and we said we are all full observers. We’ve done the lot. The officer said, ‘Right.’ He counted us off. He said, ‘You half there you’re navigators and you half there you’re bomb aimers.’ So I became a bomb aimer. And –
Interviewer: Were you disappointed not to be a navigator? Or was —
LR: Yeah. Well, the navigator had more sort of kudos to it.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: Shall we say? You know but I, in actual fact the bomb aimer was fairly simple job compared to the navigator. And so then we were posted. This squadron leader asked me to go with him on his second tour. He was doing his second tour and he was taking a second tour crew with him apart from the bomb aimer and engineer. So I went with him. The only snag was I had to do thirty trips while they were only doing twenty so I had to try and get in a few trips to catch him up when bomb aimers went sick. So we were posted to 50 Squadron. That was February the 1st I think when we went to 50 Squadron. I did twenty, twenty three trips I think altogether and then —
Interviewer: Do you remember some of the ops you went on.
LR: Pardon?
Interviewer: Some of the ops that you went on.
LR: Oh, they’re all down here. [pause – pages turning] The first op was on Wilhelmshaven and I flew with, remember a chap named Maudsley [unclear] I flew with him.
Interviewer: Oh right.
LR: Not my own pilot. And then we went on a cross country. We went on a cross country and everything went wrong on this cross country. Before we went on ops the whole crew, we did a training flight and it was a brand new aircraft. It was, it turned out there was something wrong with the compasses because I was up in the nose doing the map reading. It was daylight. A daylight thing and we had to fly down to Cambridge and then from Cambridge we were going across to Wales. South Wales, then up the Welsh coast and back to Lincoln. So we set course from here to Cambridge and I thought well that’s fair enough. There’s not, it’s the only big city [unclear] so I took it easy up in the front. Saw this big town coming up and I said, ‘Oh there’s a town coming up now, you know. This will be Cambridge.’ It will be Cambridge, Jock, wouldn’t it?’ You know just as the navigator was Jock. ‘Yeah, it should be.’ So we looked. We said, ‘It’s a bit big for Cambridge.’ And it was London [laughs] I know how trigger happy the crew were. We were frantically firing off the colours of the day and all this. So then we set course then back for Wales and it turned out that on courses east to west or west to east the compasses worked. But on north and south courses they were all haywire. We flew up the Welsh course. Of course, we knew going up the Welsh coast exactly where we were. And we of course had to map read from then on without a doubt. And then we landed back in at Skellingthorpe and as we landed the tyre burst and we cartwheeled along the runway, wrote the aircraft off. Cartwheeled along the runway and we all got out without any injury. That was absolutely amazing. And then after that I went to St Nazaire, Duisburg, twice I went to St Nazaire. And then I did a couple of so-called gardening trips laying mines and at Duisburg twice. On April the 8th and April the 9th I was with my own pilot. Then I went the next night with another pilot. His bomb aimer must have been sick. Then La Spezia, in Italy and then we did that boomerang trip. You know, when we went, we bombed Italy and went down to North Africa. And then we couldn’t get back to this country because of fog coming down so we spent a week down in Algiers and had the time of our life really. And then we flew back again.
Interviewer: How did you feel on these trips? Were you, you know did you dread them? Did you —
LR: Did we —?
Interviewer: Did you dread them or did you just see them as a job or —
LR: No.
Interviewer: Frightened.
LR: It was a job you know. People got shot down but it wasn’t you.
Interviewer: No.
LR: It was never going to be you. We would be alright. Frightened? Well, yes up to a point. Up to a point and you would go to the target and of course in the nose you’re looking at, you see the target and all the searchlights and flares going down and all sort of things and at the back there was a wonderful firework display if you like to put it that way but you think well how the hell am I going to get through this lot? And then came the job of dropping the bombs. And then you sort of dropped it and out the other side and you’d think we got through it. Then you’d set a course from home and that was it.
Interviewer: A lot of bomber crews put it down to teamwork but you were with a lot of different crews. Did that make any difference?
LR: It did up to a point. Yes. My own crew were brilliant. They really were. And we did some nice stuff. There were two things when I went with other pilots where one the navigator hadn’t a clue and we were leaving the target [papers shuffling]. Sorry.
Interviewer: Ok.
LR: And we did this one trip with this crew and he didn’t have a clue when we left the target. We set course and he didn’t know where we were and then we saw these islands. I was up in the nose and of course it was dark. I couldn’t see anything until I saw, ‘There’s coast coming up ahead pilot.’ He said, ‘Yes. Right. We’ll try and pinpoint something.’ Then there was some islands. I said, ‘There’s some islands down there in the sea.’ ‘Oh, bloody hell. It’s the Channel Islands.’ And of course, we got shot up all the while [laughs] but we knew where we were then of course and we had to land on the south coast because we were short of petrol. We were really running out of petrol and we landed I think one of the south coast aerodromes and we had breakfast there and, and then topped up with petrol and came back. But and there was another one where we had to ask assistance. We got back to this country and you could ask for assistance and what they did they sent up a searchlight and give you the exact coordinates of the searchlight so that the navigator knew where he was. And then that was, that was alright. You see it wasn’t very often that you could get a pinpoint at night except on one occasion I flew with a pilot to Italy. Milan, I think it was. Anyway, we flew on this one and it was absolutely bright moonlight and I was able to map read all the way over France it was so bright. And I map read right to the target and back again and giving the navigator pin points all the way. So, and then the result of this was a couple of days later or maybe a little bit later the bomb aimer for this particular pilot he’d been sick that night. The bomb aimer of this particular pilot came to me and said, ‘You’ve given me a right job you have.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘The pilot wants me to map read every night when we go.’ So I had to, I had to go to the pilot and say, ‘Look, that was exceptional that night.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t happen every night.’ So the poor old bomb aimer was taking the flak because, because I’d done a map reading and he wasn’t. And then we went, we did the Pilson raid. The first one. And we went on this raid and we used to have a kitty, the bomb aimers, we used to put a couple of bob each as it was then. Two bob. And the one who got like nearest the aiming point —
Interviewer: Got the photo.
LR: Scooped. The photo scoop.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: And I won it that night. I think I was four miles from the target. I can’t remember but it was several mile. It was more than a mile from the target and I won it and what happened was there was a little village near Pilson which was more or less the same shape and the PFF marked that village and we bombed the village and had to go back. I didn’t go on the second one but they sent another had to go back and do the raid again on Pilson.
Interviewer: You mentioned Henry Maudsley. Do you remember anything about him?
LR: Not really. No. Very aloof.
Interviewer: Ah.
LR: Sort of man. In a polite sort of way. You know. He was. Didn’t know much about him. He was a gentleman. Put it that way. He was a nice man. He was very good. Yes. Very good. On my first trip he was quite good to me. He was nice. We did trips to Pilsen and Duisburg and another one to Duisburg. That one we were attacked by a Junckers 88 on that one and I was with a Squadron Leader Birch. And his tactics if you saw a fighter was shove the nose down and the tale was told whether it was true or not several tales used to be told but two tales that were told about him which I shall tell you about so the rear gunner reported a fighter. I wasn’t with them. And so he put the nose down and dived down and the navigator was looking over his shoulder and said, ‘Where are you going? What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Diving down into that cloud.’ He said, ‘That’s not cloud. It’s snow.’ [laughs] Now, whether that was true or not I don’t know but it makes a nice tale.
Interviewer: They lived to tell it.
LR: Another time I was on leave and when I came back somebody said, ‘You ought to have been here.’ He said, ‘Peter Birch, he flew over Skellingthorpe with all the engines feathered.’ He said, ‘He got height and got to speed, feathered the engines and feathered all four engines and went over the aerodrome.’ Now whether that was possible or not I don’t, I mean people pooh pooh the idea. Whether it was true or whether it was a story again I don’t know. I’ve never been able to verify it. But it was said that he flew over, over the edge with all four engines feathered. So I don’t know. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I went to Dortmund. Wuppertal. Wuppertal is, wipe that out. Oberhausen. In June Turin. Oh, we went on a special trip to Reggio Emilia which is Northern Italy and it was, that was the one when we had to go down to Africa because it was in July and we couldn’t get back to this country without flying over France in daylight. So we went down to North Africa. We flew down there and my pilot was second in command of our Group. A Group I think it was five or six aircraft to attack this transformer station. Two of them we had to rendezvous over Lake Como I think it was. Two of them, two of them collided and crashed into Lake Como. The rest went on and there was a ground mist. We were having trouble identifying the target but eventually we identified it and we had to call up the other aircraft with a call signal. A code signal to say that we had got this aircraft and we dropped TI markers to identify it and they couldn’t see them. They didn’t know where it was so we went around and bombed the transformer station and then went around again and machine gunned it and we set course then for North Africa. To Blida. The others didn’t find it at all. They just went on and abandoned it. And this, this other group a squadron leader was in charge. He got a DFC and the navigator got a DFC as well. We were, we were a bit chuffed about that. So no and oh when we got to, went to Blida which was near Algiers and we had, we couldn’t get back to this country.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Try that. Ok.
LR: Ok. When we had gone on this trip to North Africa the, apart from our crew the gunnery leader on the squadron wanted to go as well. He wanted to. He fancied this trip you see so he came along with us on the trip and we got to Blida and this chap’s name, he was well known that he never bought a drink. He was always missing when it was his round and a chap called, his name was Hipkin so my pilot was a pretty good at impersonating. He used to get on the telephone impersonating. There was all sorts of things went, jokes went on with this impersonating but while we were there he went, we had a big Mess at Blida. He went to the upstairs phone and phoned the bottom one and asked for Flight Lieutenant Hipkin, you see. And so he said, ‘Me. Here?’ You know, and off he went to the phone and he said, ‘Oh yes, we need a gunnery leader at –’ one of the bigger air place near Algiers. There’s a big, there was a big air base there. Anyway, he said, ‘We need an air gunner leader there so we’re posting you there.’ And he came back to us and he said, ‘I’ve been posted. I’ve been posted to Algiers.’ You know. We said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘What do I do?’ He says, ‘My wife’s back home,’ he said, ‘My car’s back there at the squadron. All my gear. What am I going to do?’ So we said, ‘Well, what is the posting?’ He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’s a squadron leader posting.’ ‘Oh, you got promotion then.’ ‘Well it seems so.’ We said, ‘Well that calls for a drink.’ So he had to buy a round and then he became so agitated towards the finish the pilot went upstairs again and phoned again. Flight Lieutenant Hipkin. So he says, ‘Flight Lieutenant Hipkin? Yes. Yes. That’s me.’ He said, ‘What was your name?’ ‘Hipkin.’ ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘It’s not Hipkin we want. It’s Pipkin.’ He said, ‘We’ve got the wrong man.’ [laughs] So he came back down, he said, ‘Oh, it’s all a mistake,’ he said. So, ‘Well, that calls for another drink then.’ [laughs] So, you know, we did several trips after that to Milan, Leverkusen, Hanover, Cassel. Oh, we got this new wing commander and he took over our crew because my pilot had been posted away after he’d just done just, I think he’d only done seventeen trips and they posted him away. Anyway, we got this new wing commander and he took over the crew. ‘Right. We’ll go on a bombing trip to practice bombing.’ To Wainfleet. And up to then I’d been using the old mark, I forget what mark it was bombsight. The one where you used two dials and you used to have to twiddle these dials. Anyway, got on board this one and it had got the new Mark 10 or Mark 11. Something like that. Automatic. I’d never used one before. So I knew briefly how it worked. Well, I knew how it worked but what I couldn’t find when I got on board was I couldn’t find the switch to switch it on. So with a new wing commander, yeah and we were getting near Wainfleet and I thought well there’s only one thing to do. I can drop them by sight. I can’t, I can’t tell him. I can’t [laughs] I can’t find the switch for bloody working [laughs] So anyway, we were just turning, running on to the target and I clicked this switch and the thing worked. The bomb, it came around lovely and came and all the settings and I was able to bomb. Another, another time with my own crew we were practicing a time and distance run where you bomb a target. Let’s bomb something. Sight something that’s say two or three miles away from the target and then the navigator works out how long it would be. How long it would take to get from there to the target.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: And then it tells you when to press the button. And we did this on the bombing run at Wainfleet. So we started off and you worked out the time and distance and everything and said right. Now, I’m sat in the bomb aimers place. Not looking or anything. Right. Press the button and the bomb went off. Did a practice bomb and went off. I looked down and to my horror there was a line of trawlers going out. The bomb was heading straight for them. Fortunately missed them. That was the crew. And then of course it was Frankfurt. Missing.
Interviewer: [Frighteningly]
LR: I was shot down in Frankfurt.
Interviewer: Right. If you’d like to tell us about that it would be —
LR: Well, we were just running up towards the target and we were attacked by a Junkers 88. They attacked us. The first attack set the port engine, inner engine on fire and the pilot managed to stop that. He came around and again and I looked through the inspection hatch where the bomb bay, the bomb bays were on fire. And then he came around for a third attack and knocked out the, one of the starboard engines and the pilot gave the order to abandon because we were burning pretty well by then. And we had, the crew had just chest parachutes. We had the two hooks. I grabbed mine, put it on and missed one of the hooks. So just one hook fastened and as I did that the plane blew up. Now, I don’t know whether it was the petrol tanks that went or whether it was the bomb that went but the plane blew up. It threw me forward on to the bombsight and knocked me unconscious for a while and when I came to the entire nose of the plane had been blown off and I was trapped in there. My legs were trapped somehow. I don’t know what was coming. I tried to get out. Anyway, what I did I pulled the rip cord, the parachute pulled me out and I damaged my leg in doing it. I don’t know what happened. It was, I didn’t break it or anything. It just, my knee was, went funny and then I was holding the parachute for oh less than half a minute I should think. So if I hadn’t got out soon I would have you know. I don’t know how far I pulled and I landed in the middle of a wood. Fortunately, I landed in the same direction as the wind on a path so I didn’t get caught up in the trees. So I buried my parachute and whatnot and sort of started walking to see where I was and by, I walked at night. My leg kept giving way under me. I had a lot of trouble with that. I kept falling. But I came through a couple of villages and by this time it was starting getting light in the morning so I had a look for some place to hide. I walked to one village and people walking past me going to work I assume, you know. One of them said, ‘Morgen,’ you know. I said, ‘Morgen.’ And look, you know they didn’t take any notice of me.
Interviewer: Obviously –
LR: I was in my flying kit. Yeah. Battledress.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: And flying boots. And I got on the banks of this river. I knowing it was the Oder and, was it the Oder? Yes, it was the Oder. And there was a sort of lot of bushes and things there and I hid underneath these bushes and stayed there all day. I slept in actual fact and it was cold because it was January. It was December. December. And I stayed there all day. Then the next at night I got up to start walking again and I was way out on the road, nothing in sight and suddenly I heard the shout, ‘Halt.’ And it was just some German soldiers. So I tried the good morning trick, you know. ‘Morgen. Morgen.’ But it didn’t work [laughs] and they came up and shone a torch on me you know and I heard one of them say, ‘Englisher Flieger.’ You know. And rifles came off their shoulders and came down. That was that. I was taken prisoner. They took me to their headquarters. They were, they weren’t Army. They were Air Force, I think. And what happened they were guarding a Halifax which had crashed nearby and of course I shouldn’t have been out there so they took me in. They set me down at this table and they brought, a German officer came in and he sat at the other side of the table and I was sat on a stool and he said, he started to try and question me and he didn’t speak very good English. Very little English in actual fact. And I just said I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. And then all of a sudden I got such a belt across the head. Knocked me off the stool and on to the floor and this, there was a German there, I think he was a sergeant major or something like that. He spoke perfect English. There was no doubt about it. And he said, ‘You stand on your feet. Stand.’ He said, ‘You stand on your feet when you’re talking to a German officer.’ Alright. You know. Nothing much I could do about that. So he said, ‘I’ll have your name, number, rank.’ At that time I was flying officer. I said, ‘Flying officer.’ So he said, ‘You’re not an officer.’ So I said, ‘Yes I am. Flying officer.’ ‘Where are your badges of rank’? I said and of course I had my battle dress so I said, ‘On my battle dress. On the shoulder.’ ‘Oh, they’re not badges of rank.’ He said, ‘Your badges of rank go on the sleeve.’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘These are my badges of rank.’ He said, ‘Where are your papers?’ I said, ‘I don’t have papers.’ He said, ‘When the Luftwaffe went over England,’ he said, ‘They had papers. Identity papers.’ I said, ‘But I’m not in the Luftwaffe.’ I said, ‘I’m in the Royal Air Force,’ I said, ‘And the only identity I have are these.’ I took my identity disks out and showed him. I said, ‘We don’t carry papers. We carry these.’ And he looked and the disks weren’t stamped with a rank. They were just stamped officer. He said, ‘Oh, you are an officer after all.’ I said, ‘Yeah. That’s what I’ve been saying.’ ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘You’ll be hungry and thirsty no doubt.’ He said, ‘If you just sit down,’ he said, ‘And I’ll go and see if I can get you something.’ And he came back with the best glass of lager I’ve ever had in my life [laughs] and some black bread which was the worst bread I’ve ever had in my life.
Interviewer: Was he someone who did interrogations regularly do you think?
LR: No.
Interviewer: No.
LR: No, he wasn’t. These were Army.
Interviewer: Right.
LR: Air force, ordinary Air Force people.
Interviewer: Oh.
LR: And as it happens the main Interrogation Centre for aircrew was at Frankfurt.
Interviewer: Dulag Luft.
LR: Where I’d been shot down and there was, I had an armed guard the next morning took me to Frankfurt. I remember we went into the station and he sat me down on this seat. One of them stood there while the other one went off to make some enquiries and there was a civilian came past and he spat at me. Spat in my face. And the guard just moved him on. He, you know, ‘Go on.’ And when I saw the state of Frankfurt when I went through I could understand his feelings. Of course, then I went and we got on a tram and we went on a tram to Dulag Luft and as I remember it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: Along with all the German people. A bit vulnerable really because Frankfurt was in ruins. And then they took me to Dulag Luft, straight into solitary confinement which was the psychological thing. Put into solitary confinement and when you’ve been put in there for a couple of days you could talk your head off when you come out. All they did was give me food and then there was a chap came in. He said he was from the Swiss Red Cross and, ‘Right. Name, number and rank,’ you see. ‘Where were you stationed?’ ‘What was you squadron?’ I said, ‘I can’t tell you that.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s only so I can tell your relatives. Inform your relatives that you’re safe.’ See. I said, ‘Well, all you need for that is my name, number and rank.’ He said, ‘Well, it would look better if you tell me.’ I said, ‘No. It’s not.’ [laughs] You know. Anyway, then they took me up. As it was early December and Christmas was coming up they took me out of solitary confinement early along with a lot of others. But first of all I had to go up for interrogation and again it was the proper interrogation people and he said, ‘Name, number and rank.’ I told them and they started asking questions and I had to say, ‘I can’t tell you that. I can’t.’ You know. They said, ‘Well, we know all about you, you know. It’s just a case of you verifying what we know.’ So I said, ‘Well, if you know all about me,’ I said, ‘I don’t need to tell you do I?’ He said, ‘How is Squadron Leader Parkes doing in his new post?’ And that threw me. Squadron Leader Parkes, he’d been promoted two days beforehand at the squadron, as squadron commander as a squadron leader. And only two days beforehand. ‘Now, how is Squadron Leader Parkes taken to his new post?’ New post.
Interviewer: You would have been trained in what would happen.
LR: Oh, we were told.
Interviewer: But were you prepared for how much they did know?
LR: No. I wasn’t.
Interviewer: No.
LR: I was amazed what they did know. Started telling me different things you see and that the idea is we were warned against this. The idea is to say well if they know that we might as well tell them what else they want to know. But if they gleaned just that little bit of information then they can use it on the next one. They said, they said, ‘We’ve got a friend of yours here.’ I said, ‘Who’s that?’ He said, ‘Flying Officer Hookes.’ I said, ‘Flying Officer Hookes? I don’t know anybody of that name.’ ‘Yeah. Flying Officer Hookes.’ And it turned out it was Flying Officer Hughes. They couldn’t pronounce it properly and Flying Officer Hughes was shot down that night. The same night. We became very good fiends in actual fact. Tommy Hughes. And that was it. Then they sort of released us. Well, I say released us they put us in a room altogether and because I’d damaged my knee they gave me a hospital bed to rest on. But then they transferred us then from there to Belaria, Stalag Luft 3 by the usual cattle truck.
Interviewer: Did you meet up with Hope who had also survived the –
LR: Not ‘til later.
Interviewer: Right.
LR: I thought that I was the only survivor because they said they’d found the bodies in the plane.
Interviewer: Oh, they did tell you.
LR: The Germans told me this at the time.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: They had found the plane with the bodies inside and what not.
Interviewer: Right.
LR: But they didn’t tell me that the wireless operator was safe and apparently he was blown through the side of the plane. No. He had applied for a commission and his commission came through after he was shot down.
Interviewer: Oh.
LR: And so the Germans being the Germans transferred him to an officer camp.
Interviewer: Oh.
LR: Which Stalag Luft 3 was an officer camp.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: And they transferred to him and he came and he came to Belaria.
Interviewer: You must have been surprised to see him.
LR: I was. He was surprised to see me [laughs] Yeah. And that was that. So I started life as a prisoner of war.
Interviewer: I don’t know, you can’t prepare yourself for anything like that so how did you find it or you know was it something to –
LR: Well, I spent the first three weeks I think it would be in hospital while they tried to do something about my knee and it was all swollen and they said I’d got fluid on it and whatnot and they were trying to treat me. I was in prison camp and it didn’t matter how long it took sort of thing. I had to have heat and used to have a big shield put over my leg with electric light bulbs in which was all heat. This went on until eventually I came out and went to the hut that had been with Tommy Hughes as well was in there. And —
Interviewer: How many more were in your particular hut?
LR: There were I think eight of us to start with. In the hut. In the room. The hut —
Interviewer: Oh yes. The rooms in the hut.
LR: Was divided into rooms.
Interviewer: That’s right. Yes.
LR: And I think it was eight to start with and then in double bunks.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: Double bunks. And then they put another bunk on the top and made them triple bunks and put more people in. We had some Poles came in and, a couple of Poles and it was quite crowded in actual fact.
Interviewer: And everyday life in a –
LR: Well, boredom was the main —
Interviewer: Right.
LR: Problem. People took courses. If somebody was an expert accountant he would, he would start teaching people accountancy or and so forth. Anything like that you see. And of course, there was, I was fortunate in that I was musical. I played a guitar and we had a band and that kept me busy because we used to do arranging and all sorts of things like that so that filled the day in. Arranging concerts and things. We had a very good band in actual fact. The leader was a chap called Whiteley, Len Whiteley who had been trumpeter with Billy Cotton’s band. And later on we got some Americans in the camp and we got a base player who used to play with one of the big American bands, you know. He was good. He was a good arranger as well. So we managed, you know.
Interviewer: You weren’t involved in escaping yourself but did you know –
LR: No.
Interviewer: Of people that were and did you take any part in —
LR: I didn’t take any part at all in the escape but we knew of it afterwards. Not before. We didn’t know. I mean these things were kept very quiet obviously. For obvious reasons. But we knew of it and the camp commandant, our camp commandant, the senior British officer as he was called was he said we were to boycott the Germans altogether. Not to speak to them. We used to bribe them for bring in, bring in a couple of eggs and give them a cigarette something like that but we weren’t. We had to stop all that sort of thing. Not to talk to them. Ignore them.
Interviewer: Tell us the story about the radio please.
LR: Oh. The radio. Well, we had a radio and it was this radio was dismantled. The carcase of the radio was hidden under the coals. Under a heap of coals in the hospital block. And the components were taken out each night and given to separate people, different people so that if one was sort of discovered it would just be one item gone and the radio was assembled every night for the 6 o’clock news. To receive the 6 o’clock news from Britain and then dismantled again and shared around. We became short. We had a valve failure. Now a valve in actual fact was a fairly major component and so we needed to get another one. Now, in the camp we had apart from the guards there were these goons. Well, we called them goons. Or ferrets. Ferrets we called them and they used to go around looking for trouble. And they used to go around looking for trouble like long screw drivers which they used to try to poke into the earth to try and detect tunnels and they would look under the huts because the huts were on, were built up over the ground on stilts more or less. Short stilts of course. And they would walk into a room looking to see if anybody was doing anything they shouldn’t be doing. Now, if they found anything important they were given a week’s leave and instant promotion to the next higher rank. So and at that time there was a tunnel in progress which had flooded. We found it did flood in the Belaria compound. We couldn’t get a tunnel going because it flooded. So we bodged this tunnel up. I say we I didn’t have anything to do with it. But they bodged this tunnel up so it looked like the genuine thing and then they said to one of the ferrets, ‘Bring us in a valve for the radio,’ you know. Oh No. No. He couldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. That’s much too much. You know. So we said, ‘Look, if you do we’ll show you a tunnel.’ Ah. And so in came the valve. We got the valve for the radio. The ferret went off and reported to the commanding officer who’d only been there for a couple of weeks and he came bounding out in white overalls and everything saying, ‘Ah you know you can’t beat us Germans.’ And things like this and he was delighted. The commandant reported to his superiors that he’d found a tunnel and the ferret got his week’s leave and we got our valve. So everybody was happy. Yeah. So some funny things went on. I don’t know how far it’s true this story but I did, the story went around that now we had to be careful when a new influx of prisoners came in that they didn’t infiltrate a German with them. So they had, all prisoners had to be vetted. When we used to flock around the gates. Flocking around the gates wasn’t to welcome the prisoners as much as to see if you knew anybody. And if you knew somebody you pointed them out. Oh we knew him, you know. So that invariably everybody knew somebody. And apparently they got one chap who was suspect in this place and when they questioned him closely he didn’t seem very knowledgeable about things. Not as knowledgeable as he should have been and they were fairly sure, absolutely sure really that he was a German infiltrator and so they reported to the commandant the next day that one of their men had been too overcome. It had been too much for him. He drowned himself in the fire pool. And now, I can’t verify that story but it was prevalent at the time. It came around. It wasn’t in our compound and as I say it’s a story you’ve got to be careful about telling really.
Interviewer: You’ve met or at least knew of personalities like Bob Stanford Tuck and Douglas Bader.
LR: I never met Bader. I met Tuck and Roland Beamont.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: He came while I was there. He came to the camp and for the next two days I should think or more than that you couldn’t separate him and Tuck. They were there with their hands going all over the place fighting all the battles all over again [laughs]
Interviewer: But not good reports of Bader’s behaviour.
LR: Bader wasn’t well liked. He, we had Escape Committees and if you had any ideas for escape you put them to the Escape Committee and they decided on the feasibility of it and what not. Also, the main reason was that you didn’t try some foolhardy, foolhardy attempt and jeopardise any escape attempt that was in progress. So, but Bader would have none of that. He said if he got the chance he would go regardless. He didn’t believe in Escape Committees and he was fairly arrogant I believe. And although I’d never met him but I know he wasn’t well liked.
Interviewer: And when you heard about the fifty that had been shot after the Great Escape that must have been a terrible shock.
LR: Oh, that was, you know. We just couldn’t get over it. It put a whole new light on escaping really. Any attempt to escape before that was sort of an adventure if you’d like to put it that way. If you got away with it well and good. If not well well what it did among other things if somebody escaped it tied up the police and Home Guard in the area or the military in the area trying to find them, you know. And we thought well, you know keep the Germans busy. If they’re looking for me then I’ve done something else.
Interviewer: Did morale drop in the –
LR: It did a bit. Yes. We said, well what do we do about escaping, you know?
Interviewer: So you, you stayed there until July, January ’45.
LR: Yes.
Interviewer: And the –
LR: When the Russians advanced.
Interviewer: Yes. And —
LR: We could hear the Russian guns.
Interviewer: And did you feel that this was, you know –?
LR: Well, this is the end. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: This is the end. But then Hitler ordered that if prison camps looked like being overrun the prisoners had to be shot you know. And they dropped, the Air Force dropped leaflets warning prison commandants that they were responsible and if any prisoners were harmed [pause] I’ve got one of the leaflets in actual fact. And they, we didn’t know what to make of it really. We didn’t know what, you know. Anyway, we, we moved out of the camp and we walked through —
Interviewer: You weren’t given much notice I don’t think.
LR: Not a lot of notice. We said that we were going to go out one day. I think it was as I remember it was, we said we would go out one morning and then it was postponed until the next day. Something like that. And anyway, we went off walking and it wasn’t very good.
Interviewer: And the snow and the cold.
LR: It was a cold winter of course and the winters out there were particularly cold.
Interviewer: And you wouldn’t have much clothes.
LR: Just sleeping at night in barns and pig styes or whatever wherever we could. Just bed down and just as we were.
Interviewer: I understand that the guards suffered as much as the –
LR: The guards did.
Interviewer: Yes.
LR: Of course they did. Yes. Yes. Yes, they were fed up.
Interviewer: And you were taken to —
LR: To Luckenwalde. Now, that was a big camp, you know. There were French, Italians, Russians. Oh, the Russians they were absolutely badly treated the Russians were. The Russian prisoners. We used to see them being taken out to work you know and you know, terrible. But when we were, we were released we went into the Russian barracks and some of the murals that they’d painted on the walls were fantastic. The Russians released us but in actual fact we were still prisoners of the Russians then because there was this thing going on at home between Stalin and Churchill over the Cossacks. And I believe, we didn’t know at the time but I think we were held as political prisoners to a bargaining thing because we didn’t, we weren’t released until June. We listened to the May, the VE Day celebrations. We listened to them on the radio in the camp. We were still in the camp.
Interviewer: How did you feel about that?
LR: Not very, not very much. We were fed up with the Russians. In actual fact there was a jeep, an American jeep came through with some report, two reporters and they said, ‘Who are you lot?’ And we told them. They said, ‘Well, we didn’t know anything about you.’ They said, ‘We’ll have a convoy come and pick you up.’ And they did. The next day a convoy of American lorries arrived at the camp and some of the lads tried to get on board and the Russians wouldn’t let them. And we thought, we ran along, some of us ran along the road a bit. We could get out of the fence and catch the lorries as they were leaving because the Russians turned them around and the Russians fired on us. Fired over our heads and stopped us from getting on the lorries. They said what they wanted, they wanted to register us and the senior British officer said, ‘Tell me what you want registering.’ They wanted the name. Your name and your rank, number and where you lived. Where you came from. And he said, ‘If you give me a couple of days I’ll give you, I’ll get you all that.’ But no. they had to do it the Russian way and what they were doing they were translating it into Russian. Cyrillic lettering and it took them about two weeks to do it. It was all time wasting. We had, they let us out. They let us move from the camp. It was south and east a little bit. About a half a mile or so. We would go for a walk if we wanted to rather than be in the confines of the camp. They promised us radios and food and goodness knows what which never materialised and just on the other side of the wire there had been a park and there was a lovely lake there. So we, somebody said, ‘Oh, we’ll go swimming.’ And off we went to swim in the lake. Of course, nude of course. There were no swimming costumes and off we went. There was such a big thump in this lake. We wondered what on earth was that? Sort of looked around and the Russians were still on the thing, on the top throwing grenades into the water. Threw the grenades and they made a good bump. All the Russian girl soldiers were all there waiting and we all came scrambling out of the water you see [laughs] scrambled out and back into the barracks and the Russian girl soldiers laughing like mad. One of the things of course leading up to that was we got a lot of refugees in and woke up one day and the hut was divided into, big huts they were and divided in two. In the centre portion was a washing area with a big sort of round basin. Taps all the way around it where we could wash and whatnot. And we got up one morning and it was sort of walked down to this place and there was some ladies stripped off washing. Well, we just couldn’t believe it you know. We had to get washed and the toilets there were the seats, you know, open. There would seats along one side and then seats on this side and we went to the toilet and women were there as well thinking nothing of it. You’d just, you know and we just couldn’t get on with this somehow. Sharing a toilet with a lady and washing with her. You know. Especially having, having been cooped up for a long time. Yes. That was all very primitive. It was a very primitive camp was Luckenwalde. The food. We didn’t get any Red Cross parcels at first and the food was just barley and mint tea.
Interviewer: Was there a lot of illness?
LR: Not as much as you would expect, I think. The main trouble with that sort of thing was when they transported us. We were, they took us out once, they were going to move us from the camp and they put us in these railway trucks and crowded into these trucks you know with no toilet facilities and it used to be shocking. Of course, some of the men had diarrhoea and that and couldn’t control themselves and there was nothing they could do.
Interviewer: No.
LR: And we used to, we used to drain hot water out of the engines thing to make tea with, you know. Out of the engine tank. The steam. Steam engine. And oh, it wasn’t very good. Then they decided that after two or three days we couldn’t move anyway. The railways couldn’t move us so we went back into the camp again and we stopped there until they decided, the Russians decided that we could move. The Americans came. They took us to an American base and oh, we got there. White bread, coffee. Proper coffee and all proper food and everything. Luxury. And we were there for a while while they arranged transport to take us back. And they took us on a, we went on a Dakota back to Brussels. And then in Brussels we went on a Lincoln bomber back to England and the reception in England was absolutely fantastic. We didn’t know what to expect because we’d had, there were letters we got from home accusing us of being cowards for being prisoners of war and things like this you know. One letter a girl wrote to say she was marrying somebody else. She said, “I’d rather marry a –“ what was it? [pause] Rather marry this man than marry an Air Force coward. Something like that. But you know these things happen and we didn’t know what sort of reception to expect. So was that.
Interviewer: When you came home did you go to Cosford?
LR: I think. I think Cosford.
Interviewer: Yeah.
LR: Yes. Cosford. Yes. And when we got there there was a whole load of WAAFs waiting to escort us in and it was late at night. It was, it was around about twelvish or thereabouts and they’d had a dance there before, before we got there and the band had packed up. And they unpacked their instruments and played for a dance just for us. And we were all packed up and disinfected and goodness knows what and sent off home.
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 Les Rutherford
1022-Rutherford, Robert Leslie
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v26
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-01-24
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
British Army
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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01:27:19 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Les Rutherford was called up for the Army just short of his twenty first birthday. He was in France at the time of Dunkirk and made it to the beach of St Valery where they were under constant bombardment. He and another soldier found a door and used that to paddle out to the Channel in the hopes of joining a ship to get back to England. A trawler rescued them both and passed them over to a British vessel. While still serving in the Army Les saw an advertisement for RAF aircrew and decided to volunteer. He was trained as an observer but was posted to 50 Squadron as a bomb aimer. His aircraft was shot down over Frankfurt after a triple attack by a Junkers 88. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft 3 at Sagan.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
North Africa
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Lincolnshire
France--Dunkerque
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Żagań
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-06
50 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
Dulag Luft
Ju 88
Lancaster
prisoner of war
RAF Skellingthorpe
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag Luft 3
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45694/CFoskettW-230609-01.2.jpg
c57d0a842ca720c4182385c831b586b6
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
Foskett, William
Description
An account of the resource
104 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant William Foskett (b. 1921, 13230505 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, correspondence, documents, and photographs.
He flew operations as an air gunner and navigator with 214 Squadron. After the war, he was stationed in Italy, France, Germany and North Africa.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Foskett and catalogued by Barry Hunter with the assistance of Roberto Bassi of the Aeroclub Friulano Campoformido.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-04-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Foskett, W
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
Travels East
Description
An account of the resource
A sketch map of locations where Bill served in the RAF: Bari, Benghazi, Cairo, Calais, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Karlsruhe, Lille, London, Marseilles, Montmédy, Munich, Naples, Roma, Saarbrucken, Stuttgart, Trieste, Tripoli, Udine, and Venice.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bill Foskett
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One hand drawn sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CFoskettW-230609-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Libya
North Africa
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45656/PFoskettW23020074.1.jpg
06b24535d1bdd262151212b55d9845ec
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
Foskett, William
Description
An account of the resource
104 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant William Foskett (b. 1921, 13230505 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, correspondence, documents, and photographs.
He flew operations as an air gunner and navigator with 214 Squadron. After the war, he was stationed in Italy, France, Germany and North Africa.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Foskett and catalogued by Barry Hunter with the assistance of Roberto Bassi of the Aeroclub Friulano Campoformido.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-04-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Foskett, W
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bill Foskett and Colleague
Description
An account of the resource
The two men are dressed in khaki.
On the reverse 'Cairo October 1945'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-10
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
North Africa
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFoskettW23020073, PFoskettW23020074
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.
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45655/PFoskettW23020071.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45655/PFoskettW23020072.1.jpg
6c14b52ab90b7f31f05217047712e711
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
Foskett, William
Description
An account of the resource
104 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant William Foskett (b. 1921, 13230505 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, correspondence, documents, and photographs.
He flew operations as an air gunner and navigator with 214 Squadron. After the war, he was stationed in Italy, France, Germany and North Africa.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Foskett and catalogued by Barry Hunter with the assistance of Roberto Bassi of the Aeroclub Friulano Campoformido.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-04-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Foskett, W
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bill Foskett
Description
An account of the resource
A full length portrait of Bill in khaki uniform and shorts.
On the reverse 'Cairo 28th Oct '45'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-10-28
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10-28
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
North Africa
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFoskettW23020071, PFoskettW23020072
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.
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45653/PFoskettW23020068.2.jpg
0b072fe2ab6f4eee96bafbd2a1a59da0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45653/PFoskettW23020069.2.jpg
37d114be61a2b875b663783a3c851d2c
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
Foskett, William
Description
An account of the resource
104 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant William Foskett (b. 1921, 13230505 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, correspondence, documents, and photographs.
He flew operations as an air gunner and navigator with 214 Squadron. After the war, he was stationed in Italy, France, Germany and North Africa.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Foskett and catalogued by Barry Hunter with the assistance of Roberto Bassi of the Aeroclub Friulano Campoformido.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-04-07
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Foskett, W
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Bill Foskett and Colleague
Description
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The two men are dressed in khaki and holding towels.
On the reverse 'Outside Heliopolis Roxy Swimming Pool Cairo 31.10.45. Note!! Thats no shadow on my upper lip!!!'
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1945-10-31
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1945-10-31
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Egypt
Egypt--Heliopolis (Extinct city)
North Africa
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Royal Air Force
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eng
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Photograph
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One b/w photograph
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PFoskettW23020068, PFoskettW23020069
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2604/45259/PBrownG2301.1.jpg
7d02ee8c84e40d818808949ed098d2d8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2604/45259/ABrownG231006.1.mp3
b1d31396faa33eb1a8728340465637b2
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Title
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Brown, Geoff
G Brown
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Geoff Brown (b. 1923). He grew up in Grimsby and remembers the town being bombed with butterfly bombs. He served as a clerk in the army serving in France and Egypt post war. After demob, he worked as a lorry, coach and taxi driver.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2023-10-06
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Brown, G
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DE: So, this is an interview for the IBCC Digital Archive with Geoff Brown. My name is Dan Ellin. It is the 6th of October 2023 and we’re in Grimsby. Also present in the room is Paul [Thenick] and Geoff’s son, Alan. I’ll just put that there so we can hear your voice. Geoff can we just start a little bit about your early life and where you grew up please?
GB: Well, I grew up where I am living now in Chelmsford Avenue only it was across the road at number 12. So I only moved, so I’m still in the same area I’ve been for ninety three years. Born there. Then when I got married I bought this house and so that my lifetime has been in the same area as when, when we used to go, come out in the morning looking for shrapnel as I told you.
DE: Yeah.
GB: And that’s what we was doing that morning with a friend of mine. She was a girl who lived around, only around the corner in Littlefield Lane but we did it regular. If there had been an air raid the night before and we was in the shelter we would get up to go and look for shrapnel. I don’t know why. I don’t want keeping it or anything. Just a matter of interest, you know. And that was I was doing that on, on the morning they dropped the butterfly bombs. Do you want me to carry on?
DE: Yes, please. Yeah.
GB: And I was walking down Littlefield Lane looking for shrapnel and the sports ground that was there in them days in the hedge was a, was a, as I see was a lump of iron. I wasn’t sure what it was and there was a soldier stood nearby. But I threw a brick at it and nothing happened. I didn’t know ought about butterfly bombs and people being killed that morning and I threw a brick at it. So I picked it up and I gave it to this soldier. I says, ‘Do you know what it is?’ He didn’t know but he did an amazing thing. He opened his army knife, jackknife with the prong and as you’ve just seen what Paul showed you what he’s trying to prise it open. Well, God knows none of us would be here if he’d have succeeded. But he tried and he couldn’t. He couldn’t force it open and he just said to me, ‘You have it. There you are. You have it. You found it. You have it.’ Of course, he didn’t know it was a bomb and I didn’t know it was a bomb so walking back to where I lived which was only across the road and the girl I was with she took it in her house because it couldn’t be far. That was in Littlefield Lane where the bomb was found and her father said, ‘You’re not —' So she came out. She said, ‘My dad don’t, don’t want that in the house.’ Again, nobody is saying it’s a bomb. He hadn’t or any. So she gave it to me. I said, ‘Well I’ll have it then.’ Souvenir. And I walked around the corner and I go in the house. My father is home. He was a fisherman and he says, ‘You’re not having that in the house.’ Again, none of us thinking for one minute it’s a bomb. I’d been kicking it along the road as I’m walking back because it would roll over with a kick like, you know. And anyway, I’ve got it in my hand and I opened the front door and as I opened the front door there was a bomb disposal lorry coming down this avenue which was across the road. Coming down here and an officer walking in front and he was looking which I didn’t know he was looking for these butterfly bombs and he saw me with it in my hand. Now, I’ve had it a good half hour. I’d kicked it and had it. If I’d had known what was going to happen I’d have just walked it across the road to a green. To a patch of green field you know. But he panicked me, ‘Drop it. Drop it.’ I dropped it on the [laughs] well, I didn’t drop it. I put it down on the doorstep and so I I’m out the, I’m really worried at this stage. I don’t know what’s going on and they’re looking for me and it was a butterfly bomb. So they sandbagged it up within a few minutes. Sanded it all up and detonated it about an hour later which blew the windows of, of our house and a neighbour’s house and I think one across the road. The explosion blew the windows in but not the doors. Well, I’m terrified now. I don’t, I think because what happened in them days your father would give you a good hiding you know as punishment. It wasn’t like it is today. He was alright. He never. But if you really misbehaved you got a good hiding and you expected it. You got it at school. You got the cane every time you misbehaved. Your teacher used to bend the cane like that. I don’t know whether, but you expected if you’d done something wrong. Now I’m terrified. I thought well I’m not going. I’m not going in because I’ve seen the damage it’s done like you know. But, but the opposite was the case as it turned out. I didn’t know it at the time but my parents were lucky that I was alive. That I’d picked this bomb up, carried it about and survived. They had to blow it up to do it so, so I didn’t know at the time. I was about, I don’t know roughly about an hour out the house terrified to go back home because I thought I’m going to get a good hiding for this. And anyway, I didn’t. Obviously. I didn’t. That’s as near as I could tell you about it but I did also know at the time the words were going around with people living nearby oh there had been a few on the Castle Market in the town centre. Eighty people. Eighty two I believe. I’m not, but it was said at the time eighty odd people had been killed but it was all in secrecy. Nobody, you know it was never ever mentioned. Mainly the radio in them days. I’m not saying whether telly, I can’t remember if there was telly on or not but not many people did have tellies and if they did they weren’t very good ones. But the radio, we all listened to the radio and it was never mentioned which too me at that age I thought that’s a surprise. Nobody wanted so everything was kept in secrecy. Then a few years later, I haven’t got the paper now, I don’t know what happened but a woman came from Paris researching the butterfly bombs and the council had told them about where I lived. Could have been in the paper, the local paper so they knew. And she come to the house and anyway cut a long story I don’t know what, she went to London to a thing in Trafalgar Square about the, so she said about the butterfly and she come back. She said, ‘I’ll come back at Grimsby and let you know.’ Well, I never did hear from her again. She wrote me a letter where I think I’ve got rid of it. She wrote a letter thanking me for, for what similar to what your knowing. All about the bomb and what I knew about the bomb which wasn’t a lot except that I survived it. So that is pretty near what happened.
DE: Yes. Smashing. Thank you. Did, did you ever see any others?
GB: No. No. I heard of nearby on Cromwell Road not far from here. Another street about a half a mile, a mile away there were several people cycling to work that morning. Railway workers, milk people that early morning work and a lot of them were exploding as soon as they were in the streets early on. But quite a few laid in parks. A cemetery as it was in them days in the town centre. Ainslie Street Cemetery it was called. It’s a park now. But there was quite two or three people killed in there by walking along and touching them. One or two three or four year later so I was told you know. So they were dangerous for a few years afterwards if they laid undetected. But a lot of them fell so I was told I mean fell in the streets and Paul told me that if they dropped as a canister if one fell there would be twenty more nearby.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Which I didn’t know. I mean I was, I wasn’t, I had no information like that at all.
DE: No. Of course not. No.
GB: I just considered myself when all the facts came out how lucky I was that I even kicked it along the road and I’m not being dramatic about it. I did. And taking it home. It’s a canister. Closed like that. But I never thought for one minute all that time that this was a bomb and the soldier certainly didn’t. So if a soldier and people like that didn’t know on the hours with them being dropped you could understand. You know, I understood what was happening.
DE: Yeah.
GB: But the bomb disposal officers just told me to drop it and stood on the, I’m just about to step off the step to get rid of it. Put it, you know because my father, we he said he didn’t want it in the house so I thought well I’ll get rid of it because I’m just thinking it’s shrapnel. It’s to do with that you know. Never in my wildest dream think I was carrying an unexploded bomb about.
DE: So was, was the raid when they dropped those was that any different to any of the other ones that you’d experienced?
GB: No. Not as far as I know. About the air raid? No. Not to my knowledge. We’d had an air raid. We had quite a few of them but they very rare dropped bombs on Grimsby. They did drop bombs but we used to think rightly or wrongly if they were blitzing Hull or they’d gone inland a bit, Sheffield and places like that if they were coming back going back home and they’d got they’d got some bombs. I don’t know whether this be true or not but a lot of people thought it the bombs on Grimsby as far as I know was never a bombing raid on Grimsby. The butterfly bombs was but the real bombs that did a lot of damages to people’s houses and killed people we thought whether that’s true or not we always thought at the time well they’re coming over they’ve got a couple of bombs. I can’t ever think. There was bombs dropped on Grimsby. Of course, there was but nothing compared to what Hull which was only across the river. So whether that was true or not we thought it was true.
DE: Yeah.
GB: But other people would be more accurate and probably say no they did. But I don’t think. We never ever got a blitz or what I call a raid. Several bombs were dropped on the town, a few on the dock but it was never ever and I never thought it was but I weren’t the, I’m only thirteen.
DE: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
GB: My father didn’t think it was. Elderly people didn’t think it was. They just thought well they’re coming over Grimsby on their way home.
DE: And they’ve got a couple left.
GB: Whether it’s true or not.
DE: Yeah.
GB: It might have been. It might not have been but they certainly, they didn’t, they didn’t, I can’t think of anywhere in Grimsby where there was incendiary bombs targeted. Several bombs did fall. I’m not disputing that but it was only one or two or three like. That’s what I was understood at the time and that’s what my father would be telling me and, but yeah I don’t think we were ever targeted as a bombing trip to be bombed. Well, we had nothing here. We was a fishing port. That’s what, that’s what I think. Whether it’s right or not. I mean we had no industries. Not in them days. All the Humber Bank come after the war. All the industrial. There was no shipyards here. They were all in Goole and Hull. You know what I’m saying?
DE: Wasn’t Grimsby one of the biggest fishing fleets in the country?
GB: It was the biggest ever.
DE: Yeah.
GB: I’m not saying that dramatically but you could walk across Grimsby, my dad was a fisherman, he came ashore later on in his life, worked on the dredgers but you could walk across Grimsby dock from one and I’ve done it because he took me down the dock at times. You could, you could walk across hundreds and I mean hundreds. Not exaggerating at that. In them days. ‘50s. ‘50s, ‘60s until the Icelandic War came along and everybody, everybody, I would say nine out of ten people working were connected with the docks in them days. They were either dockers, and I was a taxi driver just as I got older. I come out the army, I took up taxi driving. I used to take loads and loads of people to the, to the docks and visit the boats coming in. There aint any now.
DE: No.
GB: Not one. It all comes from Iceland now. Over land and Alan he —
AB: It does. Yeah.
GB: Alan worked down the dock.
DE: Right.
GB: For a fish merchant for a while.
DE: Can I, can I take you back to the war?
GB: Yeah.
DE: So what was it like when, when you saw Hull being bombed? Did the sirens go in Grimsby?
GB: I can give you our lifestyle at that time.
DE: That would be brilliant. Yeah.
GB: Yeah.
DE: Please.
GB: We had a, my dad built us an Anderson air raid. Everybody had one. Anderson. He made a good job of it. Concreted it. Bunk beds. So when the Germans came over and there was a blitz we would always go in the air raid shelter. Although it wasn’t Grimsby they were but we stayed in it until you got the all clear. Sometimes we slept in it all the time because it meant, it meant not getting out of bed and coming down. In the early days that’s what we did. So, and there was a lot of false alarms in the, by the sirens in the early days. I went to school which was only not too far from here at the top of this avenue and our school days was one in the afternoon one week and one in the mornings the next and then if the sirens went which they often did on our way to school because they were false alarms the majority we had to go back home. So my wartime education wasn’t the best of educations but it was good in other ways. I won’t go into that but didn’t seem to bother me too much. We had, we had a good education of what but it, it was a wartime education and Paul asked me once but it was exciting. I won’t say it was exciting for everybody because it wasn’t but it was for me seeing all these, all these German planes coming over in the early part of the war. Sirens going, guns going off and we’re in an air raid shelter and my grandad’s giving me a running commentary of what’s happening outside because he’s looking out. He’s, he was in his eighties then so you know he wasn’t bothered but my mam and dad was.
DE: Yeah.
GB: And they would be frightened for us in the air raid shelter. But it only ever happened once nearly and this is the truth. They got a plane and the first time I’d ever seen it or heard of it there were all the searchlights and they got a hold of this German plane going over. Of course, all the others zoom in and he’s saying, ‘Oh, they’ve got a German. They’ve got a plane in the searchlights.’ The next thing it’s coming down the searchlight screaming. What it’s going to do? It’s coming on. It’s going to drop on the house. That’s the opinion we got in the shelter. Anyway, he dropped a bomb and it dropped in a field only just up here at the, there’s a little circle of shops here. There was a school there. Chelmsford School isn’t it? And it made a big bomb crater which they turned it into an open air theatre of all things.
AB: [unclear] school.
GB: And, but that’s the nearest personally when I thought it’s going to land on us. It sounded like it was because he come down. He'd what we called in those days dive bombed to get out the, away from every other. He come out and released a bomb that he had and it wasn’t too far away but it found, it sounded like it was coming down on us. So we were lucky in Grimsby compared to –
DE: Yeah.
GB: Hull and industrial places. Everybody knows the cities that got blitzed. Sheffield and that but we were a fishing port. This is my opinion. I was only that, and my father. A fishing port. That wasn’t going to prevent the war effort, you know sinking a few trawlers. I don’t know whether that’s true or not but we didn’t get bombed.
DE: No. I suppose it could have made, made a few people in the country go hungry if they’d, if they’d —
GB: Yeah, because Hull, I used to stand in the street on an evening. You could see the flames in Hull. The sky. Red sky. And we knew that was getting bombed because they were coming over here to get to Hull only across the river.
DE: Yeah. Yeah.
GB: But so in the early days of the war I’ll make it as brief as I can we saw a lot of German planes come over and then in my, later in the war we saw all the Lancasters going to bomb because they circled over Grimsby.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Oh, they say they took off from all the, I mean there was hundreds of them. Waltham. I think they had Wellington, it’s a village outside just out three or four miles away isn’t it? I’ve forgot some of them. Kirmington which is Humberside Airport now.
DE: Yeah.
GB: That was a bomber station but I think that had Lancasters. But the biggest one in this area was Binbrook. That was by far the biggest one and then of course you go further and there’s Scampton and them places you know.
DE: Yeah.
GB: But there was Kirkby in Lincolnshire which has got a Lancaster come out on trial. You know, it runs. It doesn’t fly.
DE: Yeah. I know. I’ve seen it. Yeah.
GB: Have you?
DE: Yeah.
GB: Well, I’ve been there. Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
GB: But that was a station but there was many. I think a lot of the pilots used to go to a Bluebird thing at, a pub just outside Woodhall Spa.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Which I think the Dambusters originated in that area. So I believe. I don’t, but they flew from Scampton.
DE: Yeah. They flew from —
GB: Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
GB: So I’m telling you something you know. But that, that was my wartime experience. Seeing it change from Germans coming over in their thousands. And on a June night, a summer night ’44 time or whatever and I’ve never seen the sky so full of Lancaster bombers just coming over the rooftops. Those from nearby. And they would circle right high up and then they would all go eight, half past eight at night. And we knew. We were in the air raid shelters because when they were coming back a lot of them were damaged and being followed by German Messerschmitts you know. So they were following the damaged ones in so the sirens would go. So we knew when they went off that the sirens were going to go for the, for them returning.
DE: Oh right. Ok.
GB: I don’t know whether you knew that.
DE: No. I didn’t know it was.
GB: But they did. They certainly did and we knew they would do so we, we prepared ourselves in the air raid shelter rather than wait until two, 3 o’clock in the morning and then because all the guns are going off like you know. But the main thing I was told was the damaged Lancasters and there was many. I met a lot of Australians at that, that time. A bit older. I’m talking a few years after the butterfly when I was fifteen, sixteen because they came in. They were a lot of them at Binbrook. Ever so many.
DE: Yeah.
GB: In fact, the, the local churchyard’s got a full crew of how many died there at Binbrook. That was the nearest one and I used to go to Binbrook a lot because later on I did a I got a PSV and the people at RAF Binbrook would go home on a weekend. I’d take them up to Newcastle and bring them back you know. So Binbrook was our biggest. Biggest one and they were always having dos. There was a film wasn’t there made of American. Yeah. American planes.
DE: They shot the film Memphis Belle at Binbrook.
GB: Memphis Belle. Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Well, I knew one or two that got bit parts for it you know. They had to have their hair cut to take part.
DE: Yeah.
GB: A lot of —
DE: I was one of them.
GB: Was you?
DE: Yeah.
GB: Yeah. Well, they come into Grimsby and they were recruiting seventeen eighteen for them parts for it.
DE: Yeah.
GB: I had a couple of blokes going and of course long hair was the fashion in them days. The Beatles type of thing. And they had to have all my hair cut off.
DE: Yeah. That’s right.
GB: You know.
DE: Yeah.
GB: So they could get a part in this film they were making.
DE: So did you go, did you go down the shelters in the winter as well?
GB: Yeah.
DE: What was it like in them because they were –
GB: Well, my dad was pretty good on that thing. He, we had a I forget what kind it, like a heater. Old fashioned type. But we had bunk beds so we had covers. That’s the kids like you know. And then he’d concreted it and he’d put like a thing all on top of the ceiling that absorbed the heat from the the stove. It was like a stove, an old fashioned stove but it generated a lot of heat. That was in the winter of course.
DE: Yeah.
GB: I think, well I forget what he stuck on the top but he’d done a good. He could have grassed it all over and flowers on it you know. He made a good job of it really. We thought it might have still been there but it isn’t. The people who live in the house now said no they got rid of it. So [pause] so that’s it. I saw the worst part of it if you could call it that though Grimsby wasn’t, wasn’t that bad. The worst part of it, the early part and of course the church bells were going to go. We were all frightened there was going to be a bloody, an invasion. Oh, by the way there was barricades right across the road, this road just, just at Chelmsford Place into our doorway right up to our and only had a little gap for cars to get through or transporters.
DE: Yeah.
GB: They used to come and hang lights on it during the evening so you could see it but I don’t know if they didn’t last long but while there was a threat of invasion that’s where they were around several main roads in Grimsby. One on Laceby Road. I can remember that one. But in different parts of the town was these barricades and we thought the Germans were going to come because the church bells were going to ring. You know, if church bells start chiming get in the house quick. It never happened did it?
DE: No. But you say the night that the butterfly bombs dropped there was, there was a soldier on the streets. So was, was there a lot of military people in the town?
GB: No. No. There wasn’t. I was surprised there was one there anyway. I’m not saying but yeah we had a big gun up the road here at a place called Norwich Avenue and it was manned by, I can remember it like yesterday but it fired out to sea. It was on, it was on a swivel. It was down in like a trench you know but a big, not an anti-aircraft for shooting planes.
DE: Oh right.
GB: But to fire out to sea. It wasn’t there long. About, well I’m guessing but it was there maybe a year.
DE: Right.
GB: It was there in the early part of the war and I know it was Scottish that were manning it and it was in a field at the top of this avenue.
DE: Ok.
GB: At the time. So yeah, my wartime experience was a bit limited to what there were. We was a lad and it was exciting. We all, the best way to describe it because it was at school because at school it was all propaganda when I think back now. We was drawing Spitfires and God knows what all to [pause] propaganda.
DE: Yeah.
GB: We’re winning you know.
AB: Raise morale.
GB: When we certainly wasn’t.
AB: To raise morale like.
GB: Yeah. Yeah. But that’s what we, that’s what the teachers gave us.
DE: Yeah. Sure.
GB: I can remember drawing aeroplanes and that in your pastime like you know. Oh, Spitfires are doing this and that. We’re winning the war.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Which we wasn’t.
DE: You’d be saying —
GB: Pardon?
DE: You say you did see a change though. The early part of the war it was —
GB: Yeah.
DE: It was the Luftwaffe coming over and then later on it was the RAF.
GB: Yeah.
DE: Going out.
GB: Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Well, I joined the regular Army later on and had another life experience. I was ever so lucky. That was [unclear] I was in Egypt. I’ll come to the point quickly.
DE: Ok.
GB: I was a lucky lucky survivor. More probably lucky than, than the butterfly bomb. In Egypt in the 50s, late 50s. I was in Egypt for three years in a tent in the desert and for latrines, toilets we just dug trenches.
DE: Yeah.
GB: As deep as this and probably as wide as this and it stunk but that was another thing. But when you was filling them up you just shut them, we just covered them over you know, soiled them over and this particular morning, I was in the Signals which we had an office. So I worked in the Signals office typing messages. But they gave you what [pause] anyhow what was it? Fatigues. We got the morning to do something so the sergeant major in the camp said, ‘Dig another trench.’ You know, so that’s what we did. Get to the point. We nearly finished about six feet deep. Well, and I’m there with this other corporal. There were two or three men under me and this corporal said to me, ‘Well, I’ll do it.’ This was six, 7 o’clock in the morning. ‘I’ll, I’ll finish off now here until NAAFI time, then you come and take over from me.’ So I said, ‘Ok,’ you know. I didn’t have far to go. It was only say across the road to my tent. I went back to my tent. I was only just sat in my tent after he’d said it and I heard somebody screaming and running. Oh God. What’s gone on? So I darted off to where they were digging the trench and there was nothing. Just all loose. It could have, it was like sand.
DE: Yeah.
GB: It wasn’t soil. Well, it was a mixture of sand and soil all loose and it had all just nothing there. Sergeant major come running, ‘What’s happened?’ I said, ‘We were just digging that trench.’ And I says, ‘The corporal was at that end and as I walked away the corporal at that end said he would do it and the signalman was at the other end.’ To cut a long story short we all started digging like hell where we thought they were. It took about three or four hours to get to them because when you are digging sand it’s going back in as fast as it's coming out. We’d only got shovels. We weren’t engineers and we should have been. That was the long and the short and tall. It should have been —
DE: Shuttered and stuff.
GB: Yeah. But it wasn’t. We just did that and I had noticed a lot of loose sand at the bottom but that’s all I noticed. I didn’t make no more than I thought well we got as far deep as we should go and anyway we got to the first corporal about four hours and he’d made a jump and his hand was up in the air. Covered in sand. We got around him like and the other corporal about six foot the other way. Not corporal. He was a Signalman. He’d done the opposite. Them few seconds as it had come in encased them. Suffocated them. He’d gone like that. He’d put his head down.
DE: Yeah.
GB: So we took longer to get to him because the corporal had made a jump. But why I’m saying this is that was me within minutes.
DE: Yeah.
GB: If that corporal had have said, ‘Well, you do it Geoff and I’ll come back,’ you know. It was as simple as that. But he said, ‘I’ll do it.’ And I went back to the tent. Two or three minutes later I ran over to where we thought he was. All, all loose so I was lucky there. Probably more lucky than I was with that bomb but about the same.
DE: Crikey.
GB: But if that bomb had have been, had have come down as it should have done and was open I wouldn’t be here. Definitely wouldn’t because I mean when I threw a brick at it it weren’t far away. But I thought it was shrapnel. It was a lump of iron to me. So that’s, that was my wartime.
DE: Yeah. You’ve been lucky. Really lucky twice then.
GB: Yeah. Lucky. The other time I’m only telling you because I was.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Very lucky twice.
DE: Wow.
GB: But I can’t really [pause] its ever so hard for me to explain how I, it was exciting. I mean it was exciting seeing hundreds of planes in the air both ways. Both the Lancasters later in the war and the Germans coming over the other way. Coming over for Grimsby. They were the anti-aircraft guns were having a go at them with the searchlights and then they were going on to wherever they were going. They went much further. I’m just saying Hull —
DE: Yeah.
GB: Hull we could see.
DE: Yeah.
GB: I could, you could see the red sky and so you knew they were getting bombed.
DE: So how close to where you lived were the, were the anti-aircraft guns?
GB: Well, one was quite a way. One was on the Grimsby docks on what, what we call the North Wall. As you come in to the dock there’s a harbour wall where all the trawlers when they’re going back to sea all line up and go out. Well, you come in to the dock into the big bason where the dock tower is.
DE: Yeah.
GB: But the North Wall is a wall. Later on fishermen used to fish off there didn’t they a lot?
AB: That’s right.
GB: People, blokes like him fishing you know.
DE: Yeah.
GB: But the trawlers all berthed up. Some had already landed their catch. The next day one day millionaires weren’t they? Was that the expression wasn’t it?
AB: Yeah.
GB: One day millionaires.
AB: [unclear] really.
GB: They came in, got drunk as hell ninety percent and then the next day they got paid and their wives all went with them you know. It was an environment that was and then they were going back to sea. Hundreds of them.
DE: And was that what your, what your father did then?
GB: Early part of the war. Yeah. Early. I’m not sure if he was just before. He’d come from Yarmouth. He was a fisherman in Yarmouth. He came into Grimsby, met my, met my mother and settled in Grimsby in Alexandra Road and then moved to Chelmsford Avenue.
DE: Right.
GB: And then he stayed as a dredger. He went on the dredgers because the docks was always being dredged.
DE: Yeah.
GB: And he used to take me. I used to enjoy it. I used to walk across all these boats from one instead of going right around you could walk from one over one trawler to the dredger and they had what they called a hopper that they used to take the dredger dropped all the mud into it and then they’d take it out into the Humber.
DE: Yeah.
GB: The hopper, and when they got so far out they just knocked all the pins and the bottom of the boat opened.
DE: Yeah.
GB: I was fascinated why you didn’t sink but you didn’t because it opened up.
DE: Yeah.
GB: It went down and then closed up and then you’d come back. Back to the dredger and start it up.
DE: Start it up again. Yeah.
GB: They don’t do much of that now do they?
DE: No.
GB: Which is amazing to me because it should be done shouldn’t it?
AB: You’d have thought so. Yeah.
GB: Yeah. You would have thought so but it’s all coming up like everything. I won’t go into that. That’s another story. But we, we flooded around here a lot and my wife was really into it wasn’t she? She had the council all at the back here. And I had an opinion it was all dykes. When I was a kid across the road behind the waterways a dyke. A dyke in Littlefield Lane. A dyke here wasn’t there? Everywhere.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Dykes everywhere full of water. And they started filling them in. Building houses. Littlefield Lane. Ever so many. Them dykes all went. Same here. All up there. Building everywhere. But they filled all the dykes in. Now, its elementary to me where does the water go if there isn’t no dykes? Heavy downpour full of rain. The drains don’t, I’m diverting slightly. I hope I’m not putting you off too much.
DE: No, that’s fine.
GB: But the drains don’t get sorted out one hundred percent. Every now and along they come along and steam clean where they used to be cleaned every week. Buckets used to go down.
DE: Yeah.
GB: And the kids used to stand and get rid of all the silt and muck. So now when we get heavy rain the road floods. I’m talking about bad floods.
DE: Yeah.
GB: The floods were coming up to our back door weren’t they Alan?
AB: Yeah.
GB: Up the road there a bit higher up because they were a bit high. A spring was up there. They were flooding bad and we was all protesting getting the councillors to come around. Succeeded in the end but to me it was because they got rid of everything.
DE: Yeah. It’s logical isn’t it? Yeah.
GB: If you walked down Littlefield Lane there was two dykes either, either side. I know because we played in them. To get across the road here at the bottom of Chelmsford Avenue to go to the street there was a bit of green and from the waterworks which is massive now come right along and it was a dyke. We played in it. We jumped over it. You know what I mean? Mainly going after water rats and things like that. You know. A bit of excitement. And of course, they filled them all in. Consequently we flood. I think they’ve sorted it out a bit now haven’t they?
AB: Yeah.
GB: But my wife she was really into it. Big time. She had them coming here regular didn’t they? ‘Oh, my friends are coming.’ I said, ‘They’re not your bloody friends. They get paid for coming.’ They’re coming. Yeah. She was right but she was good wasn’t she Alan?
AB: Yeah.
GB: She got every, all the neighbourhood watch all involved.
DE: Right.
GB: Just about this flooding. Went in to town council. Had the councillor’s coming. But she called them her friends. I said, ‘They’re not your bloody friends. They got paid to come here.’ You know, if you ring, if you phone them because you wanted them to come they’re not coming on a freebie are they? I’m a bit older, you know. A bit. I consider myself.
DE: That’s fine. So when did you leave school?
GB: I left at fourteen.
DE: Ok. So that’s still in the war.
GB: Pardon?
DE: That’s still, would that be ’44 was that?
GB: That would be ’44.
DE: So what did you do then?
GB: I got a little job as an errand boy down Pasture Street. A long way away. And then I became, and then I got a job as an apprentice motor mechanic in a street that’s no longer there. It’s in the town centre in Maude Street. But we were Rolls Royce agents. The two gaffers had two Rolls Royces and I was what they called a grease monkey for a long while because in them days if a Rolls Royce come in for, we had a Rolls Royce man. Rolls Royce trained.
DE: Yeah.
GB: And he just worked on Rolls Royce. We had other cars at the back of the garage but we was mainly a Rolls Royce and I had to go underneath for him to start doing anything there was all little castle nuts with split pins in.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Underneath. You can’t believe it. It wouldn’t be like that today. But underneath a Rolls Royce was all covered and they’d been assembled bit by bit so sometimes if you wanted to quickly turn a clutch you had to cut the chassis to get the bloody gear box out of a Rolls Royce. God. Also. But he was brilliant the mechanic. And because I was what, in them days early days his grease monkey he used to say, ‘Come on. I’ve done it.’ And he used to test the Rolls Royces by putting a threepenny bit on top of the bonnet, turn the engine on and it just purred and he said, ‘Good.’
DE: [Well those —]
GB: He said, ‘I’m going to test it now. I’m going to go to Aylesby.’ I can always remember the route. Aylesby which is a village outside of Grimsby. Five six mile. He said, ‘We’re going to test it,’ and I loved that. It was a thanks for coming and getting these posh Rolls Royces and go for a test run when he’d done whatever he was doing. And I stayed there. I was apprenticed and I didn’t have to go in the Army as a, what do you call it? National Service.
DE: Yeah.
GB: At eighteen. I got that deferred automatically because I was an apprentice motor mechanic but I didn’t like it. I hated it but I had to serve my time.
DE: Right.
GB: And I still had to go in the Army on a low wage at twenty one.
DE: Right.
GB: So nought to do with my parents, I decided. I said, ‘I don’t want to do this I’m going to go in the Army on a decent wage. I don’t want National Service money.’ I said I’ll sign on for five years which I did. Two things happened there. I got the best posting you could ever get at that time was Paris. I got sent to Paris, in the centre of Paris.
DE: Wow.
GB: With all these top Montgomery, Eisenhower, all lived there and in our camp all the chauffeurs. American and British used to drive into Paris to bring them to work. But the NATO headquarters in Paris. I think it moved to Brussels years later. But that’s where I was. In Paris typing messages all the time. Coded. I didn’t know what they were because it was still the end of the war.
DE: Sure.
GB: You know. But in our camp all, all the chauffeurs, American, I got to know American master sergeant and he drove Eisenhower all during the war. his chauffeur. You know, wherever Eisenhower he went.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Of course, he finished up in Paris when the war was, well it was just finished. ’45. So I was in Paris just at the end of the war which was a good place to be because it was, the French was ever so you know and it was packed with Americans. I worked. I’d been trained at, with British GPO Catterick Signals but when I got to Paris it was all American Western Union equipment and so I’m now working with Americans. If you don’t mind me just telling there was officers in the Royal Signals were clueless. They’d done no, no signals training. Absolute pay. Give me your money. I’m trying to get your money. But if ought went wrong in the signal office or ought the Americans were completely different. Officers in there knew Western Union. ‘Have you got a problem?’ Yeah. I’m just saying which we had. I used to type all day long coded messages and my mind used to go. Oh, what am I doing tonight? What am I doing tomorrow? And then we run a tape which we had to because that’s what we was doing and then I’d run the tape on. No mistakes. And I think I haven’t been, I’ve been doing it fingertip because it covers you. You didn’t know what keys. I learned that in Catterick. Sixty words a minute.
DE: Wow.
GB: I learned how to type. And then I went to Egypt. So I went from —
DE: From the best.
GB: The best to probably one of the worst.
DE: Yeah.
GB: It certainly was. Egypt. It was a shithole. I’m not kidding you. It was filthy. They was and but you learned when I first got there I went to the cookhouse for a meal and it was all Sudanese sweating like hell. Black as the ace of spades. I’m not knocking them for that but the bloody food was like camel meat. I’m not kidding you it was not going to do you any harm but you didn’t look like. So I said, ‘Well, I’m going in the NAAFI,’ to my mate, ‘I’m going to have egg and chips.’ Pay for it. And the ones that had been there two or three years in the cookhouse, old sweats they just they got this they called it pomme. It was mash but it came out like bloody chewing gum. It plopped onto the, the Sudanese used to say, ‘Put your plate down there.’ And they’d bang the thing on it and it plopped on your plate. That’s how bad it was. But when you’d been there a few years and there’s nothing else and the meat was terrible so the veterans are there shoving all the Daddy’s sauce on. You know what I mean?
DE: Yeah.
GB: Going down. ‘I can’t eat that. I can’t eat that.’ A week later I was eating it because it wasn’t bad for you even though it was crap. The vitamins. Yeah. Honestly it was vile. But in the end you were just like every bugger else. If you were hungry.
DE: You ate it.
GB: You got hungry and, you know. Anyway, I’m diverting aren’t I?
DE: Well, it’s fine. I’m after, you know all these stories not just not just the butterfly bomb stuff.
GB: Yeah.
DE: So yeah.
GB: And then I got interested, me and my wife got interested in the RAF stations and we started going around. Went to Binbrook, Kirmington, Elsham. I could go on. Kirkby and different ones. I don’t know why we got interested. We got interested in going around the church seeing the survivors. Because I picked up, when I was taxi driving Australian who’d landed, he’d docked at Immingham late on and it was blowing a blizzard and I am not kidding. A blizzard and he said, ‘My father got killed in Lichfield.’ And as Alan would know I’d gone to Birmingham all my life hadn’t I, as a lorry driver taking fish but I’m doing part time taxi driving and it was a snowy night. Snowing like hell. And he said, ‘But the ship is sailing seven, 8 o’clock in the morning from Immingham so I can only go overnight.’ ‘I’m not taking him,’ all of them were saying at the taxi firm which was Coxon’s, a big one at the time. And I was doing a bit of weekend work for them because I didn’t work weekends as a lorry driver. Anyway, I said to him, ‘Well, I’ll take you. I’ll take you,’ because I knew the route like the back of my hand. To cut a long story I got him to Lichfield but we come home in one of the biggest blizzards ever and they gave me the best car they’d got to do the job. It was a Daimler as I remember it but the, I could only just see over the wipers.
DE: Yeah.
GB: The wipers and I’m driving. I’m coming back, coming home. The roads were being kept up, main road by snow ploughs. How bad it was. Anyway, to cut a long story short I got him back about 11 o’clock in the morning. But what a journey that was.
DE: Wow.
GB: Taking him there. Just part of my experience of it but lorry driving and then I got a PSV didn’t I? I got I didn’t work weekends so a local company asked me if I’d do jobs for them and they give me all sorts of jobs. Some of the jobs I really liked but I used to go to Liverpool every Saturday to take people who were going to the Isle of Man and they crossed over on the ferry. I stayed and I met The Isle of Man man he’d come over from there. So he’d picked my passengers up I’d dropped before.
DE: Yeah.
GB: And we all had a meal on the Merseyside and he went back over to the Isle of Man and I come back bringing the people back to Grimsby. It was a Grimsby firm, quite a big one but a big, I’ll tell you what happened there which Alan will know. In the ‘60s firms were buying other firms out and then shutting them.
DE: Yeah.
GB: So a firm from Newcastle bought Granville Tours out which was Grimsby and shut them within weeks and we had busses going everywhere. Scotland. Holidays and you know. Isle of Man. Isle of Wight. All over. All over. Anyway, they shut them. Out of work. But the firm I worked for which my son worked for [unclear] got took over by Ross’s and then I’m cutting this story short I’d been there twenty years hadn’t I? Something like. I got a good, I’d got a good pension coming because what’s the firm? Imperial Tobacco.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Imperial Tobacco had bought Ross’s out to shut them. They didn’t know at the time but I did that the Imperial Tobacco Company bought Ross Group, Ross Foods out so they’re now paying me my pension. They made me redundant. I didn’t mind that because I’m with Imperial Food. So to this day I’m getting a good pension but they keep sending me letters. They’ve packed up. I think they’ve give up on me. Would you like to have a, get your full pension money? So I talked it over with my wife. I said this is dead lucky how I’ve been in this. I said, ‘No. Keep, keep giving me my pension which I get to this day.
DE: Fabulous.
GB: And I’m ninety three now and they’ve been sending it me since I was in my sixties after I retired. Ten years. When you take a lump sum rather than your pension. No. No. Keep sending me my pension.
DE: Brilliant.
GB: And you see I’m ninety three and getting a pension off them that was in the ‘60s, I mean that’s dead lucky. That’s just lucky.
DE: Yeah. Smashing. I think unless you can think of another story to tell me you’ve been talking for fifty minutes so unless you’ve got something else to tell me I’ll say thank you very much and we’ll stop now.
GB: No. No. It’s a brief thing of what I can remember. But I enjoyed the wartime.
[recording paused]
DE: Right. So tell me about being evacuated.
GB: Well, I wasn’t.
DE: No.
GB: I wasn’t evacuated.
DE: Tell me the story.
GB: Right. We were told at school as they were evacuating people from London and different areas weren’t they? All over. Evacuation was going. Anyway, we were told, ‘You’re going to be evacuated to Canada.’ And so we got gas masks, my parents took me down to the big college that’s no longer there, Eleanor Street. Forgot what it’s, swimming pool, college and we’re all lined up there and we were waiting to hear when we were going and how we were going. We’d gone down. We’re all there. My mum and dad took me and it come on the radio that the German submarine had sunk a ship to Canada with schoolkids on. I can’t give you the detail but I know it certainly happened. I can’t tell you what ship and how many but the thing was this ship got sunk with, with evacuees on it outside Canada so we all, we were all told to return home. You’re not going because of this. This. Now, I know it happened but I can’t tell you the ship because I, but it certainly happened and we were waiting to go to Canada. I was waiting outside the school for, to see where we were going, Liverpool or wherever and it got cancelled that morning because of this ship had been sunk off the Canadian coast. It was going to Canada with schoolkids in. I know the casualties were heavy you know but I don’t know. I’m a bit vague on that except I know it did happen.
DE: Yeah. Yeah.
GB: That’s all I can tell you.
DE: I’ve heard that story too. Yeah. That must have been horrible to think that you were going to be leaving your family and going all the way over there.
GB: Yeah. Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Well, they took us. I can remember standing, gas mask on standing out with all these other school kids to be processed to see what, what train you were going on and what thing, you know. I mean it was while we were coming, I didn’t hear this like but the authorities heard that the ship had been sunk and a lot of a lot of schoolkids had got killed on that boat.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Drowned on that boat because it was sunk by a submarine. So they decided they weren’t going to do it.
DE: So then it, then it was back home and —
GB: Aye. Well, got to say that. What would it be. I would say, I’m guessing here now ’43 ’44.
DE: Yeah. I think –
GB: Around that time.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Around that time when everything was happening.
DE: Yeah.
GB: It wasn’t later on because it was in the early part of the war.
DE: Yeah.
GB: Maybe ’42.
DE: Well, we can look up. I can’t remember when it, when it was but I know the story.
GB: I think you would. I think if you research it you’ll find what it was and when it was.
DE: Yeah.
GB: But I’m only telling you what we were told.
DE: Yeah.
GB: We were told you’re no longer going. A submarine has sunk an immigrant boat with a lot of casualties.
DE: Yeah.
GB: So we decided you’re not going.
DE: Yeah.
GB: You’re not going to go.
DE: Crikey.
GB: But we were there waiting to go. Waiting to find out where we were going to go. Liverpool I’m assuming. Like Liverpool if you’re going to Canada. Over the other side.
DE: Yeah. Smashing. Thank you.
GB: 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
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Interview with Geoff Brown
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-10-06
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:54:56 Audio Recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending review
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.
Identifier
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ABrownG231006, PBrownG2301
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Grimsby
France
France--Paris
North Africa
Egypt
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Geoff grew up in Grimsby and remembers picking a butterfly bomb up and taking it home.
Geoff was born and lived in the same area of Grimsby all his life, at the date of his interview he was 93. The first part of the interview concentrated on his experience of finding a German butterfly bomb close to his home, Geoff described how after an air raid the local children would explore the local area looking for shrapnel. On this particular day when he was about 13, he and a friend found this device which looked different, he asked a soldier what it might be but he didn’t know. His friends father did not want it in their house and Geoff’s father said the same thing although they did not know what it was. Geoff was standing outside their house when a bomb disposal team came by probably looking for the bomblets. They told Geoff to drop it they then surrounded it with sandbags and detonated it with a small explosive charge which blew out some of the house windows. Geoff considered himself to be lucky as although they had mistreated the device it had not exploded, he also made the point that no one knew what they were as the authorities decided not to issue any information about the bomblets. He could not remember any anti aircraft guns locally but did remembers a large gun nearby.
Geoff described how his father a fisherman had build an Anderson air-raid shelter in their back garden and when the sirens alerted them to a raid the whole family gathered there. He described how one night a German aircraft caught in the searchlight beam dived down and dropped their bomb quite close to the house. He made the point that air raids on Grimsby were not that frequent unlike Hull just across the river, although Grimsby at that time was a major fishing port where literally you could cross the harbour stepping from one trawler to the next. Geoff remembered that early in the war the aircraft they saw were German but later on the large formations of Lancasters were evident.
Having left school at 14 he went to work at the local Rolls Royce dealership as an apprentice but disliked the work. Just post the European war conscription was still in place but Geoff volunteered to join the army for five years as you could choose your job and were paid more. He was trained as a signaller, his initial posting was the army headquarters in Paris which as it was just post war Eisenhour and Montgomery were there. Geoff was then posted to Egypt which was very different to Paris, living in tents awful food. Another lucky escape happened there, with a group of soldiers they were digging trenches by hand to be used as latrines, a fellow corporal told Geoff take your troops and go for a break then come back and relieve me, but the trench collapsed and killed them as Geoff and his group were on break.
Having completed his time in the army Geoff became a lorry driver during the week and a taxi driver at the weekend and he remembered the filming of Memphis Belle at RAF Binbrook.
Almost as a postscript Geoff remembered another lucky escape, early in the war in many towns and cities the school children were evacuated to safer areas to escape the German bombers. He remembers being gathered at school expecting to be told that they were being evacuated to Canada but a ship carrying evacuees had been sunk near the Canadian coast so the plan was abandoned.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Trevor Hardcastle
Julie Williams
bombing
childhood in wartime
evacuation
home front
military living conditions
searchlight
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2561/43737/PHuntWR20010012.1.jpg
4c572ab66a068d43cdd6a9939f02cb22
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
Hunt, William Richard. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 18 photographs showing various scenes of Gibraltar, and Oran (Algeria). Also included are various images of aircraft, and RAF stations prior to the war. <br /><br />The collection concerns Sergeant William Richard Hunt (520376 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an observer with 35 Squadron and was killed 19 May 1942. The collection includes an album with scenes of Gibraltar and Oran (Algeria), pre-war aircraft and RAF stations. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William John Hastings and catalogued by Benjamin Turner. Additional information on William Richard Hunt is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/214002/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-01-27
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hunt, WR
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
Personnel standing at Arzew flying boat station
Description
An account of the resource
Naval personnel standing by the quayside with dockyard machinery in the background. The nose of X and the M Short Singapore flying boats can be seen.
The caption accompanying the photographs reads "5;11;37. 11.00 . HOURS. "
Additional information kindly provided by Frank Schilder.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1937-11-05
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1937-11-05
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 Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHuntWR20010012
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
North Africa
Algeria
Algeria--Arzew
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frank Schilder
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2561/43735/PHuntWR20010010.2.jpg
612762c9d38efb979e302df5df7936a5
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
Hunt, William Richard. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 18 photographs showing various scenes of Gibraltar, and Oran (Algeria). Also included are various images of aircraft, and RAF stations prior to the war. <br /><br />The collection concerns Sergeant William Richard Hunt (520376 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an observer with 35 Squadron and was killed 19 May 1942. The collection includes an album with scenes of Gibraltar and Oran (Algeria), pre-war aircraft and RAF stations. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William John Hastings and catalogued by Benjamin Turner. Additional information on William Richard Hunt is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/214002/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-01-27
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hunt, WR
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
Arzew flying boat station
Description
An account of the resource
Top left shows a marquee tent with an aircraft behind it.
Centre shows a crane vessel suspending a Short Singapore X on the water. Men can be seen standing on the crane vessel and two men are standing on the aircraft's wings.
Top right shows workmen behind a wall, in the background there can be seen to be huts and machinery.
Bottom left shows a Short Singapore flying boat M, with other aircraft behind. Dockworkers can be seen on the quay, with the HMS Cyclops in the background.
Bottom right shows a group of nine men on the deck of ship. A rowing boat can be seen hanging behind them.
Identification kindly provided by Frank Schilder.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five b/w photographs on an album page
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending identification. Things
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHuntWR20010010
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
North Africa
Algeria
Algeria--Arzew
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frank Schilder
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2561/43732/PHuntWR20010007.1.jpg
6ad12990064feda0429b5264e645b32a
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
Hunt, William Richard. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 18 photographs showing various scenes of Gibraltar, and Oran (Algeria). Also included are various images of aircraft, and RAF stations prior to the war. <br /><br />The collection concerns Sergeant William Richard Hunt (520376 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an observer with 35 Squadron and was killed 19 May 1942. The collection includes an album with scenes of Gibraltar and Oran (Algeria), pre-war aircraft and RAF stations. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William John Hastings and catalogued by Benjamin Turner. Additional information on William Richard Hunt is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/214002/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-01-27
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hunt, WR
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
Ship and airmen
Description
An account of the resource
The top photograph shows Canadian Pacific ocean liner S.S. MONTCLARE, Captioned with 16,314 gross tonnage.
The bottom photograph shows a group of RAF personnel in uniform standing in front of a building.
The photographs are accompanied by a caption which says "No. I. G. R. [General Reconnaissance] WING. (ARZEW) . 25;9;37" .
Additional information kindly provided by Frank Schilder.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1937-09-25
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHuntWR20010007
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
North Africa
Algeria
Algeria--Arzew
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frank Schilder
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2330/43393/LClarkHA532059v2.1.pdf
5b3fb05ff0650d27a3ac2e68c5cf300c
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
Clark, Herbert Ashton
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection concerns Wing Commander Herbert Ashton Clark (b. 1911, 532059, 43414 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books. He flew operations as a pilot with 37 Squadron from the UK and North Africa.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Wayne Clark and catalogued by Nick Cornwell-Smith.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-12-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clark, HA
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LClarkHA532059v2
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Title
A name given to the resource
Herbert Ashton Clark's pilots flying log book. Two
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
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot’s flying log book for Flight Sergeant Herbert Ashton Clark from 8 March 1937 to 20 August 1956. Detailing operational posting in Iraq with 70 Squadron. On return to England further training with 215 Squadron. Conversion to the Wellington at 11 OTU followed by posting to 37 Squadron in August 1940. Posted to the Middle East in November 1940. Promoted to Squadron Leader and then Wing Commander during this posting. Awarded DSO and DFC.
Stationed at RAF Hinaidi, RAF Driffield, RAF Manston, RAF Honington, RAF Bramcote, RAF Bassingbourn, RAF Feltwell, RAF Shallufa. Returned to England post-war staying in the RAF. Aircraft flown were Valentia, Harrow, Wellington, Magister, Lysander, Maryland, Fiat CR42, B26, Harvard, Auster, Proctor, Anson, and Prentice.
He flew 1 propaganda leaflet drop with 11 OTU, 1 day and 21 night operations with 37 Squadron in Europe. Targets were St Omer, Eindhoven, Soest, Osnabruck, Frankfurt, Stockum, Bottrop, Hannover, the Black Forest, Gelsenkirchen, Hamm, Flushing, Bitterfeld, Rotterdam, Mannheim, Leipzig, Kiel, Hamburg, Berlin.
12 day and 18 night operations with 37 Squadron and 257 Wing in the Middle East. Targets were Benina, El Adem, Derna, Berca, Bardia, Tobruk, Benghazi, Rhodes, Brindisi, Halfaya, Marble Arch landing ground, Heraklion, Misurata, Homs, Palermo, Gabes, the Mareth Line, El Hamma, Kourba, Pantelleria, Villa San Giovanni, Vibo Valentia, Adrano, Cape Peloro. Posted to HQ RAF Middle East where carried out 28 day supply dropping operations.
Post war career included postings to Air Division Control Commission Germany, Flying Training Command, 41 Group, 22 Maintenance Unit and RAF Negombo, Sri Lanka.
Log book also contains Form 3921 – Aircrew Qualification Record, a 1949 calendar and Form 2745 Record of Service, Educational and Professional Qualifications.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-08-09
1940-08-10
1940-08-15
1940-08-16
1940-08-17
1940-08-18
1940-08-19
1940-08-20
1940-08-24
1940-08-25
1940-08-26
1940-08-27
1940-08-29
1940-08-30
1940-09-01
1940-09-02
1940-09-04
1940-09-05
1940-09-07
1940-09-08
1940-09-12
1940-09-13
1940-09-14
1940-09-15
1940-09-20
1940-09-21
1940-09-29
1940-09-30
1940-10-02
1940-10-03
1940-10-05
1940-10-08
1940-10-09
1940-10-10
1940-10-11
1940-10-14
1940-10-15
1940-10-16
1940-10-17
1940-10-21
1940-10-22
1940-10-23
1940-10-24
1940-10-25
1940-10-26
1940-12-08
1940-12-10
1940-12-11
1940-12-13
1940-12-14
1940-12-17
1940-12-18
1940-12-20
1940-12-21
1941-01-02
1941-01-05
1941-01-13
1941-01-14
1941-01-20
1941-01-22
1941-02-16
1942-11-07
1942-11-08
1942-11-25
1942-11-26
1942-12-02
1942-12-03
1942-12-22
1942-12-23
1943-01-08
1943-01-16
1943-01-17
1943-02-03
1943-02-04
1943-02-24
1943-02-25
1943-03-17
1943-03-19
1943-03-20
1943-03-25
1943-03-26
1943-04-13
1943-04-14
1943-06-10
1943-06-27
1943-06-28
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
1943-08-01
1943-08-08
1943-08-09
1944-02-29
1944-03-02
1944-03-25
1944-05-05
1944-05-15
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-02
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-16
1944-06-27
1944-07-03
1944-07-12
1944-07-25
1944-07-27
1944-08-03
1944-08-15
1944-08-17
1944-08-19
1944-08-22
1944-08-25
1944-08-29
1944-09-07
1944-09-12
1944-09-16
1944-10-13
1944-10-21
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Kent
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Warwickshire
France
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bitterfeld-Wolfen
Germany--Black Forest
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Soest
Greece
Greece--Ērakleion
Greece--Rhodes (Island)
Iraq
Italy
Italy--Adrano
Italy--Brindisi
Italy--Palermo
Italy--Pantelleria Island
Italy--Vibo Valentia
Italy--Villa San Giovanni
Libya
Libya--Al Adm
Libya--Banghāzī
Libya--Bardiyah
Libya--Darnah
Libya--Miṣrātah
Libya--Ra's Lanuf
Libya--Tobruk
Netherlands
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Syria
Syria--Homs
Tunisia
Tunisia--Mareth Line
Tunisia--Qābis
North Africa
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
11 OTU
215 Squadron
37 Squadron
70 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-26
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Harrow
Harvard
Lysander
Magister
Operational Training Unit
pilot
Proctor
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Bramcote
RAF Digby
RAF Driffield
RAF Feltwell
RAF Honington
RAF Leconfield
RAF Manston
RAF Shallufa
RAF Silloth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2052/42816/LSouterKP129001v1.1.pdf
cbe847749ea7ad0bea26e83052ee0656
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
Souter, Kenneth Place
K P Souter
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-07-10
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Souter, KP
Description
An account of the resource
30 items. An oral history interview with Kenneth Souter (b. 1919, 129001 Royal Air Force), his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a fighter pilot with 73 Squadron in North Africa and as a test pilot. After the war he flew Lancasters during the filming of The Dam Busters film in 1954.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ken Souter's pilot's flying log book. One
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LSouterKP129001v1
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot's flying log book. One, for Ken Souter. Covering the period from 5 July 1939 to 27 April 1945. Detailing his flying training, operational flying and instructor duties. He was stationed No.43 Elementary and Reserve flying traing School at RAF Woolsington, No.22 Elementary Flying Training School RAF Cambridge, No.9 Elementary Flying Training School RAF Ansty, No,5 Operational Training Unit RAF Aston Down, 43 Squadron RAF Acklington and RAF Ismalia, 73 Squadron RAF Gazala, RAF El Adam, RAF Abu Sueir, RAF Bu Amud and RAF El Gubbi, 102 maintenance Unit RAF Abu Sueir, 108 Maintenance Unit RAF El Firdan, No.1 Delivery Unit RAF Wadi Natrun, test Pilot RAF Port Sudan, RAF Summit and RAF Sidi Henish, No.8 Air Gunnery School RAF Evanton, 867 Squadron RAF Detling, 771 Squadron RNAS Twatt. Aircraft flown in were, Tiger Moth, Hart, Audax, Harvard, Hurricane, Blenheim, Wellington, Lysander, Valencia, Tomahawk, Bombay, Maryland, Vincent, Magister, Lockheed, DC2, Oxford, Kittyhawk, Hardy, Boston, Douglas, Lodestar, JU52, Gladiator, Sunderland, DC3, Clipper, Prefect, Master, Hind, Martinet, Anson, Dominie, DH86, Hind and Corsair. He flew 41 operational sorties with 43 and 73 squadrons, these are described as patrol, scramble, search, and reconnaissance.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Great Britain
Libya
Sudan
Egypt--Ismailia (Province)
Egypt--Natrun Valley
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Kent
England--Northumberland
England--Warwickshire
Libya--Cyrenaica
Libya--Tobruk
Scotland--Orkney
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Sudan--Port Sudan
North Africa
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940-12-04
1941-02-04
1941-02-12
1941-02-18
1941-02-22
1941-02-27
1941-03-03
1941-03-05
1941-03-09
1941-03-10
1941-03-15
1941-03-16
1941-03-18
1941-03-24
1941-03-28
1941-04-01
1941-04-02
1941-04-04
1941-04-06
1941-04-07
1941-04-08
1941-04-09
1941-04-11
1941-04-12
1941-04-13
1941-05-03
1941-05-08
1941-05-12
1941-05-13
1941-05-16
1942
1943
1944
1945
43 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
Blenheim
Boston
C-47
Dominie
Flying Training School
Harvard
Hurricane
Ju 52
Lysander
Magister
Martinet
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
P-40
pilot
RAF Abu Sueir
RAF Ansty
RAF Aston Down
RAF Evanton
Sunderland
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42436/LGosneyG568331v1.2.pdf
000e64029fef9c4c9be87eb68fc0e97b
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
Gosney, Geoffrey
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey Gosney (b. 1919, 568331, 54247 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, service documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 426, 462 and 428 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Susan Hassell and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-18
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gosney, G
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
Observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Geoffrey Gosney. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-07-12
1942-07-13
1942-07-15
1942-07-16
1942-07-24
1942-07-25
1942-07-28
1942-07-29
1942-08-04
1942-08-05
1942-08-09
1942-08-10
1942-08-13
1942-08-14
1942-08-19
1942-08-20
1942-08-23
1942-08-24
1942-08-29
1942-08-30
1942-09-13
1942-09-14
1942-10-07
1942-10-08
1942-10-12
1942-10-21
1942-10-22
1942-10-29
1942-10-30
1942-11-02
1942-11-03
1942-11-05
1942-11-06
1942-11-07
1942-11-08
1942-11-09
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-09-26
1944-09-28
1944-09-29
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-10
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-24
1945-03-25
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Marsá Maṭrūḥ
Egypt--Halfaya Pass
Egypt--Sallūm
Libya
Libya--Tobruk
Middle East--Palestine
Israel
Israel--Yavneh
France
France--Audinghen
France--Calais
France--Coulonvillers
France--La Pallice
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Goch
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Dorsten
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Greece
Greece--Maleme
France--Cap Gris Nez
Description
An account of the resource
This log book covers the training, operational and post war flying career of Geoffrey Gosney from 2 July 1942 to 12 July 1951. It includes a cartoon of the 426 Squadron crest. Geoffrey flew 31 operations in two tours of duty, 23 of which were night operations with 10, 227, 426, 428 and 462 Squadrons. Targets in Egypt, Libya, France, Germany and Greece were Calais, Cap Gris Nez, Dorsten, Frankfurt, Goch, Hanau, Leverkusen, Maleme, Marsa Matruh, Mönchengladbach, Münster, Rheine, Sallum, Soda Bay, Tobruk and Wanne-Eickel. Pilots in operations were Squadron Leader Goldston, Sergeant Wyatt, Flight Officer McGregor, Flying Officer Kagna, Wing Commander Burgess, Flight Lieutenant Garratt, Flight Officer Brodie, Pilot Officer Fuller, Wing Commander Black and Flight Lieutenant Davies. During March, April and May Geoffrey’s duty in the Halifax VII is described in his log book as ‘’screening”. In 1946/47 he was involved in the transport of troops and the dropping of paratroopers and the transportation of freight and troops in the Middle East. Back in the UK he took part in a formation fly past over Banbury. In February 1948 his duties are again described as “screening’ in the Halifax but now with ‘Flying Wing’ at Fairford. Geoffrey remained in the Royal Air Force and served in Palestine. He took part in the Berlin Airlift, transporting coal to Berlin. Transferred to RAF Hemswell with 97 Squadron.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGosneyG568331v10071
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Lynn Corrigan
10 Squadron
1652 HCU
1664 HCU
227 Squadron
425 Squadron
426 Squadron
428 Squadron
462 Squadron
620 Squadron
97 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Battle
bombing
Defiant
forced landing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Halifax Mk 7
Harrow
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Aqir
RAF Barrow in Furness
RAF Dishforth
RAF Fairford
RAF Hemswell
RAF Lyneham
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42424/PGosneyG1803.1.jpg
0fe2e84a1d713a1ed4c0bd29128f3d32
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42424/PGosneyG1804.1.jpg
4fd3c0fc6fef8bf573f164635d5364cd
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
Gosney, Geoffrey
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey Gosney (b. 1919, 568331, 54247 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, service documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 426, 462 and 428 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Susan Hassell and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-18
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gosney, G
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
Great Bitter Lake
Description
An account of the resource
Three bareheaded men in open necked desert uniform. Taken outdoors, standing on sand with a military tent to the side. Annotated on the reverse 'Great Bitter Lake August 1942'.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-08
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Suez Canal
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PGosneyG1803, PGosneyG1804
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-08
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42418/MGosneyG568331-180418-010001.2.jpg
452e726601c02f1c380d7de68343d726
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42418/MGosneyG568331-180418-010002.2.jpg
3afd5d4f9283c8d7a59596c3fe1442a6
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
Gosney, Geoffrey
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey Gosney (b. 1919, 568331, 54247 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, service documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 426, 462 and 428 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Susan Hassell and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-18
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gosney, G
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
List of operations
Description
An account of the resource
Operational flights undertaken by Geoffrey Gosney between 3 May 1942 and 8 November 1942 in France, Germany, North Africa, Egypt, and Crete for a total of 380.10 hours.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten lists
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MGosneyG568331-180418-010001, MGosneyG568331-180418-010002
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
France
North Africa
Egypt
Greece--Crete
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
flight engineer
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2333/42225/PCrossK22010015.1.jpg
feb4954e81aac818f83e5d07b9cce95a
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
Cross, Kathleen. Album
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. An album with newspaper cuttings, photographs and postcards covering RAF personnel and establishments in West Malling, Penarth and Peterborough.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-05-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cross, K
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
Newspaper cuttings
Description
An account of the resource
Report on recruiting and reforming squadron including photograph of Flight Lieutenant Mellersh, Mr Proudlove, and Squadron Leader Norman Hayes. Photograph of Group Captain John Cunningham following record breaking flights.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1954
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Kent
North Africa
North Africa
Sudan
Sudan--Khartoum
Libya--Tripoli
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four newspaper cuttings in an album
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCrossK22010014, PCrossK22010015
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
RAF Biggin Hill
recruitment
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41856/PKellettR1933.1.jpg
6c41b1f1fff3585f01573ef46d49991d
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
Kellett, Richard
Kellett, R
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Air Commodore Richard Kellett (Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, photographs and prisoner of war diaries. In 1938 he flew a Wellesley from Egypt to Australia and later flew operations as a pilot and the commanding officer of 149 Squadron. He was captured near Tobruk in 1942 and was Senior British Officer at Stalag Luft 3 at the time of the Wooden Horse escape.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel Kellett and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-12-19
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kellett, R
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
Winston Churchill's arrival in Egypt
Description
An account of the resource
Churchill being received by officers as he leaves a Dakota.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
North Africa
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PKellettR1933
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.
C-47
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41855/PKellettR1932.2.jpg
e3d785c58d283797b9fae194b4c85864
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
Kellett, Richard
Kellett, R
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Air Commodore Richard Kellett (Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, photographs and prisoner of war diaries. In 1938 he flew a Wellesley from Egypt to Australia and later flew operations as a pilot and the commanding officer of 149 Squadron. He was captured near Tobruk in 1942 and was Senior British Officer at Stalag Luft 3 at the time of the Wooden Horse escape.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel Kellett and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-12-19
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kellett, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] Western Desert: [/underlined]
[underlined] 270 Wing Headquarters Staff [/underlined]
[underlined] Royal Air Force. [/underlined]
Back row: (l-r)
F/Lt. Jackson, P/O. J.H. Dales, P/O. Willis.
Centre:
F/O. Walter, P/O. Young, F/O. Nicholson, P/O. Prout, P/O. Stevenson, F/O. Jenkins.
Sitting: F/L. Woodcraft, F/L. Eric Ormonde, W/Cdr. R.N. Bateson, G/C R. KELLET (CO), S/Ldr. Durbin, Capt. O’Sullivan, F/L. Simpson.
Taken at Gambut : January, 1942. Moved to Benghazi, and then disbanded.
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
Western Desert: 270 Wing Headquarters Staff Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
16 airmen arranged in three rows. Underneath each man is named. Richard Kellett is front row, centre.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-01
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt--Western Desert
North Africa
Libya--Banghāzī
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PKellettR1932
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Cara Walmsley
aircrew
pilot
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41854/PKellettR1930.2.jpg
1ee959f056244da5312773dbeda6baed
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41854/PKellettR1931.2.jpg
e930ebc9c55d848fd2b143d523508a63
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
Kellett, Richard
Kellett, R
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Air Commodore Richard Kellett (Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, photographs and prisoner of war diaries. In 1938 he flew a Wellesley from Egypt to Australia and later flew operations as a pilot and the commanding officer of 149 Squadron. He was captured near Tobruk in 1942 and was Senior British Officer at Stalag Luft 3 at the time of the Wooden Horse escape.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel Kellett and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-12-19
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kellett, R
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
Blenheim Wing, Western Desert
Description
An account of the resource
A group of air and ground crew,. One man is marked in blue ink. On the reverse is handwritten '[indecipherable] Blenheim Wing in the Western Desert 1941' and is stamped RAF no objection 7 Dec 1941.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-12-07
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-12-07
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt--Western Desert
North Africa
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PKellettR1930, PKellettR1931
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.
aircrew
Blenheim
ground crew
ground personnel
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41605/NKellettR191219-010001.2.jpg
07e19a6cf1084db4b1e954f9867acf92
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41605/NKellettR191219-010002.2.jpg
932d2e11368b3d8a844ddef10f3e52e7
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
Kellett, Richard
Kellett, R
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Air Commodore Richard Kellett (Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, photographs and prisoner of war diaries. In 1938 he flew a Wellesley from Egypt to Australia and later flew operations as a pilot and the commanding officer of 149 Squadron. He was captured near Tobruk in 1942 and was Senior British Officer at Stalag Luft 3 at the time of the Wooden Horse escape.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel Kellett and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-12-19
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kellett, R
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air Commodore Richard Kellet's Obituary
Description
An account of the resource
An obituary published in the Times with a second cutting with a correction from an air vice-marshal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1990-01-20
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Australia
Northern Territory--Darwin
Germany
Iraq
Japan
Germany
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Libya--Tobruk
Africa--Rhodesia and Nyasaland
North Africa
Egypt--Ismailia (Province)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two newspaper cuttings
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NKellettR191219-010001, NKellettR191219-010002
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1939-09-04
1939-12-18
1942
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
149 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Distinguished Flying Cross
pilot
prisoner of war
Stalag Luft 3
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41602/EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-020001.jpg
87f3a769d02d63c42d57f42a41fb8052
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41602/EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-020002.jpg
f73fd8ca95d1036ca370f9e5df75beae
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
Kellett, Richard
Kellett, R
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Air Commodore Richard Kellett (Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, photographs and prisoner of war diaries. In 1938 he flew a Wellesley from Egypt to Australia and later flew operations as a pilot and the commanding officer of 149 Squadron. He was captured near Tobruk in 1942 and was Senior British Officer at Stalag Luft 3 at the time of the Wooden Horse escape.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel Kellett and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-12-19
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kellett, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[RAF crest]
ROYAL AIR FORCE,
ISMAILIA,
EGYPT.
[indecipherable]
My darling mother
Thank you all at home so much for your very kind wishes of congratulations and you letter which arrived today.
Every thing [sic] went extremely well and it could not have [indecipherable] and a pleasanter trip. I am so sorry I have not answered your wire before but not until this moment I had been thinking I had done so. I now realise it was just imagination.
We are all extremely fit except that one or two of us have been caught out by the sun [symbol] the sea water and are [indecipherable] several blisters. I have just returned from a week end [sic] at Aboukir where I was staying with [indecipherable] [symbol] Jacqueline. I was simply marvellous and I was sorry I had to come back. [indecipherable] family are all very fit and full of enquires after you, [symbol] sends you his fondest love.
We are standing by to return home on Thursday depending on suitable weather reports. We hope to leave at 5am. and get to Hereford by about 7pm. that evening. All engines and aircraft were in wonderful condition and there has been nothing whatever to do to them but routine maintenance.
I shall be at Hereford for about a week before going on some leave.
That is very good of ross to arrange for my car in that way – I do hope they will make a sound job of it wherever it is done. All new when I see you in a few days time.
All my love Richard.
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/.
Description
An account of the resource
His trip to Egypt went well and they are preparing to return to the UK.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard Kellet
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
North Africa
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One double sided handwritten sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-020001, EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-020002
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.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Richard Kellet to his mother
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Cara Walmsley
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41601/EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-010001.jpg
bc73396d3f177c393aba2163e3b411e3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2294/41601/EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-010002.jpg
a2d8b5ddbb7eaa639660242389363fc9
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
Kellett, Richard
Kellett, R
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Air Commodore Richard Kellett (Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, photographs and prisoner of war diaries. In 1938 he flew a Wellesley from Egypt to Australia and later flew operations as a pilot and the commanding officer of 149 Squadron. He was captured near Tobruk in 1942 and was Senior British Officer at Stalag Luft 3 at the time of the Wooden Horse escape.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel Kellett and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-12-19
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kellett, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[RAF Stamp]
TELEGRAMS AIRCOLL SLEAFORD
TELEPHONE 300 SLEAFORD
OFFICERS’ MESS,
ROYAL AIR FORCE,
CRANWELL,
LINCOLNSHIRE.
[underlined] Wednesday evening [/underlined]
Darling Mother
We will be off in a few hours from now [symbol] well on the way by the time you get this.
We are leaving at 4am. tomorrow (Thursday) morning [symbol] should arrive in Egypt on Friday afternoon.
It has been an [indecipherable word]
[page break]
rush since we came up here trying to get all the last things fixed up. I think everything is settled now. The weather improved over Europe very suddenly and we are seizing the first opportunity of getting away.
The mouth is still rather tender in places, but no more pain. I saw the dentist here about the other 2 and he said they could well be left like I rethinked [sic], and it was
[page break]
All rather important that I could chew on one side of the mouth.
I do hope Marcus is behaving and that Gerald will [indecipherable word] him somehow this week end.
I here [indecipherable word] thanked Margaret [symbol] Cecil for their kindness.
I had a note from Ross today enclosing the receipt for the car. I am afraid the estimate they were going to sent on to me will arrive
[page break]
too late, so I am leaving instructions for all the mail to be addressed to you and I should like Ross to vet the estimate and give them the OK to go ahead with the work. I assume he gave them my list of instructions.
Well goodbye to you for the moment
I’ll be seeing you again in a few weeks time.
All my love to you
Richard
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/.
Description
An account of the resource
Richard is about to depart to Egypt. He hopes to see her in a few weeks.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard Kellet
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Egypt
North Africa
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two double sided handwritten sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-010001, EKellettRKellett[Mo][Date]-010002
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.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Richard Kellet to his mother
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Cara Walmsley
mess
RAF Cranwell
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2290/41508/LJasinskiT780866v1.2.pdf
ef1421141c0652fa67b0a234e9bea737
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
Jasinski, Tadeusz
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Tadeusz Jasinski (1918 - 2003, 780866 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs and medals. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 304 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Nicholas Jasinski and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-06-24
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jasinski, T
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
Tadeusz Jasinski’s Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LJasinskiT780866v1
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Description
An account of the resource
Tadeusz Jasinski’s Flying Log Book as a wireless operator from 9 May 1941 to 14 October 1945. Carried out training at No. 2 Signal School, 4 Air Observer School (air gunner training) and 18 OTU, Posted to 304 (Polish) squadron for operations in January 1942. Undertook bombing operations and then anti-submarine sweeps when squadron was transferred to Coastal Command. In February 1944 posted to 216 Squadron (Transport Command) based in the Middle East. From November 1944, posted to 167 Squadron. His final posting was to 301 Squadron in July 1945.
Served at RAF Yatesbury, RAF West Freugh, RAF Bramcote, RAF Bitteswell, RAF Lindholme, RAF Tiree, RAF Dale, RAF Cairo West (LG224), RAF Holmsley South, RAF Blackbushe, RAF North Weald. Aircraft flown were Dominie, Proctor, Battle, Wellington, Tiger Moth, C47, B24, Warwick,
Flew on 14 bombing operations (1 day and 13 night) and 39 day anti-submarine sweeps with 304 Squadron. The bombing targets were Boulogne, Emden, Dunkerque, Cologne, Hamburg, Essen, Dortmund, Hamburg, Rostock, Bordeaux, Bremen. The anti-submarine sweeps were over the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Biscay.
His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Kucharski (35 operations), Sergeant Janski (1 operation), Flying Officer Zurek (16 operations), Sergeant Gotebiowski (1 operation).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-01-28
1942-01-29
1942-03-12
1942-03-13
1942-04-05
1942-04-06
1942-04-08
1942-04-09
1942-04-10
1942-04-11
1942-04-12
1942-04-13
1942-04-14
1942-04-15
1942-04-17
1942-04-18
1942-04-23
1942-04-24
1942-04-25
1942-04-26
1942-04-27
1942-05-18
1942-05-20
1942-05-23
1942-05-26
1942-05-27
1942-05-31
1942-06-05
1942-06-07
1942-06-25
1942-06-26
1942-07-18
1942-07-22
1942-07-29
1942-07-30
1942-08-01
1942-08-09
1942-08-11
1942-08-13
1942-08-17
1942-08-19
1942-09-02
1942-09-06
1942-09-10
1942-09-14
1942-09-17
1942-09-18
1942-09-24
1942-09-26
1942-09-30
1942-10-16
1942-10-21
1942-10-25
1942-10-29
1942-11-12
1942-11-14
1942-11-18
1942-11-20
1942-11-22
1942-11-26
1942-11-28
1942-12-02
1942-12-22
1942-12-30
1943
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Warwickshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Argyll and Bute
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Wales--Pembrokeshire
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Rostock
France
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Dunkerque
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
167 Squadron
18 OTU
216 Squadron
3 Group
301 Squadron
304 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
Battle
C-47
Dominie
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bramcote
RAF Dale
RAF Hartford Bridge
RAF Holmsley South
RAF Lindholme
RAF North Weald
RAF Tiree
RAF West Freugh
RAF Yatesbury
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2238/41491/MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040001.1.jpg
7ca2e930e55a0f58a77aeb86611d3e05
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2238/41491/MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040002.1.jpg
42a7d2408d0eb3f395cf2386ef196fe1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2238/41491/MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040003.1.jpg
41dcae4ce9bde86496a41d71863a5cc3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2238/41491/MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040004.1.jpg
97d3203b80f8474101422f8c7ee6a534
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
Fairbanks, Leonard William
Fairbanks, LW
Description
An account of the resource
16 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Leonard William Fairbanks (b. 1911, 1061800, 136326 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, photographs, and propaganda leaflets in French.
He flew operations as a wireless operator and a special operator with 408 and 223 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jean Carol Carter and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Fairbanks, LW
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
Le Courrier de l'Air
Description
An account of the resource
Winston Churchill being cheered in Sheffield; naval warfare in the Atlantic; German invasion of Russia; actions of the Free French Forces plus photographs of various military leaders.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Propaganda Warfare Executive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Sheffield
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Alexandria
Russia (Federation)
Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg
United States
New York (State)
New York (State)--New York
Language
A language of the resource
fra
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four printed sheets
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Other languages than English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040001, MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040002, MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040003, MFairbanksLW10611800-180215-040004
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
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
propaganda
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1963/41316/PLazenbyHJ21010001.1.jpg
b941ebab4ddceaa4fb99870917f71157
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
Lazenby, Harold Jack
H J Lazenby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-10
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
Lazenby, HJ
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Harold Jack Lazenby DFC (b. 1917, 652033 Royal Air Force) and contains his memoir, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 57, 97 and 7 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Daniel, H Jack Lazenby and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Informal meeting
Description
An account of the resource
A group of officers and airmen in khaki at an informal meeting at the entrance to a hangar. In the centre of the group is a senior officer. In the hangar is a Hudson.
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PLazenbyHJ21010001
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
North Africa
Algeria
Algeria--Blida
aircrew
hangar
Hudson