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25
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1807/44140/MKilburnG[Ser -DoB]-170310-01.pdf
79c2d3b0ae7f020f56459b76e79d5870
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
Kilburn, Gerard
G Kilburn
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
2017-03-10
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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Kilburn, G
Description
An account of the resource
6 items. The collection concerns Gerard Kilburn (Royal Air Force) and contains a memoir about the bombing of Liverpool and photographs.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Gerard Kilburn and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[underline] Some memories of the war (1939-1945) [/underline] from a woman who was a teenager then.
War broke out on 3rd September 1939. This was a hot sunny Sunday in Liverpool where I lived.
[underline] Evacuation [/underline].
That week the [underline] Evacuation of children [/underline] began. Children were sent away from the big cities to the countryside for safety.
Lime Street Station was filled with children of all sizes and ages with gas masks in cardboard boxes over their shoulders; labels pinned to their lapels gave their name and identification number.
Everyone had to carry an identity card.
I wasstaken [sic] was taken by train into the country- the journey was long. The whole school was taken on arrival to a church hall, and we waited to be collected by ‘someone’. We did not know who it would be. Those children who were not taken by someone were taken by bus to a house or cottage for the duration of the war.
Not all children stayed that long. The cottage I was sent to had no gas, no electricity, no running water or indoor toilet. The toilet was in a hut at the very bottom of a long garden. There was no bathroom- we had our baths in a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire. My mother was not happy about me being away from home and she came to collect me after one week. She said that if we were going to die then it would be better to die together. It so happened that we all lived safely through the war.
[underline] Sounds of War [/underline] – [underline] An Air Raid [/underline]
The sounds of war were very different from the sounds of a country at peace. When there was an air raid the sirens wailed loudly and eerily. We would look at the clocks quickly before running to our Anderson shelter in the garden. If it was 10 or 12 o’clock pm we knew there would be a long night of bombing to come. If it was 2 or 3 a.m. then maybe it would only last a matter of hours.
Sometimes there were two or three air raids in the same night and some in the day-time too.
As we ran we would see the searchlights scanning the sky for the enemy aircraft.
[page break]
The sound of enemy aircraft was different from our own planes.
They used to switch their engines off to avoid being detected. We would then hear a drrm…drrm…drrm…drrm…. This was an ominous sound.
You could also hear the scream of the bombs as they fell through the air. First there would be a ‘descending’ whine, then an explosion which was sometimes louder than thunder and at other times a dull ‘crump’ in the distance.
We would listen hard for the comforting sound of our own anti-aircraft guns and rockets fighting back at the enemy. Sometimes, however, these were silent-especially during the May Blitz in Liverpool, when the bombing was long and incessant for ten nights from 1st -10th May.
The most wonderful sound of all was that of the ‘all clear’. The siren would sound again but this time it did not wail but gave out a long, clear, steady note to announce that the ‘raiders’ had passed. Maybe, though, we would return to bed, only to hear the air raid siren again and so rush back to the shelter.
[underline] Sights in Liverpool [/underline]
Incendiary (fire) bombs were a real danger. Huge metal tanks full of water were positioned on almost every street corner. These were called [underline] E.W.S tanks [/underline] Emergency Water Supply tanks.
More E.W.S. were carried in huge pipes. (about 35cm in diameter) which were on the edges of the pavement and had to be stepped over.
People in uniforms could be seen too. [underline] Air Raid Wardens [/underline] wore overalls and tin hats; [underline] soldiers [/underline], sailors and airmen were often in Liverpool en route between North America and Europe. Liverpool was the Western approaches port and the town was always busy. There were Americans, Canadians, Poles and Norwegians. The French sailors wore little ‘pom-poms’ on their hats.
[underline] The Black Out [/underline]
For fear of air raids it was necessary to ensure absolute darkness at night. This would make places less easy to find. At first no torches could be carried. When it was eventually allowed they had to have black tape over them so that only a little light would show. Torches always had to be carried pointing downwards. Car lights also had to be covered.
[Page break]
(A few cars had huge ‘balloons’ full of gas on top of them to save petrol).
At the windows you could see blackout curtains or windows with nets of tape pasted over them to prevent glass shattering.
People never moved about without their gas masks- these had to be carried elsewhere.
In the sky were huge barrage balloons.
We didn’t see a banana for over six years.
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
Some memories of the war
Description
An account of the resource
Memoir detailing a teenage girl's experiences of the war. The document details experiences of evacuation, the blackouts, sounds of the war during air raids and what they saw on the streets of Liverpool.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1939-09-03
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Liverpool
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Format
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Three page type written document
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Identifier
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MKilburnG[Ser#-DoB]-170310-01
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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William Cragg
Air Raid Precautions
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
childhood in wartime
evacuation
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1169/18396/MTurnerAJ561939-170615-14.1.jpg
fee93de5903176acb9e91c8c936b0cdc
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
Turner, John
Albion John Turner
A J Turner
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/228620/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a>116 items. Concerns Flight Sergeant Albion John Turner (1911 - 1939, 561939 Royal Air Force) who joined the RAF as an apprentice in 1927. After service as a fitter he re-mustered as a pilot in 1935 and after training served on 216 Squadron flying Vickers Victoria and Valentia before moving to 9 Squadron on Handley Page Heyfords in 1936. He converted to Wellingtons February 1939 and was killed when his aircraft was shot down on 4 September 1939 during operations against shipping at Brunsbüttel. Collection consists of an oral history interview with Penny Turner his daughter (b. 1938), correspondence, official documents, his logbook and photographs. <br /><br />Additional information on Albion John Turner <span>is available via the </span><a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/228620/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IBCC Losses Database</a><br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Penny Turner and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
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
2017-05-29
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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Turner, 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
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Note mentioning Albion John Turner killed
Description
An account of the resource
Headed Mr Crosskey, states Albion John Turner Flight Sergeant Pilot (regular) from Scampton in Wellington killed on Sept 3 1939 over Kiel Harbour, no 561939, Sage, plot 4, Row E, No 3, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Oldenburg.
Format
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One page handwritten document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
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MTurnerAJ561939-170615-14
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Bremerhaven
Germany--Oldenburg
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
aircrew
final resting place
killed in action
pilot
RAF Scampton
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/619/30852/BPageTJPageTJv1.2.pdf
bd20f3fcb29deb655492d462cf2bfeb1
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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Page, Thomas James
T J Page
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Page, TJ
Description
An account of the resource
Fifteen items. An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Thomas Page DFM (1922 - 2017, 922297, 183427 Royal Air Force), his log book, two autobiographies and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 49 Squadron.
The collection was The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Thomas Page and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
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2016-07-02
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MY LIFE IN THE ROYAL AIR FORCE BOMBER COMMAND
By
SQN LDR T J PAGE. DFM. RAF
[page break]
MV LIFE IN THE ROYAL AIR FORCE BOMBER COMMAND
As a young man the years were slowly passing and the storm clouds of war were gathering over Europe again. This was something that youth and many others in the countryside were unaware of because news was very limited, wireless was in its infancy and newspapers were few; in fact, many of the older people could not read. The young did not see newspapers because some parents considered them a corrupting influence. On reflection, perhaps this was a good thing. Now seventeen and on the first Sunday in September 1939, I decided to visit my grandmother at Ramsgate and cycled the thirty miles there through the lovely countryside, past myoid schools and my birthplace and on along the road that passed through Manston aerodrome. Already there was greater activity at the air station and once more, my boyhood ambitions came to the fore.
Soon after arriving there the air raid siren sounded, it was eleven o'clock the 3rd. September. The government had declared war with Germany. Being apprehensive, and, like many others, thinking there would be an immediate invasion as the place was near to the South East Coast of England, I decided to return home straight away. History relates that nothing much happened until the following springtime. The winter of the year 1939-40 was very severe with frost and snow. Overhead Aircraft were making long contrails that made patterns in the sky. There were sounds of machine gun fire. At times aeroplanes would streak fast and low across the countryside further kindling my love of flying machines and the air.
In January 1940 I became eighteen years of age I began to feel more independent and
assertive. One day in April I cycled the fifteen miles to Canterbury Recruiting Office at
Canterbury and volunteered for the Royal Air Force and was immediately accepted and
placed on reserve service until called for duty. I had accepted the 'Kings Shilling' signed the Oath of Allegiance and proudly travelled home wearing the badge of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. The first part of my dream had come true. Overhead the air fighting continued with Fairy Battles streaking low over the Kent countryside. They had taken great losses over these early days of the war.
On the 19th July 1940, the time came to leave home. My dream was coming true. This was a day of apprehension; I was now committed to whatever lay ahead. Where would life lead me? RAF service could be worldwide as the Empire still existed and now there was a war on. My dreams of being an Airman did not include war. There was nothing to take with me other than the clothes I wore and a little money. Walking away down the lane there was a last look back at the cluster of cottages nestling at the foot of the wooded downs before they disappeared from view. Looking back there was a mist in my eyes; was this because of the traumas of the past.
On the Monday afternoon the 19th July 1940. I arrived at the sand bagged and barbed wire protected gate of the RAF Depot at Royal Air Force Uxbridge, entered the restricted doorway into the guardroom and reported for duty.
There were many Volunteer Reservists from all parts of the country joining for duty that day. We wondered what was before us. Each barrack room contained about twenty beds and a certain amount of overcrowding was necessary because large numbers of new recruits. The iron beds were rather unusual in that the toot part slid under the head part. The mattress was in three parts named 'biscuits'. When not in use the whole bed was neatly stacked away. This provided extra space in the barrack room for day use and was in accordance with the spick and span neatness of service life with a place for everything and everything in its place. a form of discipline. The staff NCOs explained the routine of the barracks.
[page break]
Next was the first and foremost ofthe induction formalities. This was the 'Swearing In' to become legally bound by the Air Force Act and allegiance to the Crown. This made one legally bound by the Air Force Act and to ones allegiance to the Crown. There was a roll call of Names, Initials and Religion. Each airman received a service number. Mine was 922297.Afterwards we were officially Airmen of the rank of Aircraftsman 2nd Class. Each Airman received an Identity Card RAF Form 1250 and Identity Discs; called 'Dog Tags', both to be carried on the person at all times, uniform, kit and accoutrements. The kit was
such items as shaving brush, button stick, cleaning brushes, knife, fork, spoon, mug, kit bag. and mess tin. The button stick is still in my possession. The accoutrements were, webbing belt and harness to support a haversack, water bottle and bayonet, finally there was a gas mask. In the evening. the new recruits were off duty. I went to the cinema in Uxbridge town.
The new intake of Airman were mustered for training as Airframe Mechanics and on the
Wednesday. we travelled by troop train to the training school at Morecambe in Lancashire, On the way to the railway, station at Uxbridge small local boys offered to carry the heavy kitbags for a few pennies, an offer taken up by many of the new Airmen. It was obvious that the lads were well versed in the routines of the RAF and were showing enterprise. Each group carried food rations for the long slow journey and at various stops on the way urns of tea appeared. Some of the recruits passed the time by playing cards. This was wartime and the trains were steam driven, Rail traffic was heavy with troops and war material on the move.
Towards evening, the train arrived at Morecambe. The Airmen
then were marched round the streets and given accommodation in private houses known as billets. Billets were private houses where the occupants with space to spare were required by law to accommodate Service Personnel. Compulsory billeting is only authorised by Parliament in wartime, Three of us found ourselves in rather a poor billet whereas some other Airmen found relative luxury, a home from home atmosphere, The billeting was rather unexpected as everyone thought we would be in Royal Air Force Station barracks.
The technical training took place in various commandeered large garages and factories,
Tuition was by lectures and practical work amongst a collection of Aircraft and Aircraft parts, workbenches, tables and chairs completed the layout of what was a large classroom. Here I was in my element and enthusiasm made it easy to learn and the practical work was most satisfying. A Fairy Battle was in the classroom. It was the first aircraft that I was able to inspect and sit in.
[page break]
Towards the end of December the course was finished and we became
qualified Flight Mechanics . A' (for Airframe) and were promoted to
Aircraftsman 1 SI Class. Over the Christmas, I went home in uniform for the
first time, I carried posting instructions [or a new unit. On this leave, there
was a shot down German Me 109 fighter Aircraft at Park Farm. Later 1 would
be required to dismantle crashed German Aircraft.
The new unit was No.2S7 Hurricane Fighter Squadron whose Commanding Officer was
Squadron' Leader Stanford-Tuck, one of The Few of the Battle of Britain. Soon my new skills were tested. This was a fighter squadron. The Aircraft took off to repel approaching enemy Aircraft. The term used was "scrambled" When the alarm sounded, the mechanics would rush to their allotted aircraft to assist the pilot into their parachute harness and strap them in the cockpit seat. When the engine was started and the Aircraft ready to go the wheel chocks would be removed before positioning oneself at a wing tip to help turn the aircraft if necessary and then salute to the pilot before he took of It was then a wait, hoping that all aircraft would return. Sometimes they did not return and everyone waited for any news of what had happened.
After three months on No.2S7 Fighter Squadron, it was time for more training at RAF
Innsworth near Gloucester for a three-month course to increase my skills to that of a Fitter. The course finished in July, 1941 and I was re-mustered to a Fitter HA in the rank of
Leading Aircraftsman after being in the Royal Air Force for the happiest year of my life, so
far, despite the fact that there was a war on.
The new posting was to No.71 Maintenance Unit at Slough in Buckinghamshire. Arriving
there, I found that the unit was in a commandeered garage close to the Hawker Aircraft
factory at Langley. The factory was manufacturing Hurricane aircraft.
At Slough, one of my billets was in the suburb of Wrexham with a gentle old couple in a tiny cottage near to the hospital. They were charming and gracious and treated me like a son. At one stage, there was a month's detachment to the RAF Station at Cosford in Shropshire to do a Junior Non Commissioned Officers course to learn the disciplinary aspects of service life and leadership. The course member's accommodation was in Fulton block, a barrack that was a byword in the service for its extremely high standard. Here we were taught the art of commanding Airmen on parade and of Air Force Law. I returned to Slough as a Corporal and given charge of a servicing patty.
Not long afterwards I was sent to RAF Burtonwood in Lancashire to study the American
Boston aircraft. It was not long before my part)' went to service a Boston Aircraft at Royal Air Force Manston in Kent. This was the airfield of my boyhood dreams when living close by with my grandparents. The work was in a hanger that had escaped the German bombing; it still stands today, and is close beside the road that goes through the centre of the aerodrome. 1 have such memories of travelling that road in the years before. .
One morning there was a damaged Short Stirling bomber standing outside the hanger. It
was very impressive, long and tall and the biggest we had seen. This type of Aircraft was
new to the Royal Air Force. The basic wing and engine were of the Short Sunderland
Seaplanes design. The sight of the Stirling was very impressive.
This was the day the 2nd of May 1942 when I flew on my first ever flight. The Station
Commander had come to the hanger to fly a small tandem two-seat aircraft and I ask him if I could fly with him. He replied by saying, "Go and get a parachute", We flew over
Canterbury to see the damaged caused by the German raid during the night. This day would trigger a drastic change in my service career.
After the servicing of the Boston Aircraft at Manston, the party returned to Slough travelling once more by train with heavy toolboxes. A few days later there appeared on the Daily Routine Orders an appeal for Aircraft Fitters to volunteer for Hying duties as Flight Engineers to assist Pilots in flying the new four engine bombers that were rapidly coming into service; the Stirling's, Halifax's and Lancaster's. The experiences at Manston made me volunteer.
My next servicing party duty was at RAF West Mailing to repair a Hurricane where the
Squadron' there were flying Boston's. Here I was able to get a flight in the back cockpit with the Radar Operator. The aircraft was practising radar interception and we were flying along the South Coast. Fortunately, we encountered no German aircraft.
The next serving job was another Boston at Hunsden in Essex where I was informed that I was required to report to the Aircrew Selection Centre in Euston Road. London for a
medical examination to see if I was tit enough for Aircrew duties. I passed the examination and went to RAF St Athan in South Wales for aircrew training as a Flight Engineer. It was October 1942 when training commenced.
Being an Airframe Fitter the first part of the course was 011 the theory of Aircraft engines and their construction, working, servicing requirements and finally on how to operate them for maximum efficiency particularly in relation to range flying.
After engine theory, it was instruction on the airframe side of the Lancaster airframe. The flying controls, the fuel system, and the hydraulics that operated the undercarriage and the flaps and other miscellaneous services. There were vacuum and air pressure systems to drive instruments, automatic pilots, wheel brakes and other emergency apparatus. The aim of the course was to understand the whole Aircraft. Part of the course included a week's visit to the Rolls Royce Engine factory at Derby and a week's visit to the Aircraft factory of A.V. Roe at Chadderton.
Finally, there was a short course at Stormy Down in South Wales on air gunnery and gun
turrets. For the Flight Engineer to know something of gun turrets and gunnery was to not only complete the knowledge of the Aircraft but also so that an Engineer could operate a gun turret especially during low level, mine laying when the Bomb Aimer was busy.
The course was finished at the end of December and the successful course members
promoted to the rank of Sergeant Aircrew and awarded the coveted Flight Engineers flying badge. It was time to leave Wales where it seemed to be always raining.
Lancaster Aircraft - Flying Training
My new unit was No.1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at the Royal Air Force Station at
Winthorpe just outside the town of Newark in Nottinghamshire. Here I joined my aircrew to form a seven man crew to fly Lancaster's.
On the 20th February 1943 the all sergeant aircrew assembled at the Aircraft dispersal point with a Flight Sergeant Staff Pilot Instructor to fly on their first flight together as a crew. This was to familiarise themselves with a new type of Aircraft. Disappointedly we found that the Aircraft was an Avro Manchester and not a Lancaster. The Manchester was a two engine aircraft and was unsuitable for Squadron operational service. The shortage of Lancaster aircraft had made it necessary to use them for the initial training of new crews at the Heavy Conversion Units. This particular Manchester was No.L7398. which had seen operational service on Nos.49, 97 and 106 Squadrons. It was in poor condition and did not inspire confidence.
Now it was my job as the engineer to see that all external protective covers had been
removed from the aircraft and the inspection panels checked for security as they could cause a great hazard if they came oft' in flight. That the flying control locks and undercarriage safety struts on the aircraft were removed. The caps of the petrol tank filler had to be checked for security before priming the engines with petrol ready for the start up. With pre- flight checks done I would secure the entrance door, stow the entrance ladder and go to my position beside the pilot to start the engines and assist with the preparations for take-off.
On this first familiarisation flight, the Instructor F/Sgt Hamilton said to me "Watch what I do". This was to be only my third time in the air. an event in its own right. Now I was to be instructed how to assist the pilot in flying the Aircraft. The Instructor did the take-off.
talking and demonstrating as he did so to both the Pilot and me. Away from the airfield he showed the handling characteristics of the Aircraft, its flying and stalling speed in various configurations. Jock my Pilot would then try the various manoeuvres himself to get the feel of the Aircraft. The duration of this first flight was 1.55hrs. We did a total of six hours with the Instructor mostly on circuits of the airfield with landings and overshoots of the runway.
On the 26th February we did our first flight in the Manchester without an instructor and went on to fly a total of eleven hours mostly on circuits and landings with some bombing and air firing exercises.
On the 6th March 1943. the day came for conversion to the Lancaster and after three hours flying with an Instructor we took off in Lancaster No.W4190 for a further period of
practising circuits and landings. On the 13th March, we flew Lancaster NO.R5541 on a six-
hour cross-country flight followed by periods of flying by night with the emphasis on taking
[page break]
off and landing in the dark. After a total of 53 hours, flying on the 24'h March the crew
became proficient and ready for full operational flying.
On the 26'h March 1943, we went to No.49 Bomber Squadron at RAF Fiskerton, an airfield about five miles east of Lincoln. Lincoln Cathedral was to become very prominent to us in the next few months for on most take offs the runway use was East to West which took the aircraft directly over the cathedral.
On the 31st March, we flew our first flight on an operational squadron with some local flying in Lancaster Mark III No. EO 452, followed during the next two weeks, with practice bombing sorties, air firing and cross-country flying. On the ground, there were practices drills tor emergencies and explanations as to what to do in a crash landing and how to escape from the aircraft by parachute. In addition survival if forced down into the sea.
By the 12'h April Jock the pilot had already flown on two operational bombing flights over Germany as second Pilot with other crews to gain experience of flying amongst enemy defences before taking his own crew as Captain of an Aircraft.
Before we commence serious bombing, operations let us look inside the Lancaster to give you some idea of the duties and conditions under which the crew work. As the Engineer I would be the last crewman to board after I had checked that all flying services were free to operate and that all inspection panels and fuel tank filler caps were closed and secure.
Starting at the entrance door note the red tops of the entrance ladder, immediately inside the fuselage there is a flare chute. This carries a high velocity flare that is dropped at the same time as the bombs to photograph and record the bomb strike. To the left are two stowage's one for the Rear Gunners parachute and one for a portable oxygen bottle. We then see into the rear gun turret.
Above the entrance door is stowage for the entrance ladder. It was my duty as the engineer to see that the ladder was in the stowage and the door locked and to inform the pilot. Close by the door to the front is suspended a remote recording compass positioned here away from all radio and electrical interference: the readings were Shown on instruments in the pilots and navigator’s positions.
Going forward up the fuselage we pass under the Mid Upper Gun Turret. On the port side is a rest bed for use if a crew member is injured. Underneath it are 16 bottles for the supply of oxygen to the crew at altitude. Here I would see that the master cock was on and I would monitor the supply to all the aircrew positions from my controls in the cockpit.
Now we come to the front cockpit with the Pilots control column with his flight instruments on the left. On the right are the Engineers engine controls and instruments. There are further engineer's fuel controls and instruments on the right side of the cockpit. I did have a drop down seat but most of the time I stood up as I was required to move about.
On the 13th, our names appeared on the Battle Order tor operations that night to fly
Lancaster Mark III No. EO 620. The decisive moment had come for us, the apprehension
before each bombing operation was to start. These feelings were relieved to some extent by doing all the preparations necessary before take off.
The first thing to do was to fly the Aircraft on a Night Flying Test (an NFT). This was to
ensure that everything was working satisfactorily before the bombs and the correct fuel load for the flight were loaded on the Aircraft. Afterwards the time was with things personal, this included having a meal, and resting.
Later we would dress in the clothes suitable to withstand the cold of the particular aircrew position in the Aircraft. Air from the two inboard engines warmed the main cockpit.
Soon it was time for the briefing. There
There was a buzz of excitement as we trooped into the briefing room. There was a gasp as the route map on the wall was uncovered and the Target shown as the docks at La Spezia in the north of Italy. This would be a very long flight requiring full petrol tanks and flying for maximum range. Two hundred and eight Lancaster's and three Halifax's were to attack. A good point about this operation was that the route was out and back over the South Coast of England and the South of France where the defences were relatively light.
The next thing was to go to the Locker Room to collected flying kit helmet, parachute and flying boots. I also carried a toolkit. During the flight. I had to complete a log of engine conditions every twenty minutes. The other crew members would also collect their flying kit together with those things necessary to their particular duty: maps and charts, target details, radio frequencies, a sextant for the Navigator a carrier pigeon for the Wireless Operator. Each crew member would also have received in flight rations of sandwiches, a tin of orange juice and a bar of chocolate.
Now came the worst part of the preparations, waiting outside the locker room for the buses to take each crew to their Aircraft. It was at these times that the stomach would churn needed a call to the latrines as one thought of what lay ahead. This could be a nuisance when all dressed up and ready to go. There would be banter for some, quietness for others at this time and during the drive out to the Aircraft dispersed around the airfield.
At the Aircraft, the Pilot and Engineer reported to the dispersal Flight Office to check the
Aircraft loading and talk to the ground staff and the Pilot would sign the Aircraft logbook.
Before flight. as the Engineer, I inspected the aircraft both inside and out. This was to see
that everything was in order and that a battery trolley was plugged in for starting the engine and there was ground crew standing by to prime the engines with fuel before i1 was time for the crew to board. Each crew member would do his check of his particular part or the aircraft.
I would now secure the entrance door and stow the ladder. Moving forward up the fuselage I would see that the oxygen supply under the rest bed was turned on and the electrics were connected to the external battery trolley I would then take my place on the right hand side of the cockpit beside the pilot. Here we would start the engines and do the pre-flight checks.
The flying kit included:
A helmet with a microphone, earphones and an
Oxygen mask
A Mae West Life jacket
An observer type parachute harness
A parachute pack
Flying boots
Gloves, these were both silk and leather.
Woollen underwear.
On seeing a green Verey light from the control tower, it was time to taxiing to the runway for take-off. I was checking engine temperatures and oil pressure, as it was easy for engines to overheat at this stage. The Pilot called up each member at his crew position to see if all was ready for take-off.
Before the turn westwards. This very long first operational bombing flight at maximum
range had been quite a lesson. The Battle of the Ruhr started in March 1943. The aircrew, because of the intensity of the defence's searchlights, fighters and anti- Aircraft fire, knew the Ruhr area as Happy Valley.
On the 261h April, we attacked Duisburg with five hundred and sixty other aircraft. The Ruhr area was visible for miles away, a solid ring of searchlights surrounded it. Inside the ring. it was a fireworks display of rising shells. shell bursts, tracer gunfire and marker flares. Seeing the Ruhr for the first time made me gasp and I said, "How do we get through there" no one answered, each had his own thoughts. the Navigator in his blacked out compartment declined to look.
Soon we passed through the searchlight belt and were amongst the anti-aircraft bursts and tracer fire, the Pilot, the two Gunners and me, keeping a sharp lookout for other Aircraft to avoid collision and for enemy fighters. We saw Aircraft exploding, some catching fire and going down. others in searchlights. I was standing up at this time being required to move about to operate controls and to be able to read and to make a record of the instruments. The run up to the Target flying straight and level seemed to take a very long time although in reality it was only minutes. When the bombs left the aircraft, I would feel the movement of the cockpit t1oor. This was a relief. The Aircraft would rise up from the sudden loss of weight and the aircraft remained on course until the photo flash had gone off and the camera had recorded the bomb strike Only then was the Aircraft turned and dived away to get out of the target area. To look down from 20.000ft and see the great area of fire and the bombs bursting was a sight I would never forget. The explosions of the heavy 4000Ib bombs affected the Aircraft. This t1ight took five hours and was without mishap but 17 other Aircraft were lost that night.
On the 281h April, we tried to drop magnetic mines off the coast of Juist in the Fresian
Islands together with two hundred and six other aircraft. The weather was bad in the area, dark, rain and low cloud. At 500ft in cloud and bad visibility. the target area could not be located. Because the position of mines in the sea had to be known. they were returned to base. One hundred and sixty seven of the Aircraft laid 593 mines in the area of the islands that night. Twenty-two Aircraft failed to return. This was the greatest loss on any mining during the war. It was the only mining sortie undertaken by us.
The bombing operations continued. What was I doing in these frequent infernos? What had made me volunteer for aircrew duties in the year before not expecting this? It was not my knowledge of the German tyranny: so much of that had been, and still was, unknown or knowing that Germany had unlawfully invaded and conquered the countries of Europe, had bombed England and would have subjugated the British Isle as well if they had not been stopped in 1940. Fate had decreed I would be here because of my love for aeroplanes, and, if I was destined to be a combatant. what better way was there than to do this. The results of bombs dropped on German military Targets gave me no qualms of conscience, even if they fell on houses and killed civilians. All Germans had participated in the Nazi fanaticism of world domination and their excesses, these and the Italian had to be stopped.
It is not practicable to describe each raid but some are worthy of note especially the first two raids on Hamburg that started those great fire storms.
13'h May Aircraft Lancaster EO 452 Target Pilsen in Czechoslovakia. There was the instance where the target was the Skoda factory at Pilsen a place deep in the cast of Europe. Out over the North Sea, the starboard inner engine shed its exhaust flame
cover and some of the cylinder exhausts. In the dark a long sheet of flame curled back over the leading edge of the wing, this would have been a fire risk and a beacon to enemy night
[page break]
fighters. The engine was shut down and the airscrew feathered. The Aircraft now lost air
speed and was no longer able to keep up with the rest of the force; it would become a sitting duck to the opposing fighters. It was time to return to base to live to fight another day. It was dangerous to land with a 4000lb bomb on the Aircraft. It was dropped into the North Sea.
Arriving back at base still heavily laden with 6 x 500lb bombs and a large quantity of fuel
on board the Flying Control gave instructions to land on the short South West/North East
runway. This was to avoid any obstruction on the main East/West runway in case of mishap and with the subsequent need to divert the other returning squadron Aircraft to another airfield. The approach to the runway was faster than normal because of the high landing weight and with a gusty side wind blowing the aircraft floated before touchdown. With the heavy load and poor braking the pilot realised he could not stop before the end of the runway and shouted a warning to his crew to brace. ED452 plunged off the end of the runway into a field and the undercarriage collapsed. With fear of immediate fire and explosion. I quickly had the escape hatch in the roof of the cockpit off and dived straight out ignoring the drop from the top of the fuselage to the ground. The rest of the crew quickly followed and all ran as fast as possible across the field to get away. Fortunately, neither tire nor explosion occurred and the crash crews were soon on the scene. Taffy the Rear Gunner suffered a severe shake-up in the crash and was not able to fly again. We went to the sick quarters for a medical check.
At one time, we flew a total of 22.15hrs on 4 nights in 7 days in stressful conditions and
were very tired. In May. the darkness of night was quite short. Take off was always late in the evenings. By the time, aircraft had landed and crews had been collected from dispersal, removed their flying clothing at the locker room and then been de-briefed at the Intelligence Section it would be daylight. Sleep was difficult before returning to the airfield by 11.00hrs to carry out a Night Flying Test (NFT) in readiness for the next flight.
On the 121h July. we flew to Turin in Italy. Two hundred and ninety five Lancaster's took part on this raid in clear weather conditions. The view of the snow-covered Alps was fantastic. To see the twinkling lights of neutral Switzerland and later Sweden when leaving Berlin, was quite something. Once again. it had been a long flight at maximum range. LM 306 was short of fuel when nearing the South Coast of England and the aircraft landed at Exeter. We returned to base later in the day.
On the 121h August, we flew to Italy again to attack Milan. This was another long night.
Over the Alps, there were storms and flying in cloud. St. Elmos Fire danced across the
windscreen and ice formed on the airframe resulting in a lower bombing height of 17.700ft because of the extra weight. It was a successful raid with only three Aircraft lost. The Alfa Romeo motor works, the railway station and the La Scala opera house suffered substantial damage.
LM 306 had now completed three operations in four days with a total of22.30h1's flying. It is not surprising that we had little sleep over those four days. It was a great relief to have leave. After debriefing, a meal and a change of uniform we travelled into Lincoln on the bus to catch a train to our respective homes. Two of us were travelling to London on the first part of our journey and after changing to a very full train at Grantham we both fell asleep exhausted in the corridor all the way to London and other passengers just walked over us.
There was relief, as always, as the enemy coast was crossed but no one could relax because of possible dangers ahead. The North Sea was very wide, wet and cold. Mechanical failures could occur from various causes not least from unsuspected enemy damage. The chances of survival jf forced down into the North Sea were minimal. There was always the chance of bad weather over the base and collisions with other circling aircraft waiting to land. The circuits of other adjacent airfields were very close. It was easy to approach the
[page break]
wrong runway. There was also the possibility of enemy intruder aircraft in the airfield circuit.
One night we were returning below cloud at 3.000ft just off Cromer with other aircraft. Navigation lights were on. Suddenly cannon fire hit the aircraft. It was from the British Navy. Also attacked was Aircraft JB 235 of the squadron. The noise was uncanny as red-hot shrapnel passed through the fuselage close beside us. We waited to see if any faults developed but things. so far, appeared normal. The Pilot called for reports and the Navigator said "Ralph's been hit." Ralph was the Wireless Operator and sat in the centre of the aircraft with his back against the hefty main spar; this no doubt had shielded him from more serious injury. Squeezing past the Navigator I went to Ralphs aid to see that he had received wounds in his legs and shoulder area but the most serious at the time was a hole through one of his hands. Getting the first aid, J applied bandages and put a tourniquet on the wrist before going back to my duties in the front cockpit leaving the Navigator to watch
Ralph. I returned later to release the tourniquet to prevent gangrene setting in.
At Dunholme Lodge, the weather was foul with low cloud and driving rain. The aircraft was required to circle for some time before getting position six for landing. Air Traffic Control had been informed that on board was a wounded aircrew member. Eventually the turn came to land but on the downwind leg of the landing circuit it was found that the undercarriage would not come down; it was obvious that the hydraulic fluid from the system had been lost. There was damage in the bomb bay area where the pipes were located. Fortunately, the emergency air system was working and r was able to lower the undercarriage and flaps. The landing was very heavy.
At dispersal, when the engines were shut down. the levers that operated the fuel cocks tailed to work and hung loosely down. The control cables in the bomb bay had been severed. Fortunately, no petrol lines to the engines had been damage. There were shattered bomb doors. broken pipes and cables, holes in the tail plane and flying control rods shot through, luckily they held to keep control of the rudders and elevator. This new aircraft was taken out of service after one bombing trip. The original crew was now down to five having lost Ralph and Taffy and spare aircrew were to fill the rear gun turret and the wireless position on subsequent operations. Jock, the Pilot, had been a Warrant Officer since the 61h of June and was now commissioned to the rank of Pilot Officer. Jimmy the Navigator, Hugh the
Bomb Aimer and I were Flight Sergeants.
2nd October. Lancaster EO 426. Take off 18.36. Target Munich. 03.15
Two hundred and ninety-three Lancaster has attacked the target. Eight were .lost.
EO 426 bombed at 22.41 from 19,000ft.
On the 20lh October after a raid on Leipzig Jock, the Pilot completed his tour of
30 operations and afterwards we sadly broke up leaving the others to complete
their tours flying as spares with different crews. I still had four more to do. No
longer would we men experience the close friendship and respect that had built up over the last ten months flying, living and working together and going out on the town. This would not be experienced again.
A commission was granted to Jimmy the Navigator. He left the Service in 1946.
Sergeant G Green was demobilised in 1945. Since those days. there has been no
contact with them but I was proud to have served with them.
· "
I stayed on in the squadron as the Flight Engineer Leader. During the next five
months I flew as a spare Engineer. To Berlin with P/O Rowntree on the 21" January 1944.
To Leipzig on the 191h February with Pit off Dickinson. To Stuttgart with the Sqn CO Wing Commander Adams.
My last one was on the 151h March to Stuttgart again with Pilot Officer Lett.
906 Aircrew of No. 49 Squadron failed to return. This was a loss rate of 33 of the Aircrew who flew with the Squadron. Fifty years later, on the 241h April 1994 a Roll of Honour showing their Number. Rank and Name, date of death and place of burial in a foreign field was dedicated in the Fiskerton village Church of St. Clement of Rome.
In May 1995, a memorial was placed in the centre of the old airfield at Fiskerton to all those who were lost and those who served on the Station during the two and a half years from January 1943 to mid-1945.
I flew 211.50hrs by night on 30 sorties over enemy territory plus 2 almost to the enemy
coast. Seventeen of the sorties had been in one Lancaster Aircraft No. LM 306 with the
Squadron letters EA-F (F for Freddie). The Targets were The Ruhr = 11. Berlin = tour. Italy
= three. Hamburg = 2. 11 other German Targets and one Mining operation. I remember the stress, the tiredness. fear, and the pride in belonging to Bomber Command.
My next posting was in April 1944 to RAF Winthorpe near Newark where I had done my
flying training, there to be a Staff Flight Engineer Flying Instructor. This was not much fun, as we had to fly old Stirling aircraft to teach new crews. This was to save new Lancaster's for the operational squadrons.
Soon after my arrival there, I saw a Stirling approaching the airfield at about 1500 feet. The port outer engine caught tire and within minutes, it dived into the airfield and exploded. The new crew of seven, a Staff Pilot and a Staff Engineer died.
On one flight. I had an engine doing 3800 revolutions when the maximum was 2800. There was every risk of the airscrew shearing off and hitting the cockpit. Fortunately. we got it under control.
After a few weeks and 32 hours of flying, 13 of them at night. I was sent out to all the
Stations in Number Five Group Bomber Command to lecture on the new Airborne Lifeboat that was being introduced to the Air Sea Rescue Squadrons. When this was finished. I returned to my base at RAF Scampton and on the \91h July 1944 I was commissioned as a Pilot Officer
Whilst visiting RAF Strubby the Commanding Officer informed me that I had been
decorated. The London Gazette had promulgated the award of the Distinguished Flying
Medal. (L.G Volume 11 1944 Page T. J Entry 3090) The public Record Office reference is
ZJ1 985.' The Pilot "Jock" Morrison was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
On Tuesday the 161h February 1947 I was posted to No.44 (Rhodesia) Squadron' at Royal Air Force Wyton in
Huntingdonshire. On the Wednesday, I was once again in the air
flying as a Flight Engineer in Avro Lincoln aircraft a larger
version of the Lancaster. Now back where [ belonged there
began the happiest two years of my RAF life.
The months of 1947 passed with plenty of flying, it was different and relaxed after the hectic and dangerous wartime operations. On the 121h November, there was a pleasant flight out to Egypt to deliver spare parts to some of the squadron's aircraft. They were on detachment to RAF Shallufa in the Canal Zone. The Pilot was FIt. Lt. Cumber and the aircraft Lancaster No.TW 909. this being my first flight with a landing outside England in a foreign country.
The first part of the flight was to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire for custom clearance. At
23.05hrs, we took off to fly by night to RAF Castel Benito in Tripolitania on the North
Coast of Africa. Prior to World War II Caste I Benito had been an Italian airfield and during the war the German Luftwaffe had used it. Later the airfield was renamed Castel Idris and in years after it became the International Airport for Tripoli.
The next day it was a short flight along the North African coast to Shaliufa in Egypt passing over the great battle areas of Sollum, El Alamein and Knightsbridge. On this flight, I flew the aircraft for two hours. RAF Shallufa was beside the Suez Canal and it was quite a sight to see large ships appearing to be travelling across the sand and to experience an RAF airfield in a hot desert.
After three days. we took off for the return flight to the UK via Castel Benito making a
detour to flyover the Pyramids and the Sphinx. On the 20lh November. we arrived back at Wyton after a total flying time of 25.40hrs.
On the 1st March 1948, the Squadron flew out to RAF Shallufa in Egypt for a month' s stay on exercises. I f1ewas the Flight Engineer to FIt. Lt. Bristow in Lincoln No. RF 426.
On the 241h March with Fit. Lt. West in Lincoln RF 514, we flew to Khartoum in the Sudan for an overnight stay returning to Shallufa the next day. This round trip took 11.20hrs. On the 31" March. the whole Squadron return to Wyton via an overnight stop at Caste! Benito.
In May 1948, the whole Squadron was engaged in preparations for Operation "Chessboard". This was to be a goodwill visit to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) at the invitation or the Government. It was in recognition by the Royal Air Force to the people of Southern Rhodesia for the Rhodesians. who had served, and those who had been lost, with the Royal Air Force during the war.
\ ,..
On the following day. the Squadron flew on to R.A.F Shallufa 'in the Canal Zone of Egypt for a three-day rest and for servicing of the aircraft. This flight took 6 and half hours.
The journey continued from Shallufa on the 14th flying along the Nile Valley to Khartoum in the Sudan for an overnight stop. From Khartoum it was on to Nairobi in Kenya the next day for another overnight stop.
On the 16th it was on to the Belvedere airport at Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. The outward flight took 38hrs 2Smins. This was to be the base for the Squadrons stay in the Country. The aircraft arrived over Belvedere in formation and after landing the personnel paraded for a reception by the Prime Minister Sir Godfrey Huggins.
In the evening the Officers and Airmen attended a Government banquet and a highlight for me at this function was to sit next to, and talk with, the Prime Minister, Sir Godfrey,
There was now a two day rest for the Squadron. On the 181h Barney and I with the rest of our crew took off to take mosaic photographs of the area of Salisbury tor the local authority. We think it was tor a proposed building of a Dam on Lake Kariba. It was a flight of over five hours.
On the 19th and 20th the Squadron did formation flying over Rhodesia to be seen. On the
second of the flights we had on board a passenger Mr Catsicas the Mayor of Umtali a Town in the NE of the country.
The Squadron now had a two stand down. The Squadron personnel were split up into groups of six to be the guests of prominent Rhodesians. Barney and .1 with two of our aircrew and or the two of our ground staff were to be the guests of the Mayor of Umtali. This involved a long overnight sleeper journey in a rather antiquated colonial train to Umtali there and back. This was an experience. Barney and I were the guests of the Mayor. The entertainment of Sun downer Parties of good food and drink in comparison to conditions at home was appreciated' There were visits to the Vumba Mountains and an upmarket Hotel the Leopards Rock. We were also taken to Gold Mine and an orange orchard. What lovely orange juice it was.
On the 26'h June the squadron flew from Belvedere to Kamala Airport Bulawayo flying over the Victoria Falls on the way. Here was another Sun downer Party and an overnight stay as guests of the locals. Barney and I stayed with a lady Doctor.
We returned to Salisbury on the 281h. On the 29th we took off to return home via the way we had flown out. We arrived back at RAF Wyton on the 5th July having flown for over 80 hours.
t .~
•
nearly one thousand hours of flying my General Duties flying career was ending. It was two
very happy years on 44 Squadron.
This was not the end of my duties in Bomber Command. In January 1949 I was posted to
Headquarters No. 3 Group Bomber Command for Intelligence duties for while on 44
Squadron I had attended Intelligence and PR Courses. After Three months I was
moved on to Headquarters Bomber Command at High Wycombe for Intelligence duties.
The post was for a junior in the Intelligence Section of four Officers. A few years before my
wartime flying destiny had been under the command of Air Chief Marshal! Sir Arthur Harris
(Bomber Harris), My feelings when working in the underground Operations Room from
where my wartime flying operations had been ordered and controlled cannot be described.
My new Commander in Chief was Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh P Lloyd. One day in the
Officers Mess there was the pleasure of meeting and talking to Marshall of the Royal Air
Force Sir Hugh Trenchard the Father of the RAF.
The posting to High Wycombe was ended in January 1951, when as a Secretarial Officer I
was required to attend an Accountant Officers Course. After the course. 1 was posted to
No.9 School of Recruit Training at RAF Bridgnorth in Shropshire to be an Accountant
Officer. This involved collecting cash from the local Bank, the payment of bills, the
accounting for the cash transactions and the conducting of pay parades for the Airman.
So ended my service in Bomber Command.
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Title
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My life in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Writes of early life and mentions beginning of the war and volunteering for the air force in January 1940. Continues with account of initial training and mustering as an airframe mechanic and subsequent technical training. Describes first posting to 257 Hurricane Squadron, advance training and subsequent postings as fitter IIA including travelling around the country to fix aircraft. Continues with account of aircrew selection and training as a flight engineer which included visit to A V Roe factory at Chadderton. Followed by account of aircrew training and his roll as a flight engineer on Lancaster and Manchester and crewing up. Includes list and photographs of crew. Posted to 49 Squadron at RAF Fiskerton. He then provides a detailed description of duties of each crew member and the interior of a Lancaster and lists flying kit used. Goes on to describe all activities concerned with preparation for and flying an operation. Continues by describing highlights of a number of operations and mentions battle of the Ruhr, weather, aircraft damage and , being shot at and diverting to RAF Dunholme Lodge with casualties. List the subsequent history of all his crew after completing their tour. Continues with account of staying on the squadron as flight engineer leader and flying on several more operations. Summarises his operational flying and gives account of subsequent postings as a staff flight engineer instructor. Concludes with account of post war postings and activities.
Creator
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T J Page
Format
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Seventeen page printed document with b/w photographs
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BPageTJPageTJv1
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Kent
England--Canterbury
England--Ramsgate
England--Middlesex
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Slough
England--Shropshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Derbyshire
England--Derby
England--Greater Manchester
England--Oldham
Wales--Bridgend
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Friesland
Czech Republic
Czech Republic--Plzeň
Italy
Italy--Turin
Italy--Milan
Germany--Munich
Germany--Leipzig
England--Nottinghamshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Lancashire
Germany--Juist Island
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
1940-01
1940-07-19
1941-07
1942-05-02
1943-02-26
1943-03-06
1943-03-26
1943-04-26
1943-05-13
1943-07-12
1943-08-12
1943-10-02
1943-10-20
1944-04
1944-07-19
1947-02-16
Contributor
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David Bloomfield
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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
1661 HCU
44 Squadron
49 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
Battle
bombing
Boston
briefing
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Medal
fitter airframe
flight engineer
flight mechanic
ground crew
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lincoln
Manchester
Me 109
memorial
mess
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
perception of bombing war
promotion
RAF Benson
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Burtonwood
RAF Cosford
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Fiskerton
RAF High Wycombe
RAF Manston
Raf Mauripur
RAF Padgate
RAF Scampton
RAF Shallufa
RAF St Athan
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Wyton
recruitment
searchlight
shot down
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1724/29007/SNolanJF150621v10045.1.jpg
13b4c310c9fb02970dc450f33dbbb024
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Title
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Nolan, Frank. Work folder
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty eight items. Folder containing work related correspondence and ministry of aircraft manufacture, aeronautical inspection directorate process reports.
Date
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2016-05-17
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Nolan, JF
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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A.I.D. OFFICE,
A.V.Roe & Co.Ltd.,
Greengate, Middleton,
Manchester.
4th October, 1945.
Mr.T.G. Green,
The Inspector in Charge,AID Avro Group
Messrs. A.V.Roe & Co.Ltd.,
Greengate, Middleton, Manchester
[Underlined] Redundancy. [/underlined]
Sir,
On perusal of the redundancy lists, I find my name included in Group “A” with my seniority dated 9.3.42. I am given to understand that, as I am on [sic] ex-service man of this war, in receipt of a disability pension, and having unbroken Government Service, my seniority should [sic] dated from 3.9.39, i.e. the date of my enlistment in H.M. Forces.
I would be very much obliged if you would have my claim investigated.
[Signature]
J.F. NOLAN, Examiner.
27053.
LB.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Frank Nolan to T G Green, A.I.D Office at A V Roe
Description
An account of the resource
Argues that his seniority for redundancy should be dated back to 3 September 1939 (not 9 March 1942) as he served earlier during the war and war in receipt of disability pension.
Creator
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J F Nolan
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-10-04
Format
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One page typewritten letter
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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SNolanJF150621v10045
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Manchester
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10-04
1942-03-09
1939-09-03
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mitchell, Mitch
John Ernest Francis Mitchell
J E F Mitchell
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
2016-02-27
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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Mitchell, JEF
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. Flight Lieutenant John Ernest Francis 'Mitch' Mitchell. Joined the RAF as a boy entrant in 1934 and trained as a wireless operator. Flew on Vickers Virginia, Handley Page Heyford and Whitley before the war. Completed an operational tour on Whitley 1939-41. After being rested he flew a second tour of operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron before retraining as a pilot post war. Collection contains his flying logbooks, memoires of his air force career and first operations, lists of his operations, correspondence and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C A Wood and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[John Mitchell - notes for memoire]
1.
Describe first raid of war 3rd Sept 1939. Leaflets.
Loaded up A/C day before. Work Out details flight & route.
YORK across North Sea & DENMARK. Turn in via KIEL CANAL. OVER GERMANY TURN SOUTH INTO RHUR [sic] HEIGHT 12,000 SEARCH LIGHTS IN VIEW NO SIGN OF FIGHTERS
*LEAFLETS OUT* STARBOARD ENGINE OVERHEATING THROTTLE BACK TO COOL CHECK RADIATORS RAN FOR ½ HOUR AT LOWER TEMP LATER INCREASED AGAIN WENT ON RISING – HAD TO BE STOPPED INCREASE POWER OF PORT.
*PARACHUTE ON*
ONE HOUR TEMP RISING DANGEROUSLY HIGH – DECIDED BALE OUT OR FORCE LAND [deleted]ENGINE HAD TO BE STOPPED[/deleted] OR USED TO LAND
[page break]
2.
GROUND MIST – GETTING LIGHT USED LAST OF ENGINE POWER FOR LANDING BEFORE GOING ON FIRE.
FRENCH GATHERED ROUND A/C GERMAN LEAFLETS SCATTERED PITCH FORKS STICKS STONES CARTED OFF TO GATHERED UP BY ARMY. POLICE HOUSED IN OLD BARN – STRAW DOCUMENTS SECURITY 3 DAYS LATER DH116 FLY LONDON FLYING BOOTS NO HAT LIFT ON MOTOR CYCLE ISSUED RAIL WARRANT BACK TO BASE
[page break]
3.
1) FIRST RAID OF WAR 3 SEPT 1939
2) ENGINE FAILURE FORCED LANDING AMIEN[sic]
3) RETURN BOAC 2 DAYS LATER
4) CONVOY PATROLS WEST OF FRANCE
5) 1940 MINE LAYING CHANNEL KEIL CANAL
6) APRIL NORWAY (PAGE 1) STAVANGER
7) APRIL NORWAY OSLO
8) MAY HOLLAND & GERMANY DESCRIBE PREPARATION FOR RAID
9) JUNE [underlined] ITALY[/underlined] – TURIN ENGINE ICING UP 8 HOURS LIGHTNING – [indecipherable word] OF ICE ST ELMO FIRE PARACHUTES ON
10) JUNE FRANCE 3 – 5 HOURS RECALLED FORCE LANDED GERMANY 6 HOURS TRAINING SCOTLAND
[page break]
4.
11) TO 207 SQUADRON
APRIL 43 DUSSELDORF BOCHUM
JUNE FREIDRICKSHAVER [sic] 9.45 LANDED BLIDA N/AFRICA
JUNE BLIDA TO BASE VIA SPEZIA BOMBS
26 JUNE GELSENKIRKEN [sic] SHOT UP FORCED LANDED COLTISHALL
JUNE 43 BERLIN LEIPZIG GLADBACH [sic]
AUGUST SEPT OCT NOV INVASION PORTS
DEC 43 PARIS FRANCE ANTWERP VISITED SUB PENS
FEB 44 BERLIN LEIPZIG
MARCH SUB PENS “V” SITES
JUNE 45 RHUR[sic] MUNSTER DUSSELDORF
AUG 45 NORTH LUFFENHAM TRAINING
NOV 46 POSTED 91 GROUP MORTON HALL 5 GROUP
5.
9 AUG 48 TO TERNHILL
20 AUG 53 TO 202 SQUADRON ALDERGROVE HASTINGS AIRCRAFT
26 AUG TESTING FOR RUSSIAN ATOM BOMB CLOUDS CAPTAIN FAILURE FORCED LANDED
NOV 53 MARITIME TRAINING ST MAWGAN LANCASTERS
JAN 54 220 SQUADRON ST EVAL SHACKLETON
MAR 54 236 OUT KINLOSS SHACKLETON
JUNE 54 224 SQUADRON GIBRALTAR SHACKLETON
FEB 55 GIBRALTAR EXERCISE FORCED LANDED MALTA
[page break]
6.
10 FEB 55 GIBRALTAR FORCED LAND IN MALTA
16 AUG 55 GIB TO EL ADAM – ENGINE 1 U/S 5.06
18 AUG 55 EL ADAM MAURIPUR
19 AUG 55 MAURIPUR NEGOMBO
6 SEPT NEGOMBO POONA 5.30
8 SEPT POONA MAURIPUR 3.00
9 SEPT MAURIPUR HABBANIYA [sic] 6.30
10 SEPT HABBANIYA[sic] – IDRIS 7.45
11 SEPT IDRIS – GIBRALTAR 6.30
11 DEC 55 MADEIRA – AZORES EXERCISE TWO A/C MISSING AFTER HEARING RADIO
14 MAY 56 FLYING IN SUNDERLAND FROM PEMBROKE DOCK TO GIBRALTAR
15 OCT 56 AT LUQA MALTA HYDRAULIC FAILURE
15 NOV 56 S/L FLOOD LANDING GIB WIPED TAIL WHEEL ON RUNWAY THRESHOLD
OCT 57 POSTED VAMPIRE TRAINING WORKSOP
[page break]
7.
1954 ALGERIA EARTHQUAKE
1955 SUEZ UPSET
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
John Mitchell - notes for memoire
Description
An account of the resource
Notes describing first leaflet sortie, problems with starboard engine, forced landing and activities in France and return to England. Then moves on to 207 Squadron and lists operations and flying after finishing second tour and post war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J E F Mitchell
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMitchellJEF550261-160125-03
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kiel Canal
Norway
Norway--Stavanger
Norway--Oslo
Netherlands
Italy
Italy--Turin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Algeria
Algeria--Blida
Italy
Italy--La Spezia
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
France
France--Paris
Belgium
Belgium--Antwerp
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
North Africa
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
1940
1940-04
1940-05
1940-06
1943-04
1943-06
1943-08
1943-09
1943-10
1943-11
1943-12
1944-02
1944-03
1945-06
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
207 Squadron
bombing
forced landing
mine laying
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mitchell, Mitch
John Ernest Francis Mitchell
J E F Mitchell
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Mitchell, JEF
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. Flight Lieutenant John Ernest Francis 'Mitch' Mitchell. Joined the RAF as a boy entrant in 1934 and trained as a wireless operator. Flew on Vickers Virginia, Handley Page Heyford and Whitley before the war. Completed an operational tour on Whitley 1939-41. After being rested he flew a second tour of operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron before retraining as a pilot post war. Collection contains his flying logbooks, memoires of his air force career and first operations, lists of his operations, correspondence and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C A Wood and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JOHN MITCHELL DFC joined the RAF as a Boy Entrant, graduating through technical wireless
training at Cranwell and for aircrew duties at Tern Hill where he qualified on Harvards and Whitlcys.
He flew Lancasters out of Spilsby and after the war Shackletons with Coastal Command.
FIRST OPERATIONS
September 3rd. The first day of World War II at approx. 2200hrs, l O-Armstrong Whitley bombers
took off from Leconfield to drop leaflets along the Ruhr valley. The route took us to the island of
Borkum off the estuary of the river Ems, south along the Dutch frontier to Essen, then along the Ruhr
valley to scatter a load of leaflets through the flare chutes. It was a long way round but Belgium and
Holland were neutral and their neutrality had to be respected. Little was known about German
defences but as we approached the enemy coast a beam from a searchlight probed through a break in
the clouds.
Four hours out flying at 16,OOOft. we were now over the Ruhr. a few anti- aircraft shells burst in a
shower of red sparks. thankfully some distance away. in the gloom two of the crew began 'posting' the
leaflets down the chute. Within ten minutes they had to be relieved as there was no oxygen point near
the flare chute.
It was around this time that the port engine began to give signs of trouble and started to lose power.
The skipper quickly came to the decision that there was no point in risking the crew and aircraft by
continuing the flight through enemy airspace and then facing the prospect of crossing the North Sea
on one engine. so we set course for France, Rheims. the course would take us over Belgium but an
aircraft in trouble would hopefully receive friendly consideration. There was little choice really. slowly
the Whitley began to lose height passing over Liege and then at last over the French border, at this
point the engine failed completely and the starboard engine now gave signs of strain, slowly
descending-the crew had decided to stay with the aircraft and not to bale out, the clouds now above
us and the ground barely visible the skipper ordered a flare to be dropped and in its feeble glow he
spotted a field which seemed large enough for a wheels up landing, coaxing the aircraft over a hedge
a swing bridge was seen through the murk, a jink to starboard brought the aircraft alongside a field of
maize, slithering down one side of the crop about 10ft. tall we then faced an oak tree but fortunately
came to a stop a few yards short. Clambering out at great speed we were faced with crowd of people
who appeared hostile. but explained that seeing some leaflets in German had assumed the worst. The
implements they brought with them did not look very friendly.
We were gathered together by the Gendarmes and housed in army tents with straw covering the
ground which looked as if it had been prepared for horses. we were flown back to base three days
later.
We have an suffered at the hands of enemy fighters chasing us all over the sky whist shooting bits off
our aeroplanes. From Norway in 1939 with mine laying in rotten weather at low level with
mountainous coasts very close. crossing many miles of ocean to reach our target, flak ships and
fighters in the air. and then hundreds of miles of sea to cross to get back to base.
The repeated efforts to combat weather on our way to continental targets with fog, ice. winds
unknown, together with night fighters flak and dozens of other aircraft to avoid. We have all
experienced the stress of returning to base with aircraft not behaving correctly through damage which
could not be ascertained. but which gave concern through the controls that something could give out
at anytime. The concern about the possibility of ditching in a cold sea with survival chances nil.
Every one has experienced engine failures in various degrees when faced with low cloud and fog,
when trying to find base and facing a difficult landing, whilst tired and not quite with it in the early
hours of morning after flying all night. We have all had experience of forced landings away from base
and a crash landing thrown in, at other times only to feel lucky that wc have made it again.
Many of us will remember our efforts to reach Italy to bomb factories, but only after flying through
thunderstorms, heavy icing. hail and snow. Remember the Whitley radial engines which would have
problems with air intakes becoming blocked by snow and ice resulting in engines losing your height
in dangerous mountainous areas, then after clearing these, the problems of getting a safe landing in
North Africa. The return flights were just as hazardous with the usual difficulties in weather
conditions for landing after ten hours and a shortage of fuel to contend with.
[page break]
I write this with some historical fact to record memories before we all pop off and to describe the first operation of the war in a Whitley, when after doing our bit we crash landed in France, but I returned for more.
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
First Operation
Description
An account of the resource
John Mitchell describes events during his first operation to drop leaflets on the Rhur. After engine failure they force crash landed in a field in France. They were gathered by French Gendarmes and flown back to England three days later. In addition adds some recollections of problems and worries while carrying out attacks on Norway.
Creator
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J E F Mitchell
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMitchellJEF550261-160125-02
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
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
forced landing
mine laying
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1490/27548/MMitchellJEF550261-160125-010001.2.jpg
1510ee59cb18edd4b2df4dd212860a65
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mitchell, Mitch
John Ernest Francis Mitchell
J E F Mitchell
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Mitchell, JEF
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. Flight Lieutenant John Ernest Francis 'Mitch' Mitchell. Joined the RAF as a boy entrant in 1934 and trained as a wireless operator. Flew on Vickers Virginia, Handley Page Heyford and Whitley before the war. Completed an operational tour on Whitley 1939-41. After being rested he flew a second tour of operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron before retraining as a pilot post war. Collection contains his flying logbooks, memoires of his air force career and first operations, lists of his operations, correspondence and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C A Wood and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MITCHELL J.E.F. F/SGT 550261 W/OP.
“A” FLIGHT 58 SQUADRON LINTON-ON-OUZE [sic] YORKS
WHITLEY lll
3-9-39 K8969 F/O O’NEILL F/O RUSSELL 2 CREW & SELF
LEAFLETS TO THE RUHR - ESSEN - DUSSELDORF - FORCED LANDING IN FIELD NEAR DORMAN ALL CREW SURVIVED.
WHITLEY V [underlined] HOURS [/underlined]
12.10.39 — K8999 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 3.40 — CONVOY PATROL — [underlined] DAY [/underlined]
12.10.39 — K8999 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 3.00 — CONVOY PATROL — [underlined] NIGHT [/underlined]
16.10.39 — K8999 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 6.15 — CONVOY PATROL — [underlined] DAY [/underlined]
8.11.39 — K8999 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 4.30 — STRIKE
8.11.39 — K9007 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 4.25 — CONVOY PATROL
4.12.39 — K8975 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 6.20 — CONVOY PATROL
17.12.39 — K9004 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 7.10 — CONVOY PATROL
30.12.39 — K9004 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 4.15 — CONVOY PATROL
13.1.40 — K8999 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 2.30 — CONVOY PATROL
17.1.40 — K8973 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 6.00 — CONVOY PATROL
3.1.40 — K8974 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 1.25 — CONVOY PATROL [underlined] ENGINE FAILURE [/underlined]
3.1.40 — K9000 — P/O O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 5.15 — CONVOY PATROL
17.4.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — F/O CRIBB — 9.15 — OPS — NORWAY - FORNEBO - OSLO - DRAMMEN
30.4.40 — N1436 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O PIKE — 7.40 — OPS — STAVANGER AIRFIELD
13.5.40 — N1436 — F/LT O’NEILL— P/O RUSSELL — 6.45 — OPS — HOLLAND MAASTRICHT
15.5.40 — N1436 — F/LT O’NEILL— P/O RUSSELL — 6.15 — OPS — GERMANY GELSTEM KIRCHEM DUSSELDORF
19.5.40 — N1424 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 7.15 — OPS — GERMANY GELSTEM KIRCHEM DUSSELDORF
21.5.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 5.35 — OPS — JULICH
23.5.40 — N1436 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 6.25 — OPS — FRANCE LA CAPELLE — FORCED LANDING
1.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 3.50 — OPS — GERMANY - HAMM
[page break]
3.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 6.20 — GERMANY - ESSEN
4.6.40 — N1470 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O RUSSELL — 6.00 — GERMANY - BUER
7.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — SGT TERANEAU — 7.20 — FRANCE - BRIDGES & CONVOYS
8.6.40 — N1459 — F/LT O’NEILL — SGT TERANEAU — 6.05 — FRANCE - BRIDGES & CONVOYS
10.6.40 — N14 — F/LT O’NEILL — SGT TERANEAU — 6.30 — FRANCE - AMEIN
11.6.40 — N1434 — F/LT O’NEILL — SGT TERANEAU — 8.00 — ITALY - TURIN
13.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — SGT TERANEAU — 7.40 — FRANCE - ABBEVILLE
14.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — SGT TERANEAU — 4.50 — FRANCE - RECALLED
27.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — SGT CORNISH P/O WELTE SGT DREW — 5.55 — RUHR GERMANY
18.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O CLEMENTS SGT DREW A.C. HOGG — 5.55 — RUHR GERMA-NY
20.6.40 — N1469 — F/LT O’NEILL — P/O CLEMENTS SGT DREW A.C. HOGG — 6.25 — RUHR GERMA-NY
26.6.40 — N1469 — F/O ESPLEY — P/O CLEMENTS — 7.00 — RUHR GERMANY
28.6.40 — N1469 — F/O ESPLEY — P/O CLEMENTS — 7.50 — RUHR GERMANY
1.7.40 — N1469 — F/LT RUSSELL — P/O THOMPSON SGT DREW SGT COUSINS — 7.10 — KEIL CANAL (BATTERED TO HELL)
[underlined] SQUADRON LEADER J.E.F. MITCHELL DFC [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Mitchell - list of operations 1939-1940
Description
An account of the resource
Flight Sergeant wireless operator on 58 Squadron at RAF Linton-on-Ouze flying Whitley III. First operation to Ruhr to drop leaflets and crash landed in France on the way back. Other operations were convoy patrol and bombing in France, Netherlands, Germany and Italy.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J E F Mitchell
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMitchellJEF550261-160125-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Norway
Norway--Stavanger
Netherlands
Netherlands--Maastricht
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Jülich
France
Germany--Essen
France--Amiens
Italy
Italy--Turin
France--Abbeville
Germany--Kiel Canal
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
1939-10-12
1939-10-16
1939-11-08
1939-12-04
1939-12-17
1939-12-30
1940-01-13
1940-01-17
1940-01-03
1940-04-17
1940-04-30
1940-05-13
1940-05-15
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Alan Pinchbeck
58 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
forced landing
RAF Linton on Ouse
Whitley
wireless operator
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1490/27529/BMitchellJEFMitchellJEFv2.2.pdf
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Title
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Mitchell, Mitch
John Ernest Francis Mitchell
J E F Mitchell
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-02-27
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Mitchell, JEF
Description
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59 items. Flight Lieutenant John Ernest Francis 'Mitch' Mitchell. Joined the RAF as a boy entrant in 1934 and trained as a wireless operator. Flew on Vickers Virginia, Handley Page Heyford and Whitley before the war. Completed an operational tour on Whitley 1939-41. After being rested he flew a second tour of operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron before retraining as a pilot post war. Collection contains his flying logbooks, memoires of his air force career and first operations, lists of his operations, correspondence and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C A Wood and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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Seeding the Storm
Squadron Leader John Ernest Francis Mitchell, DFC, wireless operator/air gunner, then pilot.
I had never known our headmaster at Eye Grammar to be taken aback. But when he asked at my leaving interview what I intended to do and I replied without hesitation, “I want to fly, sir”, it seemed to floor him. Possibly he had expected me to say something about Oxford or Cambridge , after all I’d been no slouch under his tutelage. And that might not have been so bad. What I had no intention of doing, though, was getting involved with the land.
The desire to fly, on the other hand was something that had become ever more compelling. What we tended to see in Norfolk were airships. But I knew all about the record breakers and their machines, but far more about the wartime aces of the RFC – the Royal Flying Corps – about McCudden, Mannock, Bishop, and to me, the greatest of them all, Albert Ball. And war fliers rather than civilian, for even in 1934 it was clear to those with eyes to see that another conflict was brewing.
I even knew the qualities needed in an aspirant war flier: ‘not exceptional, a good general education, a mechanical background advantageous, a fair working knowledge of maths and the application of simple formulae; more than keen to learn’. Apart from the ‘not exceptional’ – the very idea! – I more than fitted the bill.
The ensuing discussion went on for some time, but even then the Head was not happy.
“Think about it for a day or so, Mitchell”, he bade, “then come back and see me again”.
I dutifully did so. When, having satisfied himself that I was determined to pursue a flying career, he sent a recommendation to the local education committee
+”. As a consequence, just weeks later, a letter – railway warrant enclosed – invited me to present myself at Victor House, Kingsway, in London.
The interviewers surprised me! I had expected them to be knowledgeable about aeroplanes. Instead they seemed to inhabit some intellectual level, way above such things. Eventually, however, they descended from their Olympian heights to deliver their verdict.
At seventeen I was too young to become a pilot. Only here, as my face fell, they descended even further, to assure me that age was the only bar. Meanwhile, I could be taken on as either a wireless operator or an air gunner. Stifling my disappointment, I opted for the former and a short time later reported to the Electrical and Wireless School at RAF Cranwell, near Sleaford in Lincolnshire, where I was rigged out from cap to puttees, not forgetting boots that were initially reluctant to take the least shine, to begin my training.
It was clear that the government was among those with eyes to see, for some months before it had decided upon a vast expansion of the RAF. This meant the building of new airfields and the creation of new squadrons. It also meant a full-scale recruiting drive. And so it was that on 10 October 1934 I joined a Boy Entrant intake, doubled that year to nearly 600 for a nominal twelve months’ course.
We were not the only trainees accommodated in the double-storied blocks of Cranwell’s East Camp. There were also signals officers on short courses and air gunners who, after twelve weeks of instruction, were to take on an additional wireless-operating role. And there were Aircraft Apprentices, their entry too swelled to some 600.
The latter were boys like ourselves, from fifteen plus to eighteen who, also like us, wore the distinctive spoked-wheel arm badge. Only they had gained entry by competitive examination rather than education-committee recommendation, their three-year course qualifying them to maintain the RAF’s communication equipment – as opposed to operating it, as was our destiny.
And then, of course, just across the road, but infinitely remote from East Camp, was the gleaming new Royal Air force College where future leaders of the King’s Air Force studied in hallowed halls.
Our year-long course was packed full as we poured over wireless theory, disembowelled sets in workshops, achieved a mirror surface on those recalcitrant boots before strutting our stuff on the parade ground, and between times continued our studies in English, maths, general subjects and History of the Service –one Albert Ball’s machine guns was enshrined in a barrack- block hallway!
We tapped away at morse keys, strained into headsets, memorised the most frequently used of the Q and Z brevity codes – necessary with morse mssages being so protracted – and even got the feel of airborne operating in the Wireless School’s Wallaces, Wapitis and Valentias.
Off duty, sports were highly rated, and I was able to indulge myself to the full in those which interested me. With the compulsory boxing bout over I shunned anything further in that line, similarly soccer and rugby, but was to the fore in cricket and tennis. Where golf and croquet were concerned, however, I found myself pretty much a loner.
We finished the course on 12 July 1935, and, having found no difficulty in learning to send and receive morse at 20 words a minute and having been comfortable enough in my airborne sessions, I was able to replace the Boy-service wheel with the Signal’s arm badge, a hand clasping three , electrical flashes.
On passing out my posting was to No. 58 squadron at Worthy Down, near Winchester, a major bomber station which was to achieve singular distinction some years later when its Naval tenants, having re-christened it HMS Kestrel, the traitor William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw, announced that it had been bombed and sunk.
When I joined the squadron was operating Vickers Virginias, twin-engined biplane bombers which
even to my eager eyes appeared distinctly venerable. Nor was the wireless equipment any more youthful. This was the transmitter-receiver combination known as the T21083/R1082. Unfortunately it was not only unreliable but difficult to operate, even altering frequency requiring a coil change in both transmitter and receiver
One everyday problem was that to get any range at all we had to trail a wire aerial from beneath the aircraft, remembering to retract it before landing for fear of garrotting some groundling.
Except that the pilot would get engrossed in his own concerns and forget to advise when he was about to set down. Either that or, with the intercommunication system being so poor, his advisory wouldn’t get through, leaving me to bawl ‘ You’ve lost my bloody trailing aerial again’ even though my bloke was an officer.
Just the same, I counted myself luckier than a gunner colleague who felt a pattering on his helmet. On turning he got a face full of pee, his desperate pilot, far forward of him ,having stood on his seat to relieve himself into the air rush.
To a large extent then we were all learning, pilots and crew members alike. Although I doubt this showed when we flew our Virginias in tight formation over the packed stands of the Hendon Air Display. In reality, however, it became more the case a few months later when we began receiving the Handley Page Heyford, held to be very speedy, and the last word in design, with all-round protection that included a dustbin-like turret which could be lowered from the ventral –belly – position.
What the new aircraft brought with it, however, was a stepping-up of the flying task, with more and more long-range navigational exercises and bombing and air-firing by both day and night, the communications side of all these being my pigeon.
It quickly became evident too that , although trained as a dedicated wireless operator, I was still expected to fill in as a gunner: not the first evidence of the way the Service was being strained by the expansion.
For expansion necessarily meant a dilution of the experience embodied in both training school and squadron, with much of the training being left to the squadrons. And as these, in turn, lost their most capable men on posting –either to command or to bolster up new units – so their own experience level dropped. For example, new boy though I was, even I could tell that to have so many prangs – minor though most were – was not the way things should be. So many, indeed, that we never bothered logging them.
I was not in a position to know, of course, but not long after this the new chief of Bomber Command, the C-in-C, Air Chief Marshall Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt, would stir resentment in the very highest echelons by reporting upwards even more fundamental shortcomings.
Foremost among these was the lack of a definite policy regarding the crewing of aircraft, only pilots being considered full-time fliers. Observers and gunners, the other two categories of flier, were drawn from volunteer airmen, highly qualified tradesmen who, after a flying duty, would pocket their one or two shillings a day flying pay and return to their workshops. True, there were already moves afoot to employ full-time gunners, but like those we had trained alongside, these were then to double as wireless operators. Indeed, it was to be 1942 before gunnery and signals were to become completely divorced.
Blissfully ignorant then of the true state of things, what we all knew was that, just like the war, newer and longer-range aircraft were only just over the horizon. And with that in mind we did not complain when pushed yet harder.
What did not improve, and totally disrupted continuity, was the number of times they had us upping sticks: another thing the Commander was to comment upon! Our first uprooting came on 13 May 1936, when we relocated to Upper Heyford, near Bicester in Oxfordshire. At least, though, this heralded the arrival of the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, the monoplane bomber which, through Marks One to Five, was to see us well into the war. Even so, it has to be admitted that Whitley crews suffered a fair amount of ribbing because of the aircraft’s characteristic nose-down ‘sit’ which was especially pronounced at high speed. But by and large we were happy with it.
True to form, however, my current bloke, a flight lieutenant at that, cost me four teeth on our first landing as the undercarriage, only half-extended, folded beneath us. I suppose he was busy congratulating himself on having remembered that he now had retractable wheels – many pilots didn’t remember. But as the blood streamed from my mouth all he could offer was ‘I didn’t realise the selector had to go so far’.
From the wireless operator’s standpoint the major benefit brought by the Whitley was its state-of-the-art Marconi radio installation, the transmitter/receiver combination known as T1154/R1155, a vastly more flexible equipment than those we had struggled with before. It still incorporated a trailing aerial, but otherwise it was far more sophisticated than previous gear, although the gaily coloured knobs of its transmitter belied its complexity.
Certainly my dedicated training came into its own and ‘Send for Mitch’ became the cry of the day, so that, although still a newish-joiner, I found myself acting as what I would soon become, the squadron’s signals leader.
Upper Heyford, however, afforded us only a breathing space, for by the end of August 1936 we had moved again, this time to Driffield, near Bridlington, in Yorkshire. And in February 1937 we were off down south once more, to Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
Here we did settle to some extent, although there was a bombing detachment at Aldergrove, in Northern Ireland, where we were permitted to drop live bombs into Loch Neagh, followed by a stint which took us to Pocklington to the east of York at West Freugh, near Stranraer, for gunnery. On that detachment, having done a gunnery course at Catfoss, near Hornsea, I was able to exercise my new found skills from all our gun positions, front, dorsal (top of fuselage) and the ventral dustbin of our Mark Threes, firing 300 rounds from each, largely at sea markers. Another gunnery detachment took us to Pocklington, to the east of York. But on 20 June 1939 we moved north again, this time to Linton-on-Ouse, in Yorkshire.
Such detachments gave us a flavour of what our war might be. But the results were not always that comforting. My gunnery scores were consistently deemed satisfactory. But we did hear that whereas the previous year’s averages for air firing had been an acceptable 20%, this year, with fewer experienced instructors in the schools and competent gunners spread more thinly on the squadrons, averages were running closer to 0%.
Equally concerning, we had noticed that even when we were permitted to drop live bombs – for there always seemed to be some rare wild bird or other which took precedence, or some influential landowner - a high proportion proved to be duds, or at best ineffectual. In lieu of the real thing, however, we dropped practice bombs, or trained on the camera obscura.
This was an optical training aid which had us fly towards a building – identified by a flare at night – with a large hole cut in its roof. A lens would then project the approaching aircraft’s image onto a table where instructors would assess the accuracy of the run-in. At his calculated release point the pilot would press the button, when either coloured smoke or a parachute flare by night would enable the wind effect to be calculated and the likely striking point ascertained.
Other noteworthy exercises we flew at this time involved dropping very powerful flares, the forerunner, as we were later to realise, of the Pathfinders’ target markers. Arguably even more significant was the detailing of a squadron aircraft to patrol near the BBC’s Daventry aerial, a perambulatory sortie that led directly to the development of radar.
We were great moaners, of course. But even where the unsettling moves were concerned we conceded that some were dictated by extra construction work, most of our roosts having come into being under the expansion programme. For essentially, while we noticed shortcomings, we saw it as our part to master the equipment we’d been given and leave others to worry about the rest.
Even so, though one might push shortcomings from the mind, the international situation could no longer be ignored. More particularly when, on 1 September 1939, Hitler’s forces attacked Poland which, to the surprise of many, turned out to be our ally. But nobody on the squadron was surprised when, next day, we were dispatched to Leconfield, near Yorkshire’s east coast and so that much nearer Hitler’s Reich.
At 1115 hours on 3 September 1939 we listened to Chamberlain’s fateful broadcast, and as darkness fell ours was among ten Whitleys laden with propaganda leaflets which got airborne for Germany, my log book recording that the ‘Anti Nazi War’ had begun.
On that first operational sortie I was flying with my regular pilot, Flying Officer ‘Peggy’ O’Neill, aboard a familiar Whitley, K8969. Even so it was the most surreal of experiences to be droning over a blacked-out Germany where millions of people were both ready, and willing, to kill us. Not only that, but to be doing so carrying nothing more lethal than propaganda leaflets. And leaflets intended to do what – destroy the resolve of a nation already cock-a-hoop over its Polish blitzkrieg?
We could not know that Churchill had only grudgingly conceded that leaflets just might raise Germany to a ‘higher morality’. Or that our future leader, ‘Bomber’ Harris, would declare that the only thing such ‘idiotic and childish pamphlets’ accomplished was to satisfy a requirement for toilet paper. Again, though, our job was to drop leaflets. So on we droned.
The route was to be wide-ranging across the Ruhr, specifically targeting both Essen and Dusseldorf before overflying the Maginot Line and turning for home. I suppose, at a certain level, we were on edge the whole seven and a half hours we were airborne, but training sustained us. Then, too, besides feeding our leaflets from the dustbin turret, we had set other tasks.
These included assessing the effectiveness of the German black-out. Was it broken by any well-lit areas, which would, therefore, be dummy towns? Additionally, were the airfields active? What road, rail or waterborne movements did we notice? Were searchlights evident? And was there any anti-aircraft fire? In fact, the latter question led to an animated on-board discussion. Until we concluded that what we had seen was some transient light flashing on low cloud. And just as well, for when we eventually got back to base this was a point they really grilled us on.
Once more, of course, we were not to know that Higher Authority had accepted that the RAF was not yet up to bombing by either day or night, any lingering doubt being dispelled by the losses early raiders sustained. That, as a consequence, our nocturnal paper delivery was now being pragmatically viewed as a means of building up an expertise in long-range navigation that might eventually allow Bomber Command to achieve most of its war aims through precision attacks by night.
Certainly, a little later, we all heard the broadcast Harris made, warning the Nazis of ‘a cloud on their horizon’… presently no bigger than a band’s width, which would break as a storm over Germany’. And hearing it we realised that we, of course, were that cloud, the seeders of that storm, the attendant fosterers of its fury.
Unfortunately, the Whitley soon proved unsuitable to the task. Early evidence of this being supplied on that first foray when, having crossed the Maginot Line, an engine faltered, committing us to a descent. Fortunately, although there was a pre-dawn mist, Peggy was able to put us down near Amiens. Nobody was hurt, but the aircraft was in a sad state. And so our first op finished in a French field, with a civil Dragon Rapide biplane being sent to pick us up and return us, initially to Harwell, near Oxford, from where we were recovered to Linton.
The Whitley’s engine trouble proved to be symptomatic, and although the squadron was tasked with leaflet drops for a few more days, there were so many problems, not least the dustbin turrets freezing in the lowered position – they could provide belly defence when needed but caused enormous drag whenever extended – that at the end of October 1939 we were reassigned to cover the English and Bristol Channels, and the Irish Sea, as convoy escorts.
This tasked diversion finished in early May 1940, when we moved back to Boscombe Down, by which time I had flown 12 patrols and a further 53 operational hours. More significantly, we had also received Mark Five Whitleys which, newly powered with the more dependable Rolls Royce Merlin Ten engines, finally enabled our crew to feature on the bombing battle order.
Ops then followed in quick succession. Initially we raided objectives in Norway, bombing Oslo aerodrome on 17 May 1940 and landing after a 9 hour 15 minute flight. Results, however, were said to be disappointing, the target having to be revisited the next night. After that we attacked Stavanger, a seven hour forty minute flight. And what fraught trips these were, often wave-hopping following a snaking fjord with cliffs disappearing into the darkness above. But again, training paid off, and we doggedly pressed on through to our objectives, although from the outset we had little faith in the outcome of the expeditionary venture itself.
Then too, the phoney war was over and events to the west were moving swiftly. So it was that we faced about, being tasked to bomb the Albert Canal bridges at Maastricht – a day after the debacle of the Fairey Battles, and the suicidal gaining of two VC’s – before passing on to raid a bridge at Eindhoven and then Schiphol aerodrome.
Following that we switched to the Ruhr, to Gelsenkirchen and Dusseldorf, returning after a night or two, this time pairing Gelsenkirchen with Duisberg, each sortie taking between six and seven hours. Only now, in an unsettling taste of things to come, I was obliged to record ‘Heavy ack-ack’.
At this juncture I should, perhaps, mention that the contemporary entries in my flying log book do not specify the actual targets, but only ‘Operations Norway’, ‘Operations France’ and ‘Operations Germany’. RAF crews, of course, are always restricted in this field, log books being official documents and scrutinised monthly by flight commanders. At that particular period, though, there was an extra dimension. For invasion was very much on the cards. ‘You don’t want some Gestapo thug reading that you bombed his Auntie Olga in Berlin’, we were told, ‘so just make it ‘Operations Germany’. Which we did.
Even so, an incorrigible rebel, I kept a separate record of those early ops, entering the actual targets later in the war.
As the Germans advanced, so we were reassigned to the interdiction bombing of roads and railways. On 21 May 1940, for example, we attacked the rail junction at Julich, dropping 4,000 pounds of bombs and coming away satisfied that we’d significantly disrupted communications, although achieving nothing like the destruction of a few years later.
We also returned the Ruhr, to Hamm, and again to Essen, dropping 10,000 and 14,000 pounds of bombs respectively.
After that, as the Battle of France intensified, we visited more and more French targets, bombing railways, roads and convoys at La Capelle, Amiens and finally Abbeville. The situation was often fluid and on at least one occasion I received a timely recall signal which stopped us bombing our own troops.
And on 11 June 1940 we did a special flight – purpose unspecified – to Guernsey, spending the night there before returning to Linton. To learn two days later that the decision had been made to give up the Channel Islands without a fight!
France itself fell on 26 June 1940, after which we switched to German targets once again. Notably a seven hour op to the Kiel Canal when I flew with a different crew, piloted by a Flight Lieutenant Thompson, on a sortie which moved me enough to declare in my log book, ‘Hell’ova Night’.
An outing that did not receive a similar accolade – though why I cannot recall – was the next one I flew with Peggy O’Neill. We successfully raided a factory in Turin, but on returning over the Alps flew into rougher weather than any of us could have imagined. There was so much snow, ice and turbulence that the engines started playing up, one temporarily cutting out altogether. Our co-pilot wanted to abandon, but Peggy gamely soldiered on, somehow retaining control of the machine and eventually winning clear. But what a trip that was! Possibly too traumatic for me to face entering anything but ‘Operations Italy’.
By now ops had become a way of life. With fear as its natural concomitant, for cringe down though we must as flak and bullets tore through the airframe, fear had to be lived with. Indeed, we received a master class on the subject from one particularly persistent fighter. Pass after pass he made, riddling us on each, with Peggy desperately sacrificing height for any speed we could muster. ‘He’s determined to get us’, he gritted, as the wavetops prevented further descent. Only abruptly the attacks stopped. For a while, communally holding our breath, we watched the fighter holding off. Then, finally, concluding that he had run out of ammunition, we scurried for home, well aware that it had been our narrowest squeak yet!
Such things were wearing. But they had to be borne. For back then there were no set tours of operations. The squadron bosses, though, knew the score. And on 1 July 1941 I was posted away, off ops, to No. 19 Operational Training Unit, at Kinloss, near Inverness.
Since January 1940 all gunners had become full-time aircrew and, in theory at least, sergeants, with the ‘AG’ beret being introduced in the December. So I had become a reluctant wireless operator/air gunner, first a sergeant and then a flight sergeant. The instant aircrew senior-NCO, understandably enough, was not that popular with the regulars. ‘You got promoted pretty swiftly, didn’t you?’ became a common jibe in the sergeant’s mess. But you couldn’t win, for when I received an overnight commission it was to be greeted in the officers’ mess with ‘And where did you spring from?’ As for the commissioning, naturally I’d always known that I was upper-crust material, even so I was disturbed at being summoned by my commanding Officer – not on this occasion, the Head, but the feeling could be similar when you put out as many little blacks as I habitually did. This time the interview was not protracted, just friendly. But still resulted in my travelling to London, only this time to Messrs Gieves and Hawkes of Savile Row, to be fitted for a new and shiny rig. ‘And your bank account, sir? ’ ‘Barclays , has been for years’ An NCO with a bank account! Upper crust, you see! Only there was still that pilot’s course…
At Kinloss the task was to train Whitley crews for No.6 Group using both the main airfield and its satellite at Forres – Balnageith. I was to spend just four months here, and not uneventful months at that, for training had its share of excitement, not least on 3 September 1941 when I was in another crash, this one significant enough to be logged!
In mid-November 1941, however, I was sent to Enniskillen, in Northern Ireland, to deputise for the established station commander. The area was a political hotbed – I had to tote a revolver! – so although the RAF had flying facilities at both Aldergrove and Killadeas and both a maintenance and a group headquarters at St Angelo, the predominant presence was army. As it was, my caretaker duties were not particularly onerous, the mess I frequented at Killadeas was sumptuous and I got myself happily involved with some sailing craft I found on Loch Erne.
This detachment gave me a break from the routine of training, but it was to set a pattern I was to find increasingly irksome as the years went by. I was assured, of course, that each stores check or unit inquiry befitted me just that little bit more for higher command. As it did. So why did I invariably feel ‘joe’d’?
Certainly I had periodically applied to return to ops, my hopes soaring whenever signals arrived requesting aircrew for ‘special duties’. In August 1942 these were for the proposed Pathfinder Force and in early 1943 for what we were eventually to discover was to be No.617 Squadron. However, all such applications were blocked by my immediate boss. ‘They want the best’, he would say. ‘But I do too, Mitch, so you stay’.
Eventually, however, an Air Ministry posting arrived for me and on 20 May 1943 – with every front page screaming ‘Dambusters!’ – I was posted to No. 207 Squadron.
I found the squadron at Langar, near Nottingham, still relieved to be rid of their Avro Manchesters – a disastrous machine – and happily settling with that queen of the skies, the Lancaster.
As signals leader I might have chosen my own captain, but having accepted the first to be programmed with me, Flight Lieutenant Brandon-Tye, I never had cause to regret it. And so, after just four hours of acclimatisation flights, I began my second tour of ops.
Initially we concentrated on the Ruhr, so that in short order I became re-acquainted with Dusseldorf and Bochum, although this time around in the Lancaster, taking about an hour less over such sorties, just over 5 hours. Yet how adversely so much else had changed!
Certainly the defences had really got the hang of things now, with droves of searchlights and seemingly impenetrable box barrages on every run up. Not to mention the radar-guided predicted flak! As for the night-fighters..!
Not that I was surprised – shocked, I’ll allow, but not surprised! – for two years back we’d prowled the night sky alone, whereas now we offered the defences score upon score of targets.
Shortly afterwards, on 20 June 1943, we bombed an industrial objective at Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, after which we overflew brilliantly lit Switzerland – a wonderful, fairytale sight! – to set down after nearly ten hours at Blida, on the northern coast of Algeria. And to show no favour to any Axis power, next day we bombed La Spezia, the Italian naval base, the homeward trip taking just nine hours and ten minutes.
After that, though, it was Happy Valley again – the Ruhr – and to Gelsenkitchen, a place I had last visited in May 1940, over two years before, and on successive nights. So perhaps they bore a grudge. For as we ran in we were well and truly caught by flak and then shot up by a whole procession of night-fighters.
Not nice! But the rear gunner, a commissioned lad from another crew, proved to be a good man to have along. As each fighter came in I was able to use the Monica rearward-looking radar to warn him, so that he was not only able to beat them off but, I fancy, to destroy at least one. Just the same, we were so badly shot up that we had to put down in Coltishall.
Though used to dealing with fighter aircraft, Coltishall’s groundcrew chaps pulled their fingers out – when didn’t they! – and patched us up, enabling us to return to Langar later that day. Our Lancaster, ED 627, had certainly done us proud. As for the rear gunner, he received a Distinguished Flying Cross for this spirited defence and would later, flying with his own crew, receive a bar to it for a similar exploit.
There was no such kudos for me, but I was well content with the way Monica had served us. Only I was already aware of whispers and a few months later, when it was actually proven that the Germans were indeed using its pulses to both locate and then home on us, it was hurriedly withdrawn from service.
Back at Langar, however, with ED627 spick and span once more, we were off a-raiding over Munchengladbach. And two nights later it was the Big B, my first trip to Berlin! 7 hours and 35 minutes simply packed with interest. And this would not be my last visit, some taking a whole hour longer than others and so packed with even more interest.
This initial Berlin outing, though, was our swan song from Langar, for in October 1943 we moved to newly-opened Spilsby, near Skegness, in Lincolnshire.
I was back over Berlin again, though, in the New Year, on 15 February 1944, and penetrating even further two nights later when we raided Leipzig, landing back at Spilsby eight hours later.
At this point, however, our tasking was changed and from April 1944 – shades of May 1940! – we were set to pounding communications networks. On 10 April this meant a wide-ranging series of strikes on Tours and Bourges in central France, and on Antwerp. Then, within the next few days, it was St-Valery-on-Caux, followed the next night by Paris.
It was clear to everyone that things were hotting up. Only at this point the boss handed me a signal. I knew what it was. But there was nothing to be said. For by now I had flown 830 hours by day and 439 by night, the majority of the latter being operational. I had also completed 66 ops – over two tours’ worth – and counting OUT callouts, 15 operational maritime patrols. Further, on 18 January 1944, I had been gazetted with the Distinguished Flying Cross. But alongside all this
I had also been part of a squadron which, by the war’s end, would have lost 154 of its crews; at the very least 1,232 men.
Even so I would love to have flown on D-Day, but it was not to be, and somewhat sadly shelving my flying log book for a while, I dutifully departed, on posting, to No. 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at Winthorpe, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire.
Neither of my operational tours had been all work and unremitting dicing with death, of course. There had been periodic leaves. And in off-duty times there had been favourite pubs, the Flying Horse and the Black Boy in Nottingham coming to mind. Then, too, there had been sport. Lashings of it. Except that wheneve called upon to fill a soccer or rugger slot I’d unfailingly responded ‘Not likely, they’re too bloody dangerous’.
Only suddenly, it was all over. And between June and August 1945 I was able to fly on three ‘Cook’s Tours’, taking in, among other old haunts, Hamm, Duisberg, Wesel, Munster and Dusseldorf. It was not a case of gloating. On the other hand, both outbound and inbound we would overfly so many of our own towns blitzed unmercifully in those dark days when the Germans were riding high, when they had derided our leaflets and refused to adopt Churchill’s ‘higher morality’!
Though the Service was shedding personnel wholesale, my continuance seemed to be taken as read, and on 16 December 1946, after a spell with No.1363 Heavy Conversion Unit at North Luffenham, near Oakham in Rutland, I moved on to No 91 Group Headquarters as a staff signals officer.
The headquarters was situated at Morton Hall – nowadays a women’s prison - very close to RAF Swinderby, in Lincolnshire, my two-year stay giving me a deeper appreciation of the way the Service was run. But a headquarters was ideal too for getting things done, and as my tenure drew to a close, I resurrected the matter of my pilot’s course. I was certainly not too young any more, not after 14 years and a world war. So on 9 august 1948 I gleefully reported as a pupil pilot to No.6 Flying Training School at Ternhill, near Market Drayton, Shropshire.
I suppose maturity – in 1946 I’d met and married Joan – and a wealth of experience, allowed me to approach pilot training without fear of failure. And it clearly paid off. Starting on the delightful Tiger Moth biplane I completed my course on the American Harvard, an excellent advanced trainer, being very demanding and only too ready to take control.
And so, having begun my aircrew career with a wireless-operator’s arm flash, reluctantly enough supplementing this in late 1939 with an air gunner’s ‘AG’ brevet; readily swapped in its turn, in January 1944, for a dedicated signaller’s ‘S’ brevet; my chest finally bore the full wings so proudly worn in those old photographs by Bishop, Madden, McCudden and Ball!
The operational phase of my pilot training saw me back on Lancasters, this time at RAF St. Mawgan, Coastal Command’s training station near Newquay in Cornwall, where I was also checked out on the Avro Shackleton. This was a spectacular aeroplane – a great, grey-painted roaring machine outside, but with an interior hushed by jet-black drapes – which was eventually able to patrol for up to 21 hours. In every respect a far cry from the Virginia and Whitley! But aeroplanes are aeroplanes are aeroplanes. And for all that I held an above-average rating it was not that long before I was clambering out of a Shackleton whose tailwheel had collapsed after landing!
But aviation has a multitude of tricks. So that, on joining my first maritime unit, No. 2 Squadron at Aldergrove it was to find that, alongside the ~Shackleton, they were operating the Handley Page Hastings, essentially a transport and notoriously ungainly. As a new joiner I was to start off on these as a second pilot, which, at that time, meant raising and lowering the flaps – and watching. Once I had built up enough hours on type, only then would I be checked out on landing the beast. And I say advisedly, for I had watched pilots on their first landings skidding sideways, shredding tyres and even sliding off the runway.
As it was, my first Hastings sortie involved flying at 18,000 feet for some considerable time. Halfway through, however, my captain fell ill and passed out. And suddenly there were eyes on me from every corner. In the end, though, it worked out well, even to landing away to expedite medical aid, with my squadron commander recommending me for an Air Force Cross, although having to settle for a green endorsement.
Our bread-and-butter task at both St Mawgan and Aldergrove was to exhaustively patrol the Atlantic. But in July 1954, after a spell back at St Mawgan – by then the School of Maritime Reconnaissance – and six months on No. 220 squadron at nearby St Eval - I was posted overseas to No. 224 Squadron in Gibraltar. And what a tour it was! No longer just the Atlantic, but flights ranging through Ceylon, India, Iraq, Libya and both Madeira and the Azores. Except that in October 1957 it was back to freezing-cold Britain - with a decision to be made!
It was clear that the RAF had an interest in me and, indeed, even as I pursued my internal debate they sent me to Worksop, to No. 4 Flying Training School, for a jet familiarisation course. Twenty hours on the single-engined, twin-boomed Vampire. What a mind-blowing experience from the simplistic engine control to the swiftness – and unbelievable smoothness – of jet flight. Flight, moreover, with never, ever a mag drop!
A great interlude! But still my problem nagged. I was well aware that I had suffered a sea change. Possibly from seeing so much of it. For although further advancement in the RAF and even a new career in Civil Aviation offered, neither attracted.
In part, it was the ground jobs, the rationale for which remained the same; indeed, more so since I had become a squadron leader. For as I was a senior officer the RAF was primarily interested in my command and administrative abilities, not my flying skills. Yet being hived off to an admin job had always made me feel put upon.
Of far greater moment, though, Joan and I had never had the opportunity of setting up a real home together - and that really weighted. But – to give up flying…..?
Then again, since 1934 I had flown 1,400 hours as crew, a good proportion of it on wartime operations, and 1,600 hours as a pilot, almost all on operational patrols. Only….wasn’t I true that for some time now the zest had gone?
And that, when it finally found expression, I recognized as the crux. Accordingly, on 4 November 1957, I submitted my resignation.
Getting used to civilian life took some time. Eventually, however, unable to find a niche at any level I found acceptable, I sought advice from a golfing acquaintance who persuaded me to try my hand at vehicle sales. Initially this meant my matching commercial and agricultural vehicles to the needs of prospective customers. And it all went very well, so that within a matter of months I had developed a lucrative, countrywide chain of client contacts. Only to remain fundamentally unsettled. Until I confessed to my boss that I didn’t like my image as a flash-Harry car salesman. He was enormously amused. Yet puzzled also.
‘But ‘ he reasoned, ‘everything hinges on the company sales director.’
Company Sales Director! Ah! Suddenly all doubt vanished. Indeed, I rather think my golf improved too!
Above all, I finally had a real family home. - essentially for the first time since meeting Joan, back in Nottingham in 1946 (Joan Ball, as she had been then). Her father was Cyril Ball, a former RFC-cum-RAF pilot and brother of my boyhood hero, Albert Ball, VC.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Seeding the Storm
Description
An account of the resource
Account of John Mitchell's career in the Royal Air Force from Oct 1934 until November 1957. Writes of his early ambitions to fly, and joining the RAF as a wireless operator. Describes his training and early postings to Worthy Down on Vickers Virginia. Mentions difficulties of using early wireless sets and of lack of policy on aircraft crewing. Continues with describing his time on Whitley, having to qualify as an air gunner and comments on his first tour of operation in bomber command at the beginning of the war. Mentions flying from several bases and various targets up until the fall of France. Writes of career after completing his first tour in November 1941. He was posted as signals leader for his second tour on Lancaster and he goes on to describe operations from June 1943. Mentions doing three post war cook's tours and goes on to describe his career after the war when he retrained as a pilot.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J E F Mitchel
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Sixteen page printed document with tree b/w photographs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BMitchellJEFMitchellJEFv2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Hampshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
England--Hampshire
England--Winchester
England--Wiltshire
Norway
Norway--Oslo
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Essen
France
France--La Capelle-en-Thiérache
France--Amiens
France--Abbeville
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Italy
Scotland--Moray
Northern Ireland--Enniskillen
England--Nottingham
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Berlin
England--Rutland
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
England--Shropshire
Gibraltar
Italy--Turin
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
England--Cornwall (County)
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Nottinghamshire
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1934-10-10
1935-07-12
1936-05-13
1939-09-03
1940-05-17
1940-05-21
1940-06-26
1940-06-11
1941-07-01
1943-05-20
1943-06-20
1944-01-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
19 OTU
207 Squadron
220 Squadron
58 Squadron
6 Group
air gunner
aircrew
animal
anti-aircraft fire
Cook’s tour
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
Harvard
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operational Training Unit
pilot
promotion
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Driffield
RAF Kinloss
RAF Langar
RAF Morton Hall
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Pocklington
RAF Spilsby
RAF St Eval
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Ternhill
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF West Freugh
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Worthy Down
Shackleton
sport
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1490/27597/LMitchellJEF550261v1.2.pdf
12af30c01e71c2c6bb7e257155d97e84
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mitchell, Mitch
John Ernest Francis Mitchell
J E F Mitchell
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Mitchell, JEF
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. Flight Lieutenant John Ernest Francis 'Mitch' Mitchell. Joined the RAF as a boy entrant in 1934 and trained as a wireless operator. Flew on Vickers Virginia, Handley Page Heyford and Whitley before the war. Completed an operational tour on Whitley 1939-41. After being rested he flew a second tour of operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron before retraining as a pilot post war. Collection contains his flying logbooks, memoires of his air force career and first operations, lists of his operations, correspondence and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C A Wood and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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/.
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
LMitchellJEF550261v1
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
L Mitchell’s air gunner’s flying log book covering the period from 1 July 1936 to 17 September 1941. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as air gunner. He was stationed at Upper Heyford, Driffield, Boscombe Down and Linton-on-Ouse (58 Squadron), RAF Acklington (2 AOS) and RAF Kinloss (19 OTU). Aircraft flown in were Virginia, Anson, Whitley and Hind. Targets were Ruhr, Kiel, Germany, Oslo, Stavanger, Maastrich, France, Italy and convoy patrols. He flew twelve convoy patrols and thirteen night operations with 58 Squadron. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant O'Niell, Flying Officer Espley, Flight Sergeant Moore, Flying Officer Russell, Flying Officer Cribb, Flying Officer Rail, Pilot Officer Pyke, Sergeant Terreneau, Sergeant Cornish, and Pilot Officer Clements.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
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
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Northumberland
England--Oxfordshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Kiel
Netherlands--Maastricht
Norway--Oslo
Norway--Stavanger
Scotland--Moray Firth
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1939-09-03
1939-09-04
1939-10-12
1939-10-16
1939-11-08
1939-12-04
1939-12-17
1939-12-30
1940-01-13
1940-01-17
1940-01-23
1940-04-17
1940-04-18
1940-04-30
1940-05-01
1940-05-13
1940-05-14
1940-05-15
1940-05-16
1940-05-19
1940-05-20
1940-05-21
1940-05-22
1940-05-23
1940-05-24
1940-06-01
1940-06-02
1940-06-03
1940-06-04
1940-06-04
1940-06-05
1940-06-07
1940-06-08
1940-06-09
1940-06-10
1940-06-11
1940-06-12
1940-06-13
1940-06-14
1940-06-15
1940-06-17
1940-06-18
1940-06-19
1940-06-20
1940-06-21
1940-06-26
1940-06-27
1940-06-28
1940-06-29
1940-07-07
1940-07-08
Title
A name given to the resource
John Mitchell's flying log book. One
19 OTU
58 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crash
forced landing
Operational Training Unit
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Driffield
RAF Kinloss
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF West Freugh
training
Whitley
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/862/22807/MHayI906233-170510-04.2.jpg
8d25af8ecaefee8ed112dbd557ec108d
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
Hay, Ian
I Hay
Description
An account of the resource
67 items. An oral history interview with Rhona Hay (b.1942) photographs and postcards from her father. Her brother and father served in the RAF. Her brother, <span>Ian de Sailly Errol Hay was killed 24 September 1940.</span> <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rhona Hay and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br /><span data-contrast="none" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW232469343 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW232469343 BCX0">Additional information on Ian Hay</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW232469343 BCX0"> is available via the</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW232469343 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}"> <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/110277/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hay, I
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
Telegram announcing outbreak of war
Description
An account of the resource
A telegram to all RAF units stating 'War has broken out with Germany only'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1939-09-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typed sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MHayI906233-170510-04
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Air Ministry
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
RAF Abingdon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1720/28756/AMaxwellMI190904.1.mp3
140988a4844426fd04d1e0c366915bd9
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
Maxwell, Margaret Irene
M I Maxwell
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Margaret Maxwell. She was a child during the war and remembers the bombing of London and Coventry.
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
2019-09-04
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
Maxwell, MI
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MM: I can’t remember the date.
[recording paused]
DB: This is an interview with Margaret Eileen Irene Maxwell at her home in Coggeshall in Essex. It’s the 4th of September 2019 and it’s 14.20 hours. Also present is her daughter Ann Maxwell. Margaret, can you tell me more about your experiences during World War Two?
MM: I was just about to turn twelve when World War Two was declared. It was Sunday morning and mum and I were sitting on the back doorstep of our house at 98 Parkside Avenue, Romford in Essex. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain was scheduled to speak to the nation on the radio at 11am 3rd of September 1939. As soon as we received the news a siren sounded. We later found out it was a false alarm. I went across the road to see my friend Barbara. I knew it was a serious situation because the year before we had had the Munich Crisis and Chamberlain had declared peace in our time. However, by the time war was declared we had already been issued with gas masks which everybody had been instructed to carry with them at all times. I detested my mask and recall the awful smell of rubber when I had to try it on. We all carried them religiously to start off with but we got a bit lax about later carrying oh sorry a bit lax about carrying them later when it appeared there wouldn’t be a gas attack. The first year after the declaration things appeared to be quiet. We continued in our daily lives including going to school. At the outbreak of war cafes, restaurants and cinemas all closed but as the war progressed they started to open up again. I was too young to worry about the closure of cinemas, restaurants and theatres but I remember the local church never closed and put on social events every day. We had table tennis, shove ha’penny and card games. The Wykeham Hall next door to St Edwards Church held a dance every Saturday and as I got older I used to go there with my friends. We also went to Warley near Brentwood for dances. As it was all barracks there were many servicemen there. There were no preparations to speak of at our school Romford Intermediate, Park End Road apart from a trench which was dug in the middle of one of our playing fields. We knew that we had to use the trench for protection in the event of an invasion. If Hitler had invaded at this time the general consensus was that we would have been overrun as we were ill prepared. Later brick shelters were built on one of the playgrounds and each shelter could take a class of about thirty five children. There was no electricity and I remember spending hours in the gloom knitting. We also had many singsongs to pass the time. Our lunch break was changed in order to allow us to go home earlier but at the start of the war we were not allowed to leave for home until someone appeared to accompany us. Before the war no one living fairly close the school was allowed to cycle to school but the war changed that as we all needed to get from A to B as quickly as possible and for many people the bicycle provided that speed.
[recording paused]
MM: Prior to the war we all had a one third of a pint bottle of milk a day. During the war this milk was delivered in large quantities and especially appointed milk monitors were tasked with decanting it into metal mugs. The milk was often warm, especially during the summer months as there was no refrigeration and as the metal mugs were frequently not washed properly we had to get used to it tasting rancid as well as tasting of metal. It was a disgusting experience. Our education was disrupted in other ways. One of the first casualties was the science department. The chemicals contained within that department would have been a hazard if fire had broken out with an incendiary or a bomb. Incendiaries were specifically designed to start fires whereas the bombs caused massive damage and immediate loss of life.
[recording paused]
MM: Domestic science was taught on a rota basis. One term cooking, one term needlework and one term laundry. Rationing made a huge difference to the cooking lessons as we had to take our own ingredients. As a direct result of the war we were taught to cook in a [haydocks] A large box would be lined with hay, a casserole would be brought up to heat on a cooker and then transferred. Transferred to the box, covered in hay, closed in and left for a number of hours to cook in its heat. Rationing had an effect but we never felt hungry. For most households cooking was done by the mother and rationing forced people to be more inventive. An example of rationing would be one egg, about two ounces of sugar, two ounces of butter per person per week. Dry egg powder was more available. Eventually we surrendered our egg ration in exchange for chicken food called Balancer Meal which we fed to three hens. We got many more eggs that way. I used to spend hours queuing up in the market for any food that wasn’t rationed like offal. We would visit the cornfields after harvest to glean what we could to feed the chickens. We also had an allotment which my father hated tending. It was my mother who liked the gardening.
[recording paused]
MM: One of my most vivid memories was of Hitler’s concerted effort to raze London to the ground known as the Blitz which was fought during the period of 7th of September 1940 to the 10th of May 1941. Shortly after it started I was in Romford marketplace on my bicycle like many thirteen year olds. The air raid siren went and I knew I had to get home. It was a Saturday and the market place was very crowded which was usual. However, as soon as the siren sounded the marketplace emptied in an instant. Just like rabbits disappearing down a burrow. I pedalled furiously up North Street to get home. It seemed an age as my bike was only small. There were anti-aircraft guns being discharged somewhere nearby and it seemed to me that as I was racing to get home these guns were following me and I was absolutely terrified. When I reached home I threw my bike in to our small front garden and dived in to the house through the already open door. My friend Joyce was bombed out of her house three times so her family frequently had to be found somewhere else to stay. On one occasion the roof fell in and Joyce was in her bed at the time. Our house shook very badly one night when a bomb exploded nearby and shrapnel came through the windows. I still have a coffee table which was damaged in that raid. At that time we did have, didn’t have an Anderson shelter. The criteria for being given a shelter by the government was that the head of the household should not be earning more than £5 a week. My dad did earn £5 a week so did not qualify for the shelter. Our next door neighbour’s head of the household George Lambert was only earning £3.50 so they qualified for the shelter despite that fact that four other adults were all earning reasonable wages. George’s wife Hetty was a school teacher and his three daughters Dorothy, Hazel and Kitty were all working so that they certainly pushed up the household income well beyond £5 that my family of four had coming in. It was very unfair.
DB: Okay.
MM: When they got their shelter they did invite us to share it with them so sometimes there were nine of us in one shelter in their garden. The three girls drifted off. I was too young to realise or to be told where they had gone but I assumed some sort of war service. This led my family to share this shelter with the parents. Unfortunately, there were wooden floorboards, wooden boards on the floor and after one particularly wet night in the shelter my mother woke up on the boards and they were floating with her on them. She vowed never to spend another night in it and my father decided to have a brick shelter built at the top of our garden. I recall feeling much safer in our neighbour’s Anderson shelter than in our own brick shelter although I cannot say why. During the Blitz I heard bombers going over us as most of the air action took place at night. We had no street lights which older teenagers felt useful if they had a boyfriend and didn’t want their dad to see them kissing him goodnight. Later I had an American boyfriend and my dad was not happy about it. The Americans were disliked but I realise that it was mainly because they didn’t seem to suffer the same deprivations as us. They always seemed to have enough clothes, lovely food and the luxuries we couldn’t get like chocolate. Some relatives who lived in Warwick invited my family to stay during the Blitz so we travelled up by train. We travelled at night so I couldn’t see very much. Later on during that night Coventry was hit badly and in the morning we went on our hired bikes to survey the damage. I walked through the ruins of Coventry Cathedral and I thought it looked so much like London. There was destruction everywhere. I had an uncle who lived in Leigh on Sea and although it would have been lovely to visit him at the seaside we weren’t allowed to go there. It was only residents who were allowed in to seaside towns. Obviously because they were important to our defences. With the benefit of hindsight I realise that my teenage years were very different from what they would have been if I had been able to live a more normal life. As the years passed we all got used to it. My father had served in the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War and had seen active service in the trenches in Ypres, Belgium. He developed nephritis as a result of being up to his waist in water day in and day out and was discharged from the Army. He was only aged thirty nine at the outbreak. You ought to put in there out the out [pause] Sorry.
[recording paused]
With the benefit of hindsight I realised that my teenage years were very different from what they would have been if I’d been able to live a more normal life. As the years passed we all got used to it. My father had served in the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War and had seen active service in the trenches in Ypres, Belgium. He developed nephritis as a result of being up to his waist in water day in day out and he was discharged from the Army. He was only thirty nine at the outbreak of the Second World War hostilities. However, as men were called up for military service by age starting with the younger men by the time my father’s turn came he was too old so became an air raid warden. He worked full time as an office manager for Marks and Clerk Patent Agents in Lincoln’s Inn Fields during the day. It was the only job he did until he retired after fifty years with the same firm. He would come home and after dinner we would wait for the 6 o’clock siren to sound as we knew that would be the signal to go to the shelter.
[recording paused]
MM: Sorry. Okay. Dad used to go out during and after an air raid to assess the damage and make sure people were safe. I remember seeing a huge bomb crater in the middle of the town after one raid and when dad looked in to it heard a ticking sound. It was an unexploded bomb and we had arrived before the defence services. We got away pretty quickly. The nose of a V-2 rocket fell into our neighbour’s garden and I remember being surprised at how huge it was. Another bomb made a crater outside the Parkside Hotel and a bus fell into it. There was a furniture shop called Henry Haysom’s in North Street and during one bomber raid it was completely burned out. A land mine ended up in a tree, also in North Street but that was safely removed and diffused before it could hurt anyone. I’ll stop now
[recording paused]
My brother Ken joined the Navy and he was on the bridge of HMS Lawford when she sank in the English Channel. Although the facts of the sinking were kept quiet we later discovered that the vessel was the first casualty of a German aerial torpedo. My brother gave his lifejacket to a chap who couldn’t swim and as a result of the time he spent in the water and the shock he spent six months recovering at Milford Haven. When he came home he refused to sleep in the shelter saying if his name was on a bomb so be it and he slept in his own bed. On those occasions mum stayed in the house too. I was too frightened and I stayed in the shelter. When I left school I was almost seventeen and I used to travel to London by train each day. I could then see the number of buildings that had been destroyed as you get closer to London. So many of the tenement buildings had been burned and damaged by bombs and incendiaries.
[recording paused]
MM: My first job was as a secretary for a firm of stevedores and master porters. I had to sign the Official Secrets Act because we saw copies of bills of lading for goods which were going from Tilbury and obviously they all related to our war effort and were top secret. I later worked for Mr Charles William Hill, the senior partner of [Bronden] Hill Solicitors in Gray’s Inn Square. I was getting used to the legal terminology and had to learn the shorthand for these words. Although Mr Hill was a perfect gentleman most of the time I remember him telling me that my shorthand was, ‘No bloody good,’ because sometimes I couldn’t read it. Part of the building had been bombed but the staircase remained and I had to walk up these stairs to access my office every day. My future husband Jim was working on a balloon site in Primrose Hill when he was blown up by the blast from a bombing raid. Most iron railings had been removed but where Jim was working the railings were still in place. The blast threw him up in the air and he landed up on these railings pinned on spikes which entered his body under the arm and through his leg. He was hospitalised for a time recovering from his wounds. Although it seemed quite exciting at the time the war had a profound effect on me and even now I cannot hear an air raid siren, an air raid siren without it triggering some awful memories of the death and destruction. By the end of the war I found it very difficult to sleep and could only get a good night if my father stayed with me until I fell asleep. I would have, I would have preferred to have grown up without the trauma of war but we all made the best we could of it. I made some good friends and despite the circumstances we had a great deal of fun. We all looked forward to a better life when peace was declared.
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 Margaret Irene Maxwell
Creator
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Denise Boneham
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-09-04
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.
Format
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00:16:09 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMaxwellMI190904
Description
An account of the resource
Margaret was almost twelve years old at the outbreak of World War Two and living in Romford, Essex. She remembers the announcement made by Neville Chamberlain on the radio on September 3rd 1939. Margaret recounts being issued with a gas mask and how cafes, restaurants and cinemas were initially closed. Her local church, St Andrew’s, remained open and provided daily social events such as table tennis. Her school, Romford Intermediate, made some preparations for the war including a trench dug in a field. Later, brick air raid shelters were built on a playground which could house up to thirty children. She also recalls rationing, but never felt hungry and feels that rationing made people be more inventive with cooking. They kept hens for eggs and also had an allotment.
She experienced the Blitz shortly after it started as one Saturday she was in Romford market when the air raid sirens sounded. She recalls how frightening it was, and how she cycled home as fast as possible, as the aircraft batteries began firing. Her friend Joyce was bombed out of her house three times. Her family did not qualify for an Andersen shelter, but the neighbours invited them to sleep in theirs. Later, her father built a brick shelter in their own garden. She travelled by train to visit family in Warwick during the Blitz. That night Coventry was heavily bombed, and Margaret witnessed the damage the next day, including walking through the ruins of Coventry cathedral. Margaret recalls landmines, a V-2 rocket in the neighbour’s garden and unexploded bombs, as well as details such as a bomb crater outside the Parkside Hotel which a bus fell into. Just before she was seventeen, travelled to London every day on the train and could see the bomb damage. Margaret worked as a secretary in the cargo industry and due to the nature of the work had to sign the Official Secrets Act.
Her father had served in the Army at Ypres during the first World War. He became an Air Raid Warden during the Second World War. Her future husband Jim served on a balloon battery at Primrose Hill, and survived been impaled on iron railings by the blast of a bomb.Margaret’s brother Ken was in the Royal Navy and his ship HMS Lawford was sunk in the English Channel, by a new aerial weapon. After helping other crew members, he was rescued and spent the next six months recovering at Milford Haven.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Andy Shaw
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Warwickshire
Wales--Pembrokeshire
England--Essex
England--Warwick
England--Coventry
England--London
Wales--Milford Haven
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
1940-11-14
1940-11-15
1945
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
British Army
Royal Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940)
childhood in wartime
civil defence
fear
home front
shelter
V-2
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/522/32102/BMannAMannAv5.1.pdf
2aa1618dd74bb9ce2d79a3df904ab931
Dublin Core
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Title
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Mann, Alan
A Mann
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Mann, A
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Alan Mann (b.1926). He was an apprentice at De-Havilland during the war and experienced bombing in 1940.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Alan Mann and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-30
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.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
I was born on the 4th November 1926 and had a brother 7 years older than me.
My father was a compositor for the Evening Standard, a paper owned by William Maxwell Aitken, he also owned other newspapers including the Daily Express. As Lord Beaverbrook he became a very successful Minister of Aircraft Production.
His son, Max Aitken, was a Bristol Blenheim fighter pilot with No. 601 Squadron at Biggin Hill, during the early part of the war. He reached the rank of Group Captain with 14 enemy aircraft destroyed and one shared. His awards included the Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Flying Cross.
It was thanks to my father that I was able to develop an early interest in aircraft, ships and racing cars.
From the age of five I accompanied my father to Croydon Airport where he interviewed important arrivals; I was more interested in the aircraft!
A Handley Page W.8 twelve seat airliner.
The photograph was taken at Croydon Airport in 1932, when I was five years old. I am the
small boy in the group on the right. (Picture was taken by my father with his Kodak Brownie box camera).
These visits continued until 1939 when war was declared. I particularly remember the designs of the de Havilland Aircraft Company being ahead of the others, which mostly appeared ancient by comparison. During my later visits to Croydon I remember the Handley Page 45 Airliner, still in regular service with Imperial Airways, alongside the sleek new de Havilland Albatross.
Handley Page 45 De Havilland Albatross
I later read that around 80% of the aircraft to be seen at Croydon, pre war, were built by de Havilland and engined by Major Frank Halford. I also remember visiting Brooklands and seeing Frank Halford successfully racing his own designed and engined car.
Accompanying my Father I remember visiting the Portsmouth Navy Days and the Empire Air Days at Biggin Hill and Kenley, the last being at Biggin Hill on the 20th May 1938.
Early in 1938 I joined my new school, Brockley Grammar in Hilly Fields, in what turned
Page 2
out to be a very short time. I remember there was talk of another war with Germany culminating with the Munich Crisis in the summer of ’38, resulting in the school being evacuated to Robertsbridge, 10 miles north of Hastings. I chose not to go and was left without a permanent school until later in the year, when I joined the South East London Technical Institute on a three year engineering course.
Our Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, proclaimed he had averted another war with Germany, when he arrived at Heston Airport, on the 30th September 1938, waving a piece of paper containing Hitler’s signature, and saying that an agreement had finally been reached over problems with Hitler annexing territory on his borders.
Neville Chamberlain arriving at Heston Chamberlain waving the famous piece of
on September 30th 1938 in a American paper with Hitler’s signature
Lockheed 14 of British Airways Ltd
However this was not to be and Germany invaded Czechoslovakia on March 15th 1939. Once again Britain and France did nothing! Next Hitler began to threaten Poland and at last Chamberlain responded by saying that an attack on Poland would not be tolerated and that an attack on them would be followed by a declaration of war.
On May 22nd Italy signed a pact declaring that they would support Germany in the event of war. On the 23rd August, Russia (Stalin) signed a non- aggression pact with Germany. Thus Hitler thought he had tied up all the loose ends and was now ready to invade Poland.
On September 1st Hitler invaded Poland and we responded by saying that if Germany had not withdrawn their troops by the 3rd September, we would be at war. Again Hitler did not believe that we would do anything and so went ahead with the invasion. As a result, at 1l o’clock on Sunday the 3rd September, Neville Chamberlain announced that we were once again at war with Germany. Shortly afterwards France also declared war on Germany.
On that day I remember my family gathered around the radio listening to our Prime Minister with interest. Upon hearing his announcement there followed a stunned silence; my parents couldn’t believe that we were once again at war, just 21 years after being involved in the horrors of the last war. For me this seemed to be the culmination of events following the evacuation of my school a year earlier.
My brother Bill was twenty and serving an apprenticeship in the printing industry. Together with friends he enrolled in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and became a member before the year was out. I think the feeling was that they thought the war would be over very quickly and wanted a piece of the action before it was too late. My brother was the only survivor of the four that joined at that time.
I was not so sure, during the last Open Day visit to our local airfield at RAF Biggin Hill, I was aware that most of the aircraft on display
were obsolete and no match for the new German Air Force. The Hurricane was in squadron use
and a Spitfire was on show, together with a Wellington bomber, but most of the displays were performed by obsolete biplanes.
Page 3
At that time I was an avid reader of aviation magazines and couldn’t imagine a successful result of our ancient biplanes against the latest Messerschmitt monoplane fighters.
The first of our modern fighters, the Hawker Hurricane only began to enter service in December 1937; although by September 1939 nearly 500 Hurricanes had been produced, equipping 18 squadrons, including the two resident squadrons at Biggin Hill.
If we had gone to war earlier we would have been fighting Germany’s latest monoplane aircraft with obsolete biplanes and without Dowding’s invaluable early warning system.
While our defensive forces were being modernised other divisions of our Air Force were neglected. Our attacking bombers had to make do with obsolete aircraft and suffered the consequences.
When the Battle of Britain is celebrated the invaluable contribution made by our airman, flying inadequate aircraft, is largely forgotten. In fact during the Battle of Britain we lost more aircrew flying the attacking bombers than from our defensive fighters, 544 from Fighter Command, 280 from the Fleet Air Arm and 780 flying obsolete bombers.
I would like to think that the Battle of Britain was won because of the Spirit of our Nation at that time, with all involved having a part to play, including our Merchant Navy, contributing to its successful outcome.
I knew little about our Army but was impressed at what I had seen at the last Portsmouth Royal Navy Open Day. I was well aware of what could be in store for us after seeing the result of Germany’s newly formed air force bombing civilians in the Spanish civil war, a war that started on the 17th July 1936 and lasted until the 1st April 1939.
Then, within a few hours following the declaration of war, the air raid warning sounded and I expected the worst! Fortunately it was a false alarm and with some trepidation had lunch; this was how I remember the start of the war. Upon reflection the 1939 war began to affect my life with the interruption of my schooling during the summer of 1938 and continued until some time after 1954 when rationing finally finished.
Although the actual fighting finally stopped with the surrender of the Japanese on the 15th August 1945, the effects of the war was to be seen and felt long into the 1950’s. Even now I cannot forget the experience and, although fortunate in not having been a member of the fighting forces, at least able to relate to their personal experiences.
I have no doubt that the courage of those that took part in the Battle of Britain saved our country from becoming yet another member of Hitler’s Third Reich. I feel privileged when able to record the remarkable experiences of those who experienced the physical and mental horrors of war and can only apologise to those who consider such memories as unworthy subjects for modern day conversation. It only takes the sound of a Merlin engine to evoke my memories of the war, while to others it is just the sound of another engine.
While it is possible to recreate the physical symbols of war in a museum, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to invoke the spirit of the lives that once inhabitant those objects. They were real people who once lived in the environment of that time, with the daily uncertainties
of what tomorrow might bring, assuming we would still be alive to enjoy it, the food, the music, the radio, all the things that bring back memories of that period. It is these memories that add real meaning to the museum objects on display. Without memories relics just relate to another period in history.
It is perhaps unfortunate that when I hear the modern generation chattering on about their holidays and other current topics I find difficulty in maintaining any real interest, allowing my concentration to drift back to a period which is still very fresh in my memory. I then have to accept that I have become just another old bore that keeps prattling on about the war.
Alan Mann
January 2016
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
My War
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with early life and interest in aviation, including photographs of pre WW2 aircraft seen at Croydon airport. Recollects going to last open day at RAF Biggin Hill. Continues account of events of lead up to and start of the war. Writes a little about the RAF and his personal and family circumstances. Provides some thoughts on the Battle of Britain.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alan Mann
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01
Format
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Three page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BMannAMannAv5
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Croydon
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1926-11-04
1938
1939
1938-05-20
1938-09-30
1945
1939-09-03
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.
601 Squadron
Hurricane
RAF Biggin Hill
Spitfire
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/16093/EKendrickAFDonaldsonDW451008.2.jpg
0ff09b6defd23f6764cc9cdcc8055c76
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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
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
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Royal Air Force,
Foulsham,
Nr. Dereham,
Norfolk.
8th October, 1945
This is to certify that 70185 Acting Wing Commander David William Donaldson D.S.O. and Bar, D.F.C, R.A.F.V.R., was mobilised on active service with the Royal Air Force from 3rd September 1939 until 1st October 1945.
[underlined] A.F. Kendrick [/underlined]
Squadron Leader
Officer i/c Administration,
Royal Air Force, FOULSHAM.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
David Donaldson certification of mobilisation
Description
An account of the resource
Notes that Acting Wing Commander David Donaldson D.S.O and bar, D.F.C, R.A.F.V.R was mobilised on 3 September 1939 until 1st October 1945.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A F Kendrick
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-10-08
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10-08
1939-09-03
1945-10-01
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EKendrickAFDonaldsonDW451008
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
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
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One-page typewritten letter
Contributor
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Frances Grundy
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
RAF Foulsham