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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/894/11134/AHyndC171115.2.mp3
7703d85d1a928e6d8f6c63dd70ebb3c6
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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Hynd, Colin
C Hynd
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Colin Hynd (1925 - 2022, 1825158 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 158 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-15
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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Hynd, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach the interviewee is Colin Hynd. The interview is taking place at Mr Hynd’s home in Dunfermline on the 15th November 2017. Colin, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
CH: Well, I went to the local schools, obviously commercial school and Queen Anne’s school, and when I left school at the age of fourteen just at the beginning of the war in September 1939, I got a job in the local cinema because jobs in those days were extremely hard to find. My wage was six shillings and eight pence per week, anyway, I only lasted there a month and I went on and got two subsequent jobs in the local gents outfitters, but that wasn’t satisfying me so I went to Todds Engineers in Dunfermline and became an apprentice turner, where I did turning until 1943 when I joined the Royal Air Force, but as I was underage at the time I had to wait until I was eighteen and a quarter which was in the November of 1943, when I was called up, and went to Lord‘s Cricket Ground for various tests and what have you, and we- We did three weeks in London being kitted out, medical-ed, the usual, uniforms and what have you, and then from there went on up to Bridlington to the initial training wing up there, and did six weeks up there, doing various signalling, gunnery, of course drill and all that, and then from there, after the six weeks went to St Athans, where we did the, the flight engineers training. Unfortunately, during my early days there I developed scarlet fever, so of course I was in hospital for a month, and when I came out my actual course had moved on that far, anyway [emphasis] I carried on, various entries and anybody that was available to do the thing where you studied engines, air frames, electrics, meteorology, gunnery again of course they just - Dismantling the guns and that, education of course was a big thing in those days as well but, eventually after, something like nine months, I was awarded my stripes and my brevet, my flight engineer’s brevet. After being awarded my stripes and my brevet I was posted to a heavy conversion unit at Marston Moor which is in Yorkshire, where you then actually were working on the real aircraft which were Halifaxes. You then saw what you’d only previously seen on a blackboard, and you did that for approximately two weeks, and as well as that of course you could go get a bit of experience on a crew who were doing a night exercise or, air tests, anything like that that was available, but I didn’t get crewed up, for about three weeks at that time. Anyway, the crew that I joined, unfortunately, they all drank and I didn’t, and I wasn’t very popular because of course I didn’t go out drinking, so the pilot at that time, told the engineer’s leader that I was no use as a flight engineer. Anyway I was duly called into the office, where I was interviewed for approximately four hours over engineer- Flight engineer matters, the subsequent outcome was that I was given the job of teaching the new recruits from St Athans, the pre-flight checks, how to start the engines, how to operate the, the petrol levers and all, all that, from when they came from training school, so of course, the outcome of that was that after some weeks, I was told that- What had happened, and why I’d been removed from the crew and that, I would be offered a commission when I got to the squadron, unfortunately the war finished before we got to that stage in my career [slightly laughs], however, they – The, the aircrew without the engineer, because, people trained at different places, but all came together at the HCU, without the flight engineer because up till then they had been flying in two-engined aircraft to teach them the art of gunnery or navigation or whatever, but then when they went onto the four-engined aircraft, like the Halifax, the Lancaster, Sunderlands, they needed a flight engineer. Anyway there was a bit of a shortage at the time so I was posted to Riccall which was near Selby, where I carried on doing the same thing, teaching the newer lads the pre-flight checks and all that sort of thing and then eventually they had an intake of crews, and in those days, the crews plus the flight engineers were put into this room and the wing commander flying, then gave a lecture but this was just a ploy so that the crews could see who the flight engineers were. Anyway I was approached by one of the crew members, Johnny Prosser, who was the wireless op in this crew which were Canadian, anyway I decided to, to join them, as their flight engineer, so from there on in, I, I did the flying experience which I’d learnt prior to this on my own, I didn’t need anybody with me obviously, so that er- We did air tests, short daylight runs, a lot of night flying, because the pilot of course being new to the four engine bomber always had a pilot with him who had had experience, so of course no aircraft could take off without a flight engineer anyway [emphasis] because it was too complicated where - What you had to do as a flight engineer, so that - We then eventually moved onto the squadron, 158 which was an operational squadron, they had had a terrific loss, of personnel, they had- We had New Zealanders, South Africans, Canadians, RAF and it was a mixed squadron really, but the flight engineers of course no matter which crew you joined were always RAF, because that was the only place that trained engineers was St Athans, from then on it was just basically doing exercises and that until somebody decided you should go on a bombing trip. When that happened, you were all gathered together, into this building which was secured with armed police surrounding it so that you couldn’t get out [laughs] or the phones were cut off, you couldn’t make a phone call and you sat in this building waiting for someone to come in and remove the curtain from what the target was going to be, you were then shown the target and you were explained the, the route you would take to the target, the route out, the weather that you would meet, where the opposition was heaviest with gunfire, or fighters, things like that was all in- And then it could well happen that halfway through all this, they would decide to change the target so you then had to wait until your new target was announced which could take ages, then they would start again having looked at this new target route and the way in. Again you couldn’t go anywhere, you were, you were all right for a cup of tea [chuckles] but that was about it, and on one occasion they changed the target on three occasions, so - But again it was the old thing, just sit and wait, and wait for the people to tell you what the weather was going to be, or what the target was, the route out, the route in, because you never came back the same way, and of course it was extremely dangerous if you were on night flying because you could have anything from a thousand to fifteen-hundred aircraft in the air at any given time, and of course nobody, or very few ever stuck to the speed they were supposed to be flying at, or the height they were supposed to be flying at, because you were given a height, your squadron would fly at, say twenty-thousand feet but then behind you five-minutes later should be another squadron at nineteen-thousand-five-hundred, and they were supposed to step down like that with the gap in between, so you stopped this overflying which of course it never did because, you could be on your run up to your target, and of course you’d suddenly look up and five-hundred feet above you you’d see a bomber with its bomb doors open, so of course they couldn’t see you, so you had to abort and, well either just carry on or go round which was an extremely dangerous thing to do when you’re turning a full circle in that number of aircraft, but our pilot being a Canadian did exactly that one night, not very popular pilot [chuckles]. Anyway we had to do the run up again, and of course all the time, people are shooting at you, and once that stops you know - You then knew the fighters were up, so you had to watch for them, also of course you had the problem with searchlights, now, when you got a group of searchlights, one of them was blue, and that was the master searchlight and once that got you all the other searchlights hooked on, and of course then the gunners, or the fighters whichever was at the time, then attacked that one aircraft and, that was an extremely dangerous situation. But during the war also of course we had the problem that we had the Americans flying with us, not on the same squadron, but on their squadrons, and they used to join in, they would never fly at night the Americans, at all, but during the day the Flying Fortresses were out in force, which made life even more difficult, because they were rather prone to shoot at you if you- If they, didn’t realise and especially we had one sort of, a new Halifax which was unmarked, we didn’t have the RAF roundels on it and we were a bit frightened that the Americans would shoot us because it was a known fact that if any of our aircraft was shot down in Germany or France, then they were redone and they- The Germans flew them.
JS: Mm-hm.
CS: The other thing of course was that - I forgot to mention, that was before we got to the squadron, when we were at the heavy conversion unit, they- If there was an op on, we at the HCU would be sent in the opposite direction to the bomber force with the object being to draw the fighters, of cou- [laughs] of course the unfortunate part about that was that we never had any ammunition to shoot at the fighters because it was in short supply, but you, you did it and- Best as you could, but, I mean it was just a small force but the i- As I say, the idea was to draw the fighters away from the main force so that they could get a free run at whatever the target was. But anyway once you got to- As I say to the point of where you [emphasis] were actually operating on a, a raid, then of course it was every man for himself, and we unfortunately lost our rear gunner, not through injury or anything like that but, there was two types of fire, there was a projected gunfire and a box gunfire, the projected gunfire was that you could see the rounds coming up behind you and obviously if you stayed at the same height the gunners got your height and then it was just a question of getting closer to you, and of course the rear gunner could see this and I could see it because I was watching through the panel above my station in the Halifax, so of course we had to forget what we were doing and try and stop the, the rear gunner from bailing out which - There was two doors, one in the aircraft and one on the turret, so we had to keep pulling the dead man's handle, to stop the air gunner ‘cause he could operate his turret manually or electrically, and simply roll it round and then fall out backwards, but you have to appreciate that the tail end of a bomber is extremely narrow, and in there you have a huge oleo leg which was the, the rear wheel ‘cause that didn’t retract like the front carriage, so we spent ages, and of course he was trying to bale out panicked, and we were trying to stop him which we eventually did, and that was how we lost him because he was then classed as LMF which is lack of moral fibre, so we then of course got another rear gunner who had lost his crew, but this really was a no-no, that it was taught that it was very bad luck to take on another crew member who wasn’t there at the beginning, and in fact, on one of our last raids we had a whole- A bomb that went through the tail plane of our aircraft from one above, which fortunately it was only a small two-hundred-and-fifty pound bomb, and it just made a hole in the tail plane near the rudder but didn’t effect because we didn’t know that we’d been hit, until we got back to dispersal and saw the hole in the -In the tail plane. But after that, the- Very few raids, because we were getting close to the end of the war in ‘45, and we just carried on the same routine of if there was- You were going on a raid, you had a meal, then you were locked up in this building till the- You knew where you were going et cetera, and then of course, the war finished and all these foreigners, the New Zealanders, the South Africans, the Canadians, disappeared overnight back to their own countries so, the only personnel that were left were RAF. So what we did was a pilot and flight engineer got loaded up with bombs and pyrotechnics and, things like that, or unused ammunition and, and we used to fly out to the North Sea, drop this- And I acted as the bomb aimer, because there was only the pilot and me on board, but after that then, the war finished, we got rid of most of the, the bomb ordinance, and the flame float- Smoke floats, all that type of thing, and we were sent on indefinite leave.
JS: That’s - That was great, can I just take you back a wee bit, on your - That was really fascinating. You spoke about your crew, and interestingly how you, the RAF made crews was to sort of put you all in one room and say ‘sort yourselves out’, and you said you were picked by one of the other guys on the other crew, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
CH: I got on well with them, I never had a problem, apart from one night, we were on a raid and as always if I moved from my engineer position to where the- You had to operate the petrol cocks, which were in the rest position, so I had to move, I would tell the pilot I was going back to change tanks. Now the Halifax had twelve petrol tanks, and you had a sequence, and we were on tanks five and six which were joined, which were big tanks and, I told him I was going back so what I was waiting for, I was waiting for four red lights to come up to tell me that the tank was empty, or the tanks on both sides were empty, and I would then close those levers and bring on the next levers with full tanks. Unfortunately, I fell asleep because it was so cold back there that I stuck the heating pipe up my flying harness which was nice and warm then, and also, we had been on a daylight raid earlier, and by the time we were debriefed and had a meal, and got taken back to our accommodation which was always outside the camp, we’d only had about four hours sleep when the police came and wakened up us again because we were on the night detail. Anyway, I’m enjoying my sleep and I hear this shouting down the earphones, ‘I’ve no petrol, I’ve no petrol’, but I don’t see what the pilot's problem was, we were at twenty-thousand feet anyway, so we had plenty time to remedy the situation. So, I closed tanks five and six both sides and opened tank number four either side, and within seconds he had his petrol, but he never forgave me for that, though he didn’t hold it against me, he gave me a bollocking but apart from that, it went off- That was about the only time we had a, a disagreement actually. In fact it went remarkably well because he landed once - We were on an air test, this aircraft had been serviced and we- It was our aircraft, so we took it for a short flight, and on the way back, in Yorkshire, the pilot decides to land [emphasis], and I said to him at the time, I said, ‘This is not our airfield’, ‘Yes it is, I know where we are.’ I said, ‘No it isn’t’ because each aircraft has its own- Each airfield had its own identification, and the one that was flashing wasn’t flashing Lisset. Anyway, we landed, and suddenly a jeep pulls up in front of us, a flight lieutenant gets out, comes to the aircraft, I go to the door, open it, he says, ‘What you doing here?’ I said, ‘We landed at the wrong air field.’ He said, ‘You’re dead right,’ He said, ‘Where are you from?’, So we said ‘Lisset,’ he said ‘Well you’re just over the road there’ [chuckles]. So, I mean that was how close we were, so he’d turned left instead of turning right, so anyway I told the pilot, so that sort of evened out my, misfortune for the, the petrol incident, but it was one of those things, I was tired [emphasis] and it was cold, and of course with sticking the hot air pipe up my flying harness got me nice and comfy.
JS: You- You mentioned as part of that, that your accommodation was off-base?
CH: Yes
JS: So- So what was your accommodation like?
CH: Well, to say the least, the accommodation was very rough. It was all dry toilets, because you were in a field, and what they’d done, they’d simply put the wooden huts in a clearance place, and then built like, toilets outside. There was no water on site, nothing like that, so you then had to go to the sergeants mess to have your wash and shave, and in fact at Riccall which was a heavy conversion unit, we had to walk across two fields to get to the sergeants mess, and if you were lucky you managed to get a locker to keep your stuff in there, there were- You know, you could locks, otherwise you had to carry it backwards and forwards to have a wash, and of course you used the toilets and that, but they had obviously water, but other than that, it was dry, lavatories and I won’t describe what they were [laughs], primitive to say the least. You were lucky, again, if you had a stove in these because your predecessors had probably knocked out the front of the, the stove, and had nicked some bread from the cookhouse to do toast back in the billet if you could find enough fuel to get the fire going because, in those days people didn’t come round and drop off coke for you, or anything, you had to do the scrounging bit as well. So you had to look after yourself, but there was an awful lot of self-discipline, a lot of self-discipline involved amongst the air crew but, they knew the rules and that was it, you stuck by them, not like the present-day air force you know, so that was the situation.
JS: Thank you. The- I read that were- You spoke about things being seen as not being lucky, about, you said if, if you took somebody on from another crew that the rest of their crew were lost that was seen as not being lucky, I read that there were two, there were two aircraft in the squadron, that by the end, by VE day had done well over a hundred operations, was the number of operations that your aircraft had done, was that seen as being lucky, or?
CH: No, the, the aircraft- One of the aircrafts that you’ve mentioned, did thirty-two ops, which was a lot, and I have a book on that particular aircraft, of course, the crews that manned it over the period of time, and in fact they- Elvington, which I’ve previously mentioned, outside York, they built a Halifax bomber, starting with the fuselage which came from Lerwick I think it was, or a bit of fuselage, which a farmer had bought because a Halifax had crashed in that area and his sheep, or whatever he had in the field at that time, took shelter in it. Anyway it was brought down to Elvington and by a lot of good will et cetera, was built to look like a Halifax bomber, and I had the privilege of being the first person that was allowed in to the actual aircraft, to, to see what work had been done, because it was like all the others, aircraft on view they were all roped off and you weren’t allowed to enter they were all locked, but because I’d been a flight engineer, and in fact I've got photographs of the actual aircraft, that was why I was allowed because as I say, I was a flight engineer on that squadron, with that particular aircraft, though I never flew in it. You were allocated an aircraft, different aircraft, it could be every time, you know, but, no, some people carried things with them which was for some reason special to them. Some of them carried crosses, you know, not on- Not based on a religious thing, other people had other things which they considered to be important and they carried them for good luck charms and put them on- I never carried anything like that, but that, that again, but that was one of the things that was fiercely resisted, that if you took on someone else then you were dicing with death.
JS: Interesting. You spoke earlier and took us up, up to the end of the war, and you said then, everybody- All the folk who’d come from elsewhere in the world, the Canadians and New Zealanders and whatever, they, they shipped home, and you mentioned dumping surplus munitions in the, in the North Sea, so, what did you do after that?
CH: Well after that, as I said to you we, we were sent on indefinite leave, and then we were called back, given a short list of jobs that we could do. I picked one which you- You had to pick something, so I picked an airframe mechanics job, went back to St Athans, did the course, wasn’t very happy with it, it wasn’t my type of work, anyway, I was posted to Desborough after that, and in those days I was a flight sergeant by then, during the day you covered up your badge of rank, so you worked as an airman, but you still used the sergeants mess, which you took you armbands- Your covers off to show your rank, but then in the morning you put them back on again. But there was a shortage of, senior NCOs at Desborough, so I was drafted in to the tech disip[?] office, without the badge covered up, so I carried on in there, and then the, because this was the time when there was many demobs going on at the end of the war, so I suddenly found myself taking over as well, as NCOIC police. So I was doing that job and suddenly I got told I was NCOIC fire section, so I’d now three jobs, and I thought well that’s it, that can’t get anymore, unfortunately I was wrong. We decided, or somebody decided that we’d have some German prisoners of war, though the war was over but, anyway, I had to go and collect these prisoners of war, we didn’t put them any locked compound or anything, I only had an LAC to help me, so I became ICGM and prisoners, and then I thought that must be it, but wrong again. At this time they decided to start the ATC having the summer camps at RAF stations, and Desborough was picked so I suddenly became IC air training corps cadets, in the- On the camp as well. So it was quite a busy time, the way, you had various things like courts martial as well, and of course I got that job, again because of your rank. The down side of all this was that they suddenly brought out two dates, all those who were warrant officers or flight sergeants had to reduce themselves to the rank of sergeant by this certain date, so fair enough, it was nothing uncommon to see a bloke walking round with a warrant officers’ uniform on showing where his gallopers had been on his arm wearing an LAC’s prop. Then the second date, that was when you reduced yourself to your rank in your ground trade, now had I not been lucky enough, I would’ve finished up as an AC1, but I remustered whilst all this business had being- IC Police and all the rest of it. To what were called in those days an aircraft and general duties, that was trade groups one to five in those days, but the trade I was in was trade group one, the air frames, but, five was the aircraft hand, and by doing that of course I managed to, on paper, work my way up to corporal, and then I saw an advert in the air ministry orders for drill instructors, now prior to all this upheaval I had gone to Cardington, and I did a six weeks warrant officers and flight sergeants course, which I passed, so of course that helped me no end. So I applied to become a drill instructor, and because of that of course I got made acting segreant, but the funny part about that was the, course was at- By this time had moved to RAF Credenhill which, subsequently became RAF Hereford, and I was standing outside with the rest of the course, waiting to be interviewed by the squadron commander, a warrant officer walked past, came up to me and said, ‘I know you,’ and I said ‘Yes, you know me’, he said ‘Where was it,’ I said ‘Cardington’, I gave him my name and that, away he went, anyway later on, I was told to leave the queue, so I was made a staff instructor there and then without doing that particular course. So I did that, and I did three years as staff instructor on the school airdrome, we taught weapons and bayonet fighting, admin, drill obviously, and this was training recruits into instructors, so that they could go out ‘cause in those days there was quite a lot of them. Anyway in 1949, I got posted to Padgate which was a school of training, and there I suddenly found myself nominated to set up a course for officer cadets, because the officer cadet school was full, so of course being- My background, I got the job of setting up this course for officer cadets, it was only a one-off thing, but then I did eighteen months there, and then during that time RAF Halton had gone through all the drill instructors in the RAF, we were told, and five of us had been selected from, because there was an awful lot of drill instructors in those days, five of us were selected for Halton, and the funny part about that, I always remember to this day [emphasis] was when I reported to the guard room, the corporal policeman said ‘Don’t unpack, you may not be stopping’ [laughs]. The obvious bit being that if you failed the five days, which was the period that they assessed you, from the air commodore, two group captains and various wing commanders, during the week, you had to do certain exercises, anyway, I was selected and I did three years there and that was where I became a substantive sergeant then, while I was there was seven years but, pay for seniority, so my sergeant went away back to when I became a sergeant flight engineer which made a big difference. So, anyway these blokes I’m still in touch with to this day, these apprentices, they’re in their mid-eighties, and I periodically get letters or phone calls from them, even now as we speak. But that was a hectic three years because I had two-hundred-and-twenty of them, and they were aged seventeen to twenty because they did three years, so if, they were unfortunate to fail their entry and got back flighted, they went back a year. So they then became that much older and more difficult to handle because, even though they were twenty or twenty-one the rules said they weren’t allowed to smoke, they weren’t allowed to go with girls, they had to be in bed by twenty-two-hundred-hours, things like that, but you still had to maintain discipline at that age. In fact, not so long ago I had a phone call from a group captain, who had been one of my, what we called snags, the leading apprentices but they were nicknamed snags, and of course he said, you know, the reason he rang, was that he, when he was a wing commander had been posted to Swinderby as OC training, and somewhere along the line he had either seen my name or heard my name mentioned, and was commenting on the work that DI’s did at square bashing camps, you see, so that, that was how I met him, but he’s still alive to this day, like me but [chuckles] that, that was that. Then, I got posted to Yatesbury by mistake, I was posted to the boy entrants wing, who unfortunately had moved before I got there and had moved up to Cosford, so I then got posted up to Kirkham near Preston, where they had trainees there but unfortunately, the station warrant officer there at that time had been the station warrant officer at Credenhill of course I was immediately in his office rather than sent out, anyway, that wasn't- Didn’t work very well really.
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 Colin Hynd
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
2017-11-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHyndC171115
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:44:33 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
Description
An account of the resource
Summary: Colin Hynd joined the RAF in November 1943. Upon completing initial training, he was posted to RAF St Athan, where he trained as a flight engineer. He struggled to bond with his first crew, so instead worked as an instructor before joining a Canadian crew based at 158 Squadron. Hynd recounts the briefing process and dangers during bombing operations. He also describes why their rear gunner was accused of Lack of Moral Fibre, accidentally falling asleep during an operation, dumping surplus munitions in the North Sea, and the conditions of their accommodation. Finally, Hynd describes serving as drill instructor after the war.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11
1945
158 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
military living conditions
RAF Desborough
RAF Halton
RAF Lissett
RAF Riccall
RAF St Athan
superstition
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2306/42242/PCrossK2203.2.jpg
fae2311e9b7a282d30b75cd0b3736b31
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2306/42242/PCrossK2204.2.jpg
3e06822797ba37d752ca0abb0fdc5566
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2306/42242/PCrossK2205.2.jpg
aded1f1057ff202765789e7a6399e24d
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
Cross, K
Norris, Kathleen
Norris, K
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns Corporal Kathleen Cross (b. 1922, 2053477 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, photographs and items of uniform. She served as a mess steward in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. <br /><br />This collection includes <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2333">one album</a> with newspaper cuttings, photographs and postcards covering RAF personnel and establishments in West Malling, Penarth and Peterborough. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Karen Scarcliffe and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
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
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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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Cross, K
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Title
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Personnel at Penarth
Description
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24 Women's Auxiliary Air Force personnel with one Royal Air Force sergeant. He sits in between eight women on the front row with two rows, each of eight, standing behind. Annotated 'Ivor E Lewis' 'Penarth'.
The reverse has short messages and a pasted-on list of 35 unrelated personnel arranged in four rows. Back row, Lamb, Campbell, Bentley, Grumbaum, Cousins, Hobart, Mc'Culloch, Green, Gledhill. 2nd row, 351 Hewitt, Butcher, Savage, Jaffa, Eustace, Radford, Rands, Bustard, Bryant, Hibbard, 3rd row Lane, Cross, Davies, Sergeant Rose, Staff Officer Bayldon, Corporal Taylor, Frank Major. Front row, Carpenter, Dermont, Tulip, 325 Hewitt, Todd, Manáge, Shepherd, Miller.
Date
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1943
Temporal Coverage
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1943
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Wales--Glamorgan
Wales--Penarth
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Photograph
Format
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One mounted b/w photograph
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Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
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PCrossK2203, PCrossK2204, PCrossK2205
Creator
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Ivor E Lewis
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
ground personnel
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/724/10724/ABraithwaiteH180421.2.mp3
99ff8fbde7913303fc6f5a0202e1905d
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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Braithwaite, Harry
H Braithwaite
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Sergeant Harry Braithwaite (1923 - 2021, 1826609 Royal Air Force). He flew a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 78 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-04-21
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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Braithwaite, H
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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IP: And then we’ll go. This is Ian Price and I’m interviewing Harry Braithwaite today, the 21st of April 2018 for the International Bomber Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at [buzz] Keswick. Thank you very much, Harry for agreeing to talk to me today. It’s a great pleasure to meet you. Also present is Mike Fairclough who is Harry’s grandson and it is five past one on the 21st of April. So, if you’re happy Harry we’ll start off. Just, just tell me about, if you can where you were born, when you were born and a little bit about your childhood if you wouldn’t mind.
HB: Well, I was born in Portinscale. My father had the garage which is now the Chalet, the big cafe place and then I went to Crosthwaite School. I got a scholarship from there and went to Keswick School and from there —
IP: Don’t worry about that right now. Let’s just go back to, so your father ran a garage.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So, repairing cars and that sort of stuff.
HB: Yes.
IP: Ok. So did you help at the garage? Did you work for him a bit?
HB: Well, I learned to drive by, there was [pause] it could only get six cars into this garage. They would only fit one way and I had to be able to do that and, I was never on the road mind you. But, and then when I went eventually, when I went on a driving course a good bit later I tried to make mistakes and of course the instructor said, ‘Well, ok. You get out and let somebody else in the driver’s seat.’ And so he took us back to where he’d picked us up at eventually and he said, ‘You stop where you are.’ So, he took me home with him. He said, ‘Right. There’s a taxi outside there. You can drive that.’ So I finished up taxi driving in Blackpool.
IP: Ok. So you learned to get out of first gear I suppose. I suppose that would be all you would be doing for your father, wasn’t it? Just a quick manoeuvre of the car sort of thing.
HB: Yeah. Automatic step later.
IP: Yeah. Yeah. And did you, did you get to, were you tinkering with, with engines and stuff like that when you were young? Did, were you particularly mechanically minded or anything like that?
HB: Oh yes. I did. I was kind of used to it and when I, when I finished flying as I say when they said what did I want to do and I said, ‘Well, I’ll go driving.’ And of course when I got into the driving seat this, there was three of us in the vehicle together and I was the last one in a seat and I tried to make mistakes and of course he said [pause] ‘Pull up.’ So I stopped with a jerk, as I thought I would like, you know and he said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘How did you get here?’ I said, ‘Well, how do you mean how did I get here?’ he said, ‘Well, I think there’s a car out there that belongs to you.’ He said, ‘How long have you been driving?’ And I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to say. I couldn’t tell you.’ He said, ‘Well, have you had a licence?’ I said, ‘No.’
IP: When was this? Was this after the war?
HB: No.
IP: Oh. It was before the war.
HB: Just.
IP: Oh right.
HB: And he said, ‘Well, how come?’ So, I had to tell him like, you know that I’d been, I’d been able to move these cars in and out of the garage no bother. And of course they would only go in one way so that I could drive them out easy and what have you, to get six in. And, and he said, ‘Ah, alright,’ he said, ‘Well, what did you like driving best?’ I said, ‘Well, I used to like driving the hearse best.’ He said, ‘What?’ he said, ‘You drove a hearse?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘It was great. You could see out grand.’ [laughs] But I said, ‘It was a bit, it learned me how to reverse.’ He said, ‘How come?’ I said, ‘Well, the only way we could get it in and out easy was to reverse it in.’ He said, ‘Oh. I think I’ll pass you without any bother.’
IP: Good stuff. Right. Ok. That’s very, that’s good. So you went to Crosthwaite School you said.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And then, then you went to another school after that?
HB: Keswick School.
IP: You got a scholarship for Keswick. Keswick was quite a good school.
HB: Yeah.
IP: In its day, I think wasn’t it?
HB: Yeah.
IP: Yeah. Yeah. So you obviously did quite well in your exams and stuff.
HB: Yes.
IP: Ok. And what, what can you remember anything particular about school? Did you enjoy it? Or —
HB: [laughs] Well, in a way I enjoyed school, yes. But the thing I enjoyed most was not very pleasant actually at first, but it was quite a thing to be playing rugby, and we played down in the school field. And then cross the bridge and then down and into the school grounds, and across one patch of grass and get to the showers that way. And of course what was quite a common occurrence like was you’d usually got quite a bit of mud on your shoes and you would take it off and throw it and of course I happened to get it, get some right in my eyes. Caught me right on, on the bridge of my nose and in both eyes, and somebody had to limp me into what was the boarding house at Keswick School, and the matron there had to bathe my eyes and what have you and oh, it was great. The attention I got like, you know. But the big thing was that the sports master got to know and then the headmaster got to know, and of course it was then, it was one of the rules that from then on that no mud was to be thrown like [laughs] So I was a bit of hero in one way but not in others.
IP: Yeah. So, so you must have started at Keswick School, it would be about 1934 I guess. Something like that. Would that sound around about right?
HB: Yeah.
IP: When you were elevenish, I suppose.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And how many years did you spend there? Did you, did you go through to because I think in those days you could leave school at fifteen couldn’t you? Did you?
HB: I was, I was seventeen when I left there.
IP: Right. Ok. So that would have taken us to around about 1940.
HB: Yeah.
IP: The war had already started.
HB: Yeah.
IP: What, what’s your memories of the war starting and stuff like that? What did you think about that?
HB: Well, the first thing was the, I suppose the evacuees, and then my father had the, what is it? It’s the chalet now, which was the garage and then the army took a petrol pump off him, and one thing and another so that eventually like when I was, when I joined up the, I’d been on speaking terms with the officers and all sorts like. But then I changed my tune a little bit then.
IP: I suppose so. Yes. Yeah. You were collared by the first, well not the first names in those days.
HB: But I did realise like, you know.
IP: Yeah.
HB: That, who they were should I say?
IP: Yeah.
HB: Not what they were but who they were.
IP: So and what were you good at school then? What was your, did you have any particular subjects you excelled at?
HB: Oh well. I was quite good at maths actually.
IP: You enjoyed it.
HB: Yeah. Maths and history.
IP: And did you have any brothers and sisters or —
HB: No.
IP: Were you [pause] It was just you. And what, what was your mother doing? Did she, was she a —
HB: She was a cook.
IP: Oh, a cook. Was she? What, in somebody’s house? Or —
HB: Yes.
IP: Oh, right.
HB: Had been. Yeah.
IP: Oh right.
HB: My father was a driver. My mother was a cook. My aunt next door she was a cook, and my uncle was a painter, next door. And we, we shared a wash house out in the, in the yard at the back and a toilet in the back at first. And then we went all modern of course and put the bathroom. Did away with one bedroom and put the bathroom in there, and toilet and everything like, you know. They did the same next door, and so we were sort of one up on the neighbours as it were then.
IP: All mod cons. Right. So, so we got to 1940. You left Keswick Grammar School. And then what happened to you?
HB: Well, I went in to the Air Force anyway.
IP: Did you, so you went straight from school did you into the Air Force or did you, did you work before?
HB: Well, I’d just been at home, yes. But actually my best friend he was [pause] he was an apprentice with my father at the garage, and between them I got used to a bit of everything. And then of course when I went to Keswick School well that was, it was a big help actually because I was sort of in front of some of them. Not on the education side but on the living side.
IP: Ok. So, yeah —
HB: If you know what I mean.
IP: Yeah. So a bit more confident and that sort of thing.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And used to —
HB: It didn’t worry me.
IP: Sure.
HB: That I’d other people around me. I was sort of quite happy.
IP: Yeah. No, I understand that. And did you volunteer for the Air Force? Did you volunteer to join up or what? Did you get your papers? Were you conscripted?
HB: I volunteered.
IP: You volunteered. So that’s —
HB: I was [pause] my mother was in a, quite a state but she realised actually that I had lost one of my best mates and she understood. I know that, you see there wasn’t many, there wasn’t many children, many boys anyway in the village at the time and he was a bit older than me, but again we got along great. And luckily he had a, his father had a [pause] he worked as a gardener at one of the big houses and they had, he had they had a boat on the lake, and we used to get into that and you know go out on the lake and what have you. So that when I went in to the Forces I was, I was used to meeting other people which was a big help.
IP: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Sometimes, you know some of the lads that went in they were, they were lost altogether.
IP: Yeah. No, I can understand that. Yeah. I can understand your mother being upset as well because I suppose she would have been, she’d remember the First World War very well.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Did your father serve in the First World War?
HB: Yes.
IP: And were your mother and father together then or did they meet after the war? Do you know?
HB: Oh, they’d met before.
IP: Yeah. So she, so she’d be worrying about your dad
HB: Yeah.
IP: And all that sort of stuff that was going on.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So, yeah. Yeah and I know it’s a big problem for, well for any mother to have her son go off to war sort of thing.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So you volunteered because you volunteered you could choose which Service you went in to.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So why did you choose the RAF?
HB: Well, mainly, it was mainly because the [pause] as I say I’d lost this friend of mine, and I definitely felt that I was going to be doing something myself because of, rather than wait and be called up and put into something. Maybe [pause] my father he’d been in the Great War, and he’d been driving in that as well. My grandfather, Boer War, and I somehow thought that I was wanting to do something —
IP: So it, so there was a tradition in the family.
HB: Something different.
IP: And you felt you should —
HB: Yeah.
IP: Do your bit kind of thing, I suppose.
HB: That’s right. Yeah.
IP: Is the thing isn’t it, really. But what I, what I’m trying to get at is so why. I’m always intrigued as to, I know why I joined the Air Force but why did you go for the Air Force and not the Army? I know it sounds like you were quite in to technical things and you said you liked maths and that sort of stuff.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And you’re obviously quite well educated as well. That’s the other thing.
HB: Yeah.
IP: But there’s still, there’s still engineering trades in the Army and stuff like that but I was just interested to know why you, why you chose the Air Force. Was it the colour of the uniform?
HB: No. No, it was, I think it was partly that I was doing something as against being one of a crowd.
IP: Yeah.
HB: I know —
IP: I think I understand. If you join the Army you see yourself as part of a platoon.
HB: A group.
IP: And you’ve just been told to run forward towards the enemy.
HB: Yeah. Whereas if you were flying. I didn’t realise exactly how things were developing in any case but then as I say I wanted to fly and that was it.
IP: Yeah.
HB: And but then of course it came on and eventually four engine bombers and —
IP: Did you want to be a pilot when you first, was that, was it that sort of an aim when you joined the Air Force? Or what did you have in mind when you joined up? Can you remember?
HB: Well, no. I think, I think it was just I wanted to fly. But then during training, at least initial training should I say I realised that there was something different to, to just flying and so I changed my tune. And as I say, and then first when I first went in to that area in the Air Force you were sort of asked what you’d been doing, or what you hoped to do or whatever, and then when they realised that I knew a bit about engines anyway that, ‘Alright. A flight engineer’s your, your job.’
IP: Yeah. I suspected that that was the case. I was just, I was just trying to kind of work around to it and see, and see, see how they did it?
HB: Yeah.
IP: Because I think you used to do some tests as well didn’t you? That sort of thing.
HB: Oh yes.
IP: To see what you were and weren’t good at.
HB: Yeah.
IP: But yeah, I think with maths and engines in your background you could see where it was going.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So let’s step back a bit when you first joined the Air Force. So where did you go and do your initial training? Square bashing and all that sort of stuff? Can you remember?
HB: [laughs] [coughs] Dear me. Do you know I can’t remember.
IP: No. Ok. That’s alright. It doesn’t matter particularly I was just, I was just interested. Can you remember much about it? Can you? I don’t how long it took and I don’t suppose you can remember but —
HB: It was —
IP: What are your memories?
HB: It seemed to be a long time somehow or other before we got anywhere. What with the square bashing and what have you, you see because the the big thing was that at that time the Army had taken the Derwentwater Hotel over and where the houses are now there were huts on there and they —
IP: Excuse me.
HB: They, they took a petrol pump off my father’s garage and of course I, I could drive anyway, you know. At least I wasn’t allowed to drive outside but I could always reverse cars into the garage and what have you, so that it was quite something.
IP: We were talking about, about your basic training.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And it went far, it seemed to go on too long. Longer than it should have done.
HB: It was quite, it was quite easy to go to do the basic driving and it was quite comical really because this, they took, I think they used to take three of us out in a car, in a vehicle for a start. And I wanted to drive and the other two just sit and then drive for so long, and then change over you see and —
IP: Did you, so did you learn to drive when you joined the Air Force or you did your proper —
HB: Well —
IP: Your proper driving test when you joined the Air Force.
HB: When it came to my turn to drive I was the last one of the three you see, and I tried to make mistakes and I did manage to make it jump first go off like you know and this instructor said, ‘Right,’ he said. He said, ‘Just get stopped,’ he said. He said, ‘Now, start again.’ I said, ‘I’ll try.’ He said, ‘I don’t think you need try,’ he said. I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Well, just get and drive.’ So I drove around a bit and I did what I was told, you see and what he said. And he said, ‘Right. Ok. Change over.’ And eventually we got back to base and he said, ‘Just hang on a minute.’ So the other two went, went in and he said, ‘How long have you been driving?’ I said, ‘I can’t tell you now.’ He said, I said, ‘Why? He said, well, he said, ‘I’ll come around and pick you up at 6 o’clock.’ ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Well, you can come to, come to our house.’ I said, ‘Very good of you.’ He said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a taxi sitting at home’ he said, ‘It’s doing nothing,’ he said, ‘You might as well be driving that.’ So I finished up driving his taxi around Blackpool.
IP: Very good. Very good. But this while you were in the Air Force was it?
HB: Yeah.
IP: Oh right.
HB: Just when I joined up.
IP: Yeah. Yeah. So you did, so you did your training at Blackpool then presumably.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Or near Blackpool.
HB: Aye.
IP: And was that your initial training before you went on.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So you did your initial training. Square bashing and —
HB: That’s right. Yeah.
IP: Cleaning your barrack blocks and all that nonsense.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And then where did you go after that because you must have gone to do flight engineer training I suppose it would be, wouldn’t it?
HB: Yeah. Aye.
IP: Can you remember where that was?
HB: St Athan.
IP: Right. Ok. What do you remember about that?
HB: Not a lot but again the, they started by, when it came to the engineering side of it they started to tell you what each part was, sort of thing of an engine and, and this instructor said, ‘What’s this part?’ So I said, me like an idiot like, you know, I just spoke right out and I said. Told him exactly what it was you see. ‘Aye. Thank you very much.’ So, he said [laughs] he never asked me any more questions, and the class was over sort of thing and he said, ‘Just a minute,’ he said, ‘What do you know about these engines and things? I said, ‘Well, I don’t know much about aircraft engines,’ I said, ‘But an engine is an engine isn’t it?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Well, my father had a garage.’ He said, ‘Right. You’ll, you can do a lot of good for me.’ So he said, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, Well, I’ll come for you.’ So he came around at 6 o’clock, took me home. He said, ‘Right. There’s a taxi out there. It’s yours.’ [laughs] So I learned my way around Blackpool. Very much so.
IP: Yeah. Yeah, yeah I suppose so.
HB: I only did booked jobs like, you know.
IP: Moonlighting they called it.
HB: Worked from his home like, you know.
IP: Yeah. Yeah. So when you were at St Athan doing your, did you go straight to that flight engineer training at St Athan? Yes?
HB: Yeah. Did a little bit of basic.
IP: Square bashing.
HB: Basic square bashing like that and all that.
IP: Oh right. Ok. And —
HB: But that was, that was mostly for sort of use of arms as well. Not being frightened of guns and what have you.
IP: Range firing and stuff like that.
HB: Yeah. Engines sort of, well of course it all came naturally to me but with a lot of people it didn’t of course.
IP: Did they have air cadets at Keswick Grammar School?
HB: Yeah. You were able to [pause] what shall I say occasionally they would have an engine doctored and you had to sort of find the —
IP: Ah yes. Yeah. Identify what the problem was.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Yes.
HB: It was mostly carburation and air intakes and different things like that was —
IP: I’ll tell you something and this, it shouldn’t be on the recording because it’s incidental at Cranwell where they teach engineering officers for the Air Force now they still do similar things but obviously it’s with jet engines and things like that.
HB: Yeah.
IP: But they still do the same thing where they roll out an engine with a problem and they have to diagnose what the problem is and that sort of stuff.
HB: Aye.
IP: But anyway that’s beside the point. I thought you’d be interested to hear that. Things don’t move on that much. So, so flight engineer training. What happened after that then? Because at some stage you must have been selected for Halifaxes I guess.
HB: Well, you either, well the engine’s different you see. So you went into one group or the other. That was the main. The next sort of stage.
IP: Did it bother you to go in to Halifaxes? Did you mind one way or the other or, because the Lancaster was the shiny new aircraft wasn’t it really?
HB: Yeah. No, the Halifax was the as far as I was concerned it was [pause] it was, well in a sense I think there was more to do. It was the, I think it was the oldest one of the two, and they hadn’t got the, of course the fuel was the biggest trouble and with the Halifax the tanks were not as many, but a larger capacity. With the Lancs there was more of them but less capacity. But to keep an even flight on the Halifax you had to keep changing the fuel quite a lot, and actually when we were on operations I spent most of my time back in the rest bay where the engines cocks were than I did in the actual seat where I was supposed to be. Instead of getting up and going back you know, because it was all timed to minutes really and of course he, it was the engineer that set the actual speed of the fuel like, where the fuel was used to the four engines and so on. And all the engine cocks were back in the rest bay so that’s where the engineer spent most of the time. It wasn’t very often they were were in the, in the proper seat.
IP: Can you remember, so as you were doing your flight engineer training you got, you got speared off to Lancasters or Halifaxes or Stirlings as well, I suppose. The different types really.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Whatever they were. And obviously at some stage you would have gone on your first flight in a, in any sort of aircraft. Can you remember that particularly?
HB: The first time would be a Dakota, I think. And that was just the first flight and you were sitting, sitting there with your parachute harness on, but sitting in the seat and it was just sort of a take-off and landing. And then afterwards the first flight in the proper plane that you’d been training with you sort of knew how things worked.
IP: But you flew with an instructor, I guess.
HB: Yeah.
IP: The first few times.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Another engineer. To make sure you did everything right.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So that would be, would that be on an OTU then. You went on to a Halifax OTU. Is that right?
HB: Yeah.
IP: Yeah. Can you remember where that was?
HB: I can’t now.
IP: It’ll be in, it’ll be your logbook. We’ll have a look later. It’s fine. That’s fine. Don’t worry about it right now, Harry. We’ll have a look a little bit later on. I’m just being nosy. That’s all. Right. So, so OTU and then from there I mean can you, can you remember much about the OTU and the training that you did then?
HB: No.
IP: Ok. So then what happened after the OTU?
HB: I went to a squadron.
IP: And that was straight to 78 Squadron.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Down in RAF. Is it pronounced Brighton or —
HB: Breighton. Breighton.
IP: Breighton. What did you think to that?
HB: Well, as far as I was concerned I was very happy there. And of course that was, I was very happy there [pause] but I was never very happy about the fact that I was flying with a Canadian crew, and every one of them got commissions but I didn’t.
IP: Why was that then? It wasn’t that all the Canadians were commissioned was it? Was there some —
HB: It was just the way that the Air Force worked. And the flight engineer was the odd one out all the time. There was all sorts of countries had flight engineers but it wasn’t very often that there was a Canadian one. Of course, I was always all right with my crew because whenever we landed at any other aerodrome which we did fairly often I always wore somebody else’s jacket. I was never left on my own.
IP: So they took you in to the officer’s mess then.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Oh good. That’s good. I’m glad to hear that. I was going to say it sounds like you had a good relationship with the crew.
HB: Well, you had to have. Put it that way. They were, my crew, they were all very annoyed when they got, all got commissions and I didn’t.
IP: Ah, so they got commissioned after you’d all met up. Because I’ve heard the story about how crews were formed.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Can you, can you remember how that happened? Can you tell me about that? What happened to you? How did you join up with your, with the rest of your crew?
HB: Oh, well the engineers. We were all trained at St Athan and we [pause] there was those that passed the exams and what have you they all got their badges and what have you, and they and then they it was usually the pilot and the navigator that came from the different squadrons and they sort of picked out the one that they —
IP: The story I heard was —
HB: They wanted.
IP: All the different aircrew branches they were all put in to a big hall and you wandered around and you found yourself a crew. Does that, does that sound right? So you’d find —
HB: Well, something like that. It varied.
IP: You’d find a group of guys who were looking for a flight engineer. It may not have happened everywhere. It may have been slightly different, but I’ve heard of somebody sort of saying, ‘We need a navigator, you’re a navigator, come and join us,’ kind of thing.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And then slowly, and it was a way of kind of forming the team initially. But I just wondered if you’d got any memories of that. That was all.
HB: Yeah. Well, they usually had the, the flight engineer was usually the last one because some of the crew had been flying together and then they picked the gunners up and then the flight engineer was usually the last one. Like the navigator, the pilot, that had all flown a certain amount together or done training together of one kind and another.
IP: So you formed as a crew on the OTU I guess then.
HB: Yes. Yeah.
IP: Is that right? And then as a crew you got posted to 78 Squadron.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Ah yes. Ok. Right. I understand.
HB: But it was quite a, quite a thing like really, you know. As I say I thought I was, I was quite lucky in the fact that all my, the crew were Canadians but so many of them had been, you know had all sorts in the crews. We were all doing the same job granted, but and then of course as far as I was concerned it always, it didn’t annoy me the fact that all the crew were given commissions and I wasn’t because they, if they went anywhere I always went with them and I wore somebody else’s jacket. But the big thing was I didn’t have to pay.
IP: Yeah. Right. Ok. So, we’re on 78 Squadron which is in 4 Group. I know that much. And I’ve got your list of your missions as well. Can, can you remember any? Do you remember your first mission? Do you know, do you remember how that was for you? I can tell you where. It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter where it was. I’m just wondering if you can remember your first mission and how you felt about it.
HB: Well, the first mission was just as a passenger actually. You went, it didn’t matter what you were in the crew. The first one you went as an extra. And of course with the flight engineer his job, his main job was the fuel, and of course with this one there doing it actually in flight was a different thing to doing it in the, in a hangar. And that was that like, you know. They showed you how to do it and then let you do it and gave you as much information as he could. And of course the big information that they always gave you was, ‘And take your ruddy parachute with you.’ [laughs] Because, then you realise that you were sitting in one position which happened to be in, the flight engineer’s position in the Halifax was in the rest bay more or less because that was where all the engine cocks were. The fuel cocks like. And that’s where you spent most of your time, but whenever you got up you had to take your parachute with you.
IP: Because your, your seat must have been just behind the, was it behind the pilot? Or alongside the pilot? As the flight engineer.
HB: Behind the pilot.
IP: Right.
HB: In the rest bay actually.
IP: That’s where your seat was.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Oh, ok. I thought you had a seat somewhere else.
HB: Oh, I had a seat. Yeah.
IP: Then the fuel cocks were in the rest bay.
HB: Yeah. Aye. I had a seat in behind the pilot.
IP: So you had to drag your parachute backwards and forwards.
HB: Yeah.
IP: That can’t have been easy because they’re not, they’re not big planes. You know, when you go inside these things they’re tiny really.
HB: Aye.
IP: People don’t realise. So you always took, did you always take your parachute with you?
HB: Yeah.
IP: Good for you.
HB: Aye. Despite of you leaving that.
IP: So this, this first mission, do you remember much else about it? Was, I mean there must have been flak and stuff like that. What were your thoughts when —? I personally, I would imagine it would be a real shock. You’ve done all this training and you’ve done some flying but over the UK and that sort of stuff.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And then to actually fly over Germany or wherever you went for the first time can you remember how you felt about that?
HB: Well, nervous as against frightened.
IP: Ok.
HB: Nervous. Not of the actual flight, but slightly nervous as to what you were going to do, or what you had to do. In the [pause] and it being your first flight, whether you would remember what you’ve been taught, and do what you’d been taught or what. And even though we had been up in a plane but never on an actual mission it was a bit nerve wracking and you hoped that you didn’t do something silly and wrong, you know. After what you’d been taught. Not knowing exactly what was going to happen. I mean of course you’d been taught all sorts of different things like of safety and what to do with this and what to do with that but it had never actually happened.
IP: It’s a lot to think about isn’t it? A lot to try and —
HB: Once you, once you got the first one over then that was, that was it like, you know. You carried on.
IP: So do you remember any specific missions for any particular reasons or do they all sort of merge one into another? Have you got any particular memories of things that happened on any specific missions or anything like that?
HB: Well, in a way no. There was nothing much. I say that because I was the lucky one in the crew, being a flight engineer and my job was mainly looking after the fuel. And in a Halifax the fuel cocks were all in the rest bay and you had to keep a log of how much it was. Where. You know, the timing. And so I was kept busy in a way. Not doing something, but rather than what the gunners were and that. The gunners were the worst because they were just sitting somewhere and all that they were doing were looking out. They had the guns in front of them and that was it.
IP: Just trying to stay warm.
HB: Yeah. They just used to go where they were taken whereas well everybody else was sort of static except the flight engineer. He was lucky. He was, because when the pilots and that used to get out of the plane oh dear. It was terrible.
IP: And I suppose for the flight engineer it was, it was all internal wasn’t it? You were looking inside the aircraft kind of thing.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Whereas the other guys, a lot of them, the navigator certainly, the bombardier, the gunners well everyone else really were looking outside and seeing what was going on around you.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So, to a degree were you, were you sort of blissfully unaware of, I mean obviously if anything happened to your own aircraft? But you wouldn’t see other aircraft going down. That sort of stuff.
HB: No.
IP: You’d hear the chat on the intercom I suppose, but, but do you think to some degree therefore you were less concerned with what was going on around.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Up in the sky sort of thing.
HB: I had a [pause] it was you. You and the crew in an aircraft. You had a job to do and that was it. And in a way some of the others were looking after you, because the pilot was knowing where he was going really, the navigator was telling him where to go, the wireless operator was listening for his instructions and so on. The flight engineer, he was the only one that had anything to do in a way.
IP: Yeah. And, and but a vitally important. You know, that’s the thing isn’t it? It was so important as you say to get the fuel balance right and that sort of stuff.
HB: Oh yeah. Yeah. But I was able to move about.
IP: Yeah.
HB: Which was, which was quite a help really. Oh, some of the gunners and that when that they got out, when they got back to base oh they used to moan and groan something awful ‘til they got, could get their legs and arms really moving. It was. Of course I know they were, they’d tons of clothing on but that that didn’t help in a sense like, you know. They couldn’t have done without it, but it as I say I was fortunate being an engineer and being able to move about to a certain degree.
IP: Was it frightening? Did you, did you feel, I know you said on your first mission you were nervous, the when you went as a passenger you were nervous more than scared sort of thing.
HB: Yeah.
IP: But did you, did you find it scary at all doing the, doing the missions generally?
HB: No. Not really. No. No. You [pause] I suppose when it was, it was more scary at the time when you got back, and you were describing seeing something else being hit and going down thinking well it might have been you, you know. It was very close to me and so on, and of course it was always a case of well who was it? You know, when you got back. Who hasn’t turned up yet and so on.
IP: Did you have friends amongst the other crews? I guess you knew the other flight engineers fairly well and that sort of stuff but what did your friends, did you really it just tended to be the crew that you knocked around with?
HB: Well, you tended to go as a crew. I did anyway because all the rest were Canadians anyway except me so, and then eventually they all got commissions except me which I didn’t care much about. We didn’t get away with it because we still went out as a crew and I always had somebody’s else’s jacket with something on.
IP: This was even down the local pub and stuff like that. You’d go with an officer’s jacket on.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Good stuff.
HB: I don’t know. We [pause] you were all together and that was it. I know [pause] well, the crew had all been together for a little while before the flight engineer joined them and they said right away, ‘We know you’re an Englishman,’ they said, ‘But you’re a Canadian where ever we go.’ They said, ‘We’re going out. We’ll go out together, and we’ll all be Canadians.’ He said, ‘I don’t know what rank you might have but that doesn’t matter.’ So that was it like, you know.
IP: Good.
HB: And of course they knew. The higher ups knew that that happened.
IP: Oh yes. Yes. Yeah.
HB: They wouldn’t have had it any other way anyway.
IP: I was just about to say exactly the same thing. I mean you had to.
HB: Yeah.
IP: You had to work together as a team so closely that.
HB: It was one thing that they always, oh it was a big thing in the Air Force actually was the fact that air gunners and flight engineers, they were all trained separately but they joined a crew. And a lot of the air gunners they got commissions. Not them all. But the flight engineers never did. They did maybe later after they’d flown a little while. I’m not saying they didn’t get them but it was very discriminating actually. Of course it didn’t bother me because it didn’t matter what I did. I always went with them. What they did either. And if they decided they would go to a film show or they would go to a dance or just go sightseeing whatever I always wore somebody’s jacket.
IP: And when you weren’t on, when you weren’t flying ops the social life was pretty good then was it? At Breighton.
HB: Yeah.
IP: It’s quite out of the way isn’t it, I mean.
HB: Very. Breighton in Yorkshire. Yeah.
IP: Where would you go? Do you remember?
HB: Oh, York. We used to go to York quite a lot, or Leeds but as I say I never went as a sergeant. They wouldn’t let me. Yeah.
IP: Ok, so you flew. It was a full tour wasn’t it? You did thirty. Thirty ops.
HB: Yeah.
IP: With 78 Squadron. 78 Squadron had lost a hundred and twenty five aircraft during its time at Breighton which I think is quite, even by Bomber Command standards is pretty high. So Halifaxes —
HB: Yeah.
IP: I know the losses were higher than on Lancasters. Did that, did that affect people on the squadron generally do you remember? How was morale?
HB: Well, all the, there was always a little bit of argument as to which was the best aircraft of course. Each one stuck up for his own. And I liked the Halifax better for the simple reason that there was, there was more room to move about in it. With a Lancaster you didn’t. It was cramped a bit. But as a flight engineer the engine cocks on the Halifax were all in the rest bay and of course you were regularly changing them so that it took you a little while to get used to the idea that you had to keep moving about. And I used to spend quite a bit of time in the rest bay where the engine cocks were anyway, and then have a walk up and go and stand behind the pilot and navigator. Take the mid-upper gunner’s seat and let him have a wander around. You know, just to, well to move your legs a bit.
IP: What did you think about what you were doing? I know, you know I’m sure you were aware there was a lot of controversy after the war about the bomber offensive. I don’t I hasten to add. I don’t have a problem with it at all but did you think about what you were doing when you were doing it? Dropping bombs on towns and cities and stuff. Did that cause you any problems?
HB: Well, no not really because the main problems were always, now how accurate are we going to be because you see most of the, most of the targets were quite big and establishments and what have you but there was also a certain amount of local inhabitants somewhere close by. Now, is the information going to be correct? Is the wind and everything, you know going to be in apple pie order as it were because you were reading off a chart which was supposedly accurate, but you just wondered how accurate it really was. And with knowing what damage some of the Germans were causing in this country at times it was a bit, you wondered a little bit if you were correct or not if you know what I mean. But then you had to put that at the back of your mind eventually and say, ‘Well, I hope I’m right,’ and that’s —
IP: It’s a job to be done and you do it to the best of your ability kind of thing.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Yeah. Yeah. Ok.
HB: Or somebody else is right and you know everything is as ordered but anyway —
IP: And what was, what were your thoughts then? I mean after the war it came out I know the figures like Dresden is always, is always the raid that people always roll out as an example and the numbers have been massively exaggerated over the years anyway that were killed there. But what were your thoughts about that then when you know these fire storms that were brewed up and that sort of thing did you have particular views or do you, or is it not something you don’t tend to think about really?
HB: Well, no. Not exactly. No. I was very pleased to get back to normal.
IP: Just pleased to get the war over with.
HB: Should I say?
IP: Yeah.
HB: And I kept thinking well I, I’m pleased I’m now back home and out of the hurly burly of modern living as it were, and that’s the way it’s been ever since.
IP: So when you were demobbed you came back to Portinscale from, from the Air Force then. You just came home.
HB: Yeah.
IP: I guess your mum and dad were pleased to see you.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Yeah. Did you get much leave while you were on, while you were in the Air Force? Did you get much leave at all or well obviously you got leave but did you actually come home or —
HB: Yeah, I did manage to get home but I also [pause] actually I wrote home once and, and I said that I was having this leave and I was going to Edinburgh [pause] and I said,” I hope that you don’t misjudge things but —" I said, “I hope that you realise that it’s my chance to see something different and that I’ll actually miss not coming home. But that isn’t the point. At this moment in time I think everybody’s in a bit of quandary as to how things are going to work out.” And anyway I got word back and they said. “You please yourself love. We’re very pleased for you that you, that you feel that way. That you want to see as much as you can while you’ve the opportunity whereas you might not have that opportunity.” So as I have had. But that’s not the point is it? I might not have had. It’s —
IP: It must have been a real, I was just thinking when you left the Air Force to come back to, I mean Cumbria’s lovely.
HB: Yeah.
IP: It would have been Cumberland then wouldn’t it but it must have been a shock coming from flying over Germany, being shot at and losing friends and this that and the other to coming back to Portinscale, on the edge of Keswick.
HB: Yeah.
IP: To a really quiet part of the country.
HB: Yeah, well —
IP: How did, how did you adjust after the war? Was that easy or —
HB: Well —
IP: Not so easy.
HB: Well, for about a couple of days it was very difficult, and then I began to realise that some people were missing. Other people had, the elderly people had passed on, and so on. And in a way I was quite fortunate in the fact that my father had been in the First World War and he had a similar experience when he came back as well, and he realised what was happening. And between us we got sort of pulled back in to shape as it were.
IP: Sorted you out a bit. Yeah. Yeah.
HB: And of course then you got around and you started doing things that you expected to be doing, and things you had done before and then occasionally [pause] you had to be very careful when somebody was missing, you know. And then you had to discreetly try and find out what had happened to somebody. And then you realised eventually that there was a name put up somewhere and that’s the way things went.
IP: And what did you, presumably you got a job. What did you end up doing after the war?
HB: Well, that was no problem for me of course with my father having the garage where the Chalet is now. It was no problem.
IP: So you worked, you worked for your dad in the garage.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Yeah. Yeah. Ok. And did you do that all your working life then? Did you take the business over from him? Or —
HB: Yeah.
IP: Oh, ok.
HB: Again, I was very fortunate. I can always remember the first day it happened but the telephone went one, one morning and I answered it and the, this voice said, ‘This is Lord Rochdale speaking,’ I thought, oh my God. I said, ‘Oh yes.’ I said, ‘What can I do for you?’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It’s what you can do for me.’ I said, ‘What? What do you want?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got, I’ve got to go down to London.’ I said, ‘Oh yes.’ I said, ‘What do you want me for then?’ He said, ‘Well, I want you to go with me. Take me there.’ I said, ‘To London?’ he said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘That’s a long way.’ He said, ‘Yeah. I know it is. But —' he said, ‘We can manage alright.’ So, I said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘Right, well. Right ok.’ He said, ‘Right, tomorrow morning I’ll pick you up.’ It was about 7 o’clock in the morning or something. He said, ‘Alright?’ So I said, ‘How long will I be away for?’ He said, ‘I don’t know yet. About three or four days probably. Maybe longer.’ I said, ‘Oh, right.’ So, anyway I got myself ready the next morning and a case packed, and he comes along, picks me up, and we set off. And he said, he said, ‘Do you know your way?’ I said, ‘Well, more or less like,’ you know. He said, ‘Oh, it’s alright to go quite simple.’ So we’d gone a little way along and he said, ‘Right. If you take over now,’ So, I took over and we were going down the A1 like, you know, no bother and he said, ‘Are you ok to manage?’ I thought, right like, you know, I said, ‘Well, I’ve learned to drive. They taught me in the Air Force.’ He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Oh yeah.’ he said, ‘But I know different to that,’ he said, ‘You taught them to drive not them teach you.’ He said, ‘You’ve driven before.’ So ever after that I was all over England with him. A heck of a time I had.
IP: Driving Lord Rochdale.
HB: Yeah.
IP: Very good.
HB: He was a great.
IP: Yeah.
HB: Great fella.
IP: And you got married I presume because you obviously, obviously had children, had a child, at least one child.
HB: Yeah.
IP: So when did you get married?
HB: Oh no. He was, he was a great fella to work for like and to do for, and the last words he ever said when he got out of the car to whoever, where ever we went, ‘Look after the driver.’ It was the last words he ever said to me like when he got out. He didn’t speak to me. He spoke to whoever it was. And of course he was going to give some talk somewhere or some, open something and do. All sorts of things he did. And it was a case of me getting out of the way.
IP: Oh right. So but you kept, you kept running the garage in between times, sort of thing. Between these.
HB: With my father.
IP: With your dad. Did you keep in touch with any of the folks that you were in the Air Force with? Or did you ever see them again. Obviously they went back to Canada so —
HB: Yeah. They all went back to Canada.
IP: Yeah.
HB: Yeah. I was the only one. The last one’s passed on now like, but the wireless operator was the last one.
IP: So you obviously kept in touch with them somehow.
HB: Yeah.
IP: By letters or whatever.
HB: Yeah.
IP: And that sort of thing. And you didn’t go back. Did you go to reunions or anything like that after the war?
HB: Yeah. I did do. I’ve been. I think I went twice.
IP: Yeah. Yeah. Ok.
HB: But it was really nobody, there was really nobody there that I knew.
IP: Yeah. Well, if all your crew were Canadian they’re not likely to come across from Canada for a reunion.
HB: Aye. Well, they wouldn’t but again there wasn’t a lot of the flight engineers like, you know were. They’d either passed on or living away or whatever. Living too far away should I say.
IP: Yeah.
HB: Are you ok for a quick break or — ?
IP: Yeah. Well, actually yeah. I think what we’ll do is we’ll stop there.
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 Harry Braithwaite
Creator
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Ian Price
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-04-21
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABraithwaiteH180421
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:34:29 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
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1940
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Braithwaite was born in Portinscale and went to Keswick School. Harry’s close friend was killed in action and this spurred him on to volunteer. His father owned a garage and Harry would help him. This gave him some mechanical knowledge and after joining the RAF and after basic training he did his flight engineer training at RAF St Athan. He was posted to 78 Squadron at RAF Breighton flying in Halifaxes, and his Canadian crew treated him as one of their own. He completed a full tour of thirty operations.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
78 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
C-47
crewing up
demobilisation
flight engineer
Halifax
military service conditions
perception of bombing war
RAF Breighton
RAF St Athan
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1143/11699/ASterryBS-PearsonC180725.1.mp3
7d819e973c0d686b5885d326242cf20c
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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Sterry, Bernard and Pearson, Cecilia
Bernard Sydney Sterry
B S Sterry
Cecilia Pearson
C Pearson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson. They remember the bombing of Hull.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Sterry, BS-Pearson, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
IL: Uh Ian locker uh interviewing Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson at Cecilia’s home in Walkington near Beverley, East Yorkshire. Bernard, I understand you're starting. Tell us about your early life then with your father in Hull.
BS: Well, we lived next door to a school, so I went to that school, but we moved from there when I was about seven, I think eight
IL: [unclear]
BS. We moved a bit further out of town uh, up Beverley Road and we got some bombs there and we had to move out of that
IL: Right. Some bombs!
BS: Yeah
IL: When, so when was that?
BS: Oh, when the war started, yeah
IL: Right. So how old were you when the war started?
BS: Ten
CP: Ten
IL: Right
BS: So uh, we uh, we moved to Adderbury Grove after we got bombed out of uh Epworth street and we stayed there until that, well I stayed there until I got married and you probably did and uh
CP: Well other then being evacuated
BS: Right yes, was evacuated. War, I heard the war being declared on the radio or wireless as it was then on the Sunday the third of September. On the fourth of September the three of us, because we had another sister, they went to an aunt of my mothers, who brought her up and I went to a cousin of my mothers in a place called Winterton, over in Lincolnshire
IL: Right okay
BS: You probably it
IL: Yes, I do
BS: Yeah and I went round about four different places before I finally got settled with a family at Roxby which is about another couple of miles further out, nearer to Scunthorpe. I went to school there for a little while until what, when I was 11 I think and I went to Winterton School and uh when I was 14 uh, my mother saw the headmaster and convinced him that I had to stay on another year because she was in the ambulance service and she was working 24 hours a day and then 24 hours off and then so she [unclear] couldn't do with me at home, she couldn't look after me so I was there until uh the august in 1944, that would be, I think yes and then I came home and I got a job as an apprentice electrician so I stayed there
BS: Who’s that lot?
CP: You!
BS: Me?
IL: Found a newspaper cutting of Bernard being commonly fed at Winterton School
BS: That’ll be me there with the glasses on, on that side
IL: So you were away, so you were evacuated from Hull for the whole war?
CP: Yeah
BS: No, until
CP: No, [unclear]
BS: September ‘44
IL: Right
BS: When I came home, I was 15 to that time and I came home and got a job as an apprentice electrician
IL: Right. So, did you see any, did, could you look across the water and see any of the bombing of Hull?
BS: Oh yeah, it was light up like a Christmas tree and you see the bombers in the searchlights as they're coming over there's a bit of a direct line it was known [unclear] about eighteen, twenty miles I think but we, I used to stand outside watching. You could see the searchlights pick up on the aircraft and [mimics anti-aircraft fire] you could hear the guns going but uh I don't know, what else
IL: No. Was Scunthorpe bombed?
BS: Oh, they managed to, they managed to get a [unclear] down near Lysaght Steel Works and they killed a donkey in a field and that was it
IL: Right
BS: So, they should know where Scunthorpe was because they built the steel works [unclear]
IL: Right [laughs]. So what about you Cecilia, where you?
CP: I was born in Blundell Street, the same as Bernard next door to the school and Epworth Street, Adderbury Grove but I, I can remember that night that we were all outside because dad had picked me up when the war was announced we were outside in Epworth Street, weren't we? Yeah
IL: Right
CP: And then from there I was six, just six and then I went to Winterton as Bernard said and I was moved about nine times in about six years
IL: So were you moved around members of the family or were these
CP: No
IL: Was this, just strangers?
CP: Yes, strangers. The first one was mum's aunt and then we moved to various strangers in Winterton, various places and then Stella and I were split up [unclear], wouldn’t she?
BS: She [unclear]
CP: And I went to Elsham there and I was there a couple of years I think and then from Elsham I went to Horkstow and was at school in Saxby,
IL: Right
CP: Yes, Saxby, but we could see Hull burning from the school windows. Uhm when dad got killed, the lady I was living with in Horkstow, uhm I was outside, and she just came outside and said your father's been killed and walked back in
BS: She was a bit cold, wasn't she?
CP: [unclear]
IL: So, how old were you then, how old were you then?
CP: When dad got killed, I was ten
IL: Right
CP: But I lived [unclear] in there at Winterton and there's a gentleman there and had a big store, didn't he? Mr Wilfred
BS: Yes
CP: Had the store and they, they were [unclear], he even walked from Winterton to Horkstow to bring me a present at Christmas. He was a bachelor wasn't he [unclear], he had a housekeeper
BS: He had two sisters, I believe
CP: Yeah, housekeeper and then I was 12, wasn’t I, when I came home
BS: Could be
CP: Yeah. I didn't go to dad's funeral I wasn't allowed to go said I was too young
BS: Well I was at home
CP: You got the telegram, didn't you?
BS: When I found the telegram on the uh floor when they opened the front door, telegram was on the floor I picked it up and that’s it, I was the first to know. I took it up to mother uh, she was at an ambulance station and she promptly fainted and then we went and told my dad's mum and father and they were absolutely shocked we would imagine that uh my grandfather didn't last too long after that it seemed to go downhill really shockingly because I don't think he was in too much health to start with so that was it more or less
CP: I can remember dad coming home on leave 48 hour passes and being home and they dropped a bomb in Melbot Grove digging this crater because dad, we were in the shelter and dad went out to help didn't he?
IL: So how, did you, did you keep it, did how did you keep in touch or did you see each other when you were
CP: He used to come to see me
BS: Yeah, I was going on a bike and go to see her
IL: Right. So when did you see your mom?
CP: Occasionally
BS: Very infrequently
IL. Right
CP: Occasionally, I think maybe three times
IL: During the entire time you were evacuated?
CP: Yeah
BS: Your father and I came across [unclear] at one time to see us
CP: Yes I was in the playing field and we were all lined up ready to come in and I saw dad and I ran out, I ran to him and he said oh go back, go back you'll get into trouble and the teacher said no, no that's fine and then it went home, you know, went off
IL: So, when he came home on leave, did you usually see him?
BS: Sometimes
CP: I think he was going about three to three or four times that's all then, so we've seen them about four times
IL: So, did he come to see you or did you come back to home?
CP: We came to Hull
IL: Right
CP: Came on the ferry
BS: Well I was at home on Easter, er when his last visit, when he came home on leave, it was in the Easter of 1944 and that was the last time I spoke
IL: So obviously we're mainly talking about from the bomber command perspective your father, what did your father do before the war?
BS: Well, he served his time as a cooper
IL: Right!
BS: With the parent company
CP: Johnsons
BS: And when he was 21 he got the push [unclear] apprentices [unclear]
IL: Yeah
BS: And [coughs] excuse me, he went uh with the Hull cooperation transport as a conductor and he was on trams for a little while and then uh, he got transferred onto buses
IL. Alright
CP: He [unclear]
BS: He was a bus conductor until the war broke out when he volunteered [unclear]
IL. When did he volunteer?
CP: 1940
BS: Would be yeah
IL: Thanks
CP: 1940
IL: And did he have any, so did he volunteer straight away for the RAF or was he?
BS: Well he wanted the RAF
CP: Yeah, yeah
IL: Alright
CP: Went straight into
BS: Did he have any uhm, did he have any connection to the RAF?
CP: No
IL: Right
CP: No, whatsoever his brother wouldn't go in, would he? He was, his brother was a conscientious objector, wasn’t he?
IL: Right
CP: He wanted to know everything about it and dad wasn't prepared to tell him
BS: Dad was killed on uh just after a training exercise had been on and they were landing at their own airfield and a German aircraft followed them in and shot them down as they were landing. The way I understood it, they bounced off a couple of aircraft and banged into a hangar and that was it.
IL: Right. So what was he flying in when he was?
BS: Stirling
CP: Stirling
BS: Stirling bomber
CP: He didn’t like then, did he? He hated them
BS: He was a flight engineer
IL: Right. So what sort of things was he doing, sorry, let's, if we just take a step back then. So, when he joined the RAF what, can you tell us what you know about his service in the RAF?
BS: Well, he did his square bashing at Blackpool
IL: Right
BS: And they were actually stationed at some of the hotels in Blackpool obviously because of shortages at camps, I suppose who had been so busy and when he finished that he went off to St Athans
IL: Right
BS: To train as a uh engine uh fitter
IL: Right
BS: And it was it's quite a long course actually and then he was on ground crew for a while and he volunteered for the aircrew
CP: But his commander didn't want him to fly, did he?
BS: No
CP: He wanted him to stay ground staff
IL: Who, sorry, who didn't?
CP: His commander
IL: Right
CP: He wanted to stay ground staff but he wouldn’t, he wanted, maybe because he was quite a bit older than the others they were like in the 20s weren't they?
IL: Well, I was going to say how old was your father?
CP: Dad was 37 when he was killed
IL: Right. So he was, so that
CP: Like 32
IL: So he'd be about 32 when he when he joined, when he joined up
CP: So the others were just boys weren't they?
IL: Right
BS: They used to call him puff
CP: Yeah
BS: The aircrew
CP: So he was, he wanted to keep up with him I suppose didn't he? Wanted to do his bit not because he was older
IL: So, as ground crew, do you know where he where he was stationed when he was ground crew?
BS: Don't really remember
IL: Right. You don't have any, no, you don't know particularly what aircraft he was working, he worked so?
BS: No, not as an engine fitter, no
CP: No, either
IL: Right. So when did he when did he volunteer for aircrew?
BS: I don’t know, he was ground crew for a while.
CP: 1941
BS: ’44, no, it would be late ’43 when he volunteered I rarely 40 but he volunteered for aircrew because he was still on the training when he got killed
IL: Right, okay, so he was, so he was training to be a flight engineer
BS: Yes
IL: Right
CP: But the last fortnight that he was alive, they'd been flying day and night
BS: OH yeah
CP: And they were tired out and sick and fed up a bit, he'd written to his mother
IL: Right
CP: That he was
IL: But these,
CP: So [unclear] tired
IL: These were just training, he was just training missions
CP: Yeah [unclear] fighter, cause he came out of the sky and shot them down
BS: As far as we know, he was on training, but training flights often uh used to cover what they called gardening, dropping mines off the coast, Dutch coast
CP: But they've been getting ready for D-day, haven't they? I think that's why they've been flying day and night
BS: Well that was a week after
CP: Yeah
BS: It was exactly a week before, it was on a wet Sunday 1944 when he was killed Sunday no, Sunday night, Monday morning, half past two on the Monday morning, when he was killed
CP: 31st, was it 29th or 30th?
BS: 29th
CP: 29th
BS: And he, uh you interrupted my train of thought there
CP: Sorry?
BS: You interrupted my train of thought
IL: You were talking, you were talking about some of these training flights being mine laying
BS: That's right yeah, they did. It wasn't officially [unclear] but that's what they did, it's part of the training but actually they were a bit of a dodgy [unclear] laying mines because the Germans would often be waiting for they but they certainly followed him but I
CP: He had orders to land, didn’t he? He just had orders to land
BS: [unclear] I went to the Lancaster at, what they call it? East Kirkby
IL: Right
BS: You know it, yeah. I went there on my 65th birthday I think it was not, maybe not, maybe later uh it was a treat for me from the family apparently and I went into that Lancaster when we went out about when it came back and I, there was a German uh fellow on the aircraft he'd come across and he was there like and he was talking to me and I told him what had happened and he said, oh, he said I’ll find out about that. So he wrote to me and told me exactly what had happened and there was two of them on the aircraft, it was a twin-engine aircraft and they gave me the names and ranks
IL: Right
CP: What, the one that shot him down?
BS: They were shot down by a Mosquito. Apparently, it was the only aircraft over England that day
IL: Right. So they would, so the aircraft that shot your father down was also, was then late it was was shot down by mosquitoes that night
BS: It was shot into North Sea, yeah
IL: Gosh!
BS: So there was two of them on that, that they got killed as well
CP: Was it blue two planes that had been hammered into? Dumped right into the hangar [unclear]?
BS: They hit two aircraft and bounced into the hangar
CP: Yeah
BS: And they wasn’t actually going [unclear]
CP: No, certainly he was shot down, he bounced in and took two others with him
BS: They hit the hangar
IL: So, did you ever have any contact with any of the other people from, where was he stationed when he was killed, sorry?
CP: Bury St Edmunds
BS: No, he wasn't. When he was killed, he was at Spring, Spring Cottage I think it was, it was a satellite ground for uh Stradishall
IL: Right
BS: Which is now HMP prison
IL: Right
BS: But uh that's where he was when he was killed
IL: Okay. Did you ever have any contact with any, you know, station commander or?
CP: No
BS: There was a, an officer came from the camp uh to refuel them
IL: Right
BS: But uh that was the only contact we had
IL: So, presumably his funeral was in Hull?
BS: Oh yeah he's in Chanterlands Avenue.
IL: Right
CP: Your mum got five pounds to order it, didn't she?
BS: Sorry?
CP: Mum got five pounds to order his funeral from the [unclear], to bring him home
BS: Uhm they paid for the, all commissions paid for the stone and they maintain it because I wanted to print the names on to make it stand out and I was told by uh Gary, the funeral undertaker that uh I couldn't do it, I wouldn't be allowed
CP: I know, bless you, to [unclear] proper dues
BS: So, I didn’t do it, but they do clean them up now and again
CP: I cleaned it up last time I went
BS: And they recut the letters on it names you don't know that but that's infrequently. I don’t know, what else I can tell you about it? You’ll have to tell me what you want to know.
IL: Well, whatever, it's your story you know uhm, anything you, if you want any details you want to tell me about your dad or about his service, um?
BS: Well we don't know much about that really except that he did serve time at St Athan as I said training as what we call it? Not as a flight engineer, he was on ground staff and he was a mechanic but uh, he was classed as a fitter, that was it, a fitter 2e that's what he was and it was an LAC there by that time and he only became a sergeant when he went to the, into aircrew
CP: On that last letter I think it said, from the last letter I think it was 1943.
IL: Did he?
CP: That last letter was five months before he got killed
IL: Did he talk about what he was doing when he came home more?
BS: No, not really, no
CP: He did to his parents I think but not
IL: Right
CP: Not in front of me he didn’t. Don’t know if he said anything to you
BS: No, what I think we were a bit too young really
CP: Yeah. Those kids were kids then, weren’t they? You know what I mean
BS: And you were reminded fairly frequently
CP: Pardon?
BS: You were reminded fairly frequently that you were kids
CP: Should be seen and not heard
BS: Something like that, yes
CP: [unclear] should be seen and not heard, pity the [unclear] now [laughs]. And I belong then corporation [unclear], didn't he when before the war
BS: Yeah before the war
CP: Yeah
BS: Yeah, he got a few prizes for that
CP: You said it'd come out of the [unclear] in the recession wouldn't he, in the 30s
BS: Yeah
CP: And he went into corporation
BS: He, he was taken out of the paint industry when he served his time at 21. Nearly all apprentices, whatever trade you were, when you reached 21, out through the door
CP: And he got married then
BS: Well the father would, his father wouldn't allow him to get married before then
CP: No
BS: Because our eldest sister, Stella, she was born before that
CP: Yeah, about eight months before they got married, wasn’t she?
BS: Yeah
IL: Right
BS: He wouldn't allow him to get back until he was 21 which was the norm in those days, oh well
IL: What happened to your mum then after the war?
CP: My mum was in the ambulance service during the war
IL: Right
CP: She joined that and um wouldn't she? Driving ambulances and then she was at various jobs, didn't she?
BS: Yeah
CP: And then in 1955 she remarried
IL: Right
BS: Yeah, he was chief engineer on a trawler
CP: Yeah and then he died didn't he? And then she was a widow after that until she died what 80, 88 [unclear] wasn’t she?
BS: No idea
IL: Right is there anything else you feel you need to, you'd like to tell me about?
CP: Well, we'll remember afterwards then [laughs]
BS: I saw a bomber taking off from Elsham, cause where I was, we were below the Lincolnshire Wolds and Elsham was on the top and you could see him taking off. He'd be flying north to take off and it got not far off the runway apparently when it blew up, so it left to be cold and stopped the other aircraft flying off from the red. So I understood from someone I was talking to some years after that there was everybody on the camp, including the group captain uh commander, he was out there with a shovel and anybody else who couldn't [unclear] filling it in and within just over half an hour or so they've been flying again, taking up on it and carrying on
CP: Mother got a machine gun in the corner of Beverley Road didn't she?
IL: Sorry?
CP: Mother and my friend got machine guns at the corner of Beverley Road
BS: No, they didn't
CP: Well that's what I was told
BS: Well you had more than I did right um
IL. Right. From a German plane?
CP: Yeah, [unclear] at the corner of Beverley Road and King Edward Street
BS: I saw
IL: When was that?
CP: I don't know what year it was, but I remember her saying that they had to get into a shop doorway to get out of the way
IL: It was that when they were on duties ambulance?
CP: No, no they were walking in Hull
IL: Right
CP: They were off-duty
BS: Well, I saw the last German aircraft over Hull and it shot up a cinema, two cinemas on Holderness Road, people were leaving, cause all the lights were on as they went out through the doors and they machine gunned them on the way out. I want them coming down the red himself because I was walking down King Edward Street that was nearly opposite Thornton valleys when it went over and I can see all the markers quite clearly on it and quite low down
IL: So when was that?
BS: That would be 1945, early 45.
IL: So it's fairly early
BS: Yeah
IL: Right okay
BS: That would be one of the last raids. I understood it was the last one
IL: I think it's the last actually, yes because I, I know that and I’m not 100 percent sure but I, I think that those were the last civilian deaths in the UK from enemy aircraft action
BS: Yeah
IL: The cinema queueing, the cinema [unclear] in Hull so if you saw that that's actually, that's really interesting
BS: Well, I saw it go over, I heard it
IL: So, is it a single engine or was it a two-engine fighter or?
Bs: No, it wasn't a fighter, it was a bomber I think
IL: All right
BS: But, uh or a fighter bomber, uh I heard the machine gunning so I was walking along, along King Edward Street that would be when they were [unclear] and the people leaving the cinema
IL: Right
BS: And that, I was on the side where he came across me sort of thing so he wouldn't see me because I was in the dark, uh couldn't see me on that side running a bit of moonlight probably I don't remember that much but uh
CP: People coming out with cinema they'd be littered
BS: But I was, I was in the dark it was all dark down there never had any streetlights of course in those days
IL: Just one just, maybe one last thing, uhm did you ever have, did you, were you ever conscious after the war of the sort of the lack of recognition of Bomber Command?
BS: Not really, not until
CP: [unclear], no,
BS: Not until
CP: [unclear]
BS: Some years ago, [unclear] years ago [unclear] aware of it
CP: Cause it’s always been Spitfires, hasn’t it? Never Bomber Command, they [unclear]
IL: There was no, there was no, there was no, there was no sort of, you've never had occasion where you've maybe been talking about your father or his wartime service and people have been oh well you know Bomber Command and they were all, they didn't do a very good job, well they did a great job but you know that they were sort of, murdered lots of German civilians and
CP: I did meet a Luftwaffe pilot on holiday
IL: Right
BS: You did what?
CP: Met a Luftwaffe pilot on holiday
BS: Oh, do you?
CP: Yeah cause I was with these Germans, because for some reason people mistake me for German when you're on holiday, for some reason I don't know why um
IL: Is it because you keep taking the taking the sun lounges? [laughs]
CP: Maybe, yeah, could be
BS: You'll have to excuse for a moment
IL. No problem at all
CP: Was in this cafeteria at night time with these people and he came in and then you know we enjoyed the evening when, when he, when it was time to go he got up and kissed me and they all roared with laughing cause they never, they said, they never ever thought they'd see him kiss an Englander [laughs]
IL: Right. I’m going to I’m going to stop this now if we, if we'll just chat.
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 Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson
Creator
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Ian Locker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASterryBS-PearsonC180725
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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00:31:19 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Hull
Wales--Glamorgan
England--Yorkshire
Description
An account of the resource
Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson, both born in Hull, talk about their lives as evacuees during the war. Bernard, who was 10 years old when war broke out, was evacuated from Hull to North Lincolnshire until September 1944, when he came back home at the age of 15 and got a job as an apprentice electrician. Cecilia was six when war was declared. She was also evacuated to North Lincolnshire, to Winterton and other places; she remembers the day her father was killed. Bernard and Cecilia both remember seeing Hull burning from the distance. Bernard tells of his dad, a bus conductor, who volunteered for the RAF in 1940; after doing his initial training at Blackpool, he was sent to RAF St Athan to become an engine fitter; he was then shot down by a German aircraft after a training exercise on a Stirling. Bernard later found out that the aircraft that had shot down his father, was in turn shot down shortly afterwards by a Mosquito over the North Sea. Among the various episodes, Bernard witnessed in early 1945, the bombing of a cinema in Hull and the people killed were the last civilian casualties of World War Two in Britain to be caused by enemy aircraft.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1945
bombing
childhood in wartime
evacuation
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
home front
killed in action
RAF St Athan
shelter
shot down
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1015/11304/PLeedhamHJL1801.2.jpg
fdabc281256a5511e83607203749a467
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1015/11304/ALeedhamHJL181212.1.mp3
eca92a44a63ba05981df7098454718ac
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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Leedham, Bob
Herbert John Lewis Leedham
H J L Leedham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Bob Leedham (b. 1922, 1183577, 160986 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 90 and 57 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Leedham, HJL
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is an interview between International Bomber Command Centre volunteer Harry Bartlett with Mr Herbert, Bob, Leedham, who lives at Ashbourne in Warwickshire. He joined the RAF in 1940, but we’ll no doubt will come to that shortly. Bob, if I can just ask you what were you doing on, in the few years before the war?
BL: My family, my father was a skilled carpenter, but on my mother’s side, she had three brothers all of which were very keen engineers and one of which was exceptionally keen and he worked for a local motor company and he was involved in motor bike racing at Donnington, mainly, and it was him that inspired me with a heavy engineering interest, and consequently when I left school, I was educated in Burton on Trent, the dear old brewing place, I finished up there, I was, won a scholarship to be educated at the main system, which was the central system and the grammar school and so on in Burton and I survived that. And on leaving I decided my real choice was to follow my uncles as it were, into the motor trade, which I did. And I was trained fairly quickly as an apprentice in the motor trade and of course when the war started most of them were already on the reserve and they were the first people to be called up. So myself and a couple of my colleagues of my age, and at that time we are talking about an age of seventeen, sixteen to seventeen, I had already passed my driving test and was driving of course and we were left to run the very large garage very quickly after all the others had been called up, and so it was hands on experience with a vengeance. We were left to run the garage and carry on operations and consequently even a relatively short time I had a good engineering background. However, when I got to seventeen and a half, all my mates that I knew and went to school with and so on had all got into the air force, they’d volunteered in some way or other. In fact some of them were actually called up and I knew that sooner or later I would be called up as soon as I got to the age of I think it was eighteen or nineteen and the chances were that I would maybe put in to the Army. Well I had no interest whatsoever of going into the Army. My first choice was always the air force. Unknown to my parents, at seventeen and a half, I went over to the Assembly Rooms in Derby to the recruiting centre and signed up to join, but I had to give my age as eighteen. They probably accepted this with tongue in cheek knowing that I’d lied a little bit about my age. However, I was accepted and instructed to come for a medical a couple of days later. Very amusing and perhaps interesting thing was, that bearing in mind I had been brought up in a relatively conservative sort of area in Burton on Trent as opposed to big cities and so on, so we were living in a relatively closed environment, despite the fact we were all qualified, and highly qualified tradesmen then. So I went over to have the medical. There was about twenty of us lined up. The doctor came in, he says, ‘right, take your shirts off boys, I’m going to check your hearts.’ So he went along, checking everyone, all the way along, and when he got to the end he says, ‘Right, put your shirts on boys,’ then waited a few minutes, said, ‘drop your trousers then.’ I thought ‘drop my trousers!’, bloody hell! I’d never been exposed to anyone in my life before, you know! And I feel that at that moment I changed from being a boy to a man. That’s the way I felt about it, I couldn’t believe, having to drop my trousers and expose myself even to a doctor. That was the sort of background we were brought up in of course, in those days. It’s totally different now of course. So really from then on the next few days I was down at Cardington for the, attestation and so forth and then I was allocated for training. So initially because of my engineering background the RAF at that time were quite short of experienced engineering people, and they’d set up training units and so on but, they were very good from a theory point of view but nothing in the way of hands on. So I was immediately shuffled into training as a fitter 2E. But I wasn’t happy that, I wanted to fly. So it didn’t last long, and I managed to wiggle my way in to ITW at Blackpool, and found myself on a pilot’s course.
HB: ITW?
BL: ITW: Initial Training Wing.
HB: Right.
BL: Which was at Blackpool in those days and that’s where they carried out the tests as to whether you were suitable to fly in an aircrew capacity. So I was accepted to fly an aircrew capacity to be decided specifically by the selection board’s requirements. And the next thing was, at that time the pilot training was being geared up dramatically. The original pilots in the air force at the start of the war and going right up to probably about the end of 1941, were pre-war pilots, mostly people who’d come from quite wealthy backgrounds who could afford to train them as pilots and by the end of 1941, these were the people that the air force had to rely on in the early days. When I look back historically on some of the situations, bombing raids and that sort of thing using obsolete aircraft like Lysanders and stuff like that, it was dreadful really and by the end of ’41 most of these boys had disappeared: they’d either been shot down, been killed, they crashed or were POWs. Result was that there was a colossal demand for fully trained new aircrew. This was done from a pilot’s point of view in Canada, or America, or Southern Rhodesia as it was then, which is now Zimbabwe, of course. Those were the three, main three areas where the pilots would train from about 1941 onwards. And they set up very, very good systems. But there was a difference between Rhodesia trained and particularly American trained. The American instructors were extremely, quite different to us: they were very hard, very dedicated and they set up a system for training pilots, that if you didn’t go solo in twelve hours, you were thrown off the course. You were downgraded to either a navigator or a bomb aimer or anyone else that had any sort of background which would be useful to the air force, in my case an engineering background. And when you consider, you know, people, ex bank managers if you like, and people from a whole variety of trades in civilian life, there they were, shipped over to America to train as pilots and expected to go solo in twelve hours. Just dreadful really. However, that was the way the system worked. It wasn’t quite so severe in Canada, but nevertheless it was similar to the American system but the ones trained in Southern Rhodesia of course, it was very much more realistic, and they didn’t stick to any specific hours to go solo and things like that you see. So the result was when finely trained aircrew of any category then came back to the UK, the usual routine was Initial Training Wing and then on to type training unit and so on and find a way into things like Wellingtons and Hampdens and Lemingtons, er Wellingtons and things like that.
HB: Can I just take you back a little bit Bob? [Cough] excuse me. When you joined up, you started your initial training as a fitter.
BL: Yup.
HB: But you then went for aircrew training.
BL: Yes.
HB: Did you go to train as a flight engineer, or did you go to train as a pilot?
BL: No, I went to train as a pilot initially.
HB: Right. And where did, which you, where did you actually go train as a pilot?
BL: I went to 32 SFTS in Carbery Manitoba, Canada.
HB: Canada, right.
BL: But I didn’t make the twelve hours solo so I was downgraded, the same as three quarters of them. There were very few, at that time anyway, who were competent enough after twelve hours to go solo. So it was a very hard path really. I came back to the UK, together with many others, who’d been diverted then in to training as a navigator or a bomb aimer or a gunner – I’d forgotten that one – and, but in my particular case the fact that I had the engineering background, which they wanted, they downgraded me to co-pilot and flight engineer. So predominantly I was trained as a full flight engineer, despite the fact I was accepted that on aircraft for instance like the Stirling I had to act as co-pilot as well. So I had to take link training and all that. I was never allowed to take off and land, but I was there to relieve the main pilot and to act as co-pilot duties. And that applied pretty well throughout: Stirlings, Lancasters, Halifaxes and so on. So we were always virtually the number two so far as the mechanical operation of the aircraft was concerned. As opposed to the gunners who had their job to do, bomb aimer had his job to do and the navigator. A number of the early bomb aimers of course were also trained as type of navigators but very few of them flew as navigators, they flew mainly as usually as bomb aimer come front gunner. There was always a front turret, gun turret on the Lancs and the Stirlings and Halifaxes, so the bomb aimers were expected to man the front turret and also act as the bomb aimer so far as the targets were concerned. And the navigators of course, they did the actual navigation guidance to the pilots.
HB: So you came back to England and you went to do your flight engineer training for aircrew.
BL: Yes. At St. Athan.
HB: At, St Athan, right. So at the end of that training, where did you sort of stand in the scheme of things?
BL: I was at training, already I’d had my link training as a co-pilot as well, before I went to St Athan, when I left St Athan, fully qualified, the next thing then was to join a crew on either Lancs, Stirlings or Halifaxes. In fact in my particular case I was posted to Stradishall which was a main training base for Stirlings and then the crew of seven were created. There was nothing directed, they put us all in hangar and between ourselves we had to get to know each other and put ourselves together as a seven man crew, which is how it happened. Once that’s established as a crew then your flight training started, which we did at Stradishall of course, on the Stirlings in our particular case.
HB: Where did your, is it all in this hangar, did somebody come to you or did you think oh I like the look of him, I’ll go with him? Or? How did it work? What were the mechanics of it?
BL: It’s a variety really. Our captain, our skipper, was an ex Birmingham policeman and personally, personality was absolutely first class, but he was a strict disciplinarian being ex-police, of course, and so he was highly respected despite the fact he was definitely one of us, but very highly respected. And we got to know him, chatting away and he said well, he says ‘I’ve just come from OTU from Wellingtons,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a navigator and I probably have a bomb aimer.’ He says, ‘I’m looking for a couple of gunners and a flight engineer co-pilot to get the seven man crew together,’ and so from then on it was a question of who you knew and whether you thought they were capable, and see whether they were already in a crew or not that was how we all created seven together. It was done quite amicably, in various reasons, various forms, whether you knew each other or you say well I know old so-and-so, he’s a bloody good navigator, try and get him on our crew, you know, and that sort of thing. So we finished up as a very tight crew and it so happened, subsequently, that when we were doing our ops on the squadron, the camaraderie within the seven man crew was very tight indeed. The result was we found that we had seven first class crew members. Everyone worked together, helped each other and that was the way it went on the Stirlings. Unfortunately the Stirlings of course had a very bad reputation subsequently. The reason for this was because in its early days, [cough] it was built pre-war of course, a long way pre-war, and was a very good four engined heavy bomber when it was produced, extremely good, but unfortunately it came under the influence of the political decisions, the politicians came along and said that aircraft’s got a wingspan of a hundred and sixteen feet! We won’t get it in to the hangars at Cardington, they’re only a hundred feet, you’ll have to take sixteen feet off the wings. So, reluctantly, they put pressure on the manufacturers and the Stirling was modified to have sixteen feet, either, eight feet either side taken off the wings. Not only that by doing that they had to alter the structure quite considerably and raise the undercarriage very high in order to cope with this. Disaster so far as performance’s concerned, the result was the Stirling was always very, very much – what shall I say - the underdog as far as the heavy bombers were concerned. Result was the highest we could ever get to bomb was about twelve thousand feet. The Lancs and the Halifaxes were up above at twenty two thousand and frequently if your time was slightly out we were bombed by their bombs from above us. Frequently happened, there was a lot of aircraft were lost that way. Just one of those things. So really, although at that stage, when you think that the Lanc didn’t come in to service till towards the end of ’42, so in the early days the Stirling was the only heavy bomber and he was restricted in its performance by this political intervention and consequently it had a reputation of being something of a, I won’t use, I want to use the words death traps, but Bomber Harris had his own ideas on this and he was fully aware of it. In fact as ‘43 went on we were doing the Ruhr bombing and then of course Hamburg and then the start of the Berlin offensive which was in the autumn of ’43, and at that stage our losses were running on average seven, eight percent, we had one occasion when our losses were seventeen [emphasis] percent. And it got to the stage where Bomber Harris, he couldn’t stand it any longer, he was at war with a lot of the politicians himself of course by his insistence that Germany had to be bombed in order to minimise their war effort, and consequently it’s on record in one of, I think it was Max Hastings’ book Bomber Command I think he mentioned it in there, the extract of a meeting that Harris had with Churchill in round about October, I think, or maybe November ’43, and he was thumping the table and he said to Churchill, he says, ‘if I send my boys out [thumping] to get lost any longer in these bloody death trips, death traps called Stirlings they’ll call me a murderer.’ He says, ‘what I want is Lancasters, Lancasters and more Lancasters.’ there was a hell of a row went on and Churchill didn’t say a word. But finally he leaned across and said you’ll have your Lancasters. And it was then that the production on Lancasters was even, set up considerably higher than what it was already.
H: So when [cough] -
BL: So really, just interrupting,
HB: No, no.
BL: so going back from our training at Stradishall as a crew were posted to 90 Squadron to a little place called Ridgewell which was in Cambridgeshire, and not terribly well known and we were the first people in. A couple of farms that had been demolished and replaced with an impromptu quickly built runway. There was no, shall we say buildings, which were you might say were suitable for an operational squadron. There was mud everywhere, conditions were foul. They put a series of nissen huts up for us to live in and also for headquarters and the conditions there were not terribly good at all. However, there we were in the spring of ’41, er ’43, expected to use that as a base to operate, operationally against the various targets which were set out. We were at Ridgewell I think for no longer than about three months, four months, something like that and we moved then to a place called, it was West Wickham when we moved there but it was renamed Wratting Common, and consequently conditions there were far better. Again, it wasn’t a wartime, it wasn’t a peacetime airfield, but it was a good airfield and conditions there were far better airfield than Ridgewell. I don’t quite know what happened to Ridgewell in the end, whether it survived or not. I shouldn’t think it did: it was foul. But nevertheless we went to Wratting Common and we continued to fly our ops from Wratting Common on 90 Squadron, until, as I say, the autumn when the squadron was destined to change from Stirlings into Lancs and consequently they were moved to just outside Mildenhall at Tuddenham.
HB: How many ops did you actually fly in Stirlings for your tour?
BL: On Stirlings alone I think we did about twenty one I think it was, on the Stirlings, before we went on Lancs. As I say during that particular time conditions using the Stirling were very difficult, to make an understatement. Our losses were constant and it was amazing really, I mean for instance there was a Canadian pilot called Geordie Young. He was the senior pilot on the squadron, he’d got a lot of experience, and they went off on their last trip, their thirtieth trip, and they got blown up over Dusseldorf on their very last trip and that was, had a very, what shall I say effect on morale on the squadron, because they were regarded you know, the top boys on the squadron. One of the problems, in those days throughout Bomber Command, not just 3 Group which was a Stirling Group, but all the other groups as well, is that when Don Bennett set up the 8 Group, Pathfinder Group, he got old Hamish Mahaddie who he took on as his recruitment boss to collect all the very best crews off the different squadrons he could get hold of, to go into Pathfinders, and of course there was a colossal amount of opposition to this from all the squadrons. No squadron commander wants to lose their best crews, and consequently there was a war going on particularly on 5 Group, with Cochrane was the AOC on 5 Group in those days, based at Swinderby and he was very, very strongly opposed to it. There was open warfare going on the whole time, and despite the fact that 5 Group at that time of course, was the elite group which contained all the 617 boys and various other specialist crews for specialist bombing trips and he obviously didn’t want to lose any of those. And consequently he managed to get some political background particularly from Arthur Harris two of the Pathfinder squadrons in 8 Group would be transferred back to 5 Group. So he eventually had his own Pathfinder boys. Of course then when Gibson set up 617, that was also again from selecting top quality experienced crews. In the early days that was, but before the Dambuster raid, but not so much later on when they were really struggling to get replacement crews from the various crews they’d lost. So really Bomber Harris, Arthur Harris, he was very much supporting the 5 Group people, it was his elite group in Bomber Command and he always gave it sort of first preference on everything. There’s one, a very amusing aspect came at a conference they were having at Swinderby when at the time Princess Margaret was having this affair with Fighter Command Townsend and there was all speculation in the press about whether she’d marry him or whether she’d marry somebody else, and so on, and at this particular meeting, this conference of crews at Swinderby, it was a bit of a hilarious topic and someone was saying, ‘well it’s unknown who she’s going to marry, but it won’t have any effect on us here in 5 Group.’ And somebody stood up and said, ‘well there’s one thing for certain, whoever she marries, it’s bound to be somebody from 5 Group!’ [Laughter]
HB: Yeah. Can I just take you back a little bit Bob.
BL: Yes of course.
HB: I just noticed in some of your notes, I know this is jumping right back, it says you [cough] were posted to Coastal Command, 86 Squadron and flew on Sunderlands.
BL: Yes. That was when I was on 86. We were, we did a detachment down to Gosport actually.
HB: Oh right.
BL: And then to St, St Athan, when the two battleships Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst were at Brest and they were trying to get up the channel to get away and consequently we went down there with 86 Squadron to carry out operations against the two battleships. But for some reason or other, some of the squadron was detached to, in Coastal Command, to a flying boat squadron, which was 10 Squadron based at Mountbatten, at Plymouth. I don’t quite know why this happened, it was only a very short time, but I was one of the people that went on the flying boats for about three months.
HB: So you were there as a co-pilot engineer?
BL: Yes, on the flying boats. And again, bearing in mind our engineering background was what they wanted more than anything because we had to get involved with the maintenance schedules and so on as well. So I only had three months, I didn’t like it at all. Flying boats was not for me, and that was the main reason I thought that there must be a better way that I enjoy so I volunteered while I was there for Bomber Command. That’s where I started into Bomber Command
HB: Right. It’s all right, I was just trying to get the sequence of events into some sort of order.
BL: That was really how the sequence went through. Of course in Bomber Command, very lucky with our crew to survive a tour on 90 Squadron.
HB: What were the operations, you know, you’re flying operations into the Ruhr in the Stirling, and you’ve very clearly explained the shortcomings of the Stirling. What was it, you know, what was, what were your experiences of those, those individual sort of operations?
BL: Well it varied actually. But the Ruhr targets at that time I can remember them vividly. Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Krefeldt, Essen. And Essen was the one everyone hated [emphasis] because at that time that was the home of Daimler Benz, Krups and all the munitions factories, and they had a ring right the way round Essen, three thousand anti aircraft guns and radar controlled searchlights and when you’re flying towards Essen and you looked ahead, you think, ‘Christ you’ve got to get through that to get to the target point,’ and usually at briefing when the curtain was finally pulled back - we were never told what the target was until the very last minute of course - and when the target was pulled back you see Essen area, ‘oh Christ, not Essen,’ you know. However, going from what I say, first five trips Essen, then we went on to Gelsenkirchen, Wuperthal, Mulein, Bochum, Cologne, Munchen Gladbach. Now in my history of 90 Squadron book, there’s various aspects of the work that we did, and there’s a typical battle order printed there as an example. And that was August the 26th I think it was, on Munchen Gladbach and we were on the battle order for that particular night. I think the squadron was putting up something like thirty two aircraft or something that night. There was eight hundred and fifty on the, the full main force. And at that time the procedure on ops on the squadrons was that you didn’t do, as a pilot or co-pilot or anything like that, you didn’t go out with your own crew until you’d done a familiar flight with an experienced crew as a supernumerary and it just so happens that on that battle order I had one under supervision and there was one other crew with another one under supervision. It was on the 31st of August ’43. And these two chaps, I had one of them under supervision, and another crew had the second one. Out of curiosity, in the back of the book there’s seven pages of casualties on the squadron, and when I looked for the names down, both these boys’ names were down on the casualties, one, bear in mind, was on the 22nd of September bear in mind that was just 22nd, twenty two days after we had taken them on the supervision. One of them went on the 22nd, the next night the second went on the 23rd. So they only survived twenty three days on the squadron. And that was typical, absolutely typical. We used to live in a long nissen hut, seven beds each side, two crews in there. Three times we had a new crew come in, and three times we’d wake up after an op the night before, about midday, be woken up by the military police going through the, collecting the bits and pieces, belongings of the other crew who had got the beds on opposite. Three times we had new crews come in and three times we lost them very quickly, in two cases within the first three ops, and consequently we had, as a crew, we had a reputation of being a Jonah crew and nobody would move in with us. [Laughter] But in all seriousness that was the way it happened, you know and we lost some very quickly and didn’t even get to know them. There we were, soldiering on and finally got to the stage as I say, when the Stirlings were taken out of service and deployed on other work, mainly glider towing and things like that. Then the Lancs took over as the Lancaster production of course, got higher and higher.
HB: What do you put down to, I don’t want to use the word success, your ability to have got through those twenty something operations?
BL: A lot of people would say you must have been one of the lucky ones. Yes, to a point. But we had a very good crew; highly [emphasis] dedicated crew to the individual job they had to do and it was, there were various aspects of the operation that needed high concentration and dedication to execute that. I mean our rear gunner, Eddie, he’s still alive now in New Zealand, and he had eyes like a bloody hawk; he could spot these fighters coming in and he would control the operation immediately if he saw a fighter, to the pilot at the front, saying, ‘corkscrew, corkscrew,’ and instead of flying at straight and level from a to b to a target on our particular crew, we would fly perhaps just for a minute or so, then start weaving like that, so that there was no chance of the fighters beaming on to us in, as if we’d been flying straight and level they had a much easier job of coming in to us, and under from mid or something like that, shoot us down. But by weaving like that, was one of the things which we did continually, it was uncomfortable but it was very safe. But apart from the anti aircraft of course, it certainly kept the fighters at bay from us and I mean I think three times we were attacked by fighters and three times we got away from them. Largely due to Eddie in the rear turret. Who shot one of them down actually.
HB: Did he?
BL: Yup, He opened up, he waited till he got it in his sights, and let fly and it blew up in front of him, or behind him should I say. So really that aspect of it is the thoroughness of the type of flying and the operation which was necessary, but on the other hand of course, where anti aircraft was concerned it’s a different story. We, in the Stirling we were in the middle of it, weaving through it and if you had a direct hit or a hit which say damaged the aircraft severely you could say right you were just bloody unlucky like Geordie Young on his thirtieth trip, and that sort of thing, so. The worst night of for Bomber Command for all losses was the Nuremburg flight, you may or may not have heard of this, but it was on the Nuremburg trip when the met people made a complete balls of the forecast. They were forecasting plenty of cloud so that you could fly comfortably in and out of cloud and the fighters couldn’t detect you quite so easily. But on this occasion the weather didn’t turn out as they predicted and consequently it was a full moon clear, crystal clear night and the result was that the main force – there was eight hundred and fifty aircraft on that particular target. This was in the autumn of ’44, I think it was, and that particular night we lost ninety four aircraft on that night, and when you think there were seven men in each aircraft. Work that one out. That was the worst night ever [emphasis] for Bomber Command.
HB: And your crew were on that.
BL: No. We weren’t on that.
HB: You weren’t on that one.
BL: It just so happened that we were on leave at the time so we weren’t on it. But that was, that’s the hard statistics of it.
HB: Because I was interested in the, in the thing you were saying about the Lancasters and the Halifaxes going at twenty two and you know, the Wellingtons, obviously the Wellingtons were at eighteen thousand and the poor old Stirling’s down at twelve.
BL: Yeah.
HB: I mean that must have, that must have influenced your pilot and your crew at that point, when you were on, when you were on the bigger raids.
BL: Well, yes, to a point, but you had to admit it was one of those things. I don’t think, it was only when we got to grips with the Stirling and training and so on and realised what effect the modifications had had on the performance of the aircraft. It was not easy to get off the ground with a full load on. For one thing the inertia of the engines meant that it was, always had this sort of pull to starboard, to the right, which you had to maintain correction on, and not only that but the fact that the undercarriage had been raised quite considerably, very high up. There’s a picture here will show: that was our aircraft and the one that saw us all the way through our tour, and it was so high up it that when this sort of inertia from the engines, it was very difficult to keep it straight down the runway. In fact there was numerous occasions when the aircraft just couldn’t control it with a full bomb load on and it crashed or something and numerous messy situations like that developed. But this is why as I say, I meant occasionally that when I went from Stirlings up into 5 Group, I was posted up to the elite group. How that happened was, that at that time the Lancs were coming on stream and 5 Group at Swinderby was the training base for the Lancs, but again they needed them on the squadron so rapidly that they were pushing the crews through probably too fast, not quite enough training. And the result was that a lot of the crews had been trained on the twin engined Wellingtons and stuff like that, which didn’t give them any [emphasis] experience on four engined stuff. So in the, when we finished a tour on Stirlings, it was decided then by the powers that be as it were – Harris and co – they’d put a few Stirlings up to be based at Swinderby to get, be engaged on the Lancaster training programme so that we could give them experience on another four engine aircraft which was more difficult to handle than what a Lancaster was, and consequently I was one of the eight crews that were, instructors that went up there and that’s how I got in to 5 Group, posted up there on the Stirlings. And I always remember when we got up there about 7 or 8 o’clock in the evening. So we parked the aircraft went over to the officers mess, went in the bar straight away for a drink of course, and we were standing there and there was another group of the instructors and so on and amongst them was Dave Shannon and Mickey Martin – ex 617 – and quite a number of others who’d survived and they were curious as to who we were. And finally old Dave Shannon, who was a big Australian as you probably know from 617, came across and said, ‘who are you blokes then and what are you doing here?’ ‘Oh we’ve brought some Stirlings up to give you some help in the training programmes here.’ ‘Stirlings!’ he says,’ bloody hell!’ He said, ‘have you done a tour on Stirlings?’ I said, ‘yes’. He rubbed his hand over here, says, ‘Well where are your VCs then boys?’ [Laughter] And that was their attitude towards us.
HB: Yes. That tells the tale.
BL: But there again, life’s about winners and losers isn’t it, you know. And what we had we had went out to do the best you can, and as I say, it’s sad really that our losses were consistently high.
HB: So when you’d done, you did, you know, when was you last operation that you did with the Stirling? Can you remember?
L: It was on, I think it was either Hannover or Stuttgart, it was not the Ruhr, north of the Ruhr, but that was my, our last op. We did two Berlins on the Stirling, surprisingly, and relatively quiet trips too, long trips but relatively quiet, for us anyway.
HB: What was your feeling on, you know, you’re going to do your thirtieth or your last tour on the Stirling? What was going through your mind then?
BL: I don’t really think there was any feeling about it. I mean on our crew there wasn’t any suggestion of any feeling of stress or concern or the fact that you might be, the crew expression was – you might get the chop. No, we were a very good competent crew. We operated very correctly and safely as far as we could and I think that had a, that was the predominant factor in the crew. I mean a lot of people today often say to me well what about all the stress and everything? I said well the simple answer was we couldn’t even spell the word. You know, I mean the stress wasn’t there, it was concern. Admittedly we had one occasion when our mid upper gunner, Mick, suddenly went down with something, tonsilitis or something and he couldn’t, he had to go sick and consequently they stopped him flying that night and we were doing an op that night, on, I’ve forgotten where it was now, somewhere in the Ruhr, so we had to have a mid upper gunner, spare mid upper gunner who apparently for some reason or other he’d lost the rest of his crew, he’d done no ops at all, but he was spare, so they said oh you’re joining Cawley’s crew tonight because the gunner’s gone sick so he came to us and was a dreadful situation. He was absolutely petrified of the thought of going on ops, and halfway towards, over the Dutch coast on the way to the target, he suddenly started firing off indiscriminately at what he thought were fighters but they were clouds. And of course it immediately was bloody dangerous because if fighters around they see tracer bullets going out they home in on us. And Charlie was absolutely crackers, he went mad. What the hell’s going on? Go back and have a look!’ And this bloke was sitting in his turret there, absolutely terrified and it happened again, at a very dangerous point, he suddenly started firing off. Anyway when we, we survived the op, we got back and we landed, the crew bus was there to take us back to the base for intelligence and debriefing and he never said a word, wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t get on the bus, he walked back and of course when he was interviewed by the Station Commander he said, ‘what’s the problem?’ The medical people there saw the condition of him and the RAF had a very cruel aspect of dealing with situations like that. They immediately used to braid you, used to name you as Lack of Moral Fibre which was dreadful really. You were immediately stripped of your rank back to basic and sent off to a unit which was down at Brighton to deal with these people who were so called Lack of Moral Fibre and that went on your records throughout your, a very cruel way of looking at it really. But that happened to us on this particular flight and as I say amazing really, the bloke was just absolutely petrified. Couldn’t face up to what he was asked to do, despite the fact he’d gone through training and managed to survive to train to become a qualified gunner, but there we are. Just one of those things.
HB: What did you do when you got back from your last op?
BL: [Laughter] Well I normally drink a gin and tonic but I think I had something a bit stronger than that that night! No. we had a, all went down to the pub locally and had a nice evening and then we knew the next day we’d be posted out, we’d all be posted to different directions and it was a question then where everybody went. It just so happened that in my particular case I was posted, for a very short time, to a place called Wilfort Sludge which is on the A1, but from there of course this deal came up to send some Stirlings up to 5 Group, so I was then posted out of 3 Group into 5 Group. And previous to that I’d, before I finished my tour I’d been recommended for a commission so my commission had come through so I was, and that came through six months late, so I went straight in as a commissioned Flying Officer then and went to Swinderby then as an instructor and it was, the rest of the crew: Johnnie went up to, he was the captain, he went up to near High Ercall, which is up near, in Shropshire somewhere, near Whitchurch to start training Stirling crews up there to tow gliders in anticipation, of course, of the Arnhem offensives and so on, so he went up there on towing gliders. The two rear gunner, the two gears, er gunners, the mid upper gunner and the rear gunner, they were posted to somewhere on special duties. Where they thought they were going on rest they suddenly found they were on ops again, on the special duties, doing, dropping these Resistance guys in France and so on. Harry our wireless operator, the navigator by the way, suddenly when I went to Swinderby I found he was already there and I was sharing a room with him in the mess for a while. Unfortunately, he’s the son of a clergyman in Cornwall, highly religious, he used to spend all his time playing the organ in the local church where we were down the pub having a drink, but he had a heart attack right at the end of the war and died straight away. The bomb aimer, little Barry, little short bloke, he went on rest for a short time and then decided he’d go on a second tour, But got shot down on the third trip of his second tour, but he was lucky. He managed to bale out and he was a prisoner of war for about the last six months. But Harry, our wireless op, his previous job in life he was, worked in the Metropolitan Police, on the vice squad and he was absolutely obsessed on flying against the Germans on Bomber Command, absolutely [emphasis] obsessed. His one aim in life was successful bombing Germany and when we were tour expired and they say, sent out as instructors or rested and so on, and what they called screened as they said, screened from operations. He refused point blank he says, ‘No, I’m not going,’ he said, ‘I’m going to carry on.’ There’s a little bit of discussion with the commanding officer about it and the adjutant and so on, but anyway he got his way was posted on to a Special Duties squadron somewhere, and he carried on flying. He did seventy four ops in the end. And in the end he got shot down over Denmark I think, on one these special, highly secret operations on his seventy fourth. If you go back to Lincoln his name is on the, one of the what do they call it, the metal -
HB: The walls.
BL: The walls.
HB: wall 118.
BL: That’s what happened to all of us in the end. And as I say, the two gunners they survived, despite the fact they were amazed to find themselves on this resistance dropping and that sort of thing. So that was where we all finished up.
HB: So you ended up at Swinderby as the instructor on, you know, giving people experience on four engines.
BL: Yes. So, when I went to Swinderby I was instructing on Stirlings and Lancasters at the same time.
HB: Right. So how did you, how would you relate to the engineering side of the ground crew?
BL: Well, very closely indeed, in fact the whole crew did. I mean our ground crew was our survival in many respects and we respected them, we had a very good ground crew. They kept our aircraft serviceable against unprecedented odds at times. I mean there’s numerous occasions we’d come back with shrapnel holes down the fuselage and that sort of thing, and there was one occasion when there was, we had a near hit, this was Dusseldorf again funny enough, the intelligence people used to say well when the anti aircraft batteries are shooting at you, if you can’t hear on, if you can’t hear any noise you know you’re safe, but if you hear a bang you’ll know it’s very close. We heard this bloody great bang over Dusseldorf and that was very close and it finished up with Norm Minchin, the mid upper turret, with the perspex turret round his head, a piece of shrapnel came up and cut right through the back of the perspex and cut the back of his turret off, and he didn’t know it! Without touching him at all! It just cut through this Perspex and the back, and after we had left the target we were flying back home and he came on the intercom and said, ‘Christ it’s bloody cold up here, have you got some heating on?’ Didn’t even know it had happened! Of course when we got back to base not only that but there was a hole in the side of the aircraft you could damn near crawl through. So the maintenance people had a pretty big job, you know, to patch up all the holes on it. And that sort of thing, but the, yeah, the ground crew were very much part of the team, very important and we had a very good ground crew, very good.
HB: And when you got to Swinderby, you would, you would continue that relationship as you do in the training of the crews.
BL: Well not with the ground crew, not at Swinderby.
HB: Right.
BL: No, I mean we were, at Swinderby all we were concerned with was training the new crews coming through, and the ground crew was general ground crew, not to with, nothing to do with individual aircraft whereas on the squadron each aircraft had its own maintenance crew and its own flight crew and that was our particular aircraft which took us all the way through.
HB: Ah right, yeah.
BL: That finished up by the way, when we handed that over to another crew, actually I read historically in one of the books somewhere it was listed, I forget where the, I think it was the Bomber Command Diaries, every aircraft that was lost they gave indications where they were lost and where they were found and so on and our particular aircraft, the other crew that had it and it finished up in the Zuider Zee!
HB: Oh right.
BL: It was recovered eventually, by the Dutch people, who were, the Dutch people were doing the archive details and so on and there was actually some photographs of it being pulled out of the sea, they’re printed in the Daily Mail I think it was actually, so I couldn’t believe it when I saw this, when I saw the number on the side BF524, that was its serial number. WPNN and it was just being pulled out the water and you could just see the name, the number BF524 on the side of it. Couldn’t believe it. Recovered it and there’s a bloke, a very elderly gentleman, he’s a semi historian based at Alconbury and he’s very much a Stirling enthusiast and he’s got a workshop there full of all the bits and pieces of crashed Stirlings and so on and he works hand in glove with the, his counterparts in Holland and one of the major museums in Holland loan him parts of aircraft which he’s, he’s rebuilt a complete cockpit of a Stirling.
HB: Has he!
BL: At this. Yes, Andrew found this out and took me over there and we had a morning with him. I was intrigued and he’s got this bloody old shed there, old hangar I think it is, a small hangar, packed with all these bits and pieces of a Stirling and in the middle he’s got a cockpit he’s already built. And when we went over there he was sorting out an undercarriage and he was showing us that the Dutch archive people were loaning him stuff out of their museum which he photographed and copied and so on and sent it back to them. He said he had a very good rapport with them. Very interesting this guy. I can’t remember his name. Andrew knows it, but it was at Alconbury where he is based.
HB: Well I think, what we might do, Bob, is we might just have a break now because I’ve just gone to check the battery and we’ve now been talking for over an hour! So if we have a quick five minute break. I’m going to have to change the batteries anyway. So we’ll just stop the interview for the time being.
BL: Yeah. Okay, fine.
HB: Well we’ve had a comfort break and we’re just going to, we’ve had a battery change. So we’re just going to resume the interview -
BL: Oh these bloody things! I hate these!
HB: Just having a problem with a hearing aid battery at the moment. [Whistling]
BL: That’s better.
HB: So we should be go, on the run now. So we’re all settled now for our second part of our interview.
BL: Yes. What I was going to say was, when we were talking about the losses on the Stirlings, the turning point I think, was when it was decided, when Goebbels was boasting that the German fighters and defences were quite adequate against the RAF Bomber Command, he made statements saying that they’ll never touch Berlin or our second biggest city, Hamburg, they’re quite safe with our defences and so on, they’ll never touch them. And that was the challenge which Bomber Harris took up, and decided in conjunction with the naval people, who were very concerned because all these u-boats and subs were based at Hamburg and they were going out into the Atlantic to pick off the convoys and so on, and naval people said we’ve got to get rid of these u-boat pens at Hamburg. So Bomber Harris decided we’d obliterate Hamburg; it’s in July ’43. And at that time, as I was saying, particularly on the Stirlings, our losses were very high indeed and morale was very low and they introduced for the first time this metal foil thing called window. That was these patches of metal things which we discharged through the flare hatch at the back of the aircraft every twenty seconds I think it was, or every thirty seconds, something like that, and these packs, when they went out into the slipstream, developed into a big screen of metallic which completely killed the German radar defences and those, radar, the German defences were based, anti aircraft, were based on the radar picking up the aircraft or picking up the target with a blue, bright blue light, searchlight and once it picked you up, it then brought all the other normal searchlights into a cone and you were in the middle of it, and once you were coned like that, it was curtains it just picked you off then because they had you, and the whole secret of their success was this radar control and when we used this window for the first time it killed their radar. The result was, the first time it was used on Hamburg, it could have been used very early in 1943 but the politicians and defence people were so concerned they thought that if we use it early the Germans will follow this, copy it, and use it against us. So they were very reluctant, but it was only that when our losses got so high they had to introduce it. And our losses immediately on Hamburg dropped to one percent: fantastic! I we went to Hamburg, we did the four nights out of six: I did all four of ‘em. The fourth one was a disaster in that the first three were completely successful and I can remember it now, looking down, a whole wave of fire throughout, it just wiped this whole place out, just like that. The fourth night we went of course the met people again, they were predicting storms, but nothing like as severe as we found. The result was I think of, the storms were so bad, we were struck by lightning and St Elmo’s fire which is on the windscreen, and goes down the fuselage, all the compasses were knocked out and our radar and Gee box was knocked out. We hadn’t the faintest idea how we were, how to navigate back again and I think out of seven or eight hundred aircraft there’s only about twelve or fourteen actually reached the target. All the others had turned back because of the weather, and we were icing up very heavily and on the Stirlings the oil coolers were slung underneath the engines and you know what happens to diesel vehicles in cold weather, the fuel starts waxing and clogs up the carburettors, and the engines stop and that’s exactly what used to happen to us. These coolers which start icing in the middle, and what we call coring, and you had to keep hot air flow going through them in order to keep them serviceable. We suddenly found that we’d got two engines with, suffering from this icing and then there was chunks of ice coming off the wings, battering against the side of the fuselage like, dreadful we had to abandon short of the coast. We jettisoned our bombs into the sea and the only way we could navigate back to the UK was star navigation, and Cyril, our navigator, he was particularly good, he could take star shots with his, with his, my blinkin’ names, what my memory’s going.
HB: Sextant.
BL: Sextant, yes, with a sextant. And a combination of that and following the stars he managed to get us going back in the direction of the UK. When we finally hit the coast instead of being, coming over the coast over Essex or somewhere, we were in the north of Scotland, over the Hebrides and that’s where we came in and of course we immediately identified where we were and we were able to fly back down to, in fact we made an emergency landing ‘cause we were running a bit short of fuel, at Wattisham, in Suffolk. That was on the fourth trip, but the first three were so highly successful, we absolutely wiped the place out, and as I say the losses dropped right down to one percent because of using this window. The rise in morale then was just fantastic, you know after that. Of course sooner or later the Germans found that they could, they changed their system and they found that they could nullify this window by using different types of radar and so on, so it didn’t last, obviously, but we were able to use it for some months actually, and it was very good. We’re just having a new kitchen put in at the moment.
HB: Ah right. That explains the banging.
BL: And the other thing about the ops on the Stirling, in ’43 when our losses were so high, when you counted the number of ops you’re doing, the way it was calculated by Group headquarters, it was decided that because when they analysed the losses and how it was happening and so on, they came to a system of doing thirty ops in a tour and the total would depend entirely on the type of ops. For instance when 90 Squadron went to Tuddenham on Lancasters in the end of ’44, or half way through ’44, their main job - they did very, very little main force bombing – but ninety percent of the jobs of their work and I’ve got it all listed in my history book of 90 Squadron, was on either, was mainly on resistance work dropping resistance and equipment for low level intervention into Europe, dropping arms and equipment to the French and the Dutch resistance movements and so on, and consequently this was done individual very low level operations and the result was that the ops compared with ’43 were very easy and the losses were very low and consequently because, and the short ops as well, and because of this to count one trip as an op they had to do four trips to count as one on the tour, and consequently this system which was introduced before we finished, was that because of the severity of a lot of our ops on the Ruhr operation were so incredibly high losses and so very difficult that they allocated that some of the ops, because of their severity, would count, you had to do one op was counted as two on your tour, because of the severity of the operation and the high level of losses. So it wasn’t, it didn’t always follow that you did a straight forward thirty trips, you could have done say twenty five trips but they counted as thirty on your log book and the severity of the targets.
HB: Did you ever do mine-laying, gardening?
LB: Mining? Yes. Gardening as they called it. Yeah. We did two actually. One off Le Creusot and one other, I’ve forgotten what it was now. We did, our particular crew we only did two mining operations, those were, they were easy ones too.
HB: Yeah. So. You got to Swinderby. You’re doing the training there. How did you move forward from there? So that would be 1944.
BL: Well it was the end of, Christmas, yes Christmas time ’43 when I went to Swinderby, and most of ’44 and as I said earlier I was a fully qualified instructor on Lancs and Stirlings then and towards the end of ’44, I think it must have been round about September, October, something like that, some of the Lanc squadrons in 5 Group were having very heavy losses and the analysis of those losses, was in many cases put down to the fact that, to inexperience, training not sufficient for them, because they’d been rushed through very quickly because squadrons, with their losses, need quick replacements and so on. The result was that at East Kirkby 57 Squadron and 630 Squadron were both there at East Kirkby, and 57 particularly although they’d been engaged on very difficult targets their losses were astronomically high and a hell of a lot of them put down to pure inexperience. So myself and Dicky, we were both instructors at Swinderby, we were seconded to 57 Squadron for three months to set up a revised training unit there, which we did, to give the training, give the operational crews quite a bit more familiarisation and training and so on to try and cut these, some of these losses down. So I had that period there. And it was whilst I was at 57 and about to go back to Swinderby, ‘cause I was still on the strength at Swinderby despite the fact I’d been loaned to 57 at East Kirkby to do this training programme, 463 Squadron at Waddington, the Aussie squadron, had been suffering a few losses here and there, and the, one of the leaders of the squadron, the co-pilot and flight engineer leader there had been lost, so I was posted to 463 as his replacement and I was lucky to stay there until the end of the war.
HB: So that was back on to operations.
BL: So, yes, so I went back on to ops. Of course when I was at 463, because I was the boss of A flight, I was the leader, I didn’t have a crew, so I could only put myself on to do ops when there was a, somebody had gone sick or something you see, so I did them with any crew, and by extremely strange coincidence, I said to you about Essen earlier, my very first trip on my second tour here was a low level daylight on Essen. [Laugh] I couldn’t believe it! But I’ll tell you what, it was so bloody easy, it was so different to 1943. But, so I stayed there really, and at the end of the war as I said earlier, I went to Skellingthorpe, just outside Lincoln when Tiger Force was set up. I was posted on to Tiger Force.
HB: And Tiger Force was - ?
BL: That was the equivalent to 617 to go to Japan to do the [cough] vital targets into Japan, very similar to what 617 had been doing, because the adjacent to 617 Squadron was 9 Squadron. They were both based then at Woodhall Spa and Wing Commander Cheshire was the, was one of the commanding officers at 617 at that time, amongst others. But so when I went to 463 as I say, I was there till the end of the war then, and doing ops from there, and because I was the leader there the flight engineer leader on 463, I was posted to Skellingthorpe to join Tiger Force and I was promoted then at Tiger Force to be in charge of that particular section to go to Japan and we were half way through their training when the bomb was dropped of course and it all came to a halt then. Consequently I found myself in civil flying.
HB: Yeah. You did tell me before the interview started, you were, you were made an offer by the RAF before you -
BL: Yes, offered a, I was a substantive flight lieutenant then, and for a very short time I was an acting Squadron Leader but only for four weeks! [Laugh] Because it all ended then. But I was offered a extended seven year flying, extended flying committee, er, commission and given the choice. I didn’t know much about, well I didn’t know anything about civil flying. I didn’t even understand what BOAC meant until I got there.
HB: But you were originally offered Transport Command weren’t you.
BL: Yes.
HB: What was your view on that?
BL: But I turned that down. I turned that down flat. But there’s a very, there’s another, a very ironic twist that I’ll tell you about. So immediately because we were then seconded from the air force to BOAC we had to get civilian licences. We had to get civilian licences and then they decided what they were going to train us on, so we had to go through the basic theory and all that sort of stuff to get civilian licences and we were allocated I think it was about either fifty or a hundred block licence numbers in the very early days. Once we’d done type training on, at that time on Avros produced the very first post-war airliner called the Tudor and the first dozen Tudors were just being built and they were destined to go to BOAC to start up to date pressurised passenger aircraft. They were quite nice aircraft actually, very good. So since we’d just, we were the first people to be trained on the Tudors. So we did our training on the Tudors and when they were just about to start to take, BOAC to take delivery of the Tudors, for some reason there was a political change and instead of coming to BOAC, they went to British South [emphasis] American Airways, and at that time was run by the old 8 Group Pathfinder chief, Air Marshal Don Bennett, who was a real press on type. [Cough] Highly successful with Pathfinders of course and he was the boss at British South American. They’d previously been running some converted Lancasters into what they called Lancastrians before long distance flying in South America and so on, and they hadn’t got a particularly good record they’d lost three or four of them I think, for different reasons and so they took delivery of the Tudors. Tudor 1s these were, Mark 1s. And I did quite a bit of flying with the, on the Tudors on the South American routes, down to Bermuda, and the Caribbean and so on, and I was put in charge of training at BSA as well. And then, as things went on, we got as far as 1948 I think it was, ‘46’ 47’ ’48 I think it was, yes, ’47 ‘48. Suddenly the Berlin Airlift comes up, and from nowhere I suddenly found BSA, because of their Tudors, the air force was already in force on the Berlin Airlift using mainly Dakotas, the old C47s and they couldn’t cope with, couldn’t make it that economical to cope with the heavy loads that was necessary so they asked a lot of the civilian charter companies and so on, if they could provide crews and aircraft to come on to the Berlin airlift to increase the load factors, and British South American got one of the contracts to, with two Tudors, to go on the Berlin Airlift and I was one of them selected to go on the first one. So I found myself flying over to Wunstorf near Hannover where we were based, to fly on the Berlin Airlift these two Tudors between Wunstorf and Gatow, Berlin. And ironically, I think, when I think that three years before, when I did my last operational trip with 463, there we were still bombing and knocking hell out of ‘em; three years later, there I was at Wunstorf flying into Berlin to try and keep the so-and-so’s alive. Ironic really, they were three years the difference. Anyway, I stayed at Wunstorf for nearly a year, I think it was. I did nearly three hundred flights between Wunstorf and, there were only three of us on board.
HB: What sort of things were you taking in?
BL: Well when I first flew out there, we were taking huge packs of canned meat and stuff like spam and all that sort of stuff, corned beef, and all that, which was fairly easy to handle, in big cases and so on. And then the RAF were getting a bit uppity about what they were going to do and what they were carrying and bear in mind that the US air force was also on the operation with their C54s and Skymasters and so on, they were based at Schleswigland I think it is. I’ve got maps showing all the different air bases that we used over there but we always used Wunstorf and because we were larger aircraft, they decided that instead of carrying packs of food and so on, we suddenly found ourselves carrying coal, huge packs of coal, great big sealed bags of coal, about a hundredweight apiece. So we spent some months then, this coal at Berlin. Landing at Berlin was quite something. It was the ground force of people doing all the unloading and so on was predominantly very elderly German ladies, old grandmothers and mothers and so on, and it was sad to see them. They were dressed, whatever they could find to wear, and they used to come on board. They did all the work of loading and unloading, all the heavy work and they used to come on board to us carrying these lovely family heirlooms like Leica cameras and stuff like that to exchange. They were desperate for two things: cigarettes and coffee, and you could get anything for a couple of packs of coffee, in fact I got a lovely Leica camera in exchange for two bags of coffee at one stage. They used to come up, had it all laid out on the nav table there when they were unloading and they’d bring these heirlooms up and do deals with us. Anything we could, anything they wanted we could give it to them, you know. Children we gave cigret – we gave sweets and chocolate to the children. The children loved it. The Americans set up, at one stage, when they flew into Gatow, over the Frohnau beacon flying on to finals for landing, all the children used to sit round the lake underneath waving to the Americans going over and the Yanks were throwing out chocolate and sweets to them. At one stage they set up, got large handkerchiefs which they tied up sort of like a parachute, and tied these bags of sweets to them, were throwing them out and in dropping them out and the kids loved it. Absolutely fantastic.
HB: Amazing.
BL: But anyway, as I say, another aspect came up then, some time after been carrying the coal, which was a very dirty operation, dust and everything in the aircraft and they suddenly decided that what they wanted desperately in Berlin was medicinal, what do you call it? Two things they were short of, one was straight run gasoline and the other one was, oh dear me, some large amount of some sort of medicinal fluids. I’ve forgotten what they were now, what they were called. But these were in great big packs but the hospitals were desperate for them. So when it was decided that they’d fly the stuff in, it meant that the aircraft that were going to do this had to be modified with huge tanks in the back to carry it. And the air force said point blank they wouldn’t do it, they refused absolutely point blank to carry straight run gasoline in bloody great tanks down the back of the aircraft, they said its far too dangerous, so they refused point blank to do it. So the civilian contracts were asked to do it and we had then replaced our two Mark 1 Tudors with two Mark 5s which had been built and never been put into service but they were much larger and so our two Mark 5s were then equipped with these bloody great tanks for straight run gasoline and this medical stuff and so for the last few months we were flying that into Berlin.
BH: How did you feel about that?
BL: Oh dear me. Well it was just a bloody big laugh I thought, we thought. Bear in mind we’ve still got this enthusiasm from Bomber Command which we’d brought from the air force to the civilian and it was such a big change, you know, but to us it was more of a bloody big laugh than anything else. But anyway, we settled down to it and it was a good operation, it worked extremely well. When you are turning on to final approach into Gatow, Berlin, you came in over the lake on the outskirts of the city and the final beacon was at a place called Frohnau, Frohnau Beacon, you had to call over the beacon which was virtually the outer marker for final approach and the timing was so accurately it had to be done. The timing of aircraft over Frohnau was every twenty seconds between aircraft.
HB: Blimey.
BL: When you think there was a variety of aircraft, everything from small Bristol freighters to Dakotas and converted Lancs and Halifaxes and anything the charter people could lay their bloody hands on. They buy them for peanuts and take them out there to take part because the airlift they pay very big money and we were no exception with our Tudors and it’s an amazing operation really.
HB: So you went through the Berlin Airlift. Just one thing just I’m just quite curious about. You started off I think, on particular kinds of aircraft as a fitter.
BL: Yeah.
HB: What was, what was the system for re-training you when you went to different engines and different engine management systems?
BL: Well there were various training stations set up. I think the initial one for fitter 2Es, or 2As, that’s the difference between fitter rigger and fitter engines was at Kirkham, Lancashire and that was the number one training base, apart from Halton of course which is still there and still doing it today! And Halton of course was always the base of the so called Halton Brats as they call them. They go there as small, young apprentices and three year training straight away and they’re still doing that today. Yeah, they’re still churning out young lads from Halton.
HB: Right. So when you were working with the Stirling –
BL: Yeah.
HB: And then you go on Lancasters, obviously you’ve got Merlin engines, you’ve got Hercules engines, you’ve got all sorts, you’ve got air cooled, liquid cooled. You’ve got all these different engines.
BL: Yes.
HB: So was there an element of self training or was it all formalised?
BL: Well it was to us, to a point where we were fully trained and fully experienced with a lot of hours in on Stirlings when we went up to Swinderby, the 5 Group elite Group., but we hadn’t been trained on Lancs. So we had, it was virtually self-training on the Lancs there by virtue of working on them and flying on them and training every day. So that part of it, yes, was to a large extent I think we did, there were short courses laid on for us. I did one at Cosford for instance, and places like that, but generally speaking more than anything you were self taught, and as instructors you were expected to be experienced and knowledgeable on all the different aspects, so that was how it worked. But go back to the Berlin Airlift though, when that finished, I came back, by that time British South American, there was a lot of demands because they had a very poor safety record. We lost Star Tiger and we lost Star Ariel, both in the Caribbean. Those were Tudor 1s, from the first Tudors that we trained on. The first one was lost over the Bermuda Triangle as they call it, up at twenty thousand feet, no idea what happened to him; it just disappeared. And the second one was, had flown out of the Azores which at that time was a very difficult operation, flying over the south Atlantic from the Azores to South America and weather conditions and very poor nav and all rest of it was very prevalent round the Azores; very difficult route to operate.
HB: How many passengers did the Tudor 1 carry then?
BL: It varied, on whether, the Tudor 1s, I’ve just forgotten. I think up to about eighty or ninety passengers, something like that. The Tudor 5s were much larger but they didn’t actually go into passenger service after the Berlin Airlift. I don’t know what happened. They were scrapped I think, in the end. But anyway, as I say, because of the loss of the two Tudors and the BSA had lost quite a few Lancs so Don Bennett was criticised very heavily and finally he was forced to resign. So he was taken over by BSA who was then taken over by one of the old traditional north Atlantic BOAC captains, Gordon Storr his name, and it was Gordon Storr who I was with, on the, we were the first two Tudors at Wunstorf when the Airlift started and then shortly afterwards after Bennett had left, they decided BSA would be would up so what was left of it came back into, it came into BOAC. But that stage I was still being paid as a flight lieutenant substantive from the air force, seconded to BOAC so I was paid by BOAC who in turn seconded me to BSAA so I was paid by three companies, very interesting situation. But then of course, having come back to BOAC then, BOAC were operating Yorks and converted Halifaxes called Haltons, and, oh there was still a few Dakotas being used, but generally they were waiting for the next civil airliner which came from Handley Page called the Hermes and that was a very good aircraft. I liked the Hermes very much. Performance wise it hadn’t quite got good altitude performance as such, but it was a very easy aircraft to fly, very comfortable, it was designed specifically for the comfort of passengers and so on. And it was after then that the Comet 1 came in from De Havillands, the DH106, which was designed and built by DHs and was at least twenty years before its time. And then of course to us anyway, a huge attraction to get on the first jet aircraft into service. So in no time at all I was, I joined the Comet 1 fleet. We were flying, first of all flying down to Johannesburg and then it was extended to the Far East and out to even as far as Tokyo and Hong Kong and so on. Then of course you know the story that Xray Kilo blew up over Elba on its way between Rome and London. They were immediately grounded, no one could understand why it had, how it had happened. There was a huge inquiry and after ninety-odd modifications they decided that one of them must have been the reason so they put it back into service. And in no time at all they lost a second one which blew up over Naples Bay. That was flown by a South African crew who were on loan to BOAC. We’d also got French crews flying them, and it, so it was then decided that because two of them had blown up, they couldn’t leave them into service any longer. Unfortunately a third one went. The third one was out of Calcutta and that had just taken over from Calcutta and was flying through heavy cloud and they put that down to the fact that it flew into a cunim cloud and the stresses were so great the aircraft just broke up. So then they were grounded completely and when Farnborough rigged up the test rig there, and put a whole aircraft on this water test bed, and they found out exactly why it had happened. The general opinion from the public and in aviation generally was that the pressurisation caused the windows to blow out but that wasn’t true at all. The fault arose through bad engineering practice on the design of the hatches in the roof. The hatches which covered the radio communication, adf system and these two hatches were like that square like that. Engineering practice is that if you design something that’s a square and it’s put under pressure, you see that little crack there, where that join is -
HB: Showing me on the photograph frame.
BL: That little crack there.
HB: In the corner. [cough]
BL: If a crack occurs, it will always come from a corner, and find its way across and finally disintegrate and that’s precisely what happened to the Comet. It was bad engineering practice because if you round the corners those cracks wouldn’t occur. Simple [cough]. Again, in fairness to De Havillands, they produced some very fine fighter aircraft, put in their own engine, the Ghost 50 engine in them, Vampires and stuff like that but they had no experience ever of high altitude pressurised aircraft, and so they built them to what they considered would be strong enough and so on. But I’ve got a book upstairs which Andrew’s been reading, of the whole story, the whole official story of the enquiry and the way they found out all the reasons for it at Farnborough. The summing up at the end of it, when they said officially you know, that the initial fault was the adf hatches that disintegrated because of the bad engineering practice, how it was designed. The general feeling was that the aircraft was twenty years before its time but it simply wasn’t strong enough, because De Havillands, or anyone else for that matter, had experience enough to build them strong enough, when you think that at forty two thousand feet the pressurisation equivalent in the cabin was only eight thousand feet. That was the highest the cabin pressure was ever taken up to give passengers comfort without having to go on to oxygen. So the difference between eight thousand and forty two thousand across the structure of the aircraft was eight and a half pounds per square inch which is massive [emphasis] from the outside to the inside, and it has to be extremely strong, the sort of structure, in order to withstand these pressures. So you can imagine that it was not only not built strong enough, but of course the fault occurred on the hatches which caused it to blow up anyway. The first one that went, Xray Kilo, I had flown that on quite a number of occasions, got it in my log book in a number of places prior to it blowing up. I think previously I’d, we operated it from Tokyo to Hong Kong only the day before I think it was, before it blew up at Elba, but that aircraft had only done seventeen hundred hours. The second one that blew up over Naples had done just over two thousand hours and the one that disintegrated at Calcutta had done less than two thousand hours. They were all going at the, virtually the same time. That was another factor that the inquiry of course dug up, when they said that, Tom Butterworth I think it was, that because of lack of experience at DHs on high altitude stuff the aircraft simply wasn’t built strong enough. You’ve got to go back to Con Derry who was the chief test pilot at De Havillands a few years before when he was doing demonstrations at the Farnborough air show in a, I think it was a Vampire, he was doing very, very tight turns demonstrating and on one of those tight turns the bloody wings came off. He crashed into the crowd there and killed a few people, including himself. That was another example that under extreme stress conditions, that DHs aircraft wasn’t strong enough.
HB: Yes.
BL: So all those factors, you know. So result was that going back to the Comet days, I was involved very heavily with the whole Comet story because then it was decided that they’d have to, they’d build the new aircraft much stronger and up to date. The other thing was, by the way, that De Havillands had their own engines, the Ghost 50 which only produced five thousand pounds thrust, which was quite adequate for the fighters, but for a aircraft like the Comet 4 Ghost 50 engines, they insisted on putting their own engines in and all the experts said no, we needed Rolls Royce Merlin engines, or Avon engines they were, but they refused point blank, they said no, its our aircraft, we’ll put our own engines in and they simply weren’t strong enough. We couldn’t even do a safe level cruise at altitude, you had to do a five degree climb the whole time to get to top of descent, largely because by continuing to fly like that you’re reducing your fuel flow and consequently you had adequate fuel to start your descent. It was because of the consumption levels and the lack of real thrust on these DH engines, it was extremely [emphasis] critical on fuel, extremely [emphasis] critical. They devised this method of five degree climb. You had to fly, when you flight plan you fly backwards starting at top of descent instead of top of climb and things like that, you know. So anyway, when it was decided then they’d build the new Comet 4 much stronger and it would have Rolls Royce engines of much higher quality and it had Rolls Royce Conway engines. So, they’d, after the 1s, they built some Comet 2s, which were destined to go to the air force. But of course after the crashes they never even got airborne, never even delivered, they were just stuck there at Hatfield. So they decided that they’d have to carry out a two year test flying programme to make sure that everything that was being put into the Comet 4 had been well proved, correctly and properly using these two Mark 2s which were used as test beds. So they modified these two Mark 2s, strengthened them up and made sure they were adequate to do the work. They put the standard Conway engines on the inboards and then the new big 524 engines on the outboards which were destined to go into the new Comet 4. So they hadn’t got any crews to fly these at De Havilland, so they asked BOAC if BOAC could loan them I think it was six, was six crews to fly a two year test flying for De Havillands on these Comet 2s, 2Es as they called them. So I was one that went on to those, on to test flying. The first year we, every day we flew non-stop to Beirut from London and back, every day for a year. The aircraft hadn’t got a certificate of airworthiness, of course it was experimental, so there was only three of us allowed on board, no one, none of the boffins were allowed on so they got all the, all the usual test equipment and everything was loaded all the way down the fuselage and it was all fed up to the cockpit where we were and we used to have, they used to give us a list of things we had to check and write the results down, the results of this stuff as we flew, and we had to fly at thirty two thousand feet and record all this stuff for them which was really interesting. I loved it actually. It was a bloody good programme and extremely well paid as well! [Laugh]
HB: Right!
BL: So the first year we did London Beirut every day and the second year they decided we’d have to do the Arctic North Atlantic trials to make sure it was adequate for very low temperature conditions so then we started a programme going from London to Keflavik in Iceland and then across to Goose Bay and Gander in to the Maritimes and then back to London. So we did that for six months. That was a very interesting programme, I liked that part of it particularly. And then of course decided to try and get permission to fly into America. So the Americans were very keen on noise abatement and the Comet did make quite a bit of noise on take off of course, and so they said yes you can fly in to America but not land there, and not do take offs and landings. So then we had a period where we were flying out to different places around America using the new VOR navigation systems and so on, and then eventually politically we got permission to do landings over there and it was at that time then when a lot of the American airlines were looking very enviously at the jet Comet to replace traditional old fashioned piston engine aircraft and we did a series, we were doing a series of demonstration flights when, at the time when Pan American, the number one American outfit had just received, they’d just taken delivery of the first of the civilian Boeing 707s and they were pushing out a lot of typical American bullshit that they were going to be the very first pure jet passenger flight on the Atlantic, transatlantic ‘Fly American. Fly pure jet’, and all that, you know. Anyway, at the time we were down in Detroit doing some demonstration flights for United Airlines, they wanted to buy some of these Comets, so we were doing demonstration flights there. And it was there when we suddenly got a call to fly back to New York and, for some reason, and we found we got to New York we were going to do the first transatlantic flight the next day. We beat the Yanks by sixteen days! And when the Yanks had put all this, all the usual stuff in the papers, and they got the big banners out: ‘Fly Pan American the first jet flight across the Atlantic’ and so on. And after we beat them like that they had to change it all and where it said, ‘we are the first,’ they had to put in: ‘we are one of the first.’ They never bloody forgave us for it! Amazing story! [Laughter]
HB: Oh dear.
BL: But anyway, as I say I was very, very strongly involved in -
HB: How many people were on -
BL: - the whole Comet programme from start to finish.
HB: How many people were on that first trans-atlantic flight?
BL: I think we had about sixty, sixty passengers, something like that, yes. You’ve seen the menu of course.
HB: Yes, yes. Got a copy of the menu there [cough]
BL: We got back to London and it was a very historic occasion. They gave us immediate take off at New York and cleared all the flights from London to give us number one priority to land. BBC and everyone were all were there in force to welcome us, and it was headed by Eamon Andrews on BBC.
HB: Oh right. Yes.
BL: They got our wives there and so on waiting. There was two aircraft actually. We did the eastbound New York London and the other one went the other way, London New York and we crossed over at about twenty degrees west I think it was and acknowledged each other, but you know, two of them, one going one the other. And when we went through all the procedure at London old Eamon Andrews said, ‘We’ve got a coach here for you, we’re taking you up to,’ um to, I’ve forgot where the studios were now, I’ll think of it in a minute, ’taking you up to, see we want to put you on TV tonight.’ They’d decided to put us on that programme ‘What’s My Line?’ And old, the panel at that time dear old, oh my bloody memory’s going, bloke who was extremely well known on the BBC, was the chairman of the panel there. Anyway we went on TV and on this programme and all that sort of publicity and so on; it was really interesting. And then of course the following year I was picked to go to, one of the flight crew to go to Ottawa, Canada to pick up Duke of Edinburgh, Philip. We went in the Comet; he was very keen to fly in the Comet, so we went there to pick him up. He’d been there doing a series of talks and so on. The Queen was at Balmoral at the time so we were to pick him up at Ottawa and fly him back to Leuchars in Scotland, which is quite close to Balmoral, drop him off there. But anyway, we picked him up at Ottawa and we were just, hadn’t been airborne very long when a signal came through to say there’d, a big mining disaster had just occurred at Monckton in the Maritimes and would we divert to Monckton and so the Duke could just put in a quick royal visit, two hours royal visit to the disaster area. So we dropped him off at Monckton and then we flew down, further down to Gander and we waited at Gander for him to come, come back and then we brought him from Gander and flew him to Leuchars, dropped him off there. Oh it’s here somewhere I’ve got a picture of it. On board on the way back he was fascinated with the Comet 1, he loved to fly in the Comet, oh the Comet 4 I should say and on the way back he got a lot of individual special pictures of himself and he signed one each for us, and a handshake.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: I thought she’d got it up here, it’s been on the wall here somewhere. She must have put it away. But it’s personally signed: Philip.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: Which is, very has, carried a lot of weight, in the years to come. It’ll be worth a few bob I should think!
HB: So when did you actually stop flying Bob?
BL: Well, from then on, after the Comet programme, first BOAC decided to buy the Boeings so they ordered these new Boeing 707s from Boeing of course, from America and in January 1960 the first delivery of, or first Boeing 707 was ready for us to collect. And there was nobody trained on it or anything at that time of course, since we hadn’t got any Boeings. But in America the military version of the Boeing was the KC135 and they’d already built eight hundred of those, they’d all gone to the American air force and the American navy and so on. So having had that number built, all the bugs and problems had all been ironed out, needless to say, unlike so many of our aircraft you see. So it was a well [emphasis] tried and well proven aircraft before it even went into service. So in January ’60 I was, one of the, I was, been an instructor on Comets for some time I’d always been instructing quite a lot and so there’s four instructors, myself and three others were sent out to Seattle to get trained on the 707 and the first Boeing 707 to come off was number hundred and eleven off the line, the production line, so we were still quite a way behind other airlines. Anyway, when we got to Seattle we were trained by the Seattle test flight crew. At that time there’s no civilian aircraft, aerodromes rather, in the UK that could take the 707 except Heathrow and obviously you couldn’t use Heathrow for training but they could use it for service, not for training. Shannon hadn’t got a long enough runway at that time anyway, but they were building a new one. So there was nowhere in the UK where they could train us. So Boeings decided, got permission to use Tucson, Arizona. So Tex Johnson was there, er Tex, not Johnson, Tex Gannard, Tex Gannard was the Boeing Chief Test Pilot at that time and he decided that we’d, he’d take us down to Tucson and we’d set up a training base there and he would train us as instructors and so on, to stay on at Tucson to train the BOAC crews as they were sent out from the UK. So we stayed there to run the training unit [cough] and the crews had come from London, we trained them and they went back and then flew the aircraft in service. So we had a very nice six months so, Tucson and the trainer, super that was. But hard work. I’ll tell you what impressed me more than anything else when I went to Seattle, to Boeings: the difference between the British way of life in [coughing] workload, dedication and that sort of thing in the British aviation industry, was so different to that of the Americans. Soon found the Americans are far ahead of us in their dedication to the work they were doing. It was a bloody eye-opener, believe me. Hard work, but they knew how to do it and it was an absolute revelation to us. For instance when we were doing flight training unit details at London they’re usually about two and a half to three hours at the most, something like that, and then the time we went to Tucson the thing that surprised us was that the minimum flights times were five hours! [emphasis] Bloody long details, oh Christ, but that was typical of the Americans and the hard work they put in. They had three of the test pilots at Tucson with us and a fleet to train us and certify us as being fully trained instructors on Boeing aircraft. And I’ve got a certificate to say that.
HB: Yes. That’s grand.
BL: And anyway, BOAC then got a bit hot under the collar about the cost of running Tucson and all the British bases, so they got permission to use St Mawgan at St Athan, at Newquay. They got permission from the aircraft, from the air force for us to move from Tucson to Newquay and used St Mawgan for training from then on so I then moved, as I say, from Tucson to the Bristol Hotel in Newquay. And being a typical seaside resort, very popular, they didn’t want any weekend flying Saturdays and Sundays, there’s all sorts of objections from the local authority and so on, so it was a bit of a doddle down there.
HB: Good grief!
BL: So it was on the 707 where eventually that was my last flying for BOAC.
HB: I see. There’s a good few years in the air there Bob!
BL: Forty years.
HB: Can I just –
BL: The reason I retired in the end by the way, I was very close to retiring at that time, but I was on training at Shannon at the time on the Boeing fleet. We were doing our winter training at Shannon and one of the details we had to do was to demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft at high, high speed characteristics of the 707. The normal cruising in the 707 was point eight one mach, but the “never exceed” was about point eight eight, which you should never exceed on a Boeing and we used to have to demonstrate though as you got somewhere near the point eight eight the flight control characteristics changed aerodynamically and you had to be aware of this to happen should you ever stray up there in flight. So we had to demonstrate this and we used to fly at forty odd thousand feet from Shannon across to five degree west in the Atlantic then back again doing these high speed runs and I was doing one of those with two students and we suddenly hit a bloody air pocket – bang! It threw us up in the air and down again, hit it really hard, couldn’t, didn’t even realise it was there just clear air turbulence, and I got thrown up on the ceiling and when I dropped down I dropped right across the arm of the co-pilot’s seat with my hip like that and it buggered up something in my hip and I couldn’t even walk off the aircraft carrying my briefcase. So I had to go sick straight away. I went through all the usual palavers of different Harley Street specialists and lord knows what and all they could tell you, ‘oh you’ve slipped a disc in your back,’ you know and all this. They threatened to send me off for a laminectomy operation, but the BOAC doctor at Heathrow who looked after the flight crews, he was ex-RAF and he was bloody good doctor, Doc civil and liked gossip here with the boys, and he really looked after us, one of us, you know.
HB: Very much so yes.
BL: He says, when finally I got to the end of my tether, I couldn’t clear this up, the bloody pain was there, could virtually, almost couldn’t walk and he says, ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll pull a few strings for you,’ he said, ‘you’re an ex RAF officer’ he says, ‘I’ll get you in to Hedley Court.’ So a couple of days later he says, ‘I’ve managed it, you’re going off to Hedley Court they’ll sort you out there.’ So I went off to Hedley Court which of course is very famous today because all these guys from Afghanistan are going in there for amputainees and that sort of thing you know, so I went into Hedley for three months. Within three days of being there they found out exactly what was wrong with me. What I’d done when I fell down like that over this arm, I’d stretched what they call the sacroiliac joint in my hip, it’d stretched it and bent it and that was the cause of all of the trouble.
HB: Good grief!
BL: And they found that after three days there! All these bloody Harley Street specialists I went to see kept telling me all I’d got was a bloody slipped disc. But the outcome was that I spent three months there and they cured it ninety nine percent. And when I finally got to, they wanted to discharge me I went to see the old Group Captain medical and he says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ve cleared it up for you,’ he says, ‘you’ll be all right,’ he says, ‘there might be the odd occasions when you get a recurrence but the only thing is,’ he says, ‘I’ll have to put a four hour restriction on your licence,’ and of course BOAC wouldn’t accept that because I was on a world wide contract so they said no we can’t accept that but you’re very close to retirement we’ll give you an immediate retirement on pension. So that’s really how I finished. But it didn’t end there.
HB: Oh right.
BL: Another little facet came. I’d been very interested in act, different aircraft accidents and accident investigation. I was on the accident committee for a few years before that, while I was still flying and somebody at BOAC obviously realised that I’d got experience on them and they said well we’ll keep you on but not in a flying capacity, would you like to become a CAA FIA flight accident investigator. I said yes, so they said right. So they sent me off to the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, to do the full official FIA accident inspector’s course so I had a couple of months over there, and did the course in the university and I qualified, graduated and got my little badge and everything, as an official accident investigator. So I came back to London and I went on two of the accidents actually, one of which was a Boeing which landed with a wing on fire at Heathrow after one of the engines had dropped off into the Staines reservoir. I’ve got a photograph of that landing, with the wing on fire, amongst this lot here somewhere.
HB: Good grief. Yeah.
BL: And anyway after that I found it was a bit boring and of course by that time I’d got a farm in Surrey and I’d got, we were milking a hundred and twenty five Jersey cows, and I’d got thirty thousand chickens, got five vans on the road delivering fresh eggs and cream around London and it was taking up so much time I thought well I haven’t got bloody time to go in so I finally decided I’d quit completely and carry on farming and that really was the end of it.
HB: Yeah, it does bring it to an end, doesn’t it really.
BL: So, quite a lot of various incidents in my career.
HB: Just a few, just a few. Just going back, I meant to actually ask you this ages ago. When you were on 463 Squadron -
BL: Yes.
HB: With the old, the Australians, that would be towards the end of ’45. Did you ever, when you were there on operations did you ever come across the German jet fighters?
BL: Er, no. Not, not the jets, no.
HB: No. All right.
BL: Incidentally, talking about that, of course, when Peenemunde came up, it just so happened, we didn’t, on the Stirlings by the way, the Stirlings from the squadron, I think we put about a dozen Stirlings up on the Peenemunde operation and we’d been briefed from weeks and weeks and weeks that something very special was coming up, no one knew what it was except it was something very special operation but it was tied in very closely to the right weather. It had to be absolutely perfect on weather forecast and of course it turned out it was Peenemunde. And it just so happened that when the Peenemunde trip came up we were on two weeks’ leave. So we missed it.
HB: Yeah. Right.
BL: But it was from then on of course we were very active on bombing these flying bomb sites in France and various parts of Europe. But we never came across any of the jet fighters at all. No definitely not.
HB: Right. Well I think. I think Bob, we’ve come to a natural sort of end, and I just thank you very much. Absolutely fascinating.
BL: Well I hope I haven’t bored you too much.
HB: Oh no! Well I haven’t gone to sleep! [Laughter] No absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
BL: I’ve been lucky really in a sense, that you know, had all these different variants, military and civilian, I’ve very lucky to be on you know, these special products, projects. Rather like the as I said, the two years I was test flying with De Havilland, that was really interesting.
HB: Yeah. I’m going to, one of the things I forgot to do at the beginning, I didn’t actually say at the beginning: it’s Wednesday the 12th of December 2018. I forgot about that at the beginning, I got a bit excited! So I’m going to terminate the interview Bob and get on with the paperwork. Thank you very much again.
BL: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bob Leedham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Bartlett
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALeedhamHJL181212, PLeedhamHJL1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:16:46 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Leedham was a flight engineer who carried out twenty-one operations on Stirlings. At the outbreak of war Bob was an apprentice motor mechanic, and along with other apprentices, was left to operate the garage when all the engineers were called up. In 1940 he enlisted in the RAF and following initial training, Bob was selected for pilot training but did not achieve the requirement of flying solo within twelve hours. His engineering background meant he was posted to RAF St Athan and trained as a flight engineer. A posting to RAF Stradishall followed, and conversion to Stirling aircraft. Now part of a crew and posted to 90 Squadron at RAF Ridgewell, operational flying commenced. Bob suggests political interference restricted the performance of the aircraft resulting in a higher casualty rate amongst Stirling crews, and explains how the introduction of Window anti-radar equipment improved this. In Spring 1943 the squadron moved to RAF Wratting Common and in Autumn, converted to Lancasters. With more Lancasters coming into service, there was a lack of experience on four-engined aircraft, and some Stirling’s were deployed to RAF Swinderby for crew training. This move coincided with Bob obtaining his commission and he became an instructor on both Stirling and Lancasters. Late in 1944, Bob was back flying operations with 463 Squadron at RAF Waddington, where he was senior co-pilot/flight engineer. Following peace declaration in Europe, Bob joined Tiger Force in preparation for moving to Japan, but the war ended before this materialised. Bob began a post-war career in civil aviation, initially operating the Avro Tudor, and flying approximately three-hundred operations during the Berlin airlift. He also gives an account of the development of the DH 106 Comet and details the faults which resulted in the aircraft being grounded. While undertaking demonstrations in America, Bob was recalled to New York, where his crew discovered they were to operate the first civilian jet flight eastbound across the Atlantic. In 1960, Bob was one of four certified to instruct on the new generation of aircraft, the Boeing 707. An injury sustained from clear-air turbulence curtailed Bob’s flying career, and he progressed into the investigation of aircraft accidents.
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Azores
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
United States
Zimbabwe
Arizona--Tucson
England--Burton upon Trent
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
India--Kolkata
Italy--Elba
Mediterranean Sea--Bay of Naples
New Brunswick--Moncton
Ontario--Ottawa
Scotland--Leuchars
Wales--Glamorgan
Washington (State)--Seattle
England--Cornwall (County)
Arizona
Ontario
New Brunswick
India
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Staffordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1944
10 Squadron
463 Squadron
5 Group
57 Squadron
617 Squadron
86 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Pathfinders
pilot
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
radar
RAF Alconbury
RAF Halton
RAF Ridgewell
RAF St Athan
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swinderby
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodhall Spa
RAF Wratting Common
Scharnhorst
Stirling
Sunderland
Tiger force
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/535/16662/MWarrenHJ619608-160425-02.2.pdf
fe65b739f1aa29d1651f56b8dcec3e97
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
Warren, Harold James
H J Warren
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Warren, HJ
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. Two oral history interviews with Harold James Warren (1921 - 2017, 619608 Royal Air Force) service material, a note book, diary and photographs. He Joined the RAF in 1938, and after training as ground crew but remustered and after training in Canada, became a flight engineer.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Harold Warren and catalogued by Peter Adams.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-22
2015-10-30
2016-07-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] [inserted] 619608 WARREN [/inserted][/underlined]
[inserted] Rough not [indecipherable word] [/inserted]
[inserted] 4 [indecipherable letters] [/inserted]
[inserted] 609608 [/inserted]
[RAF large notebook in printed square] [inserted] WARREN [/inserted]
[page break]
R.A.F .12.
H Warren [drawing]
[deleted] Coombe Farm [/deleted] Herridge
[deleted] Crewkerne [/deleted] Somerset [two indecipherable words]
619608 WARREN. H J.
Hut A 9. No 2 Wing
Royal. Air. Force.
Glam. S Wales
[zig zag underline]
619608 Warren H [deleted] J [/deleted] J
Hut A 9 No 2 Wing [scribble]
Royal Air Force
Glam S Wales [row of ticks inserted]
[broken underline]
[inserted] 619608 Lac [indecipherable letter] [/inserted]
619608 Warren H J – LAC.
Hut A9A No 2 Wing [inserted] 619608. [/inserted]
Royal Air Force
[underlined] Glamorgan S Wales [/underlined] [inserted] [tick symbol] [/inserted]
[deleted] S [/deleted]
Spark Test
Metal.-
[page break]
[underlined] Spark Test [/underlined]
Metal Spark
Wrought Iron Bright Yellow. Non Burst
Mild Steel. [ditto symbol] [ditto symbol] Few Bursting
High Carbon [ditto symbol] Flimsy Golden. All Bursting
Lungster Steel Dull Red Non Bursting
Nickel Chrome [ditto symbol] Yellow. Few [ditto symbol]
Grey Cast Iron Dull Red Non [ditto symbol]
Temperature Chart [indecipherable initials]
Very Pale Yellow 430°F
Straw [ditto symbol] 460°F
Brown [ditto symbol] 500°F
Light Purple 530°F
Dark [ditto symbol] 550°F
Dark Blue 570°F
Pale [ditto symbol] 610°F
[horizontal line]
Heat Treatment of Steel.
There are three general heat treatments annealing, hardening and Tempering. The controlling factor in all heat treatment is temperature. Process of hardnening [sic] steel consists of [deleted] hardning [sic] [/deleted] [inserted] heating [/inserted] to required temperature and quenching suddenly in cold water. Main points to watch when heating are small
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projections or cutting edges are not heated more [indecipherable letter] rapidly than the body of meteral,[sic] i.e. all parts are heated at the same rate and temperature. Tempering is removing some of the hardness by adding some heat to the required temperature. When heating steel there are two critical points, recalescence and decalescence that occur in the chemical composion [sic] of the steel at certain temperatures. The decalescence point is the correct hardening temperature. The recalescence point is when steel becomes soft when slowly cooled after heating.
[two short horizontal parallel lines]
Annealing is heating a steel to a medium red heat and allowing it to cool slowly. The slower the cooling the softer the steel becomes
[two short parallel lines]
normalising is when a metal is forged , bent or rolled into shape it becomes strained by heating the steel to a medium red heat and keeping it at that temperature depending upon the bulk and severity
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of the strain and allowing it to cool f off in air.
[horizontal line]
[indecipherable signature]
[calculations]
[six indecipherable words]
[two drawings of planes]
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Principle of Fuselages and their construction
A Fuselage is the main body of the aircraft to which main planes and other components are attached.
[underlined] Longerons.) [/underlined] [inserted] Underline headings [/inserted]
Longerons are the main longtitudeale [corrected by marker to] longtitudinal [/corrected] members of the Fuselage running from font to rear.
[underlined] Engine Bearer. (or plate.) [/underlined]
The engine bearer is the foremost member of the fuselage.
[underlined] Stern Post [/underlined]
The stern post is the rearmost member of the fuselage to which the rudder is hinged.
Struts.
Struts are located between the Longerons and the name of the strut relates to its position.
Fuselage bracing.
There are three types of frames, 1/ Imperfect frame, which is [deleted] located [/deleted] insufficently [sic] braced to withstand any load.
2/ Perfect frame is one that has to [sic] many or [deleted] tw [/deleted] to [sic] few members and is
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rolled into parts which are riveted together.
[underlined] Struts and Longerons. [/underlined]
Struts & Longerons are braced with diogonal [sic] struts.
If a frame is under a single load and bracing wires are used only one wire is intensioned and the other carries no load.
When diagonal struts are used the struts take the place of wires taking booth [sic] loads and tension.
[underlined] Metal and Composite Fuselage. [/underlined]
These are divided into 3 portions
1/ Engine bay or fore portion which carries the power part.
11/ Centre portion in which is situated the pilots cock and which carries the main plane.
3/ Rear portion which carries the tail unit. Each portion is constructed eg front portion, solid, centre portion tubular riveted structure, rear portion, wood or light metal.
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[drawing of Fairy Gordon airframe]
[drawing of Hawker double N girder airframe]
[underlined] Monocoque. [/underlined]
This fuselage is designed on the principle that the skin shall be stiff and strong to carry the loads.
Bulkheads varie [sic] in types, are inserted down the Fuselage to increase stiffness and carry certain
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types of loads.
But it is virtually the skin which takes the majority and is the main component.
[drawing of stressed skin]
Types of joints.
1/ Stainless Steel side plates
[diagrams of types of joints]
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2/ Cup Bolts and Ballended Strut (HAWKER)
[five diagrams of frames and joints]
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[diagrams of joint and rivet]
[inserted] [underlined] Good Drawing [/underlined] [/inserted]
[inserted] indecipherable signature [/inserted]
[underlined] Supporting the Fuselage. [/underlined]
The Fuselage must be supported upon trestles at convient [corrected by marker] convenient working points. Care must be taken that the trestles are placed under the correct jacking points, front and rear, if no sutch [sic] points are marked trestles must be placed under parts where there is additional strength, such as the undercarriage fittings or a robust strut fitting, they should never be placed under an unsupporting part of the Longeron
[underlined] Care in Hanling. [sic] [/underlined]
1/ Do not stand on the Longeron when working on the Fuselage.
2/ Constantly check Longerons
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and struts for bowing.
3/ Do not use adjustable spanner for adjusting streamline wire or see that all lock nuts are undone before attempting to turn wire, otherwise the threads will strip.
4/ Never tighten a wire untill [sic] its opposite number has been slackened off.
5/ Give an equal number of turns to each wire.
6/ Constantly check when truing and adjusting wires.
[short horizontal line]
Rigging Tools and Instruments.
1/ Straightedge.
Best type made of steel but owing to its weight it is unsuitable for Rigging. Hard wood are the most suitable and used extensivly [sic]. These must be frequently tested and care must be taken in storing them, otherwise they become distorted.
2/ Spiritlevel. [sic]
Used in conjunction with a straightedge in checking
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parts for being level and horizontally. [sic]
3/ Trammel Points.
These consists [sic] of rods which can slide along and be secured to a beam. They are used for transfering [sic] and comparing distances which should be equal, such as cross bracing wires.
4/ Plumb Bobs.
Made from brass with steel points and attached to cords to form a Plumb line, this line will give a true vertical line from the point of vast contrast.
It is used to find out by visual comparison whether the object should be lined up is vertical.
5/Adjustable Level
An instrument for measuring accurately the angle of a component set to [deleted] a [/deleted] the horizontil. [sic] Measures from nought to ten in degrees and minaites. [sic]
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Truing Fairey Gordon Fuselage.
The Rigging position of this Fuselage is the attitude which the aircraft adopts in normal flight.
This is obtained on the Gordon by adjusting on the [inserted] front [/inserted] trestle under frame 3 untill [sic] the rear sprar[sic] tube is level laterally.
Adjust on the rear trestle under frame 10 untill [sic] no 3 bottom cross strut is 2 1/8 ins below no 2 and no 3 top cross strut is 5 13/16 ins in advance of no 3 bottom cross strut.
The position of the Datum line is along the centre top Longeron from no 1 point. Starting from front to rear trammel from the internal cross bracing from the pin centre until corresponding diagonals bring the Fuselage true and in view. Trammel and adjust top and bottom until Fuselage is true in plan view The Fuselage is then placed in position and points are measured down all side struts and equal distances from the top Longeron.
Straight edges are then clamped
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on frame 1 and 2 so that the top edge cuts the marked points.
Cords are then stretched over the top outside the Fuselage and side cross bracings is adjusted until all the points on side struts cut side lines. Stern post is adjusted to be vertical by the diagonal tubes in bays.
Final Check and Inspection.
Plumb bobs are then dropped from the top of the Stern Post and from the centre of the front straight edge.
The ground line is then set up to coincide with these Plumb bobs and further Plumb bobs are dropped from mid points or all top cross struts, these should coincide with the ground line.
On compleation [sic] of truing are systematical check and inspection of all components should be made for Longerons and struts, for bowing wires being locked and in safety.
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Truing a Hawker Fuselage.
At convient [sic] working places, place the Fuselage on trestles under joint Y.O, slacken bracing wires, mark trammel points on top face of top Longeron and bottom face of bottom Longeron commencing at A.B.
Tension and Trammel internal cross bracings and then bottom and top cross bracing of the centre portion.
The same procedure is carried out on front and rear portions and finally the side cross bracings of the stern is adjusted to even tension.
Final Check.
The Fuselage is then placed in rigging position by leveling [sic] laterally with spirit level across the top Longeron at E.G. Plumb lines are then dropped from the middle point of a straight edge across the engine bearer from the top of the stern post.
A ground line is streched [sic] to cut
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these Plumb lines, further Plumb lines being dropped from the mid point of each cross strut.
The engine blocks should be level fore and aft laterally 17 of the 1/4 “ between centres, an allowance of a 33nd [sic]between port and starboard blocks and 3 32 nd on the front blocks.
The stern post must be vertical and is trued by the top cross bracing wire. Finally inspect Fuselage check components for bowing, wires in correct tension, in safety and not butting and blocked.
Chaffing plates to be fitted where r wires cross.
[diagram of metal section]
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[diagram of main plane construction]
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[underlined] Main Spars [/underlined]
Main Spars are the main longtitudinal [sic] members running throughout the length. They are so designed to take the loads of sheer mending and end loads. Meterial [sic] wood, solid drawn steel tubes and high tensile steel strip The top and bottom pieces of the spar are called [deleted] stang [/deleted] strang and boon and the inside called the web.
[two short horizontal lines]
[four section diagrams]
[indecipherable signature]
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[diagram of box]
[two short horizontal lines]
Ribs.
Large ribs, compression ribs used to brace the main spars.
Camber ribs are lighter in construction and used to transmit loads to the spars and preserve the shape of the mainplane.
Drag struts are usually tubular members fitted between spars to brace the structure.
In other types of construction compression ribs take their place with the advantage of supporting the spar under [deleted] loads [/deleted] twisting loads.
Drag wires, cross bracing wires running from the front spar uutwards [sic] prevents the structure from collapseing [sic] backwards.
Anti drag wires appose [sic] the above and prevent structure from collapsing forwards
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[underline] Nose Ribs & Riblets. [/ underline]
These are small ribs running from front spar to leading edge to brace that portion where the loads are greatest.
[underline] Leading and Trailing Edges. [/underline]
Made of light metal tubing or wood (Spruce). Root end that part of the mainplane near the Fuselage. Wing tip end farthest from Fuselage being a l continuation of leading & trailing edges.
[underline] Types of Construction [/underline]
1/ [underlined] Wooden. [/underlined] Spars & Ribs – (Spruce)
Fairing – Three Ply
Spars – Sowd [sic], Spindled & Laminated
2/ [underlined] Composite. [/underlined] Spars and Drag Struts, Ribs & Riblets L/E. & T/E Wood (Spruce)
3/ All Metal Spars. Solid drawn steel tubes & Steel strip.
Ribs. Light alloy. (Duralumin & Alclad. (3Ply.
[three diagrams to illustrate spindled, laminated and box]
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Mono Spar.
This type of construction a single spar is used to withstand and transfer all the loads imposed on the wing. The spar is located in the deepest part of the section of the wing.
Stiffened to withstand tortion [sic] by a system of diagonal or Pyramid bracing.
Along a spar at suitable intervalls [sic] are a number of cross members, tubes or special ribs and midway between these are short bracing wires which run from top and bottom langes [sic] of the spar to the ends of the tubes.
The advantage of the Mono spar is that the main plane is modified.
With two spar construction the mainplane must have a certain depth to allow for the rear spar so that the design is affected at two point [sic] instead of one.
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Mainplane Truing.
Support the mainplane at convient [sic] working point on three trestles evenly spaced and the same height to ensure that the spars are not bowed.
Without Sweepback
Place Aluminium clips along the spars at each drag strut. Start at root end and work towards the tip.
Place straight edge across two spars at second drag strut and parallel to it. Check by placing two fitters squares on the straight edge and so that they just tuch [sic] drag strut.
Mark the clips [deleted] where the clips [/deleted] then find centre of spar at these points. Place the Blades of the square against spar face & halve distance between them.
With Trammels set at a distance from the mark along the front spar mark the clip at first drag strut.
Transfer this distance to the rear spar & find centre of the spar at this part.
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Repeat at third strut & transfer to rear spar.
Repeat on all other struts. Slacken cross bracing wires, Trammel diagonals and adjust wires untill [sic] they are equal starting at No 1 bay.
To check, Trammel 1 & 2 bays as one 3&4 as one. Obtain 3 blocks of equal size, place 1 at each end and on top of the spar.
Streach [sic] a line tightly over these blocks & use the third as a testing block.
[underline] Truing a Mainplane With Sweepback [/underline]
Support the Mainplane on trestles as before, mark Trammeling points at each drag strut starting from the Formula 2 π / 360 RN where R is the distance between spar centres and N is a number of degrees of sweepback. Measure in from the root along the rear spar a given distance, say 1”. Measure along the front spar the same distance (1”) plus the result of the Formula.
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Find the centres of spars at these and they are your first Trammel points.
Carry on marking other points at other drag [deleted] points [/deleted] struts and proceed to true up as with the normal Mainplane.
Check as before, Trammeling two bays as one.
Check struts for squareness find the centre line of the strut, measure along the Longeron for equal distances either side.
Mark a point up the strut any distance and check the length of the diagonal which are to be equal.
A.G.S.
[underlined} Aircraft Generall [sic] Stores [/underlined]
Comprises all items that can be fitted to any aircraft irrespective of type and design. e.g. nuts, bolts, split pins, taper pins, etc etc are common to all types.
RAF Wires = Medium Carbon Steel. 9% mangnase [sic] Cold Rolled. – Tensile Steel. 52-65 Tons/0” Elliptical or Oval Section used for
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internal & extrenal bracings.
A. Length – Overall Length.
B. “ – Length between Shoulder.
C. Cropping Exact length before rolling.
Identified by numbers on a tab or round part of the wire giving the “A” length & Diam. [diameter]
To find Diam of wire from figures add 5 to first figure of 3 figured number and call them 1/32”.
Example – [boxed] 5W3310 [/boxed] = 310/5/8 = 8/32” =1/4”
[underlined] A.G.S. [/underlined]
Every wire of certain Diam increase in lengths of 4”, to find length in inches subtract 1 from last 2 figures, multiply by 4, add minium [sic] length. (from table).
Example – [boxed] 5W.3310 [/boxed] (1/19) x 4 = (36)+11=47” long
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[table illustrating diameter of thread, wire number, minimum length and fork joint number]
Threads conform to BA & BSF.
Left hand always to the top RH supplied longer to enable wire to be shortened if required.
Protected against corrosion by Cadmium coating. Cleaned with Parrafin [sic] rag dried. thouroughly [sic] & Sozzle mixture (Grease) applied.
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[underlined] Tie & Swaged Rods [/underlined]
Spec W8. Medium Carbon Steel round section used soly [sic] for internal bracing & connecting links in controll [sic] system.
[underlined] Fork Joints [/underlined]
Used for connection R.A.F. wires & swaged rods to wiring plate & lugs form part of tension rod turnbuckle. Low carbon Steel 35 Tons / [square drawn] in “
Thread BA & BSF – RH & LH. 4 BA – 1 3/8 BSE identified by numbers stamped on body (see Table). Size determined by subtraction 406 fom number 1 3 1/32 (except BAS 7/32” 9/32” 5/8 BSF
[underlined] Zinc or Cadmium Coating [/underlined]
Distorted forks not to be used.
Material. (Identifation [sic]).
Mild Steel - Plain Collar.
High Tensile Steel – Grooved Collar
Stainless Steel = No Collar
Stainless Steel = Stamped SS
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[underlined] Shackle Pins. [/underlined]
HT Alloy Steel, Zinc or Cadmium coating Size. Diam & length measuring from under head to inside edge of split pin hole.
[underlined] Diam. [/underlined] Denoted by letter stamped on head A=5/32 increasing by 1/32” (See Table)
[underlined] Length. [/underlined] Denoted by number.-No l=25”(1/4) increasing by 1” from l”
Example H19
AGS. (Bolts). Identifation [sic]
Meteral .[sic]
Mild Steel – Plain Head.
High Tensile Steel –Grove [sic] round Hexogun. [sic]
Stainles [sic] Steel – Stamped S.S.
[underlined] Sizes [/underlined] – 6 BA – 1/2 BSF most commonly used, Diam denoted by a letter on head (See Table).
[underlined] Length. [/underlined] Smallest 6” increases by 4” for each size. Identified by number which when divided by 10 will give length in inches
Example
[diagram and calculations]
[page break]
B.A sizes are not, [inserted] marked [/inserted] packages are labelled.
B.A – British Assocation [sic]
BSF British Standard Fine
[curly bracket to include above two lines] Typ [sic] & number of threads per inch
[underlined] Nuts [/underlined]
M.S. Plain
HTS Graved. [sic]
Nuts above 1/4 “ in Diam are stamped on one flat with letters to denote size, also stamped with L.
Example 3/8 left hand thread.
[diagram to illustrate]
Lock Nuts.
Half thickness of [deleted] thickness [/deleted] ordinary nuts.
Brass. –Soft Yellow Colour
Cast Iron – 2 flats only others rounded off
[arrow pointing at illustration]
Brass used extensivly [sic] for marine aircraft owing to non-corrodibility
Reason for use. To avoid damage to wire in event of over tightning. [sic]
A.G.S
[list of bolts]
Locking Devices.
[underlined]1[/underlined] Slotted Nut & Split Pin.
[underlined]2[/underlined] Burring.
[underlined]3[/underlined] Centre Pop (3 Marks).
[underlined]4[/underlined] Simmonds Self-Locking Nut.
[drawing self locking nut and locking ring]
[underlined]5[/underlined] Double Lock Nut
[underlined]6[/underlined] Locking Ring.
[underlined]7[/underlined] Locking Plate & Grub Screw.
[underlined]8[/underlined] Tab Washer.
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[underlined]9[/underlined] Spring Washer.
[underlined]10[/underlined] Soft Iron Locking Wire.
[underlined]11[/underlined] Terry Safety Pin.
[drawing of locking plate]
[drawing of tab washer]
A.G.S
Tubular Rivets. (Identification)
Spec. T1. Medium Carbon Steel – 1 Flat.
“ T26 Mild Carbon Steel – 2 Flat.
“ T9 Aluminium – 1 Flat.
“ DTD97. Stainless Steel. – No Flat.
Taper Pins.
Conform to:-
R.A.F. Taper Pins – 1 in 48.
Morse. 1 in 20.
Measured by length & Diam of smallest ind.
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A Reamer Fit. (Method of Locking.)
[underlined]1[/underlined] End split & opened out.
[underlined]2[/underlined] End threaded Nut & Spring Washer.
[underlined]3[/underlined] Small end burred over.
Large end must protude [sic] more than 1/8” and small end no more than 1/16”
U Shackles.
Size governed by size of Pin used.
[deleted]W[/deleted] Turnbuckles. Two types.
[underlined]1[/underlined] Tension rod type. [underlined]2[/underlined] Barrel type.
Used for adjusting control cables. No 1 Locked with 18 gauge soft iron locking wire (figure of 8) & brass or cast iron lock nuts. In safety when threads are past the pin hole in fork joint. No 2 replaced by No 1. Locked with sort iron locking wire in shape of letter S. In safety when all threads are inside barrel.
[drawing of Tension Rod]
Wheels. (Types).
A Wire braced with floating bushes
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B) Wire braced with floating [deleted] booshs [/deleted] bushes. & braced across shims.
C) Plain disc wheels, non floating bushes.
D) Wire braced with brakes, floating bushes.
E) Disc wheels with brakes, non-floating bushes.
F) Intermediate low pressure.
G) Full low pressure.
H) Intermediate low pressure, with brakes.
Bushes made of Phosphon [sic] Bronze.
Bushes in C & E are a force fit- extractors will be required to remove.
[handwritten indecipherable signature] 19.11.38
Wheels. (Shims).
Shims may be fitted when wear occurs on bushes 20 SWG.
Brass Hard Sheets.
To be loose fit on axle 1 – 5 in number.
[underlined]ON.[/underlined] Unbreaked [sic] & breaked [sic] wheels with roller bearings, shims on the outside
[underlined] ON [/underlined] [deleted] UnBreaked [sic] wheels & Unbreaked [sic] wheels
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with roller bearings shims on outside [/deleted]
ON Breaked [sic] wheel with plain bearings (D & E) shims on outer face first, then inner face – alternately.
24/1/39 [handwritten indecipherable signature]
[underlined] [underlined] Types of Undercarriages. [/underlined] [/underlined]
1) [underlined] 1 [/underlined] Through axle.
[drawing of undercarriage] [drawing of undercarriage]
HAWKER
2) Divided u/c.
[drawing of undercarriage] GAUNTLET [deleted] GAANTLET. [/deleted] GLADIATOR.
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[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Split Axle.
[drawing of undercarriage] MOTH.
[drawing of undercarriage] HEAVY BOMBER (WHITLEY). Now Obselete.
[deleted] Splicing (1st Tuck) (Heart strand)
.020 200
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Splicing
1st Tuck Heart strand straight forward. Three on each side.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] No 3 goes in under one. 2 to the left
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] “ 1 “ “ Where no 3 comes out. Under 2 strands.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] “ 2 “ “ “ “ “ “ “ 1 “.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] “ 4 “ “ 1 to the right of where no 3 went under 1.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] “ 5 “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ 4 “ “ “ “
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] “ 6 “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ 5 “ “ “ “
2 Tuck
Start no 5 (1 to right of heart) tucked over one & under one.
4 “ “ “ “
3 “ “ “ “
2 “ “ “ “
1 “ “ “ “
6 “ “ “ “
Cable.
Extra flexible high tensile steel wire rope; 19 wires to a strand; 7 strands to a cable. Size denoted by its safe working load in cwts. Most common used in R.A.F. 5, 15, 25, 45 cwts. Extensively used for bracing & controls [sic] .
[page break]
5 cwts – Actuating Gear.
15 “ - Flying Control[deleted] l [/deleted] s
25 & 45 “ – Bracing.
Connected to component by loop or roller spliced into the ends.
[page break]
[missing page]
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The
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Fin stabilises the machine directionally. It is sometimes ofset [sic] to counteract the effect of the slipstream.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Gap is the distance between top & bottom plane. The reason for not having to [sic] small a gap is that there should be no interference in the airflow.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Chord is the distance between leading & trailing edges on an aerofoil.
[underlined] 7 [/underlined] Angle of incidence is the angle which chord line of the aerofoil makes with the relative airflow
[underlined] 8 [/underlined] Dihedral angle is the angle at which the main planes are set to the horizontal when viewing machine from front.
Stagger is the horizontal distance one plane is set in front of, or in rear of another.
Ailerons are attached to the rear spar of the mainplane near the wing tip. They control the rolling movement with natural control & one continuous system.
Flaps usually
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Fitted are in rear of M/P to widen range of speed.
Slats are small aerofoil sections fitted to the leading edge of the top M/P at the wing tip to give increased angle of stall & decrease the stalling speed by smoothing out eddies which form at stalling speed.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Yawing. Inclination of the A/C to move to left or right.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Rolling is inclination of the A/C to move [deleted] about [/deleted] out of its fore & aft axis
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Hitching is the movement of an A/C about its lateral axis.
Thrust is the name given to a force applied by the rotation of the Airscrew ie forward motion of the A/C.
Slipstream is the helical column of air set up by the rotation of the airscrew.
Airscrew Torque is the tendency of a machine to turn in the opposite direction to which the airscrew rotates.
Tail Incidence Gear or Actuating Gear is a device for altering the angle of incidence of a tail plane & carried
[page break]
out by raising or lowering the rear spar of the tail-plane. It is operated by a wheel in the pilots cockpit from which cables are taken to the vertical tail-jack
[underlined] Nose or tail too heavy [/underlined]
This is a tendency for a machine to fly with its nose up or down and counteracted by the actuating gear.
[underlined] Downwash [/underlined] is the flow of air deflected by the inclined surface of an aerofoil passing through it.
[underlined] Stalling Speed [/underlined]
An aircraft is said to be at stalling speed when the airspeed is at the minimum necessary to support it.
Leading Particulars (Fairey 3F)
[underlined] Engine [/underlined] – Napier – W/C.
[underlined] Duty [/underlined] Generall [sic] Purpose.
[underlined] Type [/underlined] Two seater, Bi-Plane & convertible to seaplane
[page break]
Main Dimensions.
Span – 45 ft. 9”
Height – (over sling) 13 ft.
Chord – 5 ft. 6”
Gap - 5 “ 7 “
Stagger – Nil.
Incidence – 4o
Dihedral – 2o 15’
Tail Plane.
Incidence to datum plus 5o 50’ plus 5o 50’ to 0o 6’Jacking points
Frames no 1, 14 & 10
Bracing or Balance Trestle.
Rigging Position
When equipment is scarce the U/C may be used as the jacking point provided that it has been trued up & the legs hardened with wood blocks.
To check rigging position
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Slacken balance trestles. Check lateral level with makers cross level under the spool joint of no 2 frames & adjust on front trestle if necessary.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Check longitudinal truth with
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makers fore & aft level placed under front & rear spar tubes. Adjust on rear trestles if necessary.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Adjust on balance trestle untill [sic] it just takes a bearing.
Sequence of Assembly
Fuselage trued.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Erect & true U/C
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] “ “ “ C/S
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] “ “ “ T/U
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Box, erect & true main planes.
Attaching & Truing the Undercarriage.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Wheels and Oleo legs are attached to the axle.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] [symbol] U/C wheeled under fuselage. Oleo legs are attached [deleted] to the [/deleted] first with bolt head forward.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Radius rods are attached with [deleted] e [/deleted] their bolt heads downwards.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Bracing wires attached, bolt heads downwards & top starboard to bottom port uppermost.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Tension & trammel cross bracing wires.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Check rigging position.
[underlined] 7 [/underlined] Suspend plumb lines from inside face of bottom spool joint,
[page break]
number two frame & mark points of axle with chalk & pencill [sic] measuring from grease points.
[underlined] 8 [/underlined] Distance from plumb to marked points equal. Adjust cables if necessary. Check for squrness [sic] .
[underlined] 9 [/underlined] Check cables for safety, lock up & split pins.
Centre Section.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Support centre section upside down on felt covered trestles.
Fit [deleted] trestles [/deleted] struts, longest in front, rear starboard carries brackets for ASI, inboards & on top.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Place C/S bracing wires front & rear swaw [sic] rods, Bottom starboard, top parts nearest tanks side drag wires 607 & 608. 607 nearest tanks. All RH thread at bottom equally engaged in fork joints points for swag rods heads forwards.
[page break]
[underlined] Rigging Iinstruments [sic]
[underlined] I [/underlined] By Makers Instrument Board.
[underlined] II [/underlined] Abney Level.
[underlined] III [/underlined] Incidence Board or Dihedral Board
[underlined] IV [/underlined] Spirit Level
[drawing of calculating angle of 4o]
[underlined] Problem [/underlined]
To find angle of 4o on A, B, C, D.
[underlined] Construction] [/underlined]
With compasses & radius 57.3” scribe an arc. EH from point A. From line AD mark off 4” along HE & call it F.
Join AF & produce to G. [symbol] Angle between AG & AD must be 4o.
[page break]
Truing Main Planes.
[underlined] Tolerances [/underlined]
[drawing of plan view of A/C]
[drawing of side view of aerofoil]
[page break]
[underlined] [underlined] Undercarriage. [/underlined] [/underlined]
[drawing of undercarriage]
[drawing of undercarriage]
[drawing of unknown]
[page break]
[drawing of Aileron controls]
Ailerons 24o UP.
“ “ 24o Down.
[underlined] Differential Control [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Rigging Position
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Test control column in central position [inserted] AFT [/inserted] 30/14
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Test that aileron control attachments both on the cam is vertically in line with the centre of each chain sprocket & the chains are equally disposed about the sprockets.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Adjust aileron controls until ailerons continuation with the flaps are set at normal 4o.
[page break]
Adjust on gap wires until the ailerons are normal.
[underlined] v [/underlined] Release C/C & check aileron [deleted] s [/deleted] travel with straight edge & Abney level on underside of selected rib.
[underlined] 24 Up & DOWN. [/underlined]
Abney Level reading.
[underlined] 20o up – 28o DOWN [/underlined]
[underlined] I [/underlined] [underlined] R.P. [/underlined]
[underlined] II [/underlined] [deleted] Adjust [/deleted] Wind wheel forward & check that trunions are fully outward.
[underlined] III [/underlined] Adjust controls & check with straight edge & Abney level under a flap rib so that the flap is 5o UP.
Wind wheel back & check trunio [inserted] n [/inserted] s for being in right inboard & flap for being 16o Down from normal. Wind flaps to normal in continuation with M/P check Top Flap Gap wire adjustment.
[page break]
Strut at 90o to an airflow.
Same with strut 45o to an Airflow.
[drawing of strut]
[underlined] Sections round which air flows. [/underlined]
[page break]
[drawing of pressure curve]
[drawing of pressure curve]
Pressure curves & centre of Pressure.
Pressure curves at 4o & 14o.
Postive [sic] angles of attack.
The top surface of an aerofoil 4/5 of the complete lift while the bottom only produce 1/5
[page break]
[drawing of manometer]
[underlined] Manometer [/underlined]
Flight of curvature called the camber while the ratio of chord to span is called the aspect ratio.
Datum line otherwise chord line from wick [sic] all measurements are taken. Highest point of curature [sic] 1/3 from leading edge.
[page break]
[drawing illustrating turning moment]
The turning effect of a force (moment) Moment produced by AB. – 10LB 5x2 = 20LB – 1 FT. 10x5.
[drawing of high aspect ratio]
[drawing of low aspect ratio]
[page break]
Lamantation of Span.
[table of bending moment]
[two drawings relating to bending moment table]
[page break]
Development of the bi-plane.
[drawing of cross section of monoplane and bi-plane]
[page break]
Effect of forward & backward Stagger.
([underlined] Blind Areas. [/underlined] )
[drawing of blind areas]
[page break]
[drawing of a couple]
Calculation of a couple may be defined as 2 equal forces acting in opposite direction some distance apart so as to cause rotation.
[page break]
Effects of Stagger
[drawing of interference]
[drawing of non-interference]
[page break]
Air – Speed Indicator
The Pitot tube records the difference between the wind pressure due to the passage of the A/C. through the air & the pressure of the sorrounding [sic] still air.
[drawing of pitot/static head]
[drawing]
[page break]
Air Speed Indicator.
[drawing of air speed indicator]
Altimeter
The Altimeter is a instrument to tell the heigh [sic] of the A/C.
[underlined] Fore & Aft Levels [/underlined] .
Fore & Aft levels are instruments used [deleted] to [/deleted] on A/C to indicate the angle between horizontal axis & longtitudanals. Consists of a glass shaped triangular container of round section one side being set vertical & facing the instrument board.
When liquid is above zero mark the nose of the A/C is tilted upwards, when below zero mark nose of A/C is tilted downwards.
[page break]
Turn Indicator.
Designed to help pilot keep on straight course to give him a clear visible indication of flight.
The complete instrument comprises of an indication coupled to a venturi head.
The venturi head is put in the slipstream while the Pitot head is [deleted] as [/deleted] outside the slipstream.
TURN INDICATOR.
[drawing of turn indicator]
The needle in relation to zero mark
[page break]
Turn Indicator Venturi.
[drawing of turn indicator venturi]
[drawing]
Oleo Legs.
An oleo leg is a telescopic contravance [sic] forming one of the main parts of the U/C designed to absorb landing & taxying [sic] shock.
The shock exsorbing [sic] qualities derived by causing oil which compressioned [sic] to be forced through holes which are arranged to decrease proggressively [sic] inside [inserted] as [/inserted] the leg. telescopes.
Oil action is assisted usually by one of the following. Rubber, Air & Springs.
[inserted] Good Drawing [signature] [/inserted] [page break]
FURY OLEO LEG
[diagram of Fury oleo leg] [page break]
[underlined] WAPITI [/underlined] [diagram of Wapiti oleo leg]
[page break]
[underlined] HORSLEY [/underlined] [diagram of Horsley oleo leg]
[page break] [blank page]
[inserted] Don’t Waste Space [/inserted] [page break]
Faults, Reasons, & Remidies [sic] for Oleo Legs.
[underlined] A [/underlined] Piston does not move or only moves a small amount.
[underlined] Reason. [/underlined] Air Pressure too high or gland become gummy through long period of use.
[underlined] Remedie. [sic] [/underlined] Reduce Air Pressure.
[underlined] B [/underlined] Piston does not extend to normal & machine wobles [sic] on a turn. [underlined] Reason. [/underlined] Air Pressure to [sic] low.
[underlined] C [/underlined] Piston extends normaly [sic] & air pressure is correct but machine rolls badly on a turn.
[underlined] Reason. [/underlined] Oil level to [sic] low & air pressure does not increase fast enough with motion of piston.
[underlined] Remedie. [sic] [/underlined] Check oil level.
D Piston at normal extension & air pressure correct but machine very harsh in taxying [sic].
[underlined] Reason. [/underlined] Oil level too high. causing ondue [sic] increase of air pressure. with movement of piston.
[underlined] Remedie. [sic] [/underlined] Check oil level.
E There is loss of oil at main gland, if leakage is slow keep unit in [page break]
commission by maintaining air pressure. Replace complete unit as convient [sic]. The gland of the departure unit must be dismantled & faulty packing rings replaced.
F If the air pressure in the unit is not maintained ascertain that all valves are tight & if the leak still persists detach unit & submerge unit in water to locate fault.
[underlined] Vickers Air Brakes [/underlined]
[underlined] I [/underlined] This is shown diagrammatically in scetch [sic].
[underlined] II [/underlined] The wheel brakes are operated by compressed air drawn from the main system.
The brakes are applied by hand & operation of the rudder bar normally assists steering on the ground by giving differential braking.
[underlined] III [/underlined] The chief component of the brake systems are:- A Pilots hand lever.
B Brake control valve.
C Independent parking control.
D Wheel brake unit [page break]
E Duplex pressure gauge.
F The pipes are of small diameter & metal couplings are used throughout the complete piping system shewn [sic] in the diagram.
G The pilots hand lever control fitted on the control column handle & connected to the control valve by Bowden transmission Operation at this lever give braking protortion [sic] to the load applied.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Brake control valve.
This is [deleted] a [/deleted] in effect a sensative [sic] duplex, relay, valve enabling high braking forces to be devoloped [sic] although relitivly [sic] in a small load are applied to the controls.
This valve admits compressed air to brakes motors up to a predetermined pressure, this being also coupled to the rudder controls. This allows the braking forces on the wheel to be varied thus assisting ground monoeurvers [sic].
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] The independent parking control is used for running up the engine [page break]
& parking A/C.
It is governed by a small catch on the C/C.
The control must only be used when the A/C is at rest on the ground, also in gusty weather the rudder bar must be locked to avoid loss of air due to rudder movements.
[underlined] 7 [/underlined] Thes [sic] are Vickers standard type 2 shoe brake. [underlined] 8 [/underlined] The Duplex pressure gauge.
Reading [deleted] to [/deleted] 0 to 100 lb per sq in but 200 lb per sq in over load is fitted on the changing panel on the S Board side of the pilot & indicate the pressure in the brake motors. Pressure is shown at all times but need only be refined when testing.
[underlined] 9 [/underlined] The minimum pressure normaly [sic] required in the brakes is 35 lb per sq in when rudder bar is in neutral position & hand lever off it stops the “Parking Pressure” it is also 35 lb per sq in.
The brake pressure [page break]
or inner wheel does not rise above the normal, the turning effects are obtained by allowing the pressure to fall away in outer wheel brake.
[underlined] 10 [/underlined] The hand lever must be used for compensated braking, turns must be made with rudder.
The parking control must be used when A/C is at rest on ground. Brakes must be tested before taking off.
[underlined] Tests [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Ascertain that the pressure in air bottle is 150 to 200 lb per sq in.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Apply the brakes by hand lever, rudder nuteral [sic], the pressure in the Duplex should indicate 35 lb per sq in.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Still holding the hand lever on the stop, move the rudder bar for a turn to Port, gauge should indicate – Port 35 lb per sq in S Board zero.
[page break]
4 Repeat this for a turn to S B gauge should now indicate – S Board 35 lb per sq in – Port zero.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Bring rudder bar to nuteral [sic], the pressure should now equalise at 35 lb per sq in.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] With hand lever released oscillate the rudder bar to its full angle as in flight; gauge should still indicate zero.
[underlined] 7 [/underlined] Throw over the parking catch, a pressure of 35 lb per sq in should be indicated on gauge.
Brakes
12 In order to reduce to a minimum the amount of air used in applying brakes, it is advisable to take up the wear in the shoes by lengthening the brake motor about 0.25 to 0.25 of an inc [sic] axial measurment [sic] of rod should be allowed when brakes are on
13 An even check on the pressure in the system should be made when A/C is parked. 14 The A/C wheels are fitted with oil seals to keep oil from shoes
[page break]
should the brakes seem affected at any time, although air pressure is normal it is advisible [sic] to [one indecipherable word] shoes for oil
[underlined] 15 [/underlined] [underlined] Brake control valve [/underlined]
This is main control valve having many duties to perform, the following notes show its action & in case of emergency will enable replacements & minor adjustments to be made.
[underlined] 16 [/underlined] The valve governs maximum pressure which may be applied to brakes, it responds to movements of hand lever on the control column & to [deleted] to [/deleted] those of [deleted] of [/deleted] the rudder bar or else to parking control.
[underlined] 17 [/underlined] The valve box contain 2 identical groups of mechanism of which control the Port & S Board brakes; both groups consisting of the following parts –
2 inlet pressure valves connected to air resivour [sic] & 2 ( exhaust ) valves. The [inserted] inlet [/inserted] exhaust valves of each group contained in same [page break]
stem.
The cam, common to both groups of [deleted] mechanism [/deleted] The levers of the cam following.
The governer [sic] spring with their assocated [sic] diaphram [sic]. [deleted] The [/deleted]
[underlined] 18 [/underlined] Diaphragm of each group is acted upon by the load by the governor spring on the other side & by the pressure in the brake chamber on the other.
This chamber is in communaction [sic] with the corresponding brake load.
When a balance exists between these two forces the pressure in the brake motor, & consequently the braking force leaves a direct reletive [sic] to the governer [sic] spring which is directly acted upon by the hand lever.
The inlet & exhaust valves are closed do not open again untill [sic] the state of balance refered to a body above is altered.
[page break]
[underlined] 19 [/underlined] Only the inlet pressure valve to the state of balance becomes smaller & smaller when the valves closes [sic]
[underlined] 20 [/underlined] If the braking is increased release [?] hand lever allows the load to fall causing the diaphragm to move upwards opening the exhaust valve. This allows air from the brake motor to escape until the pressure of the brake chamber again balances the spring load.
[underlined] 21 [/underlined] With brake released entirely there is no load on the spring & exhaust release valve is permantly [sic] open. The pressure in the system is then atmospheric.
[underlined] 22 [/underlined] It will be seen from the foregoing that the max pressure obtained in the brake motors depends on the movement which loads the governor spring. This movement being limited by adjustable stops.
[underlined] 23 [/underlined] The load on the governor spring are affected by the position of the rudder bar which is assumed is in the neteral [sic]
[page break] position.
When it moves this allows the pressure in one brake to fall.
[underlined] 24 [/underlined] The only parts of the complete assembly wich [sic] are likely to need attention are the valve units.
Should it leak it is best to replace the complete valve box by a new; faulty valve can be examined, the valve units removed & replaced by spare ones being made to a jig
[underlined] 25 [/underlined] In order to prevent any foreign matter getting into the valves a horse hair filter is fitted into the pressure inlet manifold which can esily [sic] be removed for cleaning in petrol by unscrewing a cap.
[page break]
[diagram of Vickers air brakes] [page break]
[underlined] Benedix Brakes [/underlined]
Advantages of Uses
[underlined] I [/underlined] Reduction of landing run enabling higher speeds to be used with safetfy. [underlined] II [/underlined] Control of landing run useful in cross wind landing.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Greater manouverability [sic] on the ground. [underlined] 4 [/underlined] Easyer [sic], Safer & Faster Taxying [sic]. [underlined] 5 [/underlined] Making possible use of tail wheel instead of skid.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Useful for parking & may be used in an emergency for engine testing on ground.
Disadvantages
[underlined] I [/underlined] Extra weight.
[underlined] II [/underlined] More maintainance [sic] required.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Slightly more chance of putting A/C on nose in landing. Types
[underlined] I [/underlined] Mechanically operated. [underlined] II [/underlined] Hydralic [sic] (Fluid). [underlined] III [/underlined] Pneumatic. (Air). [page break]
[diagram of Bendix brake] [page break]
Maintainance [sic] of Palmer Brakes
[underlined] Defects [/underlined] [underlined] Causes [/underlined] [underlined] Remidies [sic] [/underlined]
[underlined] I [/underlined] Air Lock.
To [sic] much travel with spongy feling [sic]
Reprime
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Non return of valve in motor. Complete renewal of affected part in motor.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Leaking joint causing loss of pressure, air in resuvoir [sic] when pedal is depressed.
Removal of faulty clips etc.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Sedgment [sic] damaged & worn Renewal of expansion chamber complet [sic]
5 Brake sedgment [sic] partly worn
Fitting special rubber bands of adhesive tape butt jointed in base of costlated [sic] to channel
[page break] D C R
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Resuvoir [sic] leaking
Careful tensioning of tail rod passing through base of resuvoir [sic] & renew rubber bands. [underlined] 7 [/underlined] Rubber bag in motor deflected
Change bag [page break]
[diagram of hydraulic system 1 & 2] [page break]
[diagram of hydraulic system 3] [page break]
[diagram of hydraulic system 4] [page break]
Dowdy Hydraulic System.
Consists of Retractable U/C, Tail Wheel & Flaps.
Oil for Dowdy System – “Slamavo” (DTD44B). [underlined] no other oil must be used [/underlined]. Should throttle be shut & U/C up a warning buzzer blows in the pilots cockpit to warn him his U/C is up. Oil to be maintained level by the filler plug in resevoir [sic].
[inserted] [signature] 16.3. 39 CI [/inserted] [page break]
[underlined] BASIC . CARPENTERING. [/underlined]
[diagram of wood with marking gauge] [page break]
[diagram of halved joint] [page break]
[diagram of wood joint] [page break]
[underlined] TOOLS. (FOUR MAIN GROUPS) [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Cutting. Saws.
Planes. Chisels. Spokeshave. Gauges.
Marking. Pencils
Scribing [one indecipherable word] Gauges.
Compass.
Testing Rule.
Try Square Winding Batten Bevels.
Boring Brace & Bit Gimlet Bradawl
Tenon Saw used for small jobs, 7 to 10 points to an inch.
Dove Tail saw used for verry [sic] minute work [underlined] 5 to 7 points to an inch. [/underlined]
[underlined] Chisels /[/underlined] Paring. [underlined] Morticeing [sic] [/underlined] [underlined] Gouges [underlined] / Firmer. [underlined] Scribing. [/underlined]
Gauges / Marking.
[underlined] Morticeing [sic] Gauge. [/underlined] Scribing knife.
[page break]
[diagram of dovetail joint] [page break]
[second diagram of dovetail joint] [page break]
[third diagram of dovetail joint] [page break]
Sequence of Operation.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Mark cut as in Fig [underlined] 1 [/underlined], use level for lines at 80 [degree symbol].
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Gauge depth to half thickness from face side.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] With Chisel cut “v” groove in shaded portion “A” to form channels for saw
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Pare out shaded portion “A” with chisel. [underlined] 5 [/underlined] Next remove waste “C” using saw.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Fit together & square off the end using smoothing plane only.
Mortice & Tenon Joint
[diagram and measurements of the joint]
Sequence of Operation
[page break]
[drawing & measurements]
Good
[underlined] JW [/underlined]
31/3/39
[page break]
4 Main Timbers used in Aero Construction
[deleted] Sisques [/deleted] [inserted] Sitka [/inserted] Spruce
Ash
Mahogany
Walnut
Red Deal
[deleted] This is [/deleted] Used to distinguish [deleted] ed [/deleted] the light & less resiness from those containing more turpentin [sic] & with much stronger marked anual [sic] rings.
Scotch Fir or Northern Pine.
The difference in the types of this timber is due chiefly to the soil & the altitude at which it grows
The best red & yellow fir comes from Prussia & Hemel. Height 30 to 40 ft, logs 13 to 16 inc [sic] [deleted] s [/deleted] square.
Seasoning.
This means the submitting of freshly felled [deleted] to [/deleted] trees to the action of the weather for severall [sic] seasons. When this is done the naturall [sic] juices dry up.
Naturall [sic] seasoning has the better effect of preserving the strength.
In preserving timber the tree is looped of its branches, its trunk is skinned & squared the stacked in the open air.
Wet Seasoning
To shortening the time this method is used.
The root end is put toward the flow of a running stream but this method deminshes [sic] strength of the timber
Desication [sic] Method
This is kilne [sic] drying. The wood is submitted in closed chambers with [deleted] methods [/deleted] moving currents of warm air which ebsorbs [sic] the moisture.
Time 3 days
[page break]
[characteristics of the 4 types of wood]
[page break]
[characteristics of the 4 types of wood]
Scarf Joint [drawing of the joint]
Rebate Joint [drawing of the joint]
Classification of Joints
Joints are arranged for convience [sic] of reference in groups
[underlined] 1. [/underlined] Framing Joints. such as in doors, sashes & frame structures of all kinds.
Under this group are :-
Mortice & Tennon.
Halfing [sic] Joints
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] Widening Joint
Used for uniting the edges of 2 peices [sic] of wood or more to increase the width
Under this group we have the rubbed joint, Plough & Joint. Plough & Feather, Slotted Screw & Rebate Joint.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] Lengthening Joints
Used to unite two members such as Longerons [sic] & Spaxs [sic] in A/C end to end.
They are the Scarf Joint, Butt Joint, (Fish Plates.)
When these Joints are used they are protected with Egypitian [sic] tape which is bound
[page break]
& glued.
[underlined] Principles Governing Construction of Joints [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] To cut the joints & arrange the fastenings so as not to weaken the peices [sic]of timber that they connect.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] To proportion the area of each a butting [deleted] joi [/deleted] surface to the pressure which it has to bear so that the timber may be saved against injury [deleted] against [/deleted] inder [sic] heavyest [sic] loads & to form a fit each surface accaratly [sic] in order to distribute the stress uniformly.
[underlined] Methods of Fastening. [/underlined]
One of the most important duties is the fitting together in such a manner that the complete structure may have greatest possible strength. The methods used vary but they fall into groups acording [sic] to the principles of construction when the connection is a effected entirely by means of the timber fitted together is called a joint most commonly however the joint is strengthened & secured by bolts, iron straps, screws, nails, wedges & glue.
Wood Screws for fastening on Composite A/C are nemerious [sic]. They are used to give added strength in making a splice. In securing the skin wether [sic] Ply wood or metal to wood members the holding power is attained by the thread.
It is always necesscary [sic] to bore to some extent for a screw.
A wood screw should be twice the thickness in length at the meterial [sic] being screwed.
They can be obtained varying from 1/4 to 6” & in gauge from & 9 to 26. Heads are eighter [sic] round, countersunk or raised.
To find the gauge of a wood screw measure the diameter of the shank then subtract one 1/32 & the result is in 64 [underlined] ths. [/underlined]
Shank diameter – 3/16
Gauge – 3/16 = 1/32
= 6-1/32 = 5/32 = 10/64 = Screw No 10
When ordering screws the particulars must be given, Length, Type, of Head, Quantity in number
[page break]
ie Doz Gross.
Then screws are made mostly from Steel Brass or Dural.
If the screws are used for securing the skin of Dural or Alclad [sic] to wooder [sic] formers they must be Cadmium [underlined] coated [/underlined]
[underlined] Nails [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Wire.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Round.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Oval
[underlined] 4 [/underlined ] Square varying from 6” downward
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Tacks, small nails made from iron or copper having round flat heads.
Clout nails, iron, large round heads used for securing felt, [deleted] felt [/deleted] sheet metal,
Wire, iron, brass flat heads used for aero carpentery [sic] for securine [sic] gusset peices [sic], ribs etc.
Panel Pins & needle points.
Gimp Pin.
The holding power of nails is friction & grip.
Some nails
cut the fibre & some compress it.
[underlined] Glues [/underlined]
Glue is a very important factor in the construction of modern composite A/C so that the method of repairing it deserves some concederation [sic]. Glue is briefly gelatinous extracts from bones, hide & hornes. [sic]
[deleted] If [/deleted] It has a great affinity for water & will absorb it from the atmosphere, however old it may be.
Fish glue is the strongest & is known as [deleted] soo [/deleted] Scotch.
Cold water glue is made from dried curd of cows milk which is pounded & washed & has a small quantity of lime water.
Care must be taken in complying with the instruction on the tin.
Casein glue is also used on composite A/C
[page break]
[underlined] Composite Repa [inserted] I [/inserted] nces. REPAIRS. [/underlined]
Trailing Edge Repair. )Leading edge repair is cut opposite way.
[drawing showing trailing edge repair cut]
Joints secured by gluing & b [deleted] inding [/deleted] [inserted] ound [/inserted] with [deleted] 2 1/2 “ Brass [underlined] Brads. [/deleted] Egypitian [sic] [/underlined] Tape. EGYPTIAN.
[underlined] Ply Wood Patches. [/underlined]
Ply Frame glued to underside of skin.
[drawing showing location of wood screws]
[Fig 1 & Fig 2 drawings]
Sequence of Operation.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Mark out on a straight & true surface a line 5 7 1/3”, scribe [deleted] & true [/deleted] an arc of that radius & on it mark the number of degrees in inches [example 3 o 9 = 3 3/20]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Select & clean a straight piece of timber, quarter cut, & true up to size of board required.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Transfer the angle obtained in Fig [underlined] 1 [/underlined] on to timber to be used allowing enough timber to be left on for strength, cut off waste, [Fig 2 (A)]
[page break]
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Fix a locating peg arc on Front of incidence board.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Place incidence board in position on plane to obtain length of pegs which must rest on centre of spars. The lengths are obtained by getting edge of board parallel with the chord line.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] his board is used in conjunction with ordinary spirit length resting on board at point A1
[underlined] Plywood [/underlined]
Methods of Manufacture & [underlined] Preservation. [/underlined]
Built up of layers (or veneers)
[underlined] Methods of Cutting Veneers. [/underlined]
[underlined] I [/underlined] Rotary cut.
[underlined] II [/underlined] Knife Cut. (Slicing)
[underlined] III [/underlined] Saw Cut.
[underlined] I [/underlined] The Rotary Cut.
Log revolves against stationery knife.
[underlined] II [/underlined] Saw Cut.
Cut with a special type of circular saw.
[underlined] III [/underlined] Knife Cut.
Log is squared up & fastened to a base plate which moves forward & downwards.
Thickness of Plywoods.
[underlined] 1/16 & 1mm. [/underlined]
[underlined] Types of Plywoods. [/underlined]
a) Three Ply [3 ply]
B) Multi Ply [When 3 or more veneers are used.]
[underlined] Veneers. [/underlined]
[deleted] Is [/deleted] [inserted] ARE [/inserted] glued together with grains at different angles. [deleted] are dried to r [/deleted]
Veneers are dried to moisture content by 10%.
Glue is spread on two faced layers above & below the top of middle layers.
Preservation of Plywood.
When stored seal edges with parrafin [sic] wax to stop any
[page break]
moisture getting in or out.
Inspect at periods.
Storeroom must be well ventilated and even temperature kept.
Stack flat & weigh surface.
[underlined] Repair Schemes [/underlined]
See that correct thickness & quality is obtained.
Faults to look for in
[underlined] Plywood [/underlined]
A) Blisters.
B) Wrin [deleted] c [/deleted] [inserted] k [/inserted] les.
C) Ply Seperation [sic] &
D) Decay.
[underlined] Spruce. [/underlined]
Lightness with strength straight grain.
[underlined] Ash [/underlined]
Strong, tough & elestic [sic]
[underlined] Mahogany & Walnut [/underlined]
Strong, hard,
& straight grained.
Minimium [sic] shrinkage & has glue retaining qualities.
[underlined] Steam Bending [/underlined]
Used where continious [sic] curves of fibres is required; sometimes used for longerons,[sic] wing tips, etc. Ash generally used.
[underlined] Methods [/underlined]
Meterial [sic] is placed in steam chest to soften fibre. Duration of steaming depends on size of meterial [sic] & nature of bend.
Temperature of chest not to exceed 220 o. After steaming, work is placed in a gig.
[underlined] Laminated Components [/underlined]
Built up components are often used for wing tips bends.
They are stronger & less liable
[page break]
to alter shape.
[underlined] Types of Wood Spars. [/underlined]
[Ref. Form 1107]
[underlined] I [/underlined] Solid Spindle
[underlined] II [/underlined] Laminated Spindle
[underlined] III [/underlined] Box.
[underlined] Spars. [/underlined]
Tests for truth
Similar to iron spars.
Examination of wooden components.
Causes of any trouble
[underlined] I [/underlined] Slack wires & shrinkage
[underlined] II [/underlined] Plywood Sagging
[underlined] III [/underlined] Compression Ribs shakes I look for cracks in varnish or dope.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Crushing of fibre (overtightining [sic] of bolts etc.
Exercise II
[underlined] EXERSISE II [/underlined]
[drawing of broken rib]
Skin Ply & Stringers Brocken [sic]
[underlined] Top of ply [/underlined]
Feathered Edge
Damaged Panel to be cut out to edges of reinforcing strip and rib Booms, and new stringers fitted flush with the origonal [sic] skin.
[page break]
[underlined] EXERCIZE [sic] 2 [/underlined]
Repair to skin Plywood where trimmed hole does not exceed 4” x 4”
[drawing of damaged ply]
New Plywood Patch cut to shape at trimmed hole & inlaid & glued to margin of split patch
[underlined] EXERSIZE [sic] 4 Leading edge Ply Repair. [/underlined]
[2 drawings showing patches]
Hole to be trimmed with 3/16” R at corner and split Patch inserted.
Then glue and screw stiffeners as b [inserted] e [/inserted] low.
[2 drawings showing screws & spruce stiffener]
[page break]
[underlined] EXERSIZE [sic] 5 ) Leading edge Ply Repair. New Panel to be inlaid
[3 drawings showing damaged panel]
Damaged Panel to be cut out & new stringers fitted flush with origonal [sic] skin & new panel fitted flush with the origonal [sic] skin, glued & bradded to spar
[signature 15/6/34]
[underlined] Standard Type Rib. Stringing. [/underlined]
Knots are 3” apart. Double knot to start & finish, also one every 18”
Egyptian tape reinforcement for stringing.
Stringing cord, braided, beeswaxed.
[underlined] Reason for stringing. [/underlined]
To prevent ballooning of cover.
Preserve the aerofoil shape.
Means of attachment of fibre cover at the ribs.
[underlined] Linen fabric plain. [/underlined]
Unbleached, thus retaining its strength
[weft drawing]
YARNS
CROSSEWRISE
WEFT
INTERSTICKS.
[page break]
[underlined] Woods Patent Inspection Ports. [/underlined]
Celluloid frames stuck down by means of red dope
[drawing of celluloid frame]
[underlined] Hand closing or locking stitch [/underlined]
Approx. 8 stitches to the 1”. Double lock to start & finish, als [sic] one every 6”
Maddapollam cotton bleached fibre for use over plywood.
Glued or doped into position. Fibre plain, if a paint finish it must be washed.
[underlined] METAL REPAIRS
THE GORDON FUSELAGE. [/underlined]
The construction of this Fuselage is made of cold rolled steel tube of a tensile strength of 50 Tons per square inch. The secondry [sic] structure is of Duralumin & aluminium. The members of the Fuselage. [underlined] am. [/underlined] The engine ring, [deleted] cross [/deleted] front & rear cross transverse members, Pilots & Observers ring & the Stern Post.
When damaged these are replaced & [underlined] NOT [/underlined] repaired the joints being secured with AGS spares such as Spool joints. etc. These are welded into position & are all in direct avail loading.
The engine ring is a welded steel tube to which are welded [underlined] 21 [/underlined] phosphos [sic] Bronze lugs to which engine is bolted. The catipult [sic] members are of low carbon nickel chrome ste [inserted] e [/inserted] l [deleted] l [/deleted] with a tensile strength of 85 to 100 Tons per square inc.
This Fuselage is
[page break]
made up of Longerons (Top & Bottom), Side Struts, Compression Struts, R.A.F. cross bracing wires.
The Fuselage is divided into 4 sections, Front – (Engine & Fuel), Second for Pilot, Third Observer, Fo [inserted] u [/inserted] rth, rear portion for load.
When examining for damage it must be carried out systemmetrically [sic] being sometimes necessary with a magnyfying [sic] glass. Then classify the damage
[deleted] For damage [/deleted]
For tubes 1” or less .050 = 1/20 + 18
O/D or over .20 = 1/50 [underlined] NOT [/underlined] repair.
Minor :-
.150 x Dia. Length .700 x D14
By Patching
Major
Replacments [sic]. Insuration [sic] or sleves [sic].
[underlined] EXAMINATION FOR DAMAGE. [/underlined]
[2 drawings of how to examine for damage]
[underlined] The aximation [sic] of a Major damage. [/underlined]
Clean all damaged parts & rub down with emery cloth, then clean with paraffin & wipe dry, then smear defected parts with oil & wipe dry.
With a mixture of French chalk & methalated [sic] spirit, paint the damaged with the mixture. Should a crack or fracture be in the fuselage or damaged part the oil will seap [sic] through the French chalk.
This portion will then be cut away & repaired by inserting a new length & secured by two new sleves [sic].
[underlined] Negilable [sic] Damage [/underlined]
Small a smoth [sic] dents without
[page break]
sharp corners need not be repaired providing hey are not in the middle thirds of the length between the joint & do not exceed the following depth :-
For Tubes of 1” O/D or U less [deleted] than [/deleted] .150
“ “ “ 1 1/8 “ “ or more .020
[underlined] Minor Repair. [/underlined]
These are repairable by patching. Dents of the following dimensions may be repaired.
Tubes of 1” or more, Depth .150 of the diam, Length .700. Width 15 of the circumference.
[underlined] Major Damage. [/underlined]
Repair by inseration [sic] or sleeving. Damage in excess of the above dimensions may be repaired by cutting away [underlined] part of [/underlined] damaged part of tube & inserting a new section in place.
Thes [sic] are secured by 2 sle [inserted] e [/inserted] ves & are pinned at each end.
After repair the tube must be [deleted] secured [/deleted] checked for straightness
[underlined] Formula for Head of Rivet. [/underlined]
M.S.T. Snap H 1 . 6 ‘ & 1.75 x Dia
S.S.T. “ “ 1.25 x ‘ ‘
Alm & Dural 1 . 6 & 1.75 x ‘ ‘
M.S.(T) .5 x ‘ ‘
[2 drawings showing direct axial loading]
[underlined] Sleeving Gauges. [/underlined]
The best sleeving fits are obtained with tubes of 17 standard wire gauge and 22 standard wire gauge.
The gauges allow the necessary clearance for sliding fit. The 17 S.W.G. has a wall thickness of 1/16 & the 22 S.W.G has a thickness of 1/32.
The general rule is that tubes to be sleeved should be sleeved with sleeve of the same thickness but never with a thinner gauge but all tubes of 11/8” outside diam [sic] must be sleeved with M.S. wire gauge.
[underlined] The Identification of Metals[/underlined]
Bars, Tubes & sheet metal not marked by identification colour must not be used for repairing purposes.
The identification colour will be painted on the tube or bar. The colour for sheet metal will be painted across the surface.
Tubes are stove enameled [sic] & the colour painted at each end.
[drawing captioned in red ‘Jury Rigging 22 May 1939 with a signature]
[page break]
[underlined] THE HAWKER HART FUSELAGE. [/underlined]
An all metal construction & for the greater part consists of cold [deleted] rolled [/deleted] drawn seamless steel tube of a tensile strength of 50 Tons per square inch.
The rear, side & compression struts are made of Dural tube (T4), tensile strength of 25 to 28 Tons per square inch. Stern Post & Frame are made of cold drawn seamless steel tube of a tensile strength of 38 tons per square inch. The longerons & struts are cut to length according to the specification on the drawing (BP)
These longerons & struts are again cold rolled to a size & shape at the required positioning which form points of attachments which make a [deleted] varying [/deleted] bearing
Surface for the 2 “SS” (Nickel Chrome) side plates for securing the Longerons & struts into position & held by “HT” steel furrels [sic] & M Steel Tubular rivet snapped over “HT” steel bolts and castle nuts & split pins
In event of damage the fuselage must be cleaned & wiped dry & all damage to members must be subjected to a critical examination.
When a fracture or crack in any of the members which cannot clearly be seen the following method must be used (Same method used as on Fairey Gordon).
[underlined] Negligible Damage. [/underlined]
The bow in a Fuselage member must not exceed 1 in 600 ([deleted] 1020 per ft [/deleted] .020 per ft). The Bow limit for an axle must not exceed 1 in 100 [deleted] (1000 per ft) [/deleted]A smooth dent without cracks or sharp edges are not repaired providing they not in the middle third. The length being measured between the joints.
The dents must not be 1/30 of the O/D of the strut for Dural & 1/30 O/D for steel tubes.
[underlined] Minor Damage. [/underlined]
[underlined] Repairable by Patching. [/underlined]
If the dent does not exceed 1/8 of the O/D of the tube in the outer thirds of any members a repair by patching which is composed of
[page break]
2 half round SS flange plates (DTD 166) are secured together with 4 DA & nuts, care being taken that the dents are under the flange. The patch finally being secured by drilling through the plates & member & fitting HT steel [deleted] furse [/deleted] ferruls [sic] and M.S.T rivets snapped over.
[underlined] Major Damage. [/underlined]
[underlined] By Sleeving or Inserations. [sic] [/underlined]
Should the damage be in such a position & in excess of the Diam [sic] already given in minor repair the damage is cut out & a new piece of tubing of the same Diam [sic] and specification using standard sleeves for securing each end by drilling & reaming & fitting RAF taper pins (1 in 48).
[underlined] Damage that needs replacement. [/underlined]
Any tube so badly damaged that it cannot be repaired must be replaced & it is assential [sic] to ensure that the replacements are in accordance with the drawing (BP) and specification.
[underlined] Jury Rigging. [/underlined]
In carrying out repairs suitable jury rigging must be applied to prevent distortion of the Fuselage when the damaged part is being moved. It must be carefully noted that when cutting out damaged portion the stub ends of the damaged members must be in the outer thirds & long enough to take the half length of sleeve
[underlined] Minor Repair [/underlined
[drawing showing Patch Plate. Note adjacent to drawing ‘This sketch is not complete’]
[page break]
[underlined] Replacements [/underlined]
When fitting a new member it is essential that rolling the the squares or rectangular shapes or the parts of the member which are secured by 2 SS side plates by HT steel [deleted] plates [/deleted] bolts & nuts & HT steel ferrules & MS tubular rivets snapped over. As the members are of various dimensions the forming of their respective sizes are signed to the pair of rolls & a number
The top roll is so fitted that it is adjusted in a sliding bracket & is operated by a screw the screw pressure being gradually applied forms the size and shape.
[unfinished sketch showing this technique]
[underlined] HAWKER TYPE [/underlined]
[unfinished sketch showing tubular joints] [on the page in a different hand 31 may 1939 and initials]
[page break]
[underlined] IIII TERM RAF Maintenance System [/underlined]
To every type of machine there is a set of APs for the guidance of all personel [sic] who may be detailed to work on it. The APs are divided into volumes & parts in the following way:-
[sketch showing the layout of the Air Publications for Nimrod AP 1426A]
[underlined] Handbook (Vol I of AP [/underlined]
Contains all particulars about the type of Machine, type of construction, rigging position, how to true up etc.
[underlined] General Orders & Modifications (Part I of Vol II) [/underlined]
Contains all particulars regarding modifications which are brought about periodically, how to carry out the work, parts to remove & replace etc.
[underlined] Maintenance Schedule (Part II of Vol II) [/underlined]
Contains the sequence of inspections, how to inspect a machine for defects. This is the only inspection for a machine under normal conditions. When this book is altered by Squadron Commander to cover local flying conditions it is then called “[deleted] W [/deleted[ [inserted] U [/inserted] M.O’s” Part II &I
[underlined] Repair Scheme (Part III of Vol II.) [/underlined]
This explains exactly how to carry out a repair on any part of the A/C & how to classify any damage.
[underlined] Schedule of Spares Vol III)
Contains a complete [inserted] list [/inserted] of all the parts that go to make the A/C with the stores reference & part number.
[underlined] Unit Maintenance Orders. [/underlined]
These are divided into two parts,
[underlined] U.M.Os Part I. [/underlined] These are issued by the Station Commander & contain the allotment of duties for the various people working on the unit to ensure the high efficient working of the station. It also contains the use of the Form 700 & how maintenance should be conducted throughout the station.
[underlined] U.M.Os (Part II. [/underlined]
These orders issued by the Station commander consists of the maintenance
[page break]
schedule (Part II Vol II) amplified [deleted] f [/deleted] or amendin [deleted]g [/deleted] [inserted] g [/inserted] to suit local flying conditions.
[underlined] AP 1086 Stores Vocabulary of the RAF. [/underlined]
It contains reference nos & part numbers of all [deleted] all [/deleted] general [deleted] l [/deleted] stores. All stores have a class letter to denote what should be done with them after use when worn out.
“A” Stores is makers exchange.
“B” Stores is Unit exchange.
“C” Stores is Consumable stores.
When either “A” or “B” stores are being replaced, they must be returned to stores before the new part is issued & the voucher used for this transaction is the form 637 Exchange Voucher. [underlined] (Black Print.) [/underlined]
[underlined] AP 1464 Engineering Manual (R.A.F). [/underlined]
Contains all types of engineering used for the service, of course engineering regarding any A/C is contained in its handbook. AP 1464 is divided into 2 Vols which are sub divided into parts in alphabetical order.
[underlined] Part D Vol II [/underlined]
Deals with the maintenance of aircraft in flights, such as the size of the locking wire in turnbuckles, types of lubricant to be use & how to take up wheels etc.
[underlined] AP 1574 Aeroplane Maintenance Regulations [/underlined]
Contains regulations laid down by AM governing the maintenance of aeroplane throughout its service.
[underlined] AP 1107 Rigging Manual (R.A.F) [/underlined]
Forms of publications carried in a machine when on cross country flight.
1. Handbook (Vol I of Aps).
2. U.M.Os Part 2 Maintenance schedules
3. Repair Scheme (Part II of Vol II)
4. Form 700 (Travelling copy)
5.Form 171 forced landing report)
These forms are carried on A/C to assist the personel. [sic]
[underlined] Flight Desk. [/underlined]
Contains all necessary orders, Aps Repair Schemes, Watch etc.
[underlined] Serviceability board. [/underlined]
This is a board to protect F700 & A/C Maintenance Form fitted with a flap & indicator whether machine is Serviceable or unserviceable. Posted inside are the instructions for use of the F700. This board is hung in a
[page break]
Prominent position on the A/C when on the ground & hung on a roller at the Flight Desk when machine is in the air.
[underlined] form 79 Daily flight book. [/underlined]
The flight commander makes this form out each day detailing each A/C & pilot & crew.
[underlined] Inspections [/underlined]
Each initial equipment of an aeroplane must be normally inspected .
1. Daily
2. Between Flights.
3. Periodically at intervals of 10, 20, 40 and 120 hours of flight.
An aeroplane must be placed U/S by an NCO I/C Flight for all periodical inspections. Each inspection is divided into groups.
[table of groups]
[underlined] Daily Inspections. [/underlined]
After a D/I an aircraft may be considered as serviceable to fly for 24 hours unless:-
1. A defect is reported.
2. A M/C becomes due for a periodical inspection.
3. If the A/C is carrying out night flying.
4. If the A/C is not flying D/Is can be waivered up to a period of 1 week by the authority of the Flight Commander. An inspection being done at least once a week.
[underlined] Between Flight Inspections. [/underlined]
This is not recorded in the F700 except for capacity of fuel, oil & water before carrying out BF/I the F700 must be examined for any reorts.
[underlined] Periodical inspections. [/underlined
[table showing periodicity and definitions of inspections]
[page break]
[table showing sequence of inspections as a/c flies]
[underlined] Periodical Inspection [/underlined
This may be delayed 2 hours each way on a Minor (10, 20, 400 and 10 hours on a Major (120). The delay of a minor inspection does not affect the time atn which the minor is due e.g. Should a 10 hr inspection be carried out on a M/C after it has flown 2 hours the next inspection will fall due at 12 hrs but on the other hand if that 10 hr inspection had been carried out after the M/C had flown12 hrs then it would only have 8 hrs to go to the next 20 hr inspection.
Directly a Major servicing has been carried out sequence starts again so that first major was carried out & the larger inspection includes all the work [deleted] layed [/deleted] [inserted] laid [/inserted] down [inserted] in the smaller inspections [/inserted]
If an extension of 10 hrs is required on a Major the 10 hr must be carried out before the extension is granted.
[underlined] Check Inspection [/underlined]
These are carried out by an NCO i/c [deleted] Flight [/deleted] [inserted] Trade [/inserted] & are done in any order & at any time but they must completely cover one set of DI groups & checks in one month on a periodical inspection they must completely [inserted] cover [/inserted] one set of 10, 20 & 40 hr inspections.
Pilots carry out one DI & one check per wk & one or two checks 10, 20 or 40 hr inspection groups before the next 120 hr inspection.
[page break]
[underlined]Aeroplane Maintenance Form F700 [initials and a date 15/6/39][/underlined]
This form is designed to obtain an [sic] history of the M/C & the signatures of personel [sic] that work on it for a certain period of its life. The duration of that period is layed [sic] down by CO of the station in U.M.O (Part I)
[underlined]Front Page.
Change of Serviceability & Repair Log[/underlined]
A M/C can be made U/S by any responsible person filling in columns 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6 the M/C can only be made S again by the signatures of either the Flight C or NCO I/C Flight (Pilot column 14)
The serial number [deleted] bare for [/deleted][inserted] of [/inserted]a repair is the number of repairs done since new. If an extension of flying time is required beyond the time an inspection is due authority in red ink must be obtained on this page, hour [inserted] s of [/inserted] extension in column 9 & signature of person giving extension. (Column 14) A pilot making a report of the flying affects of his M/C do so on this page but will enter word “S” (Column 9)
[underlined] Middle Page [/underlined]
Headings of this page are filled in by NCO I/C Flight before issue. The serial number of F700 is the number of period the M/C has been in it.
[underlined] Daily Inspection Certificate [/underlined]
All tradesmen completing DI on the machine signs it in the appropriate column of this page.
[underlined] Auxulary [sic] Power Unit [/underline]
All Auto controls is the robot. Condition of the tanks must be stated prior to each trip signified & the Pilot will sign each trip signifying he knows the condition of the tanks. Should a tradesman be releived [sic] for a period under 24 hrs a note is made by NCO I/C Flight in DI certificate but should the releif [sic] be over 24 hrs the releifs [sic] name is entered in the head of this page & initialled by the Flight Commander.
[underlined] Back Page
Periodical Inspection Certificate. [/underlined]
If a periodical inspection has been completely done by a tradesman he will sign for that periodical inspection by initialing [sic column 6 & NCO I/C Flight to carry on checks & fill in columns 7, 8, & 9. Minor Periodicals may be carried
[page break]
Out by groups & if an inspection is not completed, groups done are placed in Column 7 drawing dioganal [sic] lines through column 8 & 9.
[underlined] Travelling Form 700 [/underlined]
This is an ordinary F700 placed in the M/C when it is on a country flight. That is to say sending the origonil [sic] which may be lost if the M/C crashes. On return of the M/C the particulars are entered into the origonal [sic] form from the travelling copy & certified by the pilot. All entries on F700 should be in made in ink & any alterations in red ink and initialled. At the end of each period the entries of the F700 must be copied in the log book F700 is then signed by the pilot, NCO I/C Flight 7 Flight Commander at the bottom of the front page. It is then filed for 2 years.
[underlined] F700 M (Multi Engine)
Between Flight Inspections [/underlined]
See any reports on F700. See that detachments are secure & tyre pressure normal.
C/O. Examine all parts & see that loose articles are securely fastened, clean windscreen.
[underlined] Note [/underlined] If a M/C has been standing for a long period the windscreen must be protected from strong sun.
F/U Examine all panels.
T/A Examine tail wheel or skid.
P/L Examine Interplane bracing wires.
A/S Examine Airscrew for cracks.
G/E Make entries for condition of tanks on F700 & get pilot to sign before taking off.
[underlined] DI. [/underlined]
See any reports on F700 & U/C
1. Clean & examine joint and end of axle
2. Examine U/C bracing wires.[underlined] Note [/underlined] if slack find the reason before tightening
3. Examine all attachments & tyre pressure [underlined] Note [/underlined] small cracks in outer cover not U/S. Only pin holes in inner tube may be repaired by patching.
4. Check oleo legs. Rock wing tip to see they don’t stick.
C/O 1. Examine all controls & see that they move freely & in the right direction & that the C/C is not fouled by other controls.
[page break]
2. Check the trimming flaps & se [sic] that instruments are giving the correct readings.
3. Examine the fire extinguisher. (for quick release)
4. Check the windscreens. [underlined] Note [/underlined] If cracked a temporary measure is to give the crack a coat of thin varnish.
5. See that instruments are not damaged
6. See that all loose [deleted] instruments [/deleted] articles are secured.
F/U Examine fabric panels.
C/a1. Inspect tail, rudder & fin for damage.
2. Check attachment rods.
3. Check bracing wires & struts.
4. Check tail skid & shoe or wheel.
5. Check security of control surfaces.
P/L 1. Check M/P fabric.
2. Check M/P interplane bracing wires.
A/S 1. Examine airscrew for cracks.
G/E 1. See that all panels are secure.
2. Keep A/C clean. Do not wash with petrol
3. make necessary entries in F700
[underlined] 10 HR Inspection [/underlined]
This inspection comprises chiefly of lubrication A chart will be found in the hand book Vol 1
[underlined] Lubrication of Airframe [/underlined]
Types of lubrication
[table of grease and oils and their uses]
U/C. See that there is no excess of slackness on the wheels. [underlined] Note [/underlined] Any play on wheels can be taken up by fitting shims. Maximum number allowed 5. Un braked wheel fit shim on the outside. Breaked [sic] wheel fit alternately first on the outside.
[underlined] See that all [/underlined] fairings on the struts & oleo legs are not damaged. Lubricate all moveable parts [underline] Note [/underlined] Do not overoil the brakes.
C/O 1. Inspect all controls for frays at the
[page break]
Fairleads & pulleys.
2. Test C/C & rudder bar for play at the bearings.
3. Lubricate all movable parts.
F/U 1. Inspect all bearings of tanks & see that all bracing wires in these bays are secure.
T/A 1. Examine fittings of the rear bay of the fuselage for damage see that the bracing wires are in tension. Check all the levers at the king post for security
2. Lubricate all movable parts.
P/L 1. Examine ailerons for security.
2. Examine the interplane struts & attachments. [underlined] Note [/underlined] limit of bow for struts 1 in 600
A/S & GE same as for DI.
[underlined] 20 HR Inspection [/underlined]
A/C 1. Jack up U/C 7 remove the wheels & inspect the axle ends and fittings for damage.
2. See that the brake shoes were clean & free from oil.
3. inspect wheels for corrosion & see that the hub nuts are tight. [underlined] Note [/underlined] If the spokes are loose change wheel
4. Check tyre pressure with gauge
5. [underlined] Brakes Hydraulic. [/underlined]
Replenish resuvoir [sic] & check for leaks.
6. Try the brakes for correct operation & see that the shoes are not rubbing when in off position.
[underlined] Defects with Palmer Brakes. [/underlined]
A. If on compression oil rises in the resuvoir [sic] this denotes faulty return valve.
B. The brakes should be hard on about 2/3 of pedal travel & if they feel spongy this denotes an air lock. (Reprime) [underlined] Note [/underlined] use oil brake [sic] operating only (Anti freeze type “A”)
C. Examine axle and bracings limit for axle bow 1 in 100 in a strut 1 in 600.
C/O 1. Check windscreen.
F/U 1. Inspect controls in the rear bay for frays at the fairleads & pulleys.
T/A Examine actuating screw for damage
P/L 1. See that the interplane bracings wires are free from corrosion. [underlined] Note [/underlined] Clean only with paraffin and wipe dry & to reprotect [sic] give coat of varnish or lanoline.
2. Check Air speed indicator & pipe lines for leaks [underlined] Note [/underlined] Roll a piece of rubber tube unto [sic] pressure head & watch instrument.
[page break]
3. Inspect all controls & Main planes
A/S & G/E same as for 10 hr DI
[underlined] 40 HR Inspection [/underlined]
U/C Check alignment of complete U/C either trammel cross bracing wires or make diagonal & side checks.
C/O 1. See that the levers at the elevator control transveverse [sic] shaft in the cockpit are securely attached to the bar.
2. Remove and examine the fire extinguisher seal.
F/U 1. Open the fuselage cover & inspect all fittings, struts, wires & longerons & controls for cracks, corrosion, bowing & fraying. Limit of bow for fuselage member 1 in 500.
2. Inspect all stringers.
3. Inspect the Engine bearers & Engine mountings members for damage & corrosion
4. Inspect all removeable panels & doors [underlined] Note [/underlined] If Fleet Air Arm M/C examine the catapult struts, arrestor gear & flotation bags.
F/A Ascertain by external inspection that no internal cross bracing wires are loose or broken.
P/L 1. Examine the ribs and internal cross bracing wires
2. Inspect interplane struts for bow. Limit 1 in 600.
3. Inspect leading & trailing edges.
4. inspect any tanks in C/s or M/P for security & corrosion.
A/S 1. Examine the airscrew for fractures at the boss & in the region of the bolt holes.
2. Check airscrew for static balance.
G/E If Fleet Air Arm M/C test all collapseable [sic] dignies [sic] for leaks. Test all C/O 2 bottles by weighing & test all connections.
[underlined] 120 HR Inspection. [/underlined]
U/C 1. Remove and inspect all the attachment bolts
2. Inspect the oleo legs & shock obsorber [sic] for deteration [sic]
T/A 1. Remove & inspect all the attachment bolts on the tail [deleted] bolts [/deleted] bolts.
2. Inspect tail skid & shock osorber [sic]
P/L Inspect root attachment bolts & fittings
G/E Carry out complete check of the rigging of the fuselage.
[page break]
[underlined] Renewing a Control Cable. [/underlined]
A. Splice end of cable or drum.
B. Measure length cable required & allow sufficient for splice. Bind 11/4” back, cut out 4 strands & allow the remaining 3 to fray out.
C. On condemmed [sic] cable 11/2” back cut off old splice, cut out 4 strands & allow other 3 to fray out.
D. Bind frayed edge together with thread & draw new cable through pulleys & fairleads withdrawing old cable.
E. Set C/C neutral & turnbuckles half travel & cut length of splice.
F. Splice to eye end, split pin shackles and inspect.
[underlined]Inspection of Streamlined wire.[/underlined]
(AP1464) During inspection of streamlined wires tie rods, particular attension [sic] should be given to the portion of the wire under the identification tab as this is a likely place for corrosion. The tab should be moved along the wire for a short distance to facilitate inspection but great care should be taken to avoid damaging the cadmium plating on the wire.
Corrosion on the wire or rods must be removed with paraffin rag before the final application of the approved protective coating adopting by the command. The tabs should be replace on a new portion of the wire while the protective coating is wet & a liberal quantity of the protective introduced under the tab.
[underlined] Modifacations [sic] [/underlined]
“A” modification. Carried out by the makers before the A/C is accepted into service.
“B” Service.
Class 1. Immedeietely [sic] on receipt of parts.
Class 2. At first convient [sic] oppurtunity [sic] & not later than next 40hr inspection after receipt of parts.
Class 3. At first convient[sic] oppurtunity [sic] not less than the next 140 hr inspection.
Class 4. At first convient [sic] oppurtunity [sic] not less than the next complete overhaul (4804)
Class 5. When existing parts become U/S.
Class 6. At first convient [sic] opportunity [sic] on receipt of item of equipment to be installed. Will apply normaly [sic] to modifacations [sic] which are to be embodied when a new item of equipment is issiued [sic] either initially or in replacement of an earlyier [sic] type with which it is not strictly interchangeable.
[page break]
[underlined] Inspection after a bad landing. [/underlined]
1. Jack up under F/U untill [sic] wheels are free from the ground
2. Remove wheels and examine wheels & brakes.
3. Check U/C struts for straightness. Renew if bowed or damaged & inspect all points of attachments bolts & pins for partial shear & holes for elongation.
4. Disconnect oleo leg at lower end & check for alignment.
5. Remove tail wheel or skid assembly. Examine for distortion & excessive play & inspect the structure at the point of attachment & along those members of the frame through which loads are distributed. Set F/U in rigging position & check all rigging dimensions.
6. Remove all inspection covers & check internal cross bracing wires. If these are very carry out further inspections of internal fittings, spars & attachment points. Never tighten bracing wires until the cause of the slackness has been discovered.
7. Unlace F/U bag & examine internal structure for damage to longerons, struts, fairings & bracing wires.
8. Inspect all controls. If the A/C is fitted with folding wings they must be tested for correct folding & an examination made of attachments & locking arrangements.
9. Should the wing tip come into contact heavily wit the ground examine the points where interplane struts are attached to the wing.
Carefully inspect rear spar & aileron attachments also the wing root fittings, if the fabric is puckered the components affected must be opened up & checked internally, also the spars carefully inspected for fractures i.e. splitting, crushing, compression shakes. It is most important that a systematic inspection be carried out after a bad landing & to emphasise the importance of the fact it must be remembered that the load on the bottom plane spars may been transferred by the struts & bracing wires to the upper plane spars & by virtue of the lift wires may have given compressive stresses to those members. These stresses can again have been
[page break]
Reduced or increased by the tension in the front & compression on the rear spars caused by the drag component of the force applied by [deleted] the [/deleted] meeting the ground or any other obstacles.
It should be realised that damage may occur in a region remote from the point f contact especially in the locality at the wing cellule & also the anchorages of points carrying concentrated loads e.g. petrol tanks, engine mountings. etc.
[underlined] Handling Aircraft. [/underlined]
When an A/C is being moved one man will supervise & direct operations.
Care must be taken to see that no damage is caused to the aircraft.
The tail of the A/C must only be lifted at the points marked by the makers, normally under the vertical strut of the F/U. Before attempting to lift the tail of an A/C see that there are no trestles, ladders or platforms in the way & that the A/C is in the horizontal position. Care must be taken to see that the A/C does not overbalance.
The U/C must be moved by pressure on the base of the interplane struts & solid parts of the U/C & not the leading or trailing edges of planes or fairings.
A/C not fitted with tail [inserted] wheels [/inserted] should be moved in & out of hangar [sic] by means of a tail trolley care being taken to prevent wing tips striking doors.
One man should be stationed at each wing tip to guide and steady the wings & one at the tail to work the tail trolley.
Whenever possible A/C must be moved tail first as [inserted] this [/inserted] tends to keep the tail skid on the trolley. When A/C is moved nose first there is a tendency to lift the tail skid off the trolley & tip the A/C onto its nose.
If the A/C must be moved during windy weather the A/C must be lashed. Before an A/C is moved over rough ground the person in charge must inspect
the ground ahead to see that holes or any obstacles may be avoided.
a/c on soft ground may require a track formed of planks layed [sic] on the ground to assist in moving out of the mud unto a track part of the weight may be taken off the wheels by men pressing up and under the main soar directly under the interplane struts with their shoulders.
Nautical terms will be when moving a/c ÷ Ahead, Astern, port, S board, hard to port, hard to S board.
[underlined] To change on a wheel on arodrome [sic] arc under [deleted] first [/deleted] forced landing conditions E inst method [/underlined]
[underlined] Using a screw jack [/underlined]
Place screw jack under axle at base of O leo leg with wood packing blocks between jack & axle. Operate jack untill [sic] wheel is free.
[underlined] Second Method [/underlined] (Using lever jack)
Place jack in front of axle with the hollowed lever part under the axle at base of
[page break]
O leo leg, press down on lever untill [sic] wheel leaves ground.
[underlined] Third method [/underlined] (With or without the use of axle trestles.
Raise m/p on one side by lifting under the spars at the outer interplane strats & depress the opposite m/p untill [sic] the wheel is free.
Place axle trestle under axle at base of O leo leg or if no trestles are available continue to support m/p by hand.
[deleted] Chanal [/deleted]
[underlined] Changing O le leg. (Under foregoing conditions) [/underlined]
[underlined] First method [/underlined] (Equipment required).
U/c tail trestles, 2 screw jacks, tail weights, wood packing blocks & planks for soft ground.
Place u/c trestles between O leo legs under the front Fuselage jacking points, raise the tail to get the jacking points as level as possible by supporting tail, place screw jacks on front trestle, one under each jacking point with wood packing blocks between faces at jacks & jacking point, operate jack
[page break]
untill [sic] jacks are forced off ground.
Weigh down tail & secure. Planks will then be placed under the trestles if ground is soft.
Make sure jacking is safe before commencing to remove O leo leg.
Second Method
Equipment Required.
As for first method less for 2 screw jacks
Place u/c trestle between oleo legs under the front fuselage jacking points, & pack with wood packing blocks between jack and jacking point with tail [deleted] off [/deleted] [inserted] on [/inserted] the ground.
[deleted] untill [sic] the [/deleted] Raise the tail untill [sic] the weight of the a/c is taken by the packing blocks on the trestles & the wheels are clear if the ground.
Support tail by trestles at the jacking point. Weigh down tail
[underlined] Third Method [/underlined]
[underlined] Equipment Required. [/underlined]
Wing & tail trestle or other suitable supports, planks, tail [deleted] trestles [/deleted] [inserted] weights [/inserted].
Raise wheel off the oleo leg clear off the ground by lifting under the lower m/p spars at the outer interplane
[page break]
struts & depress opposite m/p
Place wing trestle under the raised plane at the outer interplane struts using felt packing between top of trestle & plane to avoid damaging the spar & fittings
If [deleted] using [/deleted] [inserted] wing [/inserted] trestles are not adjustable the tail must be raised to level the front & rear spars.
Other suitable supports may be used when trestles are not available.
[underlined] To change Undercarriage [/underlined]
Jack up F/U as described in first & second method in changing ole leg.
To change bottom plane in aerodrome.
Equipment Required.
Rigging trestles, tall steps, flat top 6’ steps, felt covered planks. u/c trestle, tail trestle. tail weights, wheel chocks & planks for soft ground.
Support the a/c as for changing [deleted][indecipherable word][/deleted] u/c, set that the weight is just taken off the wheels at the front jacking point to prevent the a/c from rocking lateraly [sic].
Place trestles or tall steps front & rear of m/ps. place felt covered planks under the top plane the ends
[page break]
of the planks being supporting on the trestles or steps & clear of the outer interplane struts
Adjust the plank untill [sic] the top plane is supported. If tall steps or trestles are not available the top plane must be supported by a man standing in steps or other suitable elevation, the oppressed plane being supported under the lower m/p spars at the interplane struts.
To change top Main plane.
[underlined] Equipment required [/underlined]
Wing tip trestles, flat top steps, planks, tail trestles tail weights & u/c trestle.
Support a/c as for [deleted] chant [/deleted] changing u/c except that the weight must be taken just enought [sic] to prevent a/c from rocking.
[underlined] To change top main – plane [/underlined]
[underlined] Equipment Required [/underlined]
Wing tip trestle. flat top steps, planks. Tail trestle, t[inserted]a[/inserted]il [sic] weights & u/c trestle.
Support a/c as for changing u/c except that the weight must be taken just enough to prevent a/c from rocking laterally.
Support the lower m/p placing a trestle under the
[page break]
spars of each lower plane at the interplane struts the top of trestles being suitably packed with felt to prevent damage to spar fittings & spars.
[aeroplane diagram]
[underlined] Tyres [/underlined]
The purpose of the aeroplane tyre is to interpose a pneumatic cushion between the ground & the aeroplane & to prevent undue shock being transmitted to the a/c. The successful use if pneumatic
[page break]
tyres depends on the maintenance whether the tyres be in service or not.
The correct pressure for the load is the most important.
[underlined] Maintenance [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Excessive wear may be due to the wheels not being in line. (Out of tract)
[underlined] 11 [/underlined] Keep tyres free from oil & grease.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Remove all flints & other sharp objects from the tyre.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Inspect tyres periodically for signs of perishing.
5 If conditions permit cover tyres from strong sun.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Should a/c be stored it should [deleted] it should] [/deleted] be jacked up so that no weight remains on the tyres, if this cannot be done the machine should be moved periodically to ensure a fresh tyre area touching the ground & they should be stored in a dark room.
[underlined] Tyre Pressures [/underlined]
They should always be tested with a tyre guage.
Beaded edge type used with pattern “A” wheels maximum 70 lbs per square
[page break]
inch, minimum 60 LBS per square inch, normal 65 LBS per square inch.
Wire edge type used with “B & C” wheels, maximum pressure 60 LBS per square inch, minimum 50 LBS per square inch, normal 55 LBS per square inch.
Low pressure tyres 25 LBS per square inch, medeum [sic] 30 to 35. These pressures are obtained in VOL [underlined] 1 [/underlined] of AP & vary according to the loading of the a/c.
[underlined] Identification of Pipe lines [/underlined]
Red. Fuel. √
Black. Oil. √
Blue. Water. √
Yellow. Air. √
Green. Engine Starting √
Brown. Auto Control √
Grey. Hydraulic Services
[underlined] White. Sychronising [sic] Gear [/underlined]
[underlined] Axle Boons [/underlined]
[underlined] Transverse Horizontal Members [/underlined]
These form part of the u/c of a seaplane Troughs built in the tops or crown of floats being intrical [sic] with main structure at that point & designed to receive
[page break]
Axle boons.
[underlined] Aero Structure [/underlined]
[underlined] Equipment Required [/underlined]
[underlined] I [/underlined] One set of type “A” or type “B” sheerlegs.
[underlined] II[/underlined] Airscrew extracting tool
[underlined] III [/underlined] Trestles.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Fitters & Riggers Tool kits.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] H and saws. Ropes + padded packing peices [sic].
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Engine, Cockpit & Airscrew Covers.
[underlined] 7 [/underlined] Electric hand lamp with portable accumalator [sic] or hand torcks.
[underlined] 8 [/underlined] Empty petrol tins for salving petrol.
[underlined] 9 [/underlined] Timber as required.
[underlined] 10 [/underlined] Tentage. rations. blankets. etc.
[underlined] 11 [/underlined] Lorries & flat top trailer.
[underlined] 12 [/underlined] First Aid Box.
[underlined] 13 [underlined] Picks & Shovels.
The heavy type of sheer legs (Type “A”) lift 2 1/2 TONS to a height of 15’
Type “B” sheer legs will lift 100 LBS to a height if 20’
The weight lifted must never exceed more than 3/4 of the weight marked on the sheer legs.
[page break]
On seeing an a/c crash the first & most important thing to do is as follows:-
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Prevention of fire.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Prevention of injury to personel [sic].
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] “ “ [Prevention of] damage to Air Ministry Property.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Prevention of damage to Third Party.
[underlined] Piqueting down an Aircraft [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Find a sheltered spot such as a haystack, hedge or house.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Place the machine nose into wind to the leeward side of the shelter.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Chock the wheels fore & aft & place tail skid on a flat board or stone
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Climb into cockpit & ascertain that [underlined] all [/underlined] switches are in the off position, lash c/c & rudder bar & wind actuation gear wheel fully back.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Cover cockpit & place a/c in the horizontal position & cover it if it is a wooden airscew [sic].
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Drain off water if there is a lekilihood [sic] of frost if it does not contain Anti Freeze mixture.
[underlined] 7 [/underlined] Screw in piqueting screw fore of the m/p pass the rope through the
[page break]
ring to the screw aft of the m/p.
The correct angle is 45o for the screws.
[underlined] 8 [/underlined] Screw down tail skid with 2 screws on each side.
The angle is 30o on each side of the rudder.
[underlined] 9 [/underlined] Next toggle all control surfaces making sure that the toggles are secure & are not slack in any way.
[underlined] 10 [/underlined] A responsible guard must be found such as a po[deleted]el[/deleted][inserted]lic[/inserted]eman, coastguard or any person serving in the Navy or Army.
If the a/c has made a forced landing on sand the former method of piqueting will be of no use.
Plenty of sacks will be needed which will be 8 parts filled with sand. The piqueting rope will then be tied around the middle of the sack through the piqueting ring I & then tied to another sand bag where the piqueting screws would normaly [sic] be
The sacks will then be buried with sand or stones
[page break]
The petat tube, venturi head & all engine inlets & outlets [symbol] must be covered to prevent sand from blowing into them.
If the machine has been forced down on frozen ground & it has to be piqueted down plenty of sacks will be necescary [sic].
These will be 3/4 filled with lumps of frozen earth, stones etc the same method carryied [sic] out as in the preceeding one.
If a machine has been forced down on snow & has to be piqueted down plenty of sacks will be needed.
These will be 3/4 filled with snow & buried where the piqueting would normaly [sic] be & the ropes attached as before.
Snow will then be heaped up around the sacks & melted with a blowlamp. then beaten down.
This proceedure [sic] will be carried out untill [sic] it is strong enough to hold the machine
[page break]
[Night flying diagrams]
[page break]
[underlined] Airial [sic] Lighthouses [/underlined]
These will be held on a certain station. their function is to indicate a pre determined position which may or may not be an aerodrome.
They are portable & mounted on a standard trailer & they will flash a white characteristic normally visible for about 60 miles.
[underlined] Portable Landmarks or (Aerodrome) Beacons [/underlined]
These flash a red characteristic & are supplied to all aerodromes & indicate a landing ground.
They are normally connected to station electric supply with a control situated in the watch office.
[underlined] Aerodrome Beacons [/underlined]
The aerodrome beacon is the same as the landmark beacon only it gets its electric supply from portable accumulators.
[underlined] Illuminated Wind Indicator [/underlined]
These indicate wind direction & strength. On permanent aerodrome it may be situated near the watch office or near the floodlights. On temporary aerodromes it must be at the landing boundary.
[page break]
[underlined] Obstruction Lighting [/underlined]
Consists of red lights. For a temporary obstruction glim lamps should be used with red globes.
[underlined] Boundary Lighting [/underlined]
Consists of [deleted] red [/deleted] glim lamps with [deleted] red [/deleted] yellow globes to indicate extremities of safe landing ground.
[underlined] Emergency Proceedure [sic] [/underlined]
When night flying lights are required quickly in an emergency the following sequence is to be followed:-
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] The landmark or aerodrome beacon obstruction lights & illuminated landing T is to be switched on.
[underlined] II [/underlined] Flares, glim lamps, goose neck or monery flares according to weather are to be placed in the position of NO [underlined] 1 [/underlined] [underlined] 6 [/underlined] & [underlined 8 [/underlined] of a standard flare path.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] If time permits “A” The standard flare path should be completed. “B” The floodlight should be placed into position if visibility permits its use
[underlined] Night Flying Equipment [/underlined]
The aerodrome officer will have under his control + order the following vehicles & personel [sic] in charge.
[page break]
[underlined 1 [/underlined] Fire Tender
[underlined] II [/underlined] Ambulance.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Mechanical starter. (if used.)
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Trailer.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] If available a tracklaying tractor with wire cable for clearing aerodrome in event of crash.
[underlined] For Signaling [sic] Purposes [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] 2 Signaling [sic] cartridge pistols.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Signal cartridges of 3 colours:- red. green, & white.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] 2 signaling [sic] lamps with leads to battery with red & green screens. (aldis lamps)
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Hand electric lamps, 5 spare flares.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Red emergency lamp.
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Search light or rocket
[underlined] Cleaning of Aircraft [/underlined]
[underlined] Meterial [sic] Required [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Steps & planks to reach top m/p.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Warm Water.
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Worn scrubbing brush or sponge
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Non Acid Soap.
[underlined] 5 [/underlined] Clean linen rag
[underlined] 6 [/underlined] Paraffin rag for rusty parts.
Rubber shoes should be worn. Cleaning should start from the top
[page break]
The Bristol Beaufighter
[drawing of aircraft by H J Warren]
[page break]
The Bristol “[underlined] Beaufighter [/underlined] I
Type – Long-range fighter
Crew – Two
[indecipherable word] – Four cannon & six machine-guns
[Details of dimensions of aircraft]
Chief Designer L.G. Frise Esq.
P.T.O [symbol]
[page break]
AVRO “MANCHESTER” I
[drawings of aircraft]
SHORT “STIRLING” I
[drawing of aircraft]
HANDLEY PAGE – “HAMPDEN” I
[drawing of aircraft]
WESTLAND “WHIRLWIND” I
[drawing of aircraft]
BLACKBURN – “ROC” I
[drawing if aircraft]
All Drawn By H. J. Warren Aged 12 yrs 11 mths (Sept 5 1943)
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
Harold Warren's note book
Description
An account of the resource
Form 407, RAF Large Note Book, belonging to Harold Warren, and consisting of 90 pages of notes and drawings relative to his training.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harold Warren
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
90-page notebook
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Training material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWarrenHJ619608-160425-02
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. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Somerset
Wales--Glamorgan
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Eileen Reddish
Peter Bradbury
Nicki Brain
Anita Raine
Trevor Hardcastle
Tricia Marshall
ground crew
ground personnel
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2512/44535/PDaviesDC19020001.2.jpg
5d36b1064b1a7ea4ff398eb6a1453a40
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
Davies, David Charles
Davies, D C
Description
An account of the resource
36 items. The collection concerns David Charles Davies DFC (b. 1920, 1304355 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, photographs and two log books, one being the copy of the other. The collection also includes <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2584">one album with photos of personnel and aircraft</a>. <br /><br />He flew operations as a gunner, wireless operator and bomb aimer with 61 Squadron. David was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal on 12 March 1943 after completing 33 operations. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Michael Davies and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-10-01
2020-02-26
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
Davies, DC
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
Group of men and David Charles Davies
Description
An account of the resource
First, a group of 12 men in uniform and flying suits standing under the starboard wing of a Lancaster with David is standing sixth right. Five of the men are wearing side caps and five are wearing flying suits and parachute harnesses. Parachute bags and other items are by their feet. The Lancaster's wheels are held in place by chocks. Beyond the aircraft is snow covered open ground with bare trees and hedgerow in the distance.
Second, David Charles Davies in uniform sat on rocks at the coast. David is wearing his uniform and his officer's hat with his sergeant's rank at his wrists and his bomb aimer brevet above his left breast pocket.
Third, a studio portrait of David in his uniform. The image is stamped 'H A Chapman, Swansea'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H A Chapman
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Wales--Glamorgan
Wales--Swansea
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
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs mounted in a frame
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDaviesDC19020001
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.
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2584/44531/PDaviesDC19010016.1.jpg
c6b6efa2b6b97be410690f2c603a21ac
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
Davies, David Charles. Album
Description
An account of the resource
One album with photos of personnel and aircraft.
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-10-01
2020-02-26
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Davies, DC
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
Rear turret and David Charles Davies
Description
An account of the resource
First, crew member in the rear turret of a Lancaster with the guns raised.
Second, a head and shoulder studio portrait of David Charles Davies in uniform. He is bareheaded and has his sergeant's stripes are on his sleeve and his air gunner's brevet is above his left breast pocket. It is stamped 'H A Chapman, Swansea.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H A Chapman
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Wales--Glamorgan
Wales--Swansea
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDaviesDC19010016
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.
air gunner
aircrew
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2417/42749/LEvansD2-1593692v1.2.pdf
f8326c03ab5f28e49d0f04334d64c055
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Evans, Donald
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Donald Evans (b. 1925, 1593692 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, objects and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 106 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Michael Evans and catalogued by Barry Hunter,
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-11-15
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
Evans, D-2
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
Donald Evans RAF navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunner’s and flight engineer’s flying log book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEvansD2-1593692v1
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
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
D Evans’s Flight Engineer’s Flying Log Book covering the period from 19 June 1944 to 26 June 1947, detailing his flying training and operations flown as Flight Engineer. He was stationed at RAF St Athan (4 SoTT), RAF Winthorpe (1661 HCU), RAF Syerston (5 LFS), RAF Metheringham (106 Squadron), RAF Warboys (PNTU), RAF Coningsby and RAF Hemswell (83 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were Stirling, Lancaster and Lincoln. He flew on 13 night operations with 106 Squadron and 11 with 83 Squadron, total 24 (but his total in log book is 25). Targets were Munster, Karlsruhe, Kaiserlauten, Brunswick, Bergen, Dusseldorf, Dortmund-Ems canal, Hamburg, Trondheim, Munich, Horten, mining (Danzig Bay), Bohlen, Lutzkendorf, Wurtsburg, Molbis, Cham and Komotau. Post war he flew on one Exodus operation, one Cooks Tour operation and 3 Dodge operations. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Anderson, Flight Lieutenant Brown and Flight Lieutenant Watts. The four final pages of his log book are filled with autographs from his colleagues.
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
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
ita
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Germany--Borna (Leipzig)
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Cham
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Munich
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Würzburg
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Horten
Norway--Trondheim
Wales--Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09-23
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-10-14
1944-10-28
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-11
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-26
1944-12-14
1944-12-17
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-23
1945-03-03
1945-03-05
1945-03-07
1945-04-14
1945-03-16
1945-04-07
1945-05-17
1945-04-18
106 Squadron
1661 HCU
83 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lincoln
mine laying
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Pathfinders
RAF Bridlington
RAF Coningsby
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Hemswell
RAF Metheringham
RAF Snaith
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
RAF Warboys
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2417/42593/MEvansD2-1593692-211115-12.1.jpg
c85ff110da81287878e240b350434052
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Evans, Donald
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Donald Evans (b. 1925, 1593692 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, objects and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 106 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Michael Evans and catalogued by Barry Hunter,
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-11-15
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
Evans, D-2
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
Don Evans' Leave Passes
Description
An account of the resource
Six leave passes issued to Don.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
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
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six printed notes with handwritten annotations
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEvansD2-1593692-211115-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Glamorgan
83 Squadron
aircrew
RAF Coningsby
RAF Metheringham
RAF St Athan
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2228/40327/LWardHVT1150434v1.1.pdf
d26941ce58ca4ae2481c2ea9c4d4b217
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
Ward, Hugh Vivian Toms
Ward, HVT
Description
An account of the resource
38 items. The collection concerns Hugh Vivian Toms Ward (b. 1917, 1150434 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, drawings and documents and an album. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 44 and 463 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patricia McCabe and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-11
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
Ward, HVT
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
Hugh Ward's Royal Air Force observer's and air gunner's flying log book
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
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
LWardHVT1150434v1
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Observer's and air gunners flying log book for Warrant Officer HVT Ward, flight engineer, from 15 September 1942 to 9 September 1945. Detailing his training schedule, operations flown and instructional duties. He was stationed at: RAF St. Athan, RAF Waddington, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston and RAF Skellingthorpe.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Ward flew in the following aircraft: Oxford, Manchester, Lancaster Mk1 and Mk 3, Halifax and Stirling. As a flight engineer he carried out 34 operations, 26 night time operations with 44 Squadron followed by a second tour of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>four daylight and four night time operations with 463 Squadron. Targets were (in order): Genoa, Hamburg, Turin, Stuttgart, Mannerheim, [sic] Nienburg, Gronde river (Gardening), Duisburg, Essen, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Lorient, Milan, Wilhelmshaven, Nürnberg [sic] (Nuremberg), St, Nazaire, Lutzkeneron [sic], Würzburg, Bremen, Wesel, Frage [sic], Nordhausen, Komutov [sic], Juvencourt [sic] (Juvancourt). His pilots on operations were: Pilot Officer Walker, Flight Sergeant Elger, Flight Lieutenant Walker, Flying Officer Riggs and Flying Officer Findlay. In between tours he served as a flight engineer instructor on1661 Conversion Unit, 1654 Conversion Unit and No. 5 Lancaster Finishing School. Ward also took part in Operation Exodus and a Cooks Tour. Ward's log book also records his time spent in a Link Trainer and his time at the controls of an aircraft. After the war he joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and flew in Auster aircraft as an air observation post with pilot Captain Huggins.</p>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
Czech Republic--Chomutov
France
France--Aube
France--Gironde Estuary
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nienburg (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Würzburg
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Italy--Genoa
Italy--Milan
Italy--Turin
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-11-06
1942-11-07
1942-11-09
1942-11-13
1942-11-14
1942-11-19
1942-11-20
1942-11-22
1942-11-23
1942-12-06
1942-12-07
1942-12-08
1942-12-09
1942-12-10
1942-12-17
1942-12-29
1943-01-08
1943-01-13
1943-01-16
1943-01-17
1943-01-18
1943-01-23
1943-02-04
1943-02-05
1943-02-13
1943-02-14
1943-02-15
1943-02-16
1943-02-17
1943-02-18
1943-02-25
1943-02-26
1943-02-28
1943-03-01
1943-03-02
1943-03-03
1943-03-05
1943-03-08
1943-03-09
1944
1945-03-12
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-03-24
1945-03-27
1945-04-04
1945-04-19
1945-04-20
1945-05-06
1654 HCU
1661 HCU
44 Squadron
463 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Manchester
mine laying
Operation Exodus (1945)
Oxford
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1697/39553/LPowellNI1896918v1.1.pdf
0375c717b24db17536cb32dd163f68ab
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
Powell, Norman Ivor
Powell, N I
Description
An account of the resource
262 items. The collection concerns Powell, Norman Ivor (b. 1925, 1896919 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, diary, target photographs, maps, photographs, correspondence, and two photograph albums. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 614 and 104 squadrons in North Africa and Italy. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2207">Powell, N I. Photograph album one</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2209">Powell, N I. Photograph album two</a><br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Brian Powell and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-10-29
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Powell, NI
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
N Powell's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LPowellNI1896918v1
Description
An account of the resource
N I Powell’s Flight Engineer’s Flying Log Book covering the period from 9 August 1944 to 25 April 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as flight engineer. He was stationed at RAF St Athan (4 School of Technical Training, RAF Amendola (614 Squadron) and RAF Abu Sueir (104 Squadron). Aircraft flown in was Liberator. He flew on 12 night operations and one day operation with 614 Squadron and thereafter with many peacetime flights with 104 Squadron. Targets were Verona, Padua, Crnomelj, Vicenza, Bruck, Villach, Trento, Brescia, Innsbruck, Argenta and Freilassing. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Ward.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-11
1945-03-12
1945-03-15
1945-03-18
1945-03-19
1945-03-22
1945-03-25
1945-04-02
1945-04-04
1945-04-08
1945-04-10
1945-04-12
1945-04-25
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Austria
Great Britain
Italy
Egypt
Austria--Innsbruck
Austria--Villach
Italy--Brescia
Italy--Padua
Italy--Trento
Italy--Verona
Italy--Vicenza
Wales--Glamorgan
North Africa
Slovenia
Slovenia--Črnomelj
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
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
104 Squadron
614 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
bombing
flight engineer
RAF Abu Sueir
RAF St Athan
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1986/37853/LBurnsideJGB155209v1.2.pdf
27f92f9c2249442b57bfc20b345a97ac
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
Burnside, James Gordon Bennett
J G B Burnside
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
2017-11-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Burnside, JGB
Description
An account of the resource
44 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant James Gordon Bennett Burnside (b. 1909, 155209 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 619 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Reverend Canon Terence Alan Joyce and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
J G B Burnside navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book
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
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
LBurnsideJGB155209v1
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for J G B Burnside, flight engineer, covering the period from 20 March 1943 to 14 July 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Swinderby, RAF Woodhall Spa, RAF Coningsby, RAF Dunholme Lodge, RAF Wigsley, RAF Balderton and RAF Winthorpe. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster, Oxford, and Stirling. He flew a total of 28 night operations with 619 Squadron. Targets were Dusseldorf, Bochum, Oberhausen, Krefeld, Hamburg, Milan, Mannheim, Berlin, Antheor Viaduct, Hagen, Hannover, Chalindry, Revigny, Courtrai, Kiel, Donges, and Stuttgart. One Cook's Tour flight is also recorded. his pilots on operations were Squadron Leader Churcher, Flying Officer Stout, Flying Officer Thompson, Flying Officer Whiteley and Flying Officer Leonard.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-14
1943-06-15
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-07
1943-08-08
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-08-15
1943-08-16
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-08-31
1943-09-01
1943-09-17
1943-09-18
1943-10-01
1943-10-02
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-25
1943-11-26
1943-12-16
1943-12-17
1944-01-01
1944-01-02
1944-01-27
1944-01-28
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Belgium--Kortrijk
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Chalindrey
France--Donges
France--Franche-Comté
France--Saint-Raphaël Region (Var)
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--Milan
Wales--Glamorgan
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
1654 HCU
1661 HCU
619 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
RAF Balderton
RAF Coningsby
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
RAF Wigsley
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Woodhall Spa
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1903/36265/LSparkesW1601723v1.2.pdf
25a3efac8fffa42cd5b1a9de735e984e
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
Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
W Sparkes’ navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for W Sparkes, flight engineer, covering the period from 30 August 1943 to 20 April 1952. Detailing his flying training, operations flown, instructor duties and post war flying with number 5 Ferry Pool, 241 Operational Conversion Unit, and 297, 53, 511 Squadrons. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Tholthorpe, RAF Croft, RAF Husbands Bosworth, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Silloth, RAF Edzell, RAF Dishforth, RAF Schleswiglande and RAF Lyneham. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Wellington, Lancaster, Lincoln, Fairchild, Warwick, Dakota, Anson, Dominie, Mosquito and Hastings. He flew a total of 36 operations with 431 Squadron, 34 night and 2 daylight. Targets were Dusseldorf, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Berlin, Trappes, Le Mans, Brest, Amiens, Courtrai, Vaires, Karlsruhe, Essen, Somain, St Ghislaine, St Valery, Boulogne, Calais, Merville, Conde-sur-Noireau, Arras, Wizernes, Biennais, Bremont, Dognes, Hamburg, Foret de Nieppe and St Leu D’Esserent. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Badgery.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-12-03
1943-12-04
1943-12-20
1943-12-21
1943-12-29
1943-12-30
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-03-06
1944-03-07
1944-03-08
1944-03-11
1944-03-12
1944-03-13
1944-03-14
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-17
1944-03-26
1944-03-29
1944-03-30
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-06-04
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-07-01
1944-07-02
1944-07-13
1944-07-14
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1945
1946
1949
1950
1951
1952
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Kortrijk
Belgium--Saint-Ghislain
England--Cumbria
England--Durham (County)
England--Leicestershire
England--Rutland
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Amiens
France--Amiens Region
France--Arras
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Condé-sur-Noireau
France--Creil
France--Dieppe (Arrondissement)
France--Donges
France--Le Mans
France--Merville-Franceville-Plage
France--Nieppe Forest
France--Paris Region
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Somain
France--Saint-Valery-en-Caux
France--Vaires-sur-Marne
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Schleswig-Holstein
Scotland--Angus
Wales--Glamorgan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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
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
LSparkesW1601723v1
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
1659 HCU
1668 HCU
29 OTU
297 Squadron
431 Squadron
85 OTU
aircrew
Anson
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
C-47
Dominie
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Halifax Mk 7
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Croft
RAF Dishforth
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Lyneham
RAF Silloth
RAF St Athan
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Topcliffe
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1517/36128/LFlintJ121331v1.1.pdf
2efeafd165ebbc9cb52372ae426a7ba7
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
Flint, J
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-17
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
Flint, J
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection concerns Wing Commander J Flint, DFC GM DFM (Royal Air Force) and contains his log books. He flew operations as a pilot with 49 and 50 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by william Flint and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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
J Flint's RAF pilot’s flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
J Flint’s Flying Log Book covering the period 30 August 1938 to 16 February 1944.
Detailing his flying training and operations flown as pilot. He was stationed at RAF Tollerton (27 E&RFTS), RAF Hanworth (5 EFTS), RAF Yatesbury (10 EFTS), RAF Brize Norton (2 SFTS), RAF St Athan (SoAN), RAF Cottesmore RAF Saltby (14 OTU), RAF Scampton (49 Squadron), (RAF Finningley (7 BATF) and RAF Bruntingthorpe and Bitteswell (29 OTU). Aircraft flown in were Magister, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Anson, Hampden and Wellington. He flew seventeen night operations with 49 Squadron. Targets not specified. His first or second pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Bowden and Pilot Officer Kerridge.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1941-02-25
1941-02-26
1941-03-01
1941-03-02
1941-03-03
1941-03-04
1941-03-21
1941-03-22
1941-03-30
1941-03-31
1941-04-03
1941-04-06
1941-04-07
1941-04-08
1941-04-09
1941-04-10
1941-04-12
1941-04-13
1941-05-08
1941-05-09
1941-05-10
1941-05-11
1941-05-12
1941-05-13
1941-05-16
1941-05-17
1941-05-25
1941-05-26
1941-05-27
1941-05-28
1941-06-22
1941-06-23
1941-06-25
1941-06-26
1941-06-28
1941-06-29
1941-07-05
1941-07-06
1941-08-11
1941-08-12
1941-08-14
1941-08-15
1941-08-17
1941-08-18
1941-08-26
1941-08-27
1941-08-29
1941-08-30
1941-08-31
1941-09-01
1941-09-02
1941-09-03
1942-05-20
1942-05-21
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Glamorgan
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
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending temporal coverage. Allocated
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
Terry Hancock
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LFlintJ121331v1
14 OTU
29 OTU
49 Squadron
50 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Flying Training School
Hampden
Magister
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Finningley
RAF Saltby
RAF Scampton
RAF St Athan
RAF Yatesbury
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1141/34160/LStapleyVA175092v1.2.pdf
c79c2ec01b14861649f08988e51e3d5f
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
Stapley, Victor
Victor Arthur Stapley
V A Stapley
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Wing Commander Victor Stapley OBE, DFC (b. 1922, 1801888, 175092 Royal Air Force), his log book and a portrait. He served in the RAF from 1941 to 1977. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 166 squadron. Post war he served in Singapore, Malta, and at Christmas Island.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Victor Stapley and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stapley, VA
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
Victor Stapely's navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book
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
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
LStapleyVA175092v1
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
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
Flying log book for navigator’s air bomber air gunner’s flight engineers for Victor Stapley, flight engineer. Covers two periods; training and operations 18 January 1944 to 2 July 1944 and post-war service in Flying Control from 19 September 1945 to 23 January 1950. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Lindholme, RAF Kirmington, RAF Watchfield and RAF Henlow. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster, Anson, Dominie, Proctor, Beaufighter, Tiger Moth, Mosquito, York and C-47. He flew a total of 28 operations with 166 Squadron, 3 daylight and 25 night. Targets were Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen, Nuremberg, Aachen, Cologne, Dusseldor, mine laying, Rouen, Lyons, Aubigne, Mardyk, Mailly le Camp, Hasselt, Calais, Boulogne, Crisbicq, Acheres, Gelsenkirchen, Chateau Bernapre, Domleger and Oisemont. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Wiggins.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-06
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-13
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-06-02
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-07-02
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Singapore
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Hasselt
England--Bedfordshire
England--Essex
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Domléger-Longvillers
France--Amiens Region
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Calais
France--Dunkerque
France--Le Havre Region
France--Lyon
France--Mailly-le-Camp
France--Oisemont (Canton)
France--Paris Region
France--Rennes Region
France--Rouen
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Europe--Elbe River
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Wales--Glamorgan
Singapore
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Bermesnil
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Terry Hancock
1656 HCU
166 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Beaufighter
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
C-47
Dominie
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mine laying
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Proctor
RAF Henlow
RAF Kirmington
RAF Lindholme
RAF St Athan
RAF Watchfield
Tiger Moth
training
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2007/33446/LDaymontWH1111945v1.1.pdf
30d966723d212a70c4a332f1d4e9507e
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
Daymont, William Henry
W H Daymont
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-10-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Daymont, WH
Description
An account of the resource
Seventeen items.
The collection concerns William Henry Daymont (b. 1920, 1111945 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, correspondence, his caterpillar club pin and photographs.
He flew operations as a flight engineer with 100 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Pauline Daymont and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
William Daymont's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDaymontWH1111945v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Flying log book for navigator’s, air bomber, air gunner’s, flight engineers for W. Daymont, flight engineer, covering the period from 11 August 1944 to 24 August 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Hemswell, RAF Grimsby, RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF Driffield. Aircraft flown in were Halifax and Lancaster. He flew a total of 28 operations with 100 Squadron, 8 daylight and 20 night. Targets were Dusseldorf, Bochum, Dortmund, Wanne-Eickel, Aschaffenburg, Duren, Essen, Hamburg, Heligoland, Bremen, Berchtesgaden, Frieburg, Cologne, Leuna, Zeitz, Kleve, Dresden, Chemnitz, Duisberg, Pforzheim, Dessau, Kassel, Misburg, Plauen and Berlin. He also flew one Operation Exodus and two Operation Manna flights. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Butler. </p>
<p> </p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1944-11-02
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-06
1944-11-14
1944-11-15
1944-11-16
1944-11-17
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-27
1944-11-28
1944-12-24
1945-01-14
1945-01-15
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
1945-03-11
1945-03-12
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-31
1945-04-10
1945-04-11
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-26
1945-04-27
1945-05-01
1945-05-02
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Belgium--Brussels
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Aschaffenburg
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover Region
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Pforzheim
Germany--Plauen
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Zeitz
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Wales--Glamorgan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
100 Squadron
1662 HCU
466 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Driffield
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Grimsby
RAF Hemswell
RAF St Athan
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/828/26598/LFreemanRRE1523700v1.2.pdf
49430b7b6118a328107992821b1f65ca
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
Freeman, Ralph
R Freeman
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Sergeant Ralph Reginald Freeman (1923 - 2019, 1523700 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He trained as a pilot and later flew as a flight engineer.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Susan Abbott and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Freeman, 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
Ralph Freeman's Royal Canadian Air Force pilot’s log book
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot’s flying log book covering the period from 7 July 1943 to 9 September 1944. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as pilot. He was stationed at RAF Cambridge (22 EFTS), RCAF Assiniboin (34 EFTS), RCAF Swift Current (39 SFTS), RCAF Souris (17 SFTS), RAF Brough (pre-AFU). Detailing his operations flown as Flight Engineer from September (?) 1944 to 9 April 1946. He was stationed at RAF St Athan (4 SoTT), RAF Bottesford (1668 HCU), RAF Ludford Magna and RAF Binbrook (101 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Cornell, Anson and Lancaster. He flew no operations but did fly one long continental cross-country (Cook's Tour?) and four Operation Dodge flights.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LFreemanRRE1523700v1
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Manitoba--Souris
Saskatchewan--Swift Current
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1945-07-17
1945-08-15
1945-08-24
1945-09-03
1945-09-15
101 Squadron
1668 HCU
aircrew
Anson
Cook’s tour
Cornell
flight engineer
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Operation Dodge (1945)
pilot
RAF Binbrook
RAF Bottesford
RAF Brough
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF St Athan
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/605/25855/LMatthewsEH1899046v1.1.pdf
7e8ee50bb3d9bfa0a337c5a07d0e5f92
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
Matthews, Edward Harry
E H Matthews
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Matthews, EH
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Edward 'Ted' Matthews (1925 - 2017, 1899046 Royal Air Force), his log book flight engineer's course notebook and photographs. He flew operations as flight engineer with 77 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff and Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Edward Mathews’ flying log book for navigators air bombers air gunners flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for navigators air bombers air gunners flight engineers for E H Mathews, flight engineer, covering the period from 18 December 1944 to 7 July 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at Raf St Athan, RAF Riccall and RAF Full Sutton. Aircraft flown in was Halifax. He flew a total of 15 operations with 77 squadron, 10 daylight and 5 night. Targets were Mainz, Cologne, Kamen, Hemmingstedt, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Bottrop, Witten, Recklinghausen, Osnabruck, Harburg, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Heligoland and Wangerooge. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Bingham.
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. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMatthewsEH1899046v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Recklinghausen (Münster)
Germany--Schleswig-Holstein
Germany--Witten
Germany--Wuppertal
Wales--Glamorgan
Germany--Wangerooge Island
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
77 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Riccall
RAF St Athan
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/585/22113/LHopgoodPD1673132v1.1.pdf
015b6a1df5314b133150b3e2109a4d4b
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
Hopgood, Philip David
P D Hopgood
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hopgood, PD
Description
An account of the resource
Four items in main collection, plus photograph album in sub-collection. An oral history interview with Peter Andrew Hopgood about his father, Flight Sergeant Philip Hopgood (1924-1999, 1673132 Royal Air Force), his memoir, log book, service record and photograph album. Philip Hopgood trained as a pilot and later as a flight engineer.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Hopgood (1673132 Royal Air Force) and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Philip Hopgood’s pilots flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Phillip D Hopgood, covering the period from 4 August 1943 to 12 February 1946. Details his flying training. He was stationed at RAF Shellingford, RCAF Prince Albert, RCAF Saskatoon, RAF St Athan, RAF Woolfox Lodge and RAF Clyffe Pypard. Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Cessna Crane, Anson and Lancaster. He also completed a flight engineer’s course and the log book included a certificate and temporary log book from Wycombe air park.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHopgoodPD1673132v1
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Wiltshire
Saskatchewan--Prince Albert
Saskatchewan--Saskatoon
Wales--Glamorgan
Saskatchewan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1651 HCU
aircrew
Anson
flight engineer
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
pilot
RAF Clyffe Pypard
RAF St Athan
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/302/20735/LLambAM1827673v1.1.pdf
fd0e3f40525b41b96f173eeca3b2e4d2
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lamb, Alexander
Alexander McPherson Lamb
Alexander M Lamb
Alexander Lamb
A M Lamb
A Lamb
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with Alexander McPherson Lamb (b. 1925, 1827673 Royal Air Force), his decorations, album and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 15 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alexander Lamb and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-25
2017-08-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lamb
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
Alexander Lamb’s flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LLambAM18276
Description
An account of the resource
Air gunners log book for Alexander Lamb covering the period from 21 June 1944 to 24 June 1947. Detailing his flying training and operations flown and it also contains photographs of aircraft and some RAF certificates. He was stationed at RAF Stormy Down (7 AGS), RAF Market Harborough (14 OTU), RAF Wigsley (1654 HCU), RAF Feltwell and RAF Mildenhall (15 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster, Oxford, York, Lincoln, Dominie, Hadrian, Tiger Moth. He flew 5 operations (4 daylight and 1 night-time) with 15 squadron. Targets were Munster, Bocholt, Kiel, Heligoland, Bremen. He also participated in supply dropping in the Netherlands (Operation Manna), Operation Exodus returning POWs, Baedeker or “Cooks Tours” to see the devastation of German cities and Operation Post-Mortem, testing German radar devices. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Barton, Flying Officer Darlow and Flying Officer Dunn. The log book also lists his post war RAF flights.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike French
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Leicester
England--Norfolk
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Bocholt
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Kiel
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands--Valkenburg (South Holland)
Wales--Glamorgan
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Helgoland
Netherlands--Hague
England--Leicestershire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1947
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-30
1945-05-02
1945-05-07
1945-05-24
1945-05-29
1945-06-04
14 OTU
15 Squadron
1654 HCU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Feltwell
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/654/9902/LWarnerJ1623709v1.1.pdf
91709a60b0ecc39d87beb002ea42b4f3
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
Warner, Jack
J Warner
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Warner, J
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Jack Warner DFM (b. 1923, 183090, 1623709 Royal Air Force) his log book, his memoir, a newspaper cutting and photographs. He completed a tour of 37 operations as a flight engineer with 428 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jack Warner and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Jack Warner’s navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book for Jack Warner, flight engineer. Covering the period from 2 July 1943 to 28 January 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Topcliffe, RAF Leeming, RAF Croft, RAF Middleton St George and RAF St Athan. Aircraft flown in were, Halifax and C-47. He flew a total of 37 night operations with 428 squadron. Targets were, Montlucon, Modane, Hannover, Kassel, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Kiel, Oslo, Brest, Meulan le Mureaux, Lille, le Havre, Rostock, Laon, Cherbourg, Villeneuve, Morlaix, Morlaye, Borcum, Heligoland, Mont Couple, Dunkirk, Merville and Coutances. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Sinclair. Notes on the last pages of the log book discuss his operations on 5 and 6 June 1944 and the hazards of minelaying.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWarnerJ1623709v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Yorkshire
France--Brest
France--Cherbourg
France--Coutances
France--Dunkerque
France--Laon
France--Le Havre
France--Lille
France--Merville (Nord)
France--Modane
France--Montluçon
France--Morlaix
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Borkum
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Rostock
Norway--Oslo
Wales--Glamorgan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Durham (County)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1943-09-15
1943-09-16
1943-09-17
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-12-03
1943-12-04
1943-12-20
1943-12-21
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-28
1944-01-29
1944-02-03
1944-02-05
1944-02-06
1944-02-11
1944-03-02
1944-03-03
1944-03-04
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-13
1944-04-14
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-05
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-02
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1659 HCU
1664 HCU
408 Squadron
428 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Croft
RAF Leeming
RAF Middleton St George
RAF St Athan
RAF Topcliffe
Scharnhorst
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/781/9438/LWrigleyJ1029740v1.2.pdf
44ee862707f671b4ce71a0b2c0ccf4c6
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
Wrigley, James
J Wrigley
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. The collection concerns James Wrigley (1920 - 2010, 1029740 Royal Air Force) and contains an interview with his widow, Alice Wrigley, photographs, his log book, decorations, and a photograph album of his service in the UK and and Far East. The collection also contains a log book made out to Rascal, his mascot or lucky charm. James Wrigley completed 47 operations as a wireless operator with 97 and 635 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Susan Higgins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wrigley, J
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
James Wrigley's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for Warrant Officer James Wrigley, wireless operator, covering the period from 17 November 1942 to 30 June 1954. Detailing training, operations and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Pembrey, RAF Whitchurch Heath (Tilstock), RAF Lindholme, RAF Bourn, RAF Downham Market, RAF Kinloss, RAF Forres, RAF St. Athan, RAF Abingdon, RAF Hemswell, RAF Binbrook, RAF Marham, RAF Scampton, RAF Negombo, RAF Tengah and RAF Shallufa. Aircraft flown in were, Dominie, Proctor, Blenheim, Anson, Whitley, Halifax, Lancaster, Wellington, Lincoln and B-29. He flew a total of 47 night operations, one with 81 OTU, 39 with 97 Squadron and 7 with 635 Squadron. Targets were, Rouen, Hamburg, Milan, Mannheim, Nuremberg, Peenemunde, Munchen-Gladbach, Berlin, Hannover, Leipzig, Munich, Kassel, Cologne, Ludwigshaven, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Brunswick, Ottignies, Le Havre, Lens and Coubronne. His pilots on operations were <span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}">Pilot Officer Munro DFM and Squadron Leader Riches DFC. </span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWrigleyJ1029740v1
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Egypt
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Singapore
Sri Lanka
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Ottignies
Egypt--Suez Canal
England--Berkshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Le Havre
France--Lens
France--Rouen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--Milan
Scotland--Grampian
Sri Lanka--Western Province
Wales--Carmarthenshire
Wales--Glamorgan
North Africa
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-08
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
1943-08-27
1943-08-28
1943-08-31
1943-09-03
1943-09-04
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-18
1943-10-20
1943-10-21
1943-10-22
1943-11-03
1943-11-17
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-11-25
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1943-12-02
1943-12-03
1943-12-16
1943-12-17
1943-12-20
1943-12-29
1944-01-14
1944-01-30
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
10 OTU
1656 HCU
19 OTU
199 Squadron
35 Squadron
617 Squadron
635 Squadron
81 OTU
83 Squadron
97 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
B-29
Blenheim
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
Dominie
final resting place
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Heavy Conversion Unit
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lincoln
missing in action
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
Proctor
RAF Abingdon
RAF Binbrook
RAF Bourn
RAF Downham Market
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lindholme
RAF Marham
RAF Pembrey
RAF Scampton
RAF Shallufa
RAF St Athan
RAF Tilstock
RAF Yatesbury
training
Wellington
Whitley
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/105/9434/LAmbroseBG1604870v1.1.pdf
1a5e8468db59f1bd1c383f4c6c486278
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
Ambrose, Basil
B G Ambrose
Basil G Ambrose
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-29
Description
An account of the resource
18 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Basil George Ambrose (1923 – 2016, 1604870 Royal Air Force), his log book, a page from his service book and 15 photographs. Basil Ambrose was a flight engineer flying Lancasters with 467 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force from RAF Waddington between September 1944 and March 1945 and with 617 Squadron from RAF Woodhall Spa.
The collection was been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Basil Ambrose and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ambrose, BG
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
6 March 1942: Joined RAF as a trainee turner
Posted to RAF Sealand, qualified turner
Posted to RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer training
5 July – 8 September 1944: RAF Swinderby, 1660 HBCU, flying Stirling aircraft
8 September 1944: Promoted to Sergeant
22 – 26 September 1944: RAF Syerston, Lancaster Finishing School, flying Lancaster aircraft
29 September 1944 – 23 March 1945: RAF Waddington, 467 (RAAF) Squadron, flying Lancaster aircraft
Commissioned, promoted to Pilot Officer
November 1945 Promoted to Flying Officer
22 April 1945 – 9 January 1946: RAF Woodhall Spa, 617 Squadron, flying Lancaster aircraft
11 January 1946 – 15 April 1946: Detached with 617 Sqn to Digri, India Command
28 May – 1 July 1946: 617 Squadron RAF Binbrook
October 1946: 1604870 Flying Officer B.G. Ambrose released from Service
<p>Basil George Ambrose was born on 24<sup>th</sup> June 1923 in Derby Street, Reading, the youngest of five children. He attended Wilson Road School near Reading’s football Ground. In 1937, when he was just 14 years old, he left school and took up employment as an apprentice turner at the Pulsometer. He was paid five shillings a week, half of which he had to give back to pay for his indenture training.</p>
<p>Although engineering was a reserve occupation, on 6<sup>th</sup> March 1942, he was able to join the RAF as a trainee turner. On completion of training, he passed out as a Leading Aircraftsman and was posted to RAF Sealand. Whilst there, he applied, and was accepted, for Flight Engineer training at St Athan.</p>
<p>His first ever flight was memorable in that he took the opportunity to join an old family friend (a test pilot at St Athan) who was taking a Beaufighter up for an air test. While airbourne over the Bristol Channel he witnessed a long line of merchant ships, all nose to tail as far as the eye could see, the ships were readying for the for the D Day landings.</p>
<p>On 7the June 1944, he completed his Flight Engineer training and joined the HBCU at RAF Swinderby, before moving on to the Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston. In September 1944, Sergeant Ambrose and his crew, now fully trained, joined 467 Squadron (RAAF) at RAF Waddington. </p>
<p>On just his second operational flight, tasked with destroying enemy field guns in Holland, his aircraft had to drop below the cloud base at just 4000 feet. Almost immediately, the aircraft alongside them was hit by ack-ack and went down in flames. Basil’s aircraft returned safely, but the mission ended in failure.</p>
<p>Just over a fortnight later, his first ever night operation proved even more eventful, one they were all very fortunate to survive. En-route to Brunswick, a fire in the cabin set alight the blackout curtains surrounding the pilot and navigator. Basil had to use two extinguishers to put out the fire. The events caused significant delay and at their estimated time of arrival on target, they were still approximately 40 miles away. By the time they got there all the other aircraft had gone through and were on their way home. Basil’s aircraft was now completely alone over the target and although they were able to drop their bombs successfully, the aircraft was illuminated by a whole cone of search lights from the ground, plus an enemy fighter aircraft was fast coming in from the port side. The skipper took evasive action by immediately putting the aircraft into a 5000 feet dive and Basil found himself pinned to the cabin ceiling by the ‘G’ force; conversely when the aircraft pulled out of the dive, he was forced down to the cabin floor. The evasive manoeuvre was repeated one more time before they managed to lose the searchlights and the fighter. The trip home was conducted at low level without further alarm. In all, Basil and his crew went on to record thirty operations together. </p>
<p>After 467 Squadron, Basil was commissioned as a Pilot Officer and was posted to 617 Squadron in April 1945. He was never to fly operationally again although with 617 Squadron he served for a brief period in Digri, India. Basil reached the rank of Flying Officer and was demobbed in 1948.</p>
<p>Basil returned to the Pulsometer and finally qualified as a turner. After a short period working in Birmingham, he settled in Reading with his wife Jean and two children. He continued to work in engineering, eventually moving into the engineering safety field. He retired from his final position of Chief Safety Advisor for Greater London Council in 1981.<a href="https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/war-veteran-still-swing-90-4802178"></a></p>
Chris Cann
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
Basil Ambrose’s flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
Navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers flying log book for Basil Ambrose, flight engineer, covering the period from 5 July 1944 to 11 July 1946. Detailing engineers training, flying training and operations flown and post war operations. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Swinderby, RAF Syerston, RAF Waddington, RAF Woodhall Spa, RAF Binbrook and Digri India. Aircraft flown in were Stirling, Lancaster, Lincoln and Oxford. He flew a total of 30 Operations, seven day and 23 night with 467 squadron. He then flew Operation Exodus to Juvincourt and Reine, Operation Dodge to Bari and Operation Spasm to Berlin with 617 squadron, Targets were, Walcheren, Brunswick, Nuremberg, Flushing, Harburg, Duren, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Trondheim, Munich, Ems-Weser Canal, Wurzburg, Wesel, Heilbronn, Giessen, Urft dam, Houffalaize, Baux, Siegen, Karlsruhe and Bohlen. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Sheridan.
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. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
37 colour prints
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LAmbroseBG1604870v1
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-19
1944-10-20
1944-10-23
1944-11-11
1944-11-16
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-09
1944-12-11
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1945-01-04
1945-01-05
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
1945-01-15
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-24
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-20
1945-03-21
1945-03-23
1945-03-24
1945-05-09
1945-05-10
1945-05-11
1945-10-05
1945-11-05
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Pakistan
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Belgium--Houffalize
France--Les Baux-de-Provence
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Giessen (Hesse)
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Siegen
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Würzburg
Italy--Bari
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Netherlands--Walcheren
Norway--Trondheim
Pakistan--Digri
Wales--Glamorgan
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Urft Dam
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
1660 HCU
467 Squadron
617 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Oxford
RAF Binbrook
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodhall Spa
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/821/10805/PFisherT1701.2.jpg
ab966b75919cc81ba9cf72d7ae808da1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/821/10805/AFisherT170726.1.mp3
14a8d63f6e971f8062c9b1885ae60417
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
Fisher, Thomas
T Fisher
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Thomas Fisher (1922 - 2020, 1097527 Royal Air Force). He trained as a bomb aimer / navigator.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Fisher, T
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GT: Ok. This is a official interview of Mr Thomas Fisher and we are just outside of Dumfries in Scotland and it is the 26th of July 2017. Your interviewer is Glen Turner from the 75 Squadron Association and accredited IBCC interviewer, and also present is Thomas Fisher’s daughter Julia McLennan and a traveling friend here of Glen’s, Diana Harrington from Middlesborough. So, Thomas, can you give us, your opening piece of information would be where you were born, your date of birth and where you grew up, please.
TF: Yes. I was, I was born on December the 7th 1922 in Sunderland and I grew up in that, in that town.
GT: And where did you go to school?
TF: In Sunderland.
GT: And did you complete High School or —
TF: I, well, I [laughs] I passed the 11 Plus to go to Grammar School which I did do but unfortunately, I, my parents said I had to leave school when I was fourteen which was rather a bit of a blow because, and a surprise because my father had already signed a form to say I would stay until I was at least sixteen. But they sort of said they needed the money and so I left school and got a, got a job. I worked in an office for a while and then I became an apprentice painter and decorator. I worked at that until I was, until I was eighteen and that was when I decided that I would join the Air Force.
GT: Had the war been going long at that time or did you join before the war?
TF: No. The war had been on since the end of ’39. End of ’40. It would have been going on for a bit over a year during which time we’d have been, it had just been a series of disasters. You know, the Dunkirk evacuation and lots of bombing. I must admit I was getting a bit fed up with hearing the siren going at 3 o’clock or so in the morning and expected to get up and go to an air raid shelter. But, but fortunately that was the only time that I was subjected to bombing was before I joined the Air Force. I was much safer when I was in the Air Force [laughs] I was never at an airfield that was attacked at all and, and well to be quite frank I had one horrible time when I picked up the local newspaper and the corner was folded over of the heading and I could just see the letters “tain” said, “We must surrender.” And I took that as Britain says we must surrender. I was absolutely horrified at the thought. I just stood and stared at that for a bit and then I bent down and picked it up and the corner flipped over back. And it wasn’t Britain. It was Pétain, the French Prime Minister. And that was, I think that was one of the times that I sort of definitely thought the Air Force seems to be the only thing that’s doing anything at the moment so, and also I’m getting a bit fed up with them coming over and dropping bombs on us so we might as well go and do the same to them.
GT: So, you were seventeen years old at that time.
TF: At that time. Ah huh.
GT: And you mentioned that yourself and was it your family that were involved with German raids over Sunderland?
TF: Yes.
GT: And were you attacked, did the Germans manage to bomb your area? Your street, or house?
TF: They actually did later, at a later date when I was in the Air Force they did actually bomb the house.
GT: Did you lose any family from that?
TF: I, I got, I was stationed in the Air Force at Inverness and I got a message to go and see the adjutant and when I did he said, ‘I’ve got some bad news. Your house has been bombed. But there’s no, no one’s been hurt.’ So that was alright and they were very good. They immediately gave me a railway warrant and sent me on leave to see if I could do anything to help.
GT: Ok. So, let’s then just go back slightly to your reasons for joining the Royal Air Force and and how you managed to achieve that for me please.
TF: Well, the reason. Yes.
[telephone ringing]
TF: I would say the reason was —
GT: Ok. Hang on. I’ll tell you what. We’ll just pause that.
[recording paused]
[clock chiming]
GT: Ok, Thomas. Can, can you please tell me why you joined the Royal Air Force and when and how?
TF: Yes. Well, I joined in nineteen, at the beginning of 1941. And the reason why was I got a bit fed up with getting bombed by German planes coming over in horrible times. Middle of the night getting it Not that I expected I was going to make any difference but I just felt I would like to do something to make up for all the bombing that was going on and so I visited a recruiting office and said, ‘I’ve joined the Air Force.’
GT: So you were saying that you lived or grew up in Sunderland but there was no recruiting office there. You had to go somewhere else.
TF: No. No recruiting office.
GT: Where was the recruiting office that you went to then?
TF: It was at Newcastle on Tyne which was about twelve mile away. But, and so I went through there and joined the Air Force and, and I think I was put on what they called deferred service for about two months and then eventually went down to Blackpool where we got kitted out. Well, it was rather pleasant in a way because it wasn’t an Air Force station as such. We just lived in hotels. There’s hundreds of small hotels in Blackpool and there would probably be about six of us because they were nearly all geared up with double beds you see and of course we all had one each. So if they had six rooms it normally meant there would be twelve people staying but there was only six of us sort of like. We got good meals and then went out and got our uniforms and got kitted up with a whole pile of stuff. We were all given a kit bag and moved along a line and someone would say, What size shoes do you take?’ ‘What size shirt do you, what’s your collar size?’ And such like and you’d just keep dropping things in and we took, with laden kit bags went back to our hotel and were told to pay after, after lunch with our uniform on. And, and someone came and checked over to see if everybody fitted reasonably well and then we started doing basic training with a lot of PT and marching along the promenade, running around the sands like a lot of lunatics with rifles and bayonets. And, and then in the fullness of time we, I was there about a month and then went down to Number 4 School of Technical Training.
GT: Now, Thomas, now Thomas earlier you were telling me when you initially went to the Recruiting Office what they recruiter did to give you your future job. Can you, can you tell me that again please? What happened when you went to the Recruiting Office.
TF: Well, when I offered to be a flight mechanic he said, ‘Not so fast. We’ll have to see if you’re suitable for training.’ And, and then started to give me what I’d say with good grace here was a bit of mental arithmetic. Just wanted to know whether I could add up and I wasn’t completely illiterate and, and then and said I was quite suitable for training. So that’s why I ended up at Number 4 School of Technical Training at St Athan in South Wales.
GT: And how long were you there for and what did, what did they train you on?
TF: They trained [laughs] they trained us on all sorts of old pieces of aircraft. I don’t think there was a complete plane. Actually, when I was [unclear] was when I went to start the training someone came in to [laughs] in to my classroom one day and said, ‘Would there be any chance that there’s a sign writer here?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ So he said, ‘Well, could you come through so that I’ll show you what we’d like you to do?’ And they wanted me to do some small lettering on a sort of board you see and said, ‘Well, the problem is I don’t know when you’re going to be able to do it. You can’t miss any of your course and you certainly can’t be expected to give your spare time because you’ll not have enough. You’ll be spending more of your spare time studying anyhow so would you mind missing PT? So I said, ‘Well, if it’s for the good of the Air Force I’ll miss PT.’ And so, when everyone else went to do PT in the middle of the morning I used to just go and spend a bit of time in there and in reality waited ‘til the tea van came around and had a cup of tea and a bun or something while everybody else was doing PT. But most of the things were very old pieces of aircraft. Just an engine here and there and we, I don’t ever recollect seeing an aircraft with an engine in to do anything. But however, we had our tests and we passed out as a flight mechanic engine. You had the choice of being either engine or air frame. If you were air frame you were usually referred to as a rigger and if you were an engine you were usually referred to as a fitter.
GT: So that was your choice. You were given a choice to be a rigger or an engines.
TF: Yes. A rigger or a fitter. One looked after the airframe and one looked after the engine.
GT: So how many was on your course when you went through there?
TF: I would think possibly about twenty or twenty four. Maybe two dozen.
GT: Did, did you lose anybody? Did they drop out or move on?
TF: I honestly couldn’t remember but I don’t think so.
GT: And the tests you did at the end there was it written or did you have to prove yourself on the machinery?
TF: Well, I think it was mainly written but it was also taken into consideration your work that you’d done during that time. One of the things I remember which seemed a complete waste of time was trying to find a piece of metal as a cube to fit into a square hole. And I could never for the life of me, never could think what that was going to have to do with an aircraft was spending hours and hours filing away to get a perfect fit.
GT: So during that time at St Athan then your barracks you were in were you twenty men to a room? Did you have bed packs? Did you have spit and polish shoes? Did you have marching?
TF: No. We didn’t have marching but we were expected to spend one evening cleaning the room and leaving everything neat and tidy for the COs inspection the following day. That was once a week.
GT: No stand by your beds inspection?
TF: I don’t recollect that. No.
GT: Interesting.
TF: On the whole, yeah it was reasonably comfortable and beds, we did have, we did all have a sort of a little fitted wardrobe each to put clothing and things in and, and then at the end of that time we were given two weeks leave.
GT: So how long was a course for, Tom?
TF: Well, I think it would be about sixteen weeks. I went in, I think it would probably be the 1st of May when I went in and it would be October when I passed out and that would have been a week at, a month at Blackpool and the rest of the time at St Athan. And I was given two weeks leave and, with instructions to report to Number 92 Squadron at Gravesend. So, I thought from Gravesend being at the, on the Thames Estuary I thought it was going to be a very busy station with getting fighters and bombers going. But however [laughs] when I got down to Gravesend, they said, ‘Oh, 92 Squadron. They’re not here.’ So, I went, ‘I’ve trailed all the way. Come all the way from one end of the country to the other.’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘They’re not here. I don’t know where they are.’ And I thought surely you must know. But then when I thought about it later I thought, well no. You didn’t give information like that away. They were just, suddenly the squadron would just go and they wouldn’t say where they were going. So, I was told to, I was shown where I could have a bed for the night, where to go and get a meal, ‘And after breakfast in the morning if you come back here I’ll have found out where 92 Squadron are and give you a railway warrant again and you can go join them.’ So when I went back he said, ‘Well, they’re in Lincoln at an airfield called Digby. So, I then took all my kit, got a bus in to London and then the train up to Lincoln and then on to, to Digby.
GT: So you were still eighteen years old at this time.
TF: At that time. Yes.
GT: And you got to Digby ok and what aircraft did they have when you first arrived?
TF: Spitfires. And, and it was actually in a way a little bit of an exciting time because obviously there was no television but we did see news regularly. News came on the radio. Everybody was glued to the radio for the 9 o’clock news and you kept hearing about, particularly during the Battle of Britain how they’d shot such a lot of German planes down and such like which later we discovered was great exaggeration. There were never anywhere near that number shot down. However, you saw the, the squadrons taking off and looked across and you saw, I saw great big bell outside the crew room and the notice up, chalked on a blackboard. “When you hear this bell you will run like hell.” And so when you, when somebody pokes their head out of the door and shouts, ‘92 Squadron, five minutes readiness.’ And the pilots then all knew that whatever they were doing would have to be dropped in five and be off in the plane and away. And then we would come out, possibly come out when it was time to go and ring this great big bell and we would dash down and unplug the, well wait ‘til the pilots got the planes started, unplug the starter batteries out and wave them out because a Spitfire a pilot can’t see where he’s going if he’s looking ahead because of the little wheel at the back on the ground. And if that lifts up the propeller’s going to hit the ground and twists so you sort of slowly guide them out and then they’re away and you see the whole squadrons flying off to somewhere and you know, you feel, well I’ve had some little part in this. And then when they come back they were immediately refuelled and every morning they were checked over completely to be ready for the next time.
GT: So, what Mark of Spitfire was flying on that squadron at that time?
TF: I don’t honestly remember. I just do know that they weren’t fitting with cannon. They were definitely just the eight gun and, but they were three bladed propellers. I gather some of the early ones were only two but later they were four. But I’m not sure what the number was.
GT: That’s fine. So, so when you got to Digby did they have everybody put into barracks again? Or did you have single billets or —
TF: No. It was a pre-war station and they were, it were quite good because there were a block. A big block of building and A Flight would have one side and B Flight another and the downstairs would be, we were all split into two watches because you had to cover every, complete daylight so sometimes it could be from what? 5 o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night. And so obviously we were split in to two. Two watches. And one watch would have one room and there would probably be about twelve or twenty people in the room. But they were brick built and pre-war, centrally heated and incorporated on the landings. There were bathrooms and things. They were reasonably comfortable.
GT: So, you chose rigger as your trade.
TF: No. Fitter.
GT: You went fitter. So, from the engines that you had to work on at St Athan you arrived on the squadron and you were given Merlins to look after.
TF: Merlins, ah huh.
GT: So, did you learn your skill on how to maintain a Merlin directly there on the squadron? Was that a quick learning session for you?
TF: Well, what we trained on at St Athan were Kestrels which were really very similar to a Merlin but only very, nowhere near the power. But I suppose we must have just picked a lot up as we went along really. And I was there for a relatively short time and then for some reason or other I got posted to 417 Squadron.
GT: And what time, what date was that then, Tom? How long did you spend at Digby?
TF: That would be [pause] October. Just before Christmas. It was probably end of November.
GT: So barely two months. Barely two months or so on 92.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: Right. So you went up to 417.
TF: 417.
GT: And where were they based?
TF: Charmy Down in Somerset. Near, very near Bath.
GT: And aircraft type?
TF: Spitfires.
GT: And how long were you there for?
TF: I was there quite a while and I was very surprised to find I was now in the Canadian Air Force. It was all four. All the Canadian squadrons were fours.
GT: And how did they, work out? The very —
TF: Well, it was, it was just being formed. It was a new squadron just being formed so the pilots were, had a lot of, a long way to go to get operational and they were all Canadian. And the ground staff, the fitters and riggers were mostly Canadian but I think they must have been a bit short and there was about a half dozen or so of British boys made their numbers up.
GT: Was the Battle of Britain still going at that time or had it finished?
TF: No. The Battle of Britain was over then.
GT: Ok. Just going back then. So, you were on 92 Squadron during the Battle of Britain.
TF: No. I was still after the Battle of Britain.
GT: That was still just after. Ok.
TF: The Battle of Britain was 1940.
GT: Alright.
TF: And that was 1941 when I went in.
GT: Was there still much German aircraft activity that the Spitfires were going up to meet at that time?
TF: Not a great lot. I think what had happened was the squadron had originally been at Gravesend and they were very busy. They were. And when they went up to Lincoln there was a little bit of a rest. They weren’t going to be quite so, so busy and while I was there we had a visit from the King who came up to inspect the squadron.
GT: What’s your recollections of meeting the King? Did you shake hands? Did he talk to you?
TF: No. My recollection is of being rather appalled at the idea of, we had to parade in front of the hangar in our best uniforms and shoes polished and such like and the announcement came over, ‘All personnel not on essential duties will line the roadway and cheer his majesty when he goes past.’ And I thought I’ve seen this on the newsreels and you used to think it was spontaneous but you were actually ordered to go out and cheer the King. [laughs] And the other recollection I have for him was that his face was absolutely plastered with makeup. He looked, almost looked as if he was trying to smile or do anything. Well, he had a little permanent half smile. If he tried not to it looked as if it would all crack or something. It was really thick. It may have looked fine on camera but it looked ridiculous when you were close to him. And so things weren’t all that busy at Digby when I was there but now as I say there were, there were just this Canadian squadron was just being formed. It was bitterly cold weather then but obviously got in thick and one of the things that surprised me was we used to have to put heaters in the planes to stop them freezing. I don’t know why because they always had ethylene glycol in the tank. Anti-freeze. But however, they had these heaters to go under the engine and another one under the cockpit and the fitters always looked after the heater. And one day I noticed on the notice board, it said, “In future the flight mechanics will not do any servicing to the catalytic heaters.” They will — “This will be carried out by a specialist.” And then a bit further down, “The specialist will be AC Fisher.” And I I don’t know one end of them from the other [laughs] I have no reason why I would know anything more about them but the following day someone came and collared me after I’d finished my breakfast and said, ‘I’m taking you to —’ I think it was to Colerne. Another Air Force station, ‘Where you are going to get a day’s instruction on catalytic heaters.’ So, I went there for a day and on the strength of that I, I was then inspecting them. But it was quite a good job because it was bitterly cold weather and when all the mechanics were bringing the heaters off the planes they were still quite warm so I had my little part quite, quite heated. So —
GT: Fascinating. Well, those Canadians should have been used to the cold weather, wouldn’t they?
TF: Well, yes. So, and then I was supposed to have them all ready for early evening to go back in having been checked over and refuelled and such like.
GT: So you became a bit of a specialist on the base then. Very good. So how long did you stay with 417 and where did you go from there?
TF: I stayed with 417, not very long. I stayed with them for I suppose getting [pause] we moved about, about the Easter of the following year up to a place in Scotland called Tain. But I always remember that because I’d been out and when I came in he sort of said, ‘Oh. We’re moving and you’re on the advanced party. You’ve got to leave tomorrow.’ And I said, ‘Well, where are we going?’ ‘I’ve never heard of it.’ But it was quite a journey up from, from Somerset up to the north of Scotland.
GT: So that was about Easter 1942.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: Be about there. And how long did it take to move the squadron up there?
TF: Well, quite a while in a way. We went up and funnily enough the weather was beautiful. We were sitting out most of the time waiting for the planes arriving and of course they were being flown up. And it was probably two or three days and then things just, were just continued there and then things started to change. We got issued with tropical uniforms and it was, the Canadian boys went on embarkation leave and one half at a time and then there’s the other half and it never occurred to me to query why we didn’t get any embarkation leave. But however, I just thought we were going. I had all the gear. The kit. And somebody came in one day and rattled a few names out and said, ‘You’ll not be going with the squadron. You’ll remain here and look after the planes and they are always to be available at about half an hour’s readiness.’ And so the squadron moved off to the Middle East and about half a dozen of us stayed behind and gave the planes a check over every day and ran the engines up to full boost and and there was nothing else to do. It was absolutely very boring. But luckily for me I came in to our hut one day and there were one of the boys looking really miserable and I thought he’d had bad news from home, and I said, ‘What’s wrong.’ He said, ‘I’ve been posted.’ I thought, oh, lucky you. ‘Where are, where are you going?’ He said, ‘I’m going to Inverness but I’m all by myself. I’ve got to go all by myself to Inverness.’ I thought, ‘What a dreadful thing to happen. Would you like me to go instead?’ He said, ‘Ahum.’ I said, ‘Well, look, let’s go to the orderly room and see if we can get it changed.’ So I went down. I said, ‘Was the posting by name or just for a flight mechanic?’ And he said, ‘Just for a flight mechanic.’ I said, ‘Can you change that name to T Fisher?’ And he said, ‘Yes, but mind you you’ve got to go in the morning.’ Everything in the Air Force was wanted to be done yesterday but then you do nothing for about six weeks and then again its a rush. And so I went down to Inverness and that was the best thing I ever did in the Air Force actually. I’d only been there a week or two when the, it was a tiny little station and it was 14 Group Headquarters Communication Flight and they called the station Longman. And I [pause] and then while I was there there was a notice came out and the CO called a little parade of flight mechanics. There would have been about possibly twelve of us altogether of riggers and fitters and he said, ‘I’ve got a communication from the Air Ministry and they would like flight mechanics to volunteer to become flight mechanic air gunners. So, ‘And if you would volunteer will you take a pace forward.’ So I duly took a pace forward and if I hadn’t the others took a pace back which would have left me standing at the front. And he said, ‘You’d better come and see me this afternoon.’ So I went to see him and he said, ‘What on earth made you want to be a flight mechanic air gunner? Is it because you wanted to fly?’ And to be quite frank I felt like saying if the Air Force hadn’t have such silly names for people calling people a pilot officer and he might never have, never a pilot at all and a flight mechanic that doesn’t fly.’ So, but however you don’t talk to COs like that so I said, ‘Yes. Because —’ He said, ‘Well, why on earth didn’t you join as a pilot?’ I said, ‘Well, the main reason is that the recruiting officer said flight mechanics were wanted more.’ I said, ‘But I also knew that pilots have to have a flying, had to have a school leaving certificate and I don’t have one.’ He said, ‘Well, that is true. You have to have a school leaving certificate but no one will ever ask to see it.’ So I thought oh, this is [pause] ‘So, in that case I’m recommending you for training as a pilot.’ So, in the fullness of time I, we got sent for to go down for a selection board which was held in Edinburgh. So I went down to Edinburgh. I was told to book myself in somewhere for a few days and I went down to Edinburgh and had this. And the first thing I noticed was we went in to a big room and there was a blackboard and somebody came in and whipped a cover off the blackboard and says, ‘You’ve got one hour to write an essay on the —’ And there was a choice of two or three subjects. So, I got that over and then there was a few tests like Morse aptitude test, another eyesight test, then a night vision test and then the next day had another paper handed out and it was a maths. An hour of maths. And at the end of all that there was an interview. Oh, no, after that there was a medical. And I thought that was when I was going to fail. We had to blow up a tube of mercury and I thought my lungs were going to burst and I just shut my eyes and blew and blew and blew and blew. And then I heard a voice say, ‘Alright, you’ve done it.’ And, ‘You’ve passed the aircrew medical and now you go for the Board.’ And we knew some of the questions you would automatically be asked about, ‘Why do you want to fly?’ And I was always amused because in the sort of Aircrew Association magazine that I used to get later people used to say what they’d always said to things but you knew full well they would never have said it. ‘Well, because if I’m got to go to war I’d like to do it sitting down.’ And so, another one, ‘Because you get more money.’ And so on. Anyhow, I knew neither of those would really have been what they said. So, I I said, ‘Why didn’t you join then?’ Well, I couldn’t very well say, ‘Because I don’t have a school leaving certificate.’ So I said, ‘Because I was told the flight mechanics were urgently needed.’ And so a few things and then the other thing that always puzzled me they set such a store on, ‘What sport did you play?’ So and for some reason we all knew that what they wanted to hear was that you played rugby. They didn’t want to hear you played Association Football. But as it happened I was never any good at any sports so I couldn’t. Netball, I would go the opposite way to what I wanted to go and I had never managed to bowl anybody out at cricket so I was absolutely no good. But however, I thought well, there’s no good saying that so I sort of said that, [pause] ‘Did you not play for your school?’ And I said [laughs] ‘No. The school I went to was in the middle of a large town. It had no playing fields.’ However, we did used to go to the swimming baths regularly and I said that I was also a very keen member of the Scouts Association Swimming Club which meant you could get in the baths for tuppence instead of three pence or something on certain nights. So that seemed to satisfy them. And, and then a few more questions and then I was told they would, I would be recommended but they explained that you no longer could you be a pilot. You had to agree to be a PNB which meant you would be a pilot, navigator or a bomb aimer but you all got the same pay and you all had exactly the same and you were all equally important. That was always stressed. And so I went back and just waited to be sent for again. And this was about three months must have elapsed before they sent for me so there was no urgency. And I went to Aircrew Reception Centre at London which I didn’t like at all. I never did care for, I never cared for London and that was the only thing I really remember about it was going for a long run through some of the London parks and to then, I thought that was the PT part. But no, you then started to stop in certain places and do exercises. And that night I was on fire watching which meant I was sleeping on the top bunk of a two decked bunk and only had to get up if there was, if the sirens had gone. Had to watch for where bombs had fallen. And when I leapt out of bed for my turn my legs just buckled up. I think with the unaccustomed exercise I couldn’t even stand [laughs] never mind run. It took me ages before I was able to walk again. And anyhow, I finished there and most people went up to Scarborough to do their ITW training but instead of going there I was sent to Cambridge and went to Pembroke College which was rather nice. I was quite pleased about that. And when we finished there we did an awful lot of law. Military. It’s Air Force law and administration. Civil law. And we did meteorology which is understandable and, but and then there was the exams at the end and, and then if you, you never knew who had passed and who hadn’t because if people hadn’t passed something they just were whisked away. You never saw them. You couldn’t see anything. Speak to them even. Anyhow, I then moved down to a little airfield called Sywell, near Nottingham and learned to fly on Tiger Moths which was quite, I thought that was great. To sit in a little plane and push the throttle forward to get more power and pull the stick back a bit and I’m actually flying now, you know. And that was fine for two or three days but then they started to have to do spins and loops and oh dear and I was just felt absolutely ill with that. Oh, I felt horrible. And anyhow, I stuck it out for the training and then the chief instructor gave us all test flight and he told me that he didn’t think I was going to be suitable for pilot training which I think I already knew [laughs] And so I I was then put down to be a bomb aimer. And from [pause] from there I went to Manchester but we didn’t do anything. It was just a question of waiting until we went out to Canada. And in the fullness of time I got on the Andes and it was quite a nice pleasant run and landed at, I think it was St Johns in Canada and went up to Nova Scotia. Not Nova Scotia. New Brunswick. And then eventually down to Ontario for a bombing and gunnery course. And I always remember the first time we flew. The pilot said, ‘It’s just a wind finding exercise, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Well, how about if we do it over Niagara Falls?’ Oh, I thought. That’s great. And, you know, that sort of thing. Gosh. I never ever thought I would be sitting here flying over Niagara Falls. And so, I finished there and then went on to Number 1 Air Observer’s School which was mainly for navigation and flew quite, trips out across the Great Lakes and navigated about Canada and quite, quite pleasant really. And it was much easier than doing it over here because there was no blackouts so if you saw a train going along with lights on you think well there should be a railway line near here. Well, yes that must be it. Where here there are so many trains you don’t know where you were going. And towns were all lit up so again that was good, everything was easy, quite pleasant and a plentiful supply of everything. And, and we used to spend most weekends going down to America. And so I was quite, quite happy time to be there. And eventually we finished training and the great day arrived when we could get our flying badge and it was quite a do. They assembled the whole, the whole of the station and the courses passing out which in this case was us would be in the middle and you would hear your name read out and we were all forever being told you put, you have your white flash very loose in your hat so it can be easily plucked out and you hear your name which in my case was Sergeant Fisher, Sunderland, England. And the next might be Sergeant Jones of Winnipeg, Canada. So we went and stepped forward and some air marshall picks out, plucks out the white flash and someone hands him a flying badge and pinned it in and then you give him a salute and walk away. And there was the band playing, and a marquees with a buffet meal laid out and they made quite a do of it.
GT: Was the course you were on, Tom was it a mixture of of English, Canadian, New Zealand, Australian? The people —
TF: Mostly when I was there they were about fifty fifty English and Canadian. I don’t think there was, I don’t know if there was any Australian although we did see, there were quite a few Australians waiting to go on courses when we were waiting at Manchester to go over to Canada. So, there were obviously some Australians would go.
GT: That was the Commonwealth Training Scheme.
TF: Yes.
GT: Because the majority of New Zealand and Australian aircrew went through that scheme before they headed off through to England. So it’s interesting to hear you actually went the other way to so this training scheme to go back to England. So, when you finished that training and you were given the half brevet of observer or bomb aimer.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: Which one?
TF: Well, it was really what we used to be called observer and that went out of fashion and bomb aimer, but bomb aimer had also become much more of a navigating. And when I went on to bombers they used to work in conjunction with the, we had a navigator and one of us would operate one radar set. I think I used to do the Gee and he used to do H2S and —
GT: So, for your time then in Canada how long did you spend overall and then what was the dates and year that you got back to England?
TF: I would say slightly less than a year overall there. A lot of that time was hanging about mind. When I was at Moncton we weren’t doing, we weren’t, it wasn’t, they were just waiting to go somewhere else. Then there was two weeks leave when I went to New York and then back to Moncton to wait for a ship to bring us back home again. So, the actual time was getting on for a year altogether.
GT: When you were in the USA what was the feeling like about the war and obviously they recognised you guys because you were all in our English RAF uniforms or did you change in to civilians and try to keep yourself —
TF: No. No. We always wore our uniforms and we didn’t have passports. It was quite sufficient to have your identity card in your pocket when they came around at the front of you. They would just look at that and went across. There was no bother. It was really quite pleasant actually because the Americans were really really good. It was not unusual to go in to a restaurant for a meal when you asked for the bill or as they would always call it the check, you would always get oh its been paid for. Or someone to come in the bar and produce a tray of drinks on your table and say, with the gentleman, ‘With the compliments of that gentleman in the corner.’ And yes. They thought we were marvellous you see. But —
GT: What were the American ladies like? Did you get to go out to the nightclubs or the —
TF: Yes.
GT: Dances. Dine and dances.
TF: Yes. No problem at all like. I always remember going to one and as soon as I got in this girl came up and said, ‘Are you with or without?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m without.’ She said, ‘With now.’[laughs]. But, oh yes, there was never any problem on that score.
GT: Because you know the Americans were over in England [laughs]
TF: Yes, I know, and I think we to a large extent were treated the same as the way they were. Only of course they had lots of goodies to give away and such like but there was no need for that anyhow in America. There was plenty of things. But yes they were. They were very very interested to know what we were doing. Oh, it was a sort of a wonderful time. I used to, it was only a Friday evening we used to get a train from Toronto down over the border to Detroit. And, and what really happened was a terrific contrast because in Canada you cannot get drinks other than coke. There was no, no bars you can’t get a drink in restaurants and its quite, quite strict on that score but you could just cross over the border. And even in Niagara in the American part there’s nightclubs and business going on all night. In the Canadian half it shuts down quite, no where to go drinking and things like that.
GT: So you were about twenty years old by this time.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: You had yet to have your twenty first to come. Right. And so, when you finished in Canada you were all put on another ship back to Britain.
TF: Yes.
GT: Was it part of a convoy or was the ship fast enough to avoid the U-boats?
TF: The ship, it wasn’t a convoy. None of them were in convoy. It was reckoned it would be fast enough but if by any chance it got torpedoed it would have been terrible because it was so crowded. It was a very big ship. The Mauretania and it was, oh, I was absolutely appalled when we went on and they gave us a hammock. I says, ‘Go to sleep in a hammock?’ And it’s and I realised afterwards we were lucky to have hammocks to sleep in. At least we were in the top half as well where there was a bit more air and such like. It was so crowded they could only give, there was plenty of food but they could only give us two meals a day because they just, you know there wasn’t the space. They couldn’t fit any more in to the dining rooms.
GT: So how long was that journey? Two weeks?
TF: No. About a week each way.
GT: Brilliant. So, when you got back to England what happened to you then?
TF: Well, they sent us up to Harrogate for, for a very short while and then we came home on leave for two weeks. I went back to Harrogate and we stayed there for a few, a few weeks again and then for some strange reason I went up to Whitley Bay to do what they called a survival course and it always puzzled me why I was picked. Nobody else on the course went with me. I just went up to Whitley Bay and I was a bit appalled actually because when I got there I was issued with khaki battledress and great thick heavy army boots and we spent a lot of time running about on, on the beach and the purpose really was to try and show us how we could survive on stuff you could find on beaches. Sort of, you know I think I’d rather just die than eat some of this stuff to be quite frank. But, and I always thought it was funny to think that we were marching around like a lot of little soldiers during the, during the day and in the evening we went back to our billets. We were in sort of houses in, not, they weren’t people living in them but the houses had been sort of commandeered and they were empty and they just put beds and a few tables and things in for us and we changed to our Air Force uniform and go down to a dance. And I often thought I wonder if people realised we were, and also of course we were very proud of our new flying badges but then again in the morning we were back again in to this khaki uniform. But I flatly refused to wear Army boots. But on the other hand it was a bit awkward because we still wore those funny little gators and there was a gap between the top of my shoes and the [laughs] and the gator. So if you ran through a stream your feet were absolutely soaking wet. But anyhow, it was only a short course and when that was finished of all places I came up here to Heathhall.
GT: And that was a posting that that you asked for or was it just something you were told to go to?
TF: It was just something we went to. It was called Number 10 Advanced Flying Unit. And it was flying Avro Ansons and it wasn’t bad. It was quite pleasant really. We used to fly over the Irish Sea and over to Ireland and the Isle of Man and such like and a lot of, a lot of little cross countries and such like and [laughs] I never thought at the time that I would be living so near to, to Heathhall.
GT: So, what year was this? What month and year? Can you remember?
TF: Oh, we’re getting on for ’44 now I would think.
GT: And what was your role to be doing at this with the Ansons? You were still training? Or did you teach others?
TF: Navigating. Navigating and [pause] mostly navigating but we did, did drop practice bombs and actually it was part of the targets, one of the targets we used was, is still visible through the, through the, you can see the base of it and usually I had a cross country flight and then come back and we’d go, go and drop bombs. Six bombs from different directions over. It was either there or Luce Bay and and I think that was mainly what we did here at Heathhall. And then from there I got posted up to Lossiemouth and that’s where we were told we would have to find, sort yourself out in to crews.
GT: Oh, what, what base was that at? Sorry you went to the Lossiemouth base.
TF: Lossiemouth.
GT: Ok.
TF: Ah huh. It was an Operational Training Unit.
GT: Ok.
TF: I think we were number 20 OTU and, and we were in a way sort of lucky there because we were told we would have to form crews and from what I’d understood with most people the whole collection of aircrew was put in to a hangar and told to, ‘Sort yourselves in to crews and if you haven’t formed yourselves in to crews in an hour we’ll just come and put you in.’ But we were told to sort yourselves out in to crews and you’ve got a week to get that done. So just get to know each other in the bar, in the mess and get, get to know each other and and see what happens. And the second day over there I was [unclear] I was going to have a drink before the lunch break and there was a flying officer and a flight sergeant came in and they came straight across to me and one said, ‘Oh, I’m John and this is Eric. Eric’s my navigator and we would like you to join us as bomb aimer.’ And I thought well he’s a flying officer. That’s not bad. He must have some experience. So I readily agreed and I discovered afterwards that why he had had experience they’d kept him on as an instructor. So I felt quite confident we’d got a good pilot.
GT: Yeah.
TF: And then during that time we collected a rear gunner and a wireless operator and that meant five of us in the crew and we were now on Wellingtons and but [pause] And then after a little while the, for some strange reason again we were posted down to Moreton in Marsh and we were now told we were going to join Tiger Force.
GT: Now, you earlier mentioned it was 1944. So, by this time when did you get posted to 20 OTU in Lossiemouth?
TF: I was posted to 20 OTU in Lossiemouth and then from Lossiemouth posted to 21 OTU at Moreton in Marsh.
GT: But what year was that please, Tom?
TF: Oh, we were getting on for ’45 then, I guess.
GT: So you spent quite a bit of time training within the UK once you got back from Canada.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: On the Ansons, wasn’t it? I was just thinking back to the time you spent down here training on the Ansons. So how long did you spend on bomb aimer training with the Anson aircraft?
TF: The Bomb aimer training at?
GT: With the Ansons you were, you were bombing off of here somewhere. So —
TF: At here they were Ansons, ah huh.
GT: There’s quite a few months for you doing that.
TF: Probably, I don’t think it was a long time, probably about four months.
GT: And that took you in to early 1945. Wow.
TF: It would be getting on for that. Around that time. Ah huh.
GT: So, you, you were aware at the time with your crew that the war was closing. It was coming to an end.
TF: I don’t think we were actually. I don’t think we were. I don’t think. I don’t think we knew very much beyond our own immediate little —
GT: Right.
TF: No. I don’t think. We’d heard obviously you heard on the radios, news reels and you saw newsreels in cinema but I don’t think we were actually aware that it was getting so near finishing.
GT: Because it’s a long time to be spending doing your training when —
TF: It is an awful long time. Yes. But of course. there was such an awful long time of waiting in between. Sort of from Pembroke College, Cambridge to Flying School was straight off but then Flying School to going out to Canada to do really the next part of your training there was about three four maybe six weeks in Manchester. A week on the ship and two or three weeks at Moncton in Canada. All we always kept doing something but there was nothing to do with our, with training. It wasn’t until we got down to the Bombing and Gunnery School that you started to realise it and you also realised these were the only places they were giving us any tests at the end to make sure you’d, you got through. The others were just filling time in.
GT: So, when you crewed up at 20 OTU Lossiemouth did you do any flying there or did you go straight down south?
TF: I don’t recollect doing much in the way of flying Lossiemouth. I think we went down to, to Moreton in Marsh.
GT: That was 21 OTU.
TF: 21 OTU. Yes.
GT: Ok. So, and you did flying time there then.
TF: Yes. We did quite, oh we did a lot of flying time there and it made you wonder what we’d all been trained for first because now all the methods that we’d been doing were hardly used because there there was radar and you had a new type of bombsight. The Mark 14. The old one you used to have to watch for your target coming up between two wires and it looked like a really primitive thing. It was, it looked a bit like a compass and then an arm sticking out and you had to just search for the, find the target. Yes. I think. Give the pilot instructions. ‘Left. Left.’ Which incidentally if you wanted him to go to the left it was always, ‘Left. Left.’ And if it was right it was always just, ‘Right.’ So if he heard two he would know it was left. And gave him instructions and always one that, don’t do any last minute corrections because a bomb will always go in the direction the plane’s going. So if he’s moving to the left the bomb will just go over to the left and not to where you wanted it to go. And so yes it was [pause] but now we had a thing, which just shone across on the ground. And you just had to direct the pilot to get so that that cross went, the long arm went up over the target and when he reached the cross piece that was when you pressed the button and it released a bomb.
GT: So was it, ‘Bombs gone.’ ‘Bombs away.’
TF: Oh, ‘Bombs gone, yes.’
GT: ‘Bombs gone, skipper’
TF: But yes, it was usually something like we do sort of working out in your settings and wind speeds and all that and then said, ‘Bomb doors open.’ Because the pilot would open the bomb doors and then you would then say, ‘Number one and two selected and fused, nose and tail. Because if you dropped a bomb before it’s fused it doesn’t explode. Or so they say [laughs] I wouldn’t know.
GT: So, with the arming of your weapons you had a selection panel to choose and you already knew what bomb load you had. Is that correct?
TF: Well, you would. Yes. Because it’s got to be, it’s better if it goes out evenly and not all at one side first when it’s fused and you always had to select and fuse and then you —
GT: So those fuse setting that you, you then set the bombs before you released them was that given to you as part of your briefing before. Before you were to leave for an operation or was that something you chose when you were there for the, during the flight. The fuse settings for the bombs where did they come from?
TF: They were put on by the armourer.
GT: Yeah.
TF: And —
GT: So you knew the fuse settings before you took off.
TF: Well, it was just a switch.
GT: Good. Ok.
TF: And, and apparently we would [give them away] was because they would be left hanging on the thing. If there were little things left hanging on the bomb rack they would drop them without the fuses being set.
GT: Right. So that, that’s your arming wire which is selected to the, to the micro switch on the aircraft. So, you set the micro switches to hold the arming wire. As the bomb fell away wire came out of, out of the nose fuse and allowed the spinning propeller to arm the fuse of the bomb. Yeah. Good stuff. Ok. So, so Tom then once you moved down to 21 OTU that must have been pretty much near the end of the war.
TF: It would be because it was when you say 21 OTU. When we finished, we finished our training on 21 OTU and then we moved up to I think it was 16 I can recall 1630 or 1830 Heavy Conversion Unit.
GT: And what aircraft did you convert from the Wellington to that?
TF: From the Wellington to the Lancaster.
GT: Lancaster Mark 4 or Mark 3s generally. The Merlin engine.
TF: Merlin engines. Yes. Four Merlin engines which lots of people blame for having hearing aids in later life but —
GT: That’s a point to ask you, Tom. For your hearing protection. You didn’t have any hearing protection.
TF: Didn’t have any at all. And it wasn’t just in the, in the, in with four Merlins in the Lancaster but running the Spitfires up on the ground to maximum boost. There were no other. It can’t have done the ears any good at all. But to go back to Lancasters we’d now collected two more in the crew making it up to seven. A flight engineer and a mid-upper gunner.
GT: And, and that was and at what base were you at, Tom?
TF: North Luffenham.
GT: North Luffenham. So, now, now the war had finished you mentioned Tiger Force early on.
TF: Yeah.
GT: So, can, I know what Tiger Force was. Can you describe to me what you knew of Tiger Force at that time?
TF: Well, I just knew that we were going to go to Japan and I also know, quite vividly remember being to keep, we were going to have a little capsule of some sort of poison sewn in our, in the collar of our battle dress. We were told that if you get shot down the choice is yours. You can either be taken prisoner or you can bite the end of your battle dress off and take that.
GT: Cyanide probably.
TF: It was poison. Yes.
GT: Ok. So you were training on, on the Lancasters at this time. Had the atomic bombs been dropped?
TF: No.
GT: No. Ok, so you were, with this training in Tiger Force did they mention the Lincoln bombers to come?
TF: I’d heard of them. I didn’t know what they were but, particularly what they were though but I did read afterwards that the British government and the American government had come to an agreement that we would send out Tiger Force which would consist of twenty squadrons of Lancasters plus 1830 Heavy Conversion Unit. Why that I don’t know but that was what we were on so we knew full well we were going to, to go out.
GT: There was quite a numerous amount of squadrons of Mosquitoes to go as well I understand from the Tiger Force —
TF: I would think. I would think so because the Mosquito was a fantastic aeroplane.
GT: Certainly. So, they actually stated to you you were going to be going to Japan or bombing Japan.
TF: Well, I suppose we’d be bombing Japan first, isn’t it? No. There were, one or two places were mentioned but I don’t think it was officially. Officially mentioned.
GT: So how many flights did you do then in preparation for that? Because VE Day had happened.
TF: VE day had happened. Yes. And it sort of quite regular really. I might also mention earlier on when we were on OTU on Wellingtons that one night there was somebody extra seemed to get in. Come on wearing a flying suit so you couldn’t see what he was or what his rank was but he was an extra person came along that night. And the following morning we found we were no longer had a radio operator in the crew. [pause] He’d, he’d been taken out and that was the Air Force way of doing things. You know, no chance to say cheerio or anything. It was just [pause] I’m assuming that he wasn’t up to scratch and he just disappeared and later in the day we just got a new one.
GT: Did you have any, any idea that some of your crew members were unhappy or couldn’t take the strain? Or —
TF: No. No idea at all.
GT: And at this time you had done no overseas operational bombing —
TF: No.
GT: Sorties at that time.
TF: No.
GT: Because —
TF: No, it was very shortly, we’d only been crewed up and flying for two or three times. That apparently is the RAF way of doing it. I think they thought it might be bad for morale. They just —
GT: Were you made aware at the time of LMF? Lack of moral fibre.
TF: Of any —
GT: Lack of moral fibre. Were you aware of that term?
TF: Not an awful lot. I think I heard more of it afterwards. I think it was a disgusting thing. We knew of its existence but I suppose you always adopted the attitude of well it wouldn’t happen to me, would it?
GT: But you were a volunteer. All of you blokes were volunteers. Right?
TF: Yes.
GT: And they still treated you quite badly at that.
TF: It was, it was dreadful.
GT: Someone couldn’t keep it going. Ok. I’m assuming then that your navigator was, was removed from flying status because of his supposed lack of moral fibre and the way you described it. Would that be fair?
TF: Well, I think it possibly, could be that he was. Just wasn’t efficient enough with his, it was the radio operator. I think it could be just that he wasn’t in it. But I don’t know whether [unclear] would have anything to do with it but I did know that he was only member I knew in the aircrew that was married.
GT: Ok. Maybe he was removed so the war was finishing and they only wanted single, single men.
TF: It could be.
GT: Yeah.
TF: But there was no reason given. It’s just he flew with us one night and then we never saw him again.
GT: Right. So, when you did your training through on OTU and then on the HCU did you do any practice bomb dropping from the Wellingtons and then the Lancasters?
TF: Just practice.
GT: Just practice. Yeah. And how many hours have you accrued then for daylight and night time. Can you remember the flying hours you had done?
TF: It wasn’t a great lot.
GT: Now, Wellington. The Heavy Conversion Unit at that time is that pretty much where you much finished because you didn’t go to Lancaster Finishing School at all?
TF: No. That was one of the things that always puzzled me. Why didn’t we go to a Lancaster Finishing School like other people? But I realised afterwards it was because we did all of it on Lancasters. The others that went to Lancaster Finishing School went on to Stirlings and Halifaxes and then just did a short time on Lancasters but we did the whole of Heavy Conversion on Lancasters.
GT: Intriguing because most of the LFS Schools, Number 3 at Feltwell, for instance most of the 75 Squadron aircrew that I’ve talked with and seen their logbooks they only did four flights. Four to five flights in one week from a Stirling and then straight on to Lancaster. So, so you did, you did the full, that’s huge. Ok. So then, then came VJ day for you guys.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: And did flying pretty much cease because you were preparing for Tiger Force to get going to the Japan region.
TF: Well, that was to say rather strange. What happened in my case was just before VJ Day I was told I had to go and see the CO. And I went to see him and he said, ‘Your demob’s going to be coming up shortly.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not surprised,’ I said. I said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘My job actually is to persuade you to sign on.’ He says, ‘Now, you could. If you were, the best thing you could do you know would be to sign on for twenty one years. You’ve done five years. Twenty one years you’ll be thirty nine. Eighteen when you joined. Twenty one years. Thirty nine. You’ll retire on a pension at thirty nine.’ Which sounds very nice but it was going to be only a very small pension anyhow. But anyway, I thought well I don’t think the peacetime Air Force is for me. I think, I always think of the words of a PT or drill instructor and he had a gathering of us to take for a PT session early one morning. Our names appeared on the notice board to attend for PT and we all knew it was because we’d done some minor infringement of rules and regulations and we, I went down and I had my PT kit on and I had a sweater or something on top. It was a bit chilly. And a lot of the Canadians, well they were mostly Canadians actually and most of them were commissioned and they came down in overcoats for the PT, so he said, well of course as you realise he had to be reasonably polite. He couldn’t speak as if they were just, ‘Hey you,’ do this or do that. He said, ‘Could you take your overcoats off?’ ‘Oh, no.’ ‘No? Why not?’ ‘It’ll be cold.’ He said, ‘Well, you can’t do PT in overcoats.’ ‘Well, we could try.’ [laughs] And he got really exasperated and said, ‘It’ll be a good job when this war’s over and we can have a proper Air Force without all this flying.’ And I thought my goodness an Air Force without flying. Does he think the Air Force’s main purpose is to do PT and march about and things like that? No. The peacetime Air Force wouldn’t be for me.
GT: So, he swayed your decision to sign on further. Yeah. So, so you that chap was asking you to carry on as a bomb aimer.
TF: Yes.
GT: After the war.
TF: And, after the war and he says or you could just sign on for six months. And I thought well what’s the point.? I’ve, you know I’ve got to adjust now to going back to Civvy Street. I’m not staying in the Air Force. I’m quite sure of that. I could not possibly put up with the peacetime. I could imagine it. Marching here and marching there. Life was so free and easy and things and also it was, they would probably be a little bit more strict on the visions of class. You know. I mean, in the aircrew when we’d done a, whether your crew were officers or sergeants you all went in for a meal the same, in the mess at the same time having, and we all used to use the same mess. It was all, you know nobody did any different but I should think that changed in peacetime. And so I said, ‘No. I don’t think I will.’ And then he said, ‘Well, if you won’t sign on you won’t do any more flying.’ And I thought is this man crazy? They’ve spent thousands of pounds training me in two years or so. Training me for this and now because I won’t sign on [pause] and I just cannot stand sort of being threatened like that. It just, that was just enough. So, I said, ‘Well, in that case I don’t do any more flying. So, later that day we were down for night flying and I went along to the, the briefing room and there was the board for tonight’s crews. And there was a sort of list down the side of the pilot’s names and the list along of the crew and I looked down. Flying Officer Jorgenson. Navigator Flight Sergeant Stobes, bomb aimer — it should have said Flight Sergeant Fisher. It had been rubbed out. And I was absolutely appalled. I didn’t think he really would have done it that quickly. I was really really annoyed and so, oh well that’s it. I don’t. So I did nothing for two or three days and then I thought well, I think I might as well go home for all the good I’m doing here. So I did. And then I started to worry about it a bit. You know, you’re being rather stupid if you get, if they discover you. You’d probably lose your stripes and crown and your demob pay would go way down. Way down. So you’d better go back. So I went back and at the same time I was relieved but at the same time it was not good for your ego to know that nobody had ever missed you. And anyhow, I went and saw the adjutant and said, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ He said, ‘What do you mean what do you do?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not flying now.’ He said, ‘Well, whose crew were you in?’ And I told him. He looked up some records, he says, ‘That was a few weeks ago.’ ‘Oh yes. Yes.’ He said, ‘What have you done since then?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m waiting for a job.’ He says, ‘You mean you’ve sat on your behind and done nothing.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’ He said, ‘I don’t see how else you can put it.’ Anyhow, he said, ‘Come in the office next to me and you can sort of help me. You can be a sort of assistant adjutant.’ So that’s what I did. But I didn’t like it at all.
GT: So, there was no other aircrew. Had the same thing happened to them? Did he just single you out or was it common across —
TF: Well, no. There was no more but as it happened after I had [unclear] him up for about forty years later and I got a telephone call and he mind, sort of said, ‘Am I speaking to Mr Fisher?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Thomas Fisher?’ ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Were you in the RAF?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You used to like to spend your weekends at Cheltenham.’ And I said, ‘As it happens I did but how do you know all this?’
GT: Yeah. And what happened?
TF: And he said, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘One final. One final question. Were you in Yorgeys crew?’ We always called him, he was always, his name was Jorgenson. He was always known as Yorgey. And I said, ‘Well, yes. Yes, but who are you?’ He said, ‘Well, I’m Frank, the wireless operator,’ he says, ‘And I’ve set myself a task of when I retired I was going to trace all the crew so that we could have, and see if we could have a reunion.’ And he said, I said, ‘How have you traced me? I live in Scotland now. I’ve moved from the North of England.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m with Scotland Yard and you must remember I’m used to tracing people and most of them don’t want to be traced.’ So, he, he said, ‘Can you think of any of the other names?’ I said, ‘Well, how far have you got?’ He says, ‘Well, I’ve discovered that Johnny is, only lived about forty miles from me. So we’ve been together and you’re the next one.’ And eventually went through with the aid of a newspaper ad, an advertisement and eventually traced all the crew and we met up. All met up again at Woodhall Spa. It was amazing to see each other after an absence of [pause] this would be about 1990. An absence of about forty five years.
GT: So when you finished with, with the aircrew because as then flight sergeant you became deputy adjutant you didn’t keep in contact with your crew even though you were still the same?
TF: No. With actually, this was the first, I gather that VJ Day the crew, I mean I just couldn’t understand it. We’d worked together all this time and then we only did two more practice flights and then that was, that was it. They’d actually gone on a train to go down to an RAF station. I think it was in Cornwall and the RAF police boarded the train and singled them out and said, ‘Will you get off at the next station and return back to your base. You’re not wanted anymore.’ So that was only a matter of days before VJ Day was announced.
GT: Fascinating. That must have been really disappointing to spend all that time —
TF: It just struck me as so ridiculous to think all this training that I’d had and why split a crew up?
GT: And you were the only crew that you know of that this happened to.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: That recruiter, eh. He’s got a lot to answer for.
TF: And then in many ways I was certainly glad I didn’t sign on because it wasn’t very long before bomb aimers were redundant [pause] The aircrews, most aircrews were now restricted to two. Pilot and a navigator. Bomb aimers were not wanted. Air gunners were no longer wanted. Radio operators were no longer, were no longer needed after a while because the pilot doesn’t need, you don’t need to use Morse Code anymore. You can speak plain language over hundreds of miles.
GT: Mind you, you’d been given a lot of navigator training so most navigators later received bomb aiming training.
TF: Could possibly. Possibly I had about that. But there was hundreds of us. Thousands in fact, I suppose.
GT: The UK was awash with airmen wanting to do something.
TF: And then just finally I got a bit fed up working in, just in the office and I asked the adjutant if I could, I thought well, perhaps I could go and learn to drive. That would be more sense. And —
GT: So up to this point you’d never driven a vehicle.
TF: Never driven at all. No.
GT: Aged twenty one. Going on twenty two.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: Yeah.
TF: No. I mean there must have been hundreds of us learned to fly a plane before we learned to drive a car. And he says, ‘Well, I could send you to Catterick and they’ll give you some tests and see what your suitable for.’ So I went to Catterick [laughs] and I had, I don’t know what these tests were. How they were worked out but and then in the central, he said, ‘I’ve got the result of your test and it appears you would be ideal for training as a butcher and cook.’ I said, ‘You are joking surely.’ And I can’t really, don’t believe what I was hearing. I had been, I was told I was suitable to train as a flight mechanic which is a higher grading. And then I was training as a bomb aimer navigator and now I’m just suitable to be a butcher. And that’s the one thing I could not stand was the sight of raw meat. And I said, ‘Well, that is out of the question. I just will not do that.’ He says, ‘Well, what would you do?’ I said, ‘Well, learn driving. He said, ‘Well, there’s no vacancies.’ He did try I must admit. ‘No vacancies in any driving school but I could send you to a transport company and you could do local training.’ So I did get transferred to this but I never did any training out there at all. What I was used for was to fill in gaps where people were away. If they were short of. Although I wasn’t an officer I would often do a parade and I would take part as orderly officer or something. Whenever they were a bit short I filled in for that. And then eventually I just got demobbed. But I was just so, to think I’d had blooming tests and now it turned out I would have been better off as a butcher.
GT: That’s crazy. So did you follow up and look at the medals that you were entitled for your war service?
TF: Just, I was just entitled to the, what everybody was. The Defence Medal and the, the war —
GT: The ‘39/45 Star.
TF: Star. Ah huh.
GT: And, and did you send in to have them? Received them?
TF: I did take them.
GT: And you’ve got them now.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: You’ve still got them.
TF: Ah huh. Incidentally I’ve got a photo here of the crew.
GT: Oh ok.
[pause]
GT: Perhaps you can, I’ll tell you what we’ll finish the interview first there.
TF: Ok.
GT: And let’s have a look at those soon. But so from, from your time of being demobbed, Tom you obviously didn’t go the butcher route. So, what did you end up doing in your new civilian life?
TF: Well, I had two things in mind. I was, one of the things that I thought I might have, might have had some help on instead of doing this silly business saying I could be a butcher or something I thought if they might have told us what grants were available for what training purposes. So, I had, when I was, before I joined I worked for my father as a, as a painter and decorator. So, I just went back to, to doing that and the Air Force and the government paid part of my wage because I’d left as an apprentice and there I was twenty two twenty three and I would not, I would expect better pay than [laughs] so they made up the difference. I can’t remember how long it was but they did it for so long and I sort of settled again and that. And then eventually I, I expect my father was getting a bit past it so I took over and I had quite a reasonable business. I got some quite some, quite good customers such as Lloyds Bank and I did quite a lot of decorating on hospitals and schools and things and, and then I also had a wallpaper and paint shop. And that, that was the rest of my, my life.
GT: That was here in Dumfries?
TF: No. It was in Sunderland.
GT: Oh, ok.
TF: But I [laughs] must say that the shop itself became a bit of a nuisance because the supermarkets, the Do it Yourself supermarkets were coming out. The price maintenance came off paint and wallpapers and so there was sort of cut price wars. And then to make things worse the shop got broken into twice. I got a bit fed up with hearing the telephone go in the middle of the night. ‘Something about your place. Can you get around?’ So this was including one practical joker who rang me up about 3 o’clock in the morning and said, ‘This is Sunderland Fire Brigade. ‘There’s a fire at your wallpaper shop. Can you get around?’ And I thought, oh no. ‘Yes.’ So I went back up to the bedroom and started to get dressed and my wife said, ‘What was that about?’ I said, ‘It’s just some fire. She said, ‘Well, ring the Fire Brigade.’ I said, ‘Well, that was the Fire Brigade that rang me.’ She said, ‘Well, how do you know?’ So, ‘I Don’t.’ So, I rang the Fire Brigade and they hadn’t phoned at all. It was just a hoax call trying to get me around in the middle of the night.
GT: They were going to wait for you huh? So you met a lady and you married and had children I guess.
TF: Yes.
GT: Can you give us a little bit of your, your fond memories of that time? Who is your wife and your children?
TF: Yes. Well, I I was sort of quite fond of going dancing and that seemed to be the way of meeting most people but and I met my wife at a, at a dance and I sort of had a few dances with her. One or two. And then they played, which was the custom in those days of the last dance was always a waltz and they usually sort of announces that, ‘Will you take your partners for the last waltz?’ Which, when that finished I said, ‘Well, I’ll sort of see you home.’ And she said, ‘Well, I live up at Grindon.’ And I thought that’s a bit far isn’t it? But she said, ‘I get a bus.’ I said, ‘Where do you get the bus from?’ Park Lane was the bus station. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I’ll go around that way.’ So, I went around that way and saw her on to the bus and arranged to see her again and then saw her two or three times and then it became quite a regular, a regular thing and and then that’s, we got married in 1950. And the problem was at that time was it was so difficult to get houses because with being so much bombing done at the places were instead of being streets of houses there were just streets of bomb sites and they were building new houses but the council where I lived in Sunderland would not allow any new houses to be built privately. Only council houses. And that was, created a problem. Well, firstly I didn’t want a council house and secondly you couldn’t get a council house until you’d had two children. So, so that’s how you fit that in was never explained. But eventually we, we looked at a few places and found somewhere we could live quite happily. I went, went in for it and I remember putting an offer in and the agents saying, ‘Well, mind I’m not having an auction, a Dutch Auction going on in my office, you know. If that’s your offer it has to be stick to that. If somebody comes along with better I’m not coming to see if you want to go any more.’ And then he added, ‘But I will place that offer before my client and I’ll advise her to accept it. And in a very short time I heard word that she had accepted and so we got well, the house if nothing else. And I got married in 1950. And, and I was sort of, you know having my own little business by then and, and then Julia and my other daughter came along and I think that was about it really, wasn’t it? I’d always wanted a wallpaper and paint shop and I just ran the business from my house you see and then someone sort of said he had one and he was retiring. He wanted to give it up, you know. He said would I like to take it and I said, ‘Yes. I think I’ll take it over. And and then we moved from where we were living until I was, just carried in until it was time to retire and my wife wanted to move somewhere else. She didn’t want to stay in Sunderland and I was quite happy there excepting I did get a bit fed up with having the shop broken into a couple of times but then I sold the shop anyhow. Then my house was broken into a couple of times and, and then I think I had my car broken into two or three times. So I thought well yes, I think I’ll agree. We’ll move. And my wife wanted to go down to Devon and, and I thought it’s nice. I like Devon. But I didn’t think I wanted to go that far the other end of the country you see. Anyhow, someone she knew suggested there was someone was building these houses just up this road and so we came through and had a look and decided to have one and I asked how much it would be. He said, ‘I’ll work you a price out.’ And this was in the middle of the summer and I always remember we got the price just as we were coming up to see you at Christmas. And so, after the Christmas we went, but unfortunately we couldn’t sell our other house it was just, so we had to let it go. So I had to ring the solicitor up and say we can’t go ahead with this and then the estate agents kept sending me a brochure and I looked at it one night when one came and I said, we’d sold our house in the meanwhile and I said [unclear] does this sound familiar to you, “In the village of Lonchinver, a three bedroom bungalow newly built. Just requires the purchaser to choose the bathroom and kitchen fittings.” That sounds like our house or what would have been our house and so I rang up and sure enough it was. So we came through to see it and it wasn’t quite like that. There was no walls up. It had a roof on but however we decided then we’d sort of decided we would move so we moved up over here. And that would be in nineteen, in 1991. So I’ve been here twenty six year now.
GT: Grandchildren?
TF: Two. One in Edinburgh and one in Aberdeen.
GT: Wow. Very good. And and in your retirement did you settle and golf, tennis, bowls?
TF: No. I I was never, never very keen on golf. No. I got, I bought a touring, a small touring caravan and we, we always went, we went once a year or two to a reunion and then went went away in the caravan about a month each year and a few weekends. And then I joined the Aircrew Association and they used to have some quite nice little breaks. About four day breaks. They were often connected with flying but not necessarily. Went down to Duxford for a few days. Up to the Scottish Memorial at East Fortune and Mildenhall.
GT: Was the Air Force Association something that was important to you after serving in the RAF?
TF: Not the Air Force Association itself but the Aircrew Association was. I suppose there were so many people in the Air Force Association and I did join actually. I more or less had to because they [laughs] they asked me to decorate their premises out and when they discovered that I’d been in the Air Force I really didn’t have any alternative but to join. But it wasn’t what I expected. It was merely a place to go and drink and a lot of the people they weren’t, hadn’t been in the Air Force anyhow. It was just, just a club to go drinking. But that wasn’t what I was looking for. But when I heard of the Aircrew Association I, it was a lady that my wife knew mentioned it and she said, ‘We have some really nice outings and get togethers. Why don’t you ask your husband if he wants to join?’’ So she mentioned it to me and then a few weeks later she said, ‘I’ll be seeing —' so and so, ‘This afternoon. What do I tell her? She’s sure to ask us if you would like to join.’ I said, ‘Tell her yes I would like to join. So, the following day a telephone call from the secretary and he said, ‘I understand you’re interested.’ I said, ‘Yes, I am.’ He said, ‘Yes, well. You were in the RAF.’ I said, ‘Oh yes, I definitely was.’ He said, ‘Do you know your number?’ I said, ‘Yes, I still know my number.’ And he said, ‘Were you aircrew? By that I mean not just did you fly but were you qualified?’ And I said, ‘Oh, yes.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll make enquiries and we’ll be in touch.’ And obviously went to find out whether or not I’d actually, the bloke finally came back and he said, [unclear] so, ‘Would you like to come to our Christmas lunch?’ Which I did do. And well, regular quite regular lunches. Often here or down at the Valley and in the, in Dumfries. And then there was a monthly meeting so that was a regular thing then. But no, I never went in for golf or tennis or anything like that.
GT: What about air shows? Do you still, do you still look at the different aircraft that the aircraft are flying today? Of any interest?
TF: Not really. Not the ones today. I’ve always been more interested in in the old ones. In fact, there’s the Heathhall Airfield still have an aircraft museum and we are going there on Sunday, aren’t we? But yeah.
GT: And have you been to East Kirkby or Hendon or Coningsby where the Lancaster is?
TF: Yes. I went over to Coningsby and I saw the Lancaster in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
GT: Fabulous. And —
TF: And that’s it. We were standing underneath it.
GT: Very good. So, your crew you mentioned that one of your crew members managed to get hold of you. So are your crew still about?
TF: No. I’m the only one left.
GT: You’re the last one surviving, eh?
TF: I’m the last one surviving. Ironically I was the oldest.
GT: Gosh. Yeah.
TF: I think at twenty two I was the old man of the crew.
GT: Do you think bomb aimer was was the job for you in the end? Did it work for you?
TF: It worked quite well yes. I mean. I quite, I would have been quite happy as a pilot but I realised that I was not in the position to be able if, if a plane got in to difficulties to get it out. Flying straight and level I could cope with quite well but if something happened you know I wouldn’t have been any use at all. And navigator? Well, bomb aimer and navigator were the same thing really. I think the only difference was the navigator did, went deeper into it and they did a thing called a square search which we never never did. But I mean we were expected to be able to navigate a plane. I mean, as an example we were flying in a Lancaster once and the radio operator says there, ‘Skip, the wireless if off. The radio. I can’t get anything on it at all.’ So, Johnny called and said, ‘Well, really you know we’re not supposed to fly over the sea without radio. What do you think, Eric?’ That was to the navigator. ‘Oh, press on.’ ‘What do you think Thomas?’ ‘Oh, press on regardless. Not a little thing like a radio going to stop us.’ So, we did and that was alright. And then suddenly there was a shout from Len, ‘Hey skip, port engine’s gone. Oil pressure’s right gone. There’s no pressure there at all.’ Oh, feather the port inner.’ And then it wasn’t very long before, The starboard engine’s now gone.’ So [laughs] so things looked to be getting bad. So we had two, just two engines and at the same time I heard the navigator, I think the navigator swearing away to himself you see and he said, ‘Oh skipper, the H2S is not working.’ And Dennis says, ‘Oh, well Tom will take over the navigating now.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry but Gee’s not working either.’ So, he says, well we had to get back to the old method of, of getting a bearing where you could and a course and came back to North Luffenham and called up on the radio. That was the one where you sent Morse messages out but plain talk on the other one was ok. And Johnny calls up and requests permission to land and they said, ‘We’re sorry. You can’t land here. There’s too thick fog so you can go to —’ It was somewhere near Oxford, and they gave us a course to fly if we went down there and we got there and then it was quite exciting in a way because you heard the flying control say to, ‘Clear all aircraft off. Emergency landing.’ And Johnny had called up and said, ‘Well, we’ve only got two engines. So yes. Emergency.’ And you saw the crash tent and ambulance coming up to meet us at the end of the runway and then race to be alongside us and you thought ee gosh, you know, in a couple of minutes time I could be in the back of that ambulance. Or I might just be walking away. So I think I’d better get down in to a crash position and go down with my back to the main spar and then thankfully you felt a bump bump bump. We’re down now. We’re alright.
GT: Because your bomb aimer’s position is lying prone in the nose, isn’t it?
TF: With your back on to the main spar.
GT: Yeah.
TF: In the event of an emergency the bomb aimer gets the, lifts the first aid kit off the hook and takes a chopping axe off it’s thing. Stuffs them down in the front of his battledress and gets your back of the main spar and then that’s it.
GT: I can’t think of anything worse that’s going to kill you it’s an axe stuffed in your pocket. Yeah. Well, well Tom is it, you’ve given us such an amazing amount of your recollections and your time obviously the war finished before you got a chance —
TF: Finished. Yes.
GT: To do any operations per se but do you remember any of your friends that that got on operations? Did anybody talk to you about what they saw? What happened.
TF: Well, one thing I do remember is that after that I volunteered to be a flight mechanic air gunner and then the CO’d recommended for pilot training. I’d been down, had a selection board, came back there was a thing came out, “Would flight mechanic volunteer to change to flight engineer?’ And my friend did that. Changed to flight engineer and he was away, oh I had only just started my training when he was away and trained and we kept in touch. We always wrote and, and then he got, he brought the plane back from Germany and got a Distinguished Flying Medal when the pilot was killed. And I looked a bit surprised to see when he put it on his letterhead. He was still [unclear] DFM and then, I was just starting really. Just starting probably two or three years past Cambridge when I’d kept in touch as I say and I wrote to him and I got the letter back and it was just marked, “Return to Sender.” And it had been opened, got my address out and sent back and he, obviously the reason for that was that he hadn’t come back. And when we were at Lincoln I looked at the [pause] at the Memorial numbers and sure enough his name was on. So he, he’d actually gone on ops, it would only be a few weeks training at St Athans and he’d gone on ops and I hadn’t even finished, hadn’t even got down to flying training.
GT: So as a flight engineer he got on to ops pretty much straight away.
TF: Straightaway.
GT: He was.
TF: He didn’t do, didn’t do any flying training. Didn’t do any OTU or anything like that. Just go straight to a squadron.
GT: Do you think that saved your life then?
TF: Or possibly might have been to Heavy Conversion Unit.
GT: Do you, you consider then that because that would have been say perhaps a year and a half’s worth of the war if you didn’t choose flight engineer. Could that have saved your life too, do you think?
TF: It could have done. Yes. If I hadn’t, if I hadn’t picked the flight mechanic engineer and got recommended for pilot training if I hadn’t done that I would have automatically probably have gone with him and just been a flight engineer. Actually, I did wonder about changing when he went. And then I thought well look you’ve had this altered in your paybook from now I would say trade or category FME UT PNB and you’d also a bomb aimer and a pilot navigator were a higher category than a flight engineer and you got a better pay so I thought well, I’d better just let things go. But yes, it was a very lucky, lucky thing to happen.
GT: Yeah. Tom, you still have your logbook.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: It’s ok. So have you given a copy of this to the IBCC?
TF: No.
GT: Because I can arrange if that’s the case. If you have not then we can arrange for that.
TF: I, the, the museum up at Heathhall took a photostat copy of it.
GT: They might have that in their local files but the IBCC are very keen to, to be able to copy yours in a high resolution file and as a point of note for the recording Tom is showing me photographs of his crew both at the time of training and also later on in nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety something there.
TF: 1991.
GT: Yeah. In front of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight aircraft which looks like Coningsby.
TF: It is, yeah.
GT: Yeah. Coningsby. So, so Tom would you, would you like to also approve that copies of these photographs can also go to the IBCC?
TF: Yes. Yeah.
GT: Fabulous. Right.
TF: Went to, went to the first reunion we had was at Woodhall Spa which is just a few miles from Coningsby and had arranged that we would see the Battle of Britain of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster and they’d also arranged that we would go in it. And we all went in and took up our respective positions. One in the rear turret, mid-upper turret. Me down in the bomb, in the bomb section and there was it seemed to me, I don’t know where they came from but there was an awful lot of people snapping photos of us in there and they said, ‘That’s the first time ever that we’ve ever had a complete crew come.’ They said, ‘Plenty of people come but never as a complete crew.’ So that was at, at Coningsby at our first reunion.
GT: So, when you left your crew how long did they stay together after that?
TF: Oh, it was a matter of days.
GT: Oh, it was. Ok. So, it wasn’t —
TF: Well, one, one went as a airfield control. Another one went in charge of a group of German prisoners to close an airfield down and transfer all, all the goods up to, to somewhere else. And apparently I gather, that he had only problem tracing two. And one was the mid-upper gunner. A Welsh boy. And he knew he was Welsh so he put something in the Cardiff, in the Cardiff newspaper and, but the boy himself didn’t see it but his ex-wife saw it and thought that sounds as if it could be Terry and told him. And he was very cagey about it. He was wondering [laughs] what the reason why he was ringing him up about.
GT: Fascinating. Well, Tom, I I think you have duly covered your career, your life your service very well and it’s been an honour and a pleasure to come and interview you today and I’m going to make sure that this copy gets to the IBCC by next week and I’m sure that you’ll receive some form of communication from them. So —
TF: Ah huh.
GT: But it’s, it’s been a great afternoon so thank you very much. We’re also going to get some photographs and —
TF: I might also add that we did get a little bit of a bit of a reward in as much that in nineteen, in 2005 was it the Lottery granted money for people to visit when they’d served anywhere abroad and at, I went to Canada. And then again in 2010.
GT: And you visited your, the previous Training Schools where you were.
TF: Yes, because it turned out that the Navigation School was now Toronto Airport.
GT: So that was pretty easy to go back and see the Commonwealth Training Scheme areas.
TF: And then we did another one in 2010. About seven years ago now, wasn’t it? Oh, we did another one and in this case they said you can take the, they would pay the cost for a carer to go as well. [unclear] asked if she would be a carer for us.
GT: So, have you been to the Bomber Command Memorial in London yet?
TF: Not in London.
GT: Ok.
TF: Just the one in Lincoln.
GT: So, you’ve been to Lincoln and you’ve seen the Spire. What do you think of the Spire?
TF: Well, it makes you realise the Lancaster’s wingspan is very, it’s quite wide. Yes its, its quite good. Actually, I thought the whole set up that they had at this opening ceremony had been very well thought out and was quite well, really well organised.
GT: And you are prepared and getting ready to go to the opening of the archives building, Chadwick Hall. And that will be early in 2018. Just coming up.
TF: I don’t, I wouldn’t know. I doubt if I’ll be at that time but I —
GT: Oh well, I can promise you Tom that your record that you’ve just been telling me today will be in the IBCC Archives and they’ll be, they’ll be honoured and thanking you very much for that. So, I think we can, we can safely say that I can now complete the interview with you, Tom.
TF: Ah huh.
GT: And thank you very much.
TF: Not at all.
GT: For your time. So, this was Thomas Fisher and I have been in the company of Diana Harrington and Julian McLennan and this is Glen Turner who has come to interview Tom today. My service was Royal New Zealand Air Force for thirty years as an armaments technician, so now secretary of 75 Squadron Association I am honoured and pleased to help out the IBCC with interviews of the Bomber Command crews from World War Two. Signing off. Thank you very much.
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 Thomas Fisher
Creator
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Glen Turner
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AFisherT170726, PFisherT1701
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:04:40 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Description
An account of the resource
Thomas Fisher trained initially as a fitter in the RAF. When the Air Ministry announced that flight engineers were needed from the ranks of the ground mechanics he volunteered for training. The CO was surprised that he volunteered and asked him if it was only because he wanted to fly. If so he should apply to train as a pilot. Thomas didn’t have a school certificate but the CO encouraged his application anyway and Thomas began training. He enjoyed the flying but not having to do emergency manoeuvres. Initially, Thomas was working as a fitter for 92 Squadron at RAF Digby on Spitfires. He then was posted to 417 Squadron at RAF Charmy Down. He then was posted to 14 Group Headquarters at Inverness. He joined Bomber Command as a bomb aimer and was prepared to join Tiger Force.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1944-07-04
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
20 OTU
21 OTU
aircrew
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
flight engineer
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
RAF Digby
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF St Athan
Spitfire
Sunderland
Tiger force
training