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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46474/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v670002.mp3
dc330a19486127faee58285311c26dbe
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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-06-19
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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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
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34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
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Interviewer: I’m with Bertie Salvage in his home in Stamford.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And Bertie served a good long time in the Air Force.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And so, to start. I understand Bertie that your first encounter with the RAF was when you joined up. Was it 1939?
BS: 1939. On October the 6th 1939. And —
Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, you know, did you that was at the beginning of the Second World War.
BS: Well, it was. The war had broken out early September and it was a Sunday afternoon and we were home and the air raid siren went off for the first time. We were all sitting down to Sunday dinner in Southend on Sea where I —
Interviewer: This is the famous first day of the war.
BS: Yes, it was. The first day of the war. Then of course we all rushed outside. Of course nothing happened, you know. It was, it was just a false alarm. But anyway, I had received notification that I had passed the RAF exam as an aircraft apprentice to go to Cranwell and so I then received information in early September that I was to report to Cranwell on the 6th of October 1939. So this was, this duly happened. I went to Cranwell. I was inducted as an aircraft apprentice at RAF Cranwell. The instrument maker apprentices and the wires and electrical mechanic apprentices were being trained at Cranwell at the time. The other trades were being trained at RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire. So they were the two schools really and also some at Cosford. They were boy entrants. Anway, so it was quite a fierce trades really from the comforts of home to the, to the spartan conditions of the RAF as it then was in 1939. We were in huge barrack blocks at Cranwell where they had forty to a room you know. Iron bedsteads left over from the Great War I think [laughs] and very very far, very strong discipline you know. Very firm discipline which it had to be for young boys I suppose just joining the Air Force but I settled down and we did basic training on the square. Just for a few weeks you know. Two or three weeks basic training and drill and all that sort of thing. Learned to keep ourselves neat and tidy, our uniforms. To keep the barrack rooms clean and everything else. And of course, it was very very tough the discipline but you know some, in some respects you appreciated it. I enjoyed it really. Well, then we settled in on our technical training. We used to march down to the workshops every day at Cranwell and this went on and on and the, the one thing I do remember is that going over into 1940 just about the time of just before Dunkirk when the Germans had invaded the low countries we used to march to the workshops every day and during that early period when the Germans were still invading France they used to play patriotic music over the tannoy system as we were marching to work. Such things as, “We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line.” [laughs] And of course that didn’t ever happen. Things like that you know. It was quite an amazing time to go through really at that period leading up to Dunkirk. Anyway, so the training went on. I found it very interesting. The technical training. All the aircraft. The aircraft electrical instrument systems and all that you know and also quite a lot of electrical information. Electrical instruction as well because a lot of instruments were, you know operated by electricity or electrical systems and you know so that went on sort of quite happily. And then in 1940 around about August time the instrument maker schools was moved out to Halton with the apprentices of the other trades. RAF Halton. It was a wonderful change because Halton is a lovely part of the country you know in Buckinghamshire whereas Cranwell was —
Interviewer: Flat.
BS: We didn’t like it very much up there. Dismal sort of area there. So we got to Halton and but, but in the interim period sort of you know we had a month’s leave actually. Four weeks leave in the changeover between going from Cranwell to Halton and I went home to Southend on Sea and I watched lots of the Battle of Britain going on with all the aerodrome above us coming up the Thames Estuary and we had a grandstand view really, Southend unfortunately.
Interviewer: And what was the feeling like in the country at that time?
BS: Very patriotic. Very patriotic. Yeah.
Interviewer: And was there a, you know a real fear of invasion at that stage?
BS: Well, there was a fear of, well there was but somehow we used to have the feeling it can’t happen to us. You know that sort of British feeling that —
Interviewer: Stiff upper lip and all that.
BS: Stiff upper lip and all that. Oh yes. There was the fear but it was, it was a defiance really. No one is bloody going to invade us sort of thing, you know. But of course, we were right on the, down at Southend where my old home was that was right on the sort of, you know if they had invaded it would be one of the first places that they would come in through I would have thought.
Interviewer: What was the news reporting? Was it, was, did you hear what was going on?
BS: Oh yes. Oh, the news reporting was very good. We, we knew all the time what was going on. I saw quite a few battles when I was, that month I was home. I saw quite a few aerial dogfights you know but one minute they were there and then they were gone you know. It was that —
Interviewer: Very fleeting.
BS: Very fleeting you know. Basically your question. I went through. I went and got in to the autumn of 1940 when they started the bombing on London. We used to get home occasionally on a forty eight hour pass. I went through London, through a couple of Blitzes you know and quite often I had to take shelter in the deep air raid, deep underground stations that they’d allocated to be air raids sort of shelters for people. So I experienced that and there were terrible scenes I saw you know before going on to Halton. So, that was, that was something to remember really, you know. So anyway, we, we continued our training at Halton which was, you know, very good. And then I actually because of the war they forced short the apprentice —
Interviewer: Training.
BS: Training from three years to well, less than two years.
Interviewer: Yes, I was going to say I was surprised.
BS: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: That you were —
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: That you spend time in training.
BS: Yes. So, I passed, I passed out actually in July 1941 and I wasn’t eighteen. I was still only seventeen. I passed out and our training wasn’t complete but they considered we had been trained sufficiently to be able to take part. We’d learn more as we went along.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Having joined a squadron.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: You see.
Interviewer: Learning on the job.
BS: That’s right. Yes. So, nineteen, I was in the, when I was left Halton I was posted to RAF Marham in Norfolk to 218 Squadron. There were two squadrons there. The Wellington squadron. Wellingtons. 115 and 218 but Wellingtons. Basically, Wellington bombers and I always remember in the train going from, up from Halton to, to Marham it was a lovely sunny day in July we heard for the first time the subject about the Russians. The Germans invading Russia. That was the first time we had heard that Russia had come into the war you see. And so we got to, got to Marham and of course straightway I was pitchforked on to the squadron and it was very interesting you know being inducted into servicing the Wellingtons. We used to have to also apart from looking after all the instrument systems, instrument repairs and replacement we had also responsibility for the navigation system as well you know because it was astral navigation in those days you know and also the oxygen system. So we had to, in those days you had to physically change the oxygen bottles after every trip, you know. Quite a lot of bottles too. That was quite a job. So that’s one of my little jobs I had to do. But one of the funny things was that the aircraft apart from dropping bombs they used to drop leaflets over Germany. I still have a sample. And also fake ration cards so the Germans would probably pick up these fake ration cards to help deplete the German rations you see. I’ve still got one of those somewhere. Anyway, so that was that but the basic thing I’ll always remember is that of course in those days bombing was, at the time we thought it was very effective but it was not very effective. There was an awful lot of missed targets.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: An awful lot of mixed targets.
Interviewer: Area bombing. Yeah.
BS: That’s right, and but the sad thing was you know the aircrew used to come out and used to get the captains of a bomber was only about nineteen or twenty you know. The responsibility that the lads took on then in those days was quite, it really was quite [pause] but I thinking back on it now I hardly ever saw any sign of fear. They were laughing and joking. They used to wee on the wheels for good luck and things like that you know. And the old air gunners would let off the guns into the night sky just to check on them you know in the turrets. You know and, but they always seemed to set off in a very good mood. But of course, when they didn’t come back or came back badly damaged you know often with blood. On one occasion I remember the, one came back and the rear turret was just a mass of blood and gore.
Interviewer: Yes, I heard somebody else says that.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And the damage that the, that the Wellington could take with geodetic construction was quite amazing really. Old Barnes Wallis had designed them very well indeed you know. And then once, I’d been there a few weeks when the film people came to take a, they made a film called, “One of Our Aircraft is missing.” And they came to shoot at the early stages of the aircraft taking off from our, they came around to our dispersal and they took photos of us ground crew waving to the aircraft as they took off in to the night sky on their bombing missions.
Interviewer: Did they? So that was just done for the camera was it?
BS: that was done for the camera really you know. And I did see and I did have a copy afterwards that I actually saw the back of me and three others just waving like mad to the aircraft that took off into the night sky. But it was a very very very poignant really. They take off into the dusk you know. Disappear. Of course, all grass airfields then. There was no runways. No runways. They were all grass airfields. And so which was quite an embarrassment really later on because in the Autumn of 1941 we converted to Stirlings. We were the second squadron to be, I’ll just get this for you [pause] to be converted to, sorry to be converted to Stirlings.
Interviewer: Oh, I think I’ve seen this photograph before. Yes.
BS: Yes. It’s a special. There was only a few copies made.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: That’s one of the few.
Interviewer: A nice looking aeroplane.
BS: Yes. But very heavy. Very big. Much bigger than the Lanc you know. They carried a bigger bomb load. But of course, the trouble with the Stirling was that the Hercules engines didn’t have the power really to get them over the Alps and they had to struggle like hell to get over to bomb Northern Italy as they used to go and bomb Turin quite a lot. But they used to struggle to get over the Alps and I think they realised that they were built like a tank. Like a fortress inside. But they just didn’t have the power really and I think actually when it came into about 1943 they were actually taken off full line bombing and became towers for the gliders and things like that.
Interviewer: It's a shame because everybody now looks back and thinks —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: The Lancaster was the only bomber.
BS: Oh no. No. The Stirling was she was ever she was very good in every respect bar the fact she was underpowered. But I’ve flown in a Stirling and I’ve flown, I had to get every chance I could. Air testing, you know. Those I used to fly. I’ve flown I a Stirling. I’ve flown quite a few times in Wellingtons. You know, on the air tests. I used to like to sit in the rear turrets. Quite fun. And you know so I got one for experience really and the, and another snag with the Stirling was that it was the first aircraft that ever had the electrical undercarriage. And old DC motors they requires three thick cables to really get the power through and it was quite a thing to see a Stirling with one wheel collapsed and like this on the airfield. Like you know and had to jack them up to —
Interviewer: I wonder why they went for electric motors rather than —
BS: I don’t know.
Interviewer: Metal damage to cope with if the hydraulics had been —
BS: I think so. I think it was an experiment really you know. They were coming in to a new era and you know so, you know I think they—
Interviewer: A bit embarrassing if you have a generator failure.
BS: Oh yes. And of course, they realised being as these were such big heavy aircraft that the grass airfield was not very good at all. You know, they used to —
Interviewer: They used to get waterlogged, didn’t they?
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Some of these old grassed airfields.
BS: Yeah. So soon after that that, I left the country by then that they decided to build runways you see. So, you know I, people say to me oh there’s the lady who I’m very good friends with at the moment. She’s quite a bit younger than me but if I talk about the olden days she doesn’t want to know. ‘Oh, don’t talk about the past.’ The past. But you get to my age you think about it. It’s life to you, you know what I mean?
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: My memory is still so fantastically good really, you know. Way back to those days it’s as clear as a bell really.
Interviewer: And didn’t you tell me that you remember Trenchard coming?
BS: Oh sorry. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: He lived up to his Boom Trenchard.
BS: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Trenchard. Big man.
BS: When the, I hadn’t been at Marham very long, perhaps, are we still oh dear. I hadn’t been at Marham very long when it was a bit of a miserable sort of day and of course we were working in the hangars and they used to say, ‘Come on. Get outside.’ You know. Assembled on the tarmac outside the hangars because there’s going to be someone giving a talk. So we went outside and stood in a big sort of circle. And suddenly this figure appeared and he was introduced as to Lord Trenchard you see and there he was in his uniform and his rather flat sort of hat. It wasn’t, a bit of a squashed looking hat on his head and he gave us a pep talk you see about how, what a wonderful job we were doing. To keep up, lads, you know. You know, sort of you know and we’ve got the Germans on the run [laughs] you know [laughs] We bloody well hadn’t at that time.
Interviewer: So you took it with a pinch of salt.
BS: Oh yes. I stood quite close to him actually. He had a moustache if I remember rightly.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: But we weren’t told of course at the time it hadn’t really perhaps got around to me by then but we were told that he was the father of the Royal Air Force.
Interviewer: Absolutely.
BS: So it was a privilege to remember that, you see.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And the thing that they say about Trenchard was that when forming the Air Force one of the things he really concentrated on was very good training.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: To make sure not just the air crew but —
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: To make sure that the ground crew had got all the skills.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Which is what, which is quite interesting that you —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did spend quite a good time in training even though it was in the Second World War.
BS: Oh absolutely. Oh yes. And something else I was going to say. I’ve forgotten. Oh, dear its gone from me.
Interviewer: And when the Air Force —
BS: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. He was, was the founder of the Aircraft Apprentice Scheme in 1923. He started it all up at Halton and it’s a wonderful training you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: As a boy of sixteen, just sixteen to be pitchforked from home into that, you know. The sheer discipline and we learned to look after ourselves. Do our own —
Interviewer: Sewing.
BS: Sewing and —
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And keeping our barrack rooms clean. Kit inspection once a week. Everything had to be absolutely spot on, you know. The officer used to come around with the —
Interviewer: And the aircraft apprentices have got a very good reunion and —
BS: Oh well, yes. The Halton Apprentices Association. In fact, I’ve got a book there written by an air vice marshall. Ex-aircraft apprentice who used to, we used to see him actually in our reunions down at Halton and it’s about the life of an aircraft apprentice. I’ll get it out some time and show you.
Interviewer: And the good thing is —
BS: I’ll look it up.
Interviewer: And the interesting thing is how many formal aircraft apprentices made air rank —
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Very senior ranks.
BS: They did. They did. Apart from the technical training which you of course enlarged. I mean, by the time I finished at the RAF I was very highly qualified. Instruments, electronically and everything else. You know, all the courses I went on and all that work on the V bombers. So, you know, it was, it was the sheer sort of discipline that that regulated your life and you know —
Interviewer: A good start.
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: A good start. And did you say you’d, I think you just said you were just saying that you were moving on from Marham. How long did you spend there?
BS: So I was at Marham from July ‘til March ’41.
Interviewer: And then what was next?
BS: Then what happened then was I’ll tell you a funny little story. Can I just recap a bit but when, when I passed out from Halton and I went to Marham and when I went home of course we used to get forty eight passes at any time. Not just at weekends. In the middle of the week or any time. Forty eight hour pass.
Interviewer: When you could be spared.
BS: When you could be spared.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And my father who was a very very patriotic man. My father served right through the first war in the Royal Artillery, through all the modern hell of Passchendaele. You couldn’t meet a more patriotic man. King and country man everything. The fact I went in the the Air Force absolutely wonderful to him you know. Anyway, I went home on my first leave you see. And , ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Where’s your propellers on your arms?’ He thought I was going to be a leading aircraftsman straight away. Of course, I passed out as AC1 not AC2 [laughs] you see. I didn’t get quite the response then, you know. So, so that was that. So that was a funny story really going back. Yes, so what happened then was in March, early March ’42 I was posted overseas. You never knew where you were going abroad in the wartime. You never knew where you were going but overseas. So I went home on embarkation leave for a fortnight. When I got home my mother said, Southend on Sea, my mother said, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Dad’s in hospital, ill. Oh, he’s got congestion of the lungs.’ So I went down to see him. He was very poorly in hospital at Rochford in Essex and anyway within a couple of days he had died.
Interviewer: Oh, that’s —
BS: While I was on embarkation leave. Of course, I had two sisters at home and so that was a blow. So I got a weeks extension you know for his funeral. We buried him down in, we got him buried. And so I I left home, my mother and sisters and went back to Marham to clear and went to [pause] first of all we went, I was sent up to Blackpool. Blackpool was what you called a personnel distribution centre for people going over. PDC they called it. And —
Interviewer: Was that Squire’s Gate?
BS: No. No.
Interviewer: Actually at Blackpool.
BS: That was, we were in civvy billets in Bloomfield Road opposite the football ground. Well they were all civvy billets in those days you see.
Interviewer: Right.
BS: And the nice house, a very nice house we were in. Anyway, we were there for a fortnight and in that time we were all kitted out for overseas. You had an idea perhaps where you were going in those days the sort of kit you got really and we were kitted out at Marks and Spencer’s and Woolworths were military kitting out places you see.
Interviewer: Fantastic.
BS: So we had to barter around Blackpool from one to the other being kitted out and straightaway we knew we weren’t going to India because we didn’t get a pith helmet. The pith helmet. They had the pith helmets to go into India you see. We had the old fashioned [taupes?] that they used in the sort of semi-tropical countries you know like Africa and places like that. So I had a [taupe?] I had all the rest of the khaki drill issued and then we set off. After a fortnight we were what they called drafts in those days. Then we set off by train. Took us all day in the train. Of course, no sort, they had no sort of corridor trains. They were all bloody single compartments.
Interviewer: Separate compartments. Yeah.
BS: And we finished up. Where the hell are we going to? We finished up it turned out in Avonmouth in Bristol.
Interviewer: And you still don’t know where you’re going.
BS: No. Not a clue. Not a clue. No. No. They wouldn’t tell you. So we’d not a clue. We got to Avonmouth. We offloaded from the train at the dockside and there was this big old grey steamer there for troops. She had been called the Island Princess. She had been a Argentine meat boat apparently which had been converted to a trooper. Troop carrier. So we staggered up the gangplank. Don’t know how I staggered up with kit bags. Full blooming kitted on. Your [taupe] Great coat. All the rest of our equipment. We staggered up the gangplank on to the, and straight down the gangways right down to a lower deck. One of the holds had been converted into a troop deck you see. Got down there and we were the last line of portholes going down. The Army were underneath. They didn’t have any portholes. We had the Army on board as well. And there were two hundred of us on the troop deck and we were all sleeping on hammocks and we had sort of mess tables going from the centre out to the sides of the ship you see where we allocated so many to a mess table each you see. About I don’t know about ten or twelve. Something like that. And hammocks had to be stowed in special stowage and your ordinary kit was on racks above you. So, so that was something getting used to and when we came had to sleep at night we we hung our hammocks up you know and when we all slung our hammocks we were sort of more or less touching one another you know. You always had to sleep head to toe for obvious reasons and if anybody was seasick in the night God it was hell.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Bloody awful.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: You can imagine.
Interviewer: I don’t want to contemplate it. I did I did three years in the Navy and —
BS: Oh, did you?
Interviewer: I don’t want to contemplate what it could have been like.
BS: So, so anyway so that was the old troopship and, but I got used it. Actually, I enjoyed it. Anyway, we sailed out in the and we sailed out to Greenock, picked up the rest of the convoy at Greenock and we stayed there overnight and —
Interviewer: But when the ship sailed did you still not know where the ship was going?
BS: No. Not a clue. We hadn’t got a clue. No.
Interviewer: That’s incredible.
BS: Well, I hadn’t got a clue and we sailed up the Irish Sea to Greenock and there we picked up the rest of the convoy. We sailed next day. There was ships from horizon to horizon.
Interviewer: So also and when was this?
BS: This was the end of March ’42. The height of the U-boat war.
Interviewer: Wow.
BS: The height of the U-boat war and, and there were sort of Naval vessels sort of you know going around all the time but of course the convoy had to go to the speed of the slowest ship. Eight knots. That was, that was the and we were kept one in front and one behind, you know, liners. Troopers. All grey and horizon to horizon and it was just ships everywhere. And of course, I never even gave a thought to blooming U-boats. I can remember standing on the bloody bow in the heaving North Atlantic enjoying it. Isn’t this wonderful. I never gave a thought we could bloody well be torpedoed at any time, you know. Its youth you see. Nothing can happen to me.
Interviewer: No.
BS: So anyway, so we kept going day after day after day and getting colder and colder. We were going, we thought we were going a bit north. Anyway, eventually we, we changed course and fortunately you know we saw a couple of Condors came over but, but no we didn’t, nobody was attacked at that time. Or at least after we changed direction of course I knew we were going south and eventually after about a couple of weeks or more, two and a half weeks we landed up in Freetown in Sierra Leone and we anchored there for a couple of days. And I can remember the old [unclear] coming alongside with the natives in them wanting to sell —
Interviewer: Sell things. Yeah.
BS: Including their sister ships [laughs] but rain. I’ve never known rain like it in my life. Anyway, we, we set sail again. By this time the convoy was somewhat spoiled. The faster ships they let go ahead at this point you see. But anyway, we kept, we sailed on and on and on. Eventually we must have, well I still had no idea where we were going. No idea at all, you know what was happening. Where we were going. So we got down to the South of Africa. We’re going around the Cape and suddenly we were sitting down to an evening meal down on the mess decks and suddenly bang and the whole ship shuddered like hell. So the boat sirens, alarms went so we, there wasn’t panic but we went up several ladders to the upper, to the boat decks and we stood at our boat stations. There was the Acali raft station on the bloody boat. We had an Acali raft station. And the ship just, just over there was going down. You know, she was the Naval vessel had turned back and was going towards it. So we stayed, we stayed at boat stations for what must have been well over an hour. We went down again and just sat down again when another bang went up and another ship had been hit. You know sort of further away. So, and then we were told over the tannoy that we’d actually arrived into an enemy minefield laid by the Japanese ocean going submarines and not to say anything about it. Right. Well, the next day we had these little leaflets handed out to us about conditions sort of in South Africa and we were told, our draft were told that we were going to be staying in South Africa you see. Well, you know I was absolutely over the moon about this because my eldest sister in ’39, had emigrated to South Africa and so I thought at least there. Only at the last moment two days after that we docked in Durban. And the wonderful thing is I don’t know if you’ve been told about this but all the convoys used to dock in Durban in those days. They were met by a lady on the end of the moles singing and she used, as the troop ships moved in towards the harbour she’d stand on the end of the mole, this lady in a long white dress and she was singing beautifully to all the ships as they came in. She did this every time a convoy came in to Durban during the war. Singing. Beautiful singing. And we docked and we were offloaded and we were taken to a transit camp. You see what happened was that the, it was a rest camp really and all the troops going up to North Africa you know RAF and Army used to —
Interviewer: Stop there.
BS: Have a week or a fortnights rest in Durban. At Clairwood before going out to North Africa you see. The campaign there. But we were only there for about a week because we were staying in South Africa and I was told my post would be to a place called Port Alfred down in the Cape, Eastern Cape, near Port Elizabeth. And what had happened was the Empire Training Scheme. They trained all the aircrew in South Africa, Rhodesia, America.
Interviewer: Canada.
BS: And Canada. Right. So I was posted there and of course the aircraft were Ansons and Oxfords and Old Fairey Battles.
[pause]
BS: So of course, I was over the moon because I mean and the first the thing is to go back when we were in Durban. The residents of Durban were so patriotic they used to talk about home as England not South Africa.
Interviewer: Really?
BS: All English speaking and English-speaking South Africans and every evening outside Clairwood camp there would be lines and lines of cars of Durban residents lining to take the troops to their homes to give them a —
Interviewer: Dinner.
BS: Meal.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And look after them and give them a good time. I remember the first night or second night we were there I was, went out with my friend intending to go in to Durban just to see things and a car pulled up just as we and we were, ‘Come on lads.’ You know. ‘Would you like to come home with us?’ So we said, ‘Yes, please.’ He turned out to be the chief education officer for Durban and we went to his beautiful house. They had three lovely daughters and of course it was, and after war torn England it was a paradise coming there. It was. It was. It was peacetime. It was beautiful living conditions you know.
Interviewer: So life was beginning to look up.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: At this stage.
BS: And because a lot of the chaps had perhaps come from poor homes. It must have been quite an eye opener going to some of these houses you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Being looked after like that. You know it really must have been quite fantastic. So anyway, so and of course all the time I was in South Africa I kept on very good friendly terms with the family and I used to go up there sometimes on leave. Anyway, I got to Port Alfred and with the, I was with the Instrument Section and we had, you know the, the Ansons and Oxfords were used for navigator training and bomb aimer training you know. And air gunner training also and the Fairey Battles were used for target towing. And could you [laughs] I don’t really know much about the old Fairey Battle but they lost —
Interviewer: I’ve seen, I’ve seen photographs.
BS: They’d lost an awful lot in France.
Interviewer: And they were retired from active service pretty quickly weren’t they?
BS: Oh, they lost a lot in France. Anyways, you know how you take your life in your hands as a young boy I would fly in anything because I loved flying you see and I remember having a couple of flights in Fairey Battles and oh God, spewing glycol and petrol over the ruddy place you know. It was [laughs].
Interviewer: And was the flying school run by Airwork’s?
BS: No.
Interviewer: Or was it run —
BS: No. No.
Interviewer: By the RAF?
BS: No, it was run by the either the South African Air Force and the RAF between them. So on, on the camps you see there were quite a few camps out there they were, we were a mixture of South African Air Force and RAF. But the RAF were the main trainers. Do you know what I mean? They were the main experienced people. The South African Air Force were there as sort of because this was South Africa and our CO was a colonel, South African colonel you see. So that was fine. Ok. And so it, it was a lovely mixture really but the Air Force were the main operators as you might say. The RAF. Port Alfred and 43 Air School and —
Interviewer: And as you say their duty —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Was to push out all the air crews.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: To go back to Europe.
BS: Oh yes. That’s they used to come over and they would be there for quite a few weeks and of course it’s a wonderful atmosphere to train them in in peacetime.
Interviewer: Well, that’s why they set these schools up.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: A — get them away from the war and B —
BS: Yes, that’s right.
Interviewer: In good weather conditions.
BS: That’s right. I mean the flying or navigating was perfect really and of course it was all astra navigation in those days. I mean you think back to life over here during the bombing period of those years. I mean that’s why the Americans didn’t do it up because they weren’t trained in astra navigation like our chaps were you see. You know night navigation. That’s why they took on all the —
Interviewer: That was the day raids.
BS: Day. Day bombing you see. So and I often used to go up you know on these trips with them. You know, I used to love to fly as much as I could.
Interviewer: And was there a lot of work to be done repairing the aircraft?
BS: Oh lord, yes. I mean you know it’s all the time. I mean and the wonderful thing is despite the fact that there was a war on and losses in shipping through U-boat activity and that sort of thing we never went short of spares. You know, it’s marvellous really.
Interviewer: So somebody back in England must have been doing their job to get all the spares sent out.
BS: Oh, the production in this country was absolutely wonderful when you think of it during the war. All firms like, you know like little engineering firms, workshops used to have contracts for for making spares and things like that you see. The, the organisation was absolutely fantastic, you know.
Interviewer: So and going back to Trenchard again.
BS: Oh, that’s right.
Interviewer: He set the, he set the Air Force up and made sure everybody was trained.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: So when it needed to work it could.
BS: Well, when you come back to it in 1934 they set up the five year plan. They built all those airfields like Cottesmore, Luffenham, Wittering, eventually Scampton all built on the same plan. You go to any station and they were all exactly the same virtually.
Interviewer: Similar. Similar layouts.
BS: Oh yes. H blocks and the officer’s mess. Sergeant’s Messes. Pretty well pretty much the same. This is and if it hadn’t been for that five year plan we’d have been the hell’s way in ‘39 when the war broke out.
Interviewer: How long did you get to stay in South Africa then?
BS: So anyway, so I stayed in South Africa until July ’45.
Interviewer: Oh, so you —
BS: I was there for over three years.
Interviewer: You were there for three years.
BS: Yeah. So —
Interviewer: Was that normal for for people to spend that much time there?
BS: Yes. Well, you couldn’t get home. There was no, there was no time limit to a tour in those days.
Interviewer: And presumably they wanted to cut down on the amount of troop transports.
BS: That’s right. That’s right.
Interviewer: And so it made sense to keep you there for a good long time.
BS: That’s right. I came back when the European war was over. So all the time I was out there I was very fortunate because my sister was living in Johannesburg and so the first leave I got I went up and stayed with her. Wonderful for me really. And of course, the other fellas didn’t have that. And I had some wonderful leaves and went all over the country and my sister’s husband he was working in the gold mines of Johannesburg. He joined the South African Air Force and he went up to North Africa. To a campaign up there against Rommel you see. The South African Air Force and my sister she, because her husband had gone up there she took the chance. She came down to Port Alfred and lived in the local hotel there. So —
Interviewer: Your sister on [unclear] —
BS: Yes [laughs] it was a most unusual situation really but it just so happened. It was luck.
Interviewer: You’ve got to make these things work for you haven’t you?
BS: But that’s right. Just luck. So that was that. Then in, as I say in —
Interviewer: Then again when you were serving there in the, in the sort of towards the end of the Second World War was it obvious that you heard about D-Day presumably.
BS: Oh, oh yes.
Interviewer: You heard about how the war was going.
BS: Yes. Yes. Oh yes. About [pause] what was it? In July? About January ’45 I was posted up to Pretoria to Robert’s Heights, Voortrekkerhoogte because that was Afrikaner speaking. Have you been to South Africa?
Interviewer: No. Not yet.
BS: Oh, you’ll have to go.
Interviewer: It’s on my list of places to go.
BS: Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to go back again on this scheme that they’re running for veterans to go back.
Interviewer: Oh brilliant.
BS: And visit. Visit where with a grant from the lottery.
Interviewer: Great.
BS: So if I had somebody who would go with me I’d love to go back. Anyway, so I was posted up to Pretoria to a big air depot there. We were, we were sort of a big where they used to service all the aircraft instruments. They’d come in that were US you know, unserviceable. So by this time I’d been promoted to corporal.
Interviewer: Was that a big jump up to corporal?
BS: Yeah, well —
Interviewer: As in responsibility?
BS: Oh yes. Oh yes. I mean you know you know I thought it was anyway. You know.
Interviewer: Well, they always say corporal, the two ranks in the Air Force that are most important are the corporal and the warrant officer.
BS: Oh yes. Well, corporal because you, yes, oh yes. Yes. It was fine. Yes. And so, and then as I say in July ’45 or when, when yes we did know the war was coming to an end of course and then because it was so down, I always remember VE Day out there. We all paraded on the parade ground and were given a formal talk by the station commander there. He was another South African of course and immediately of course we were given the day off you see. So my friend and I we decided to go into Johannesburg. No. Into, into, that’s right into Pretoria itself and we were picked up by a South African colonel going in his car. Of course, we used to hitch hike all over. He took us to his house. I had a lovely time. We got as drunk as hell you know [laughs] We didn’t bloody well bother. Had a wonderful time. So that was how I spent VE Day really. I got back to Pretoria and then of course we were hanging about really for a week or two still doing our jobs of course because aircraft things still had to be serviced and looked after. And then we were posted. So July, at the end of June we were told, you know we were due to go home so we, we were taken down to Cape Town. Went down by train from Johannesburg on the, on the what do they call the wonderful train? The Blue Train they call it.
Interviewer: Blue Train. Yeah.
BS: Which went right down through Kimberley and the beautiful South African landscape down to Cape Town and we were there for about ten days or so in transit to Cape Town and of course it was lovely because Cape Town is a lovely area you know altogether. A beautiful place. And then we embarked on the Alcantara. A ship. A troop ship. Still the same conditions as the one I went out on really.
Interviewer: But this time no U-boats shooting at you.
BS: No. No. No U-boats but I’ll tell you what as soon as we sailed out from Cape Town they operated the gassing system which kept, gave you warnings of submarines. Oh, magnetic mines. That’s what they —
Interviewer: Magnetic, gassing for magnetic mines.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And then Aztec obviously —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: For detecting submarines.
BS: And I always remember that because we had it on the way out there. They have these what do they call the machine guns? The Oerlikons. They used to practice those every day and oh the noise they made.
Interviewer: This is after VE Day.
BS: Oh yeah. Well, of course I mean you know I mean things were still the same. I mean things hadn’t altered. It took time to. Of course, we sailed back in just over two and a half weeks. Nearly three weeks. So it was a much quicker easier time than —
Interviewer: And when you left South Africa did you know your time in the Air Force was coming to an end or was it?
BS: No. No. Because I was a regular.
Interviewer: You joined up as a regular.
BS: Oh, I was in for twelve years.
Interviewer: Ok. So, so when you signed up in 1939 you knew you were in for twelve years.
BS: [unclear] Oh that’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: So presumably a lot of people that were with you were conscripted.
BS: Well, obviously, yes. You had conscripted, you had a release, demob number they called it. And the lower the demob number the older you were you know.
Interviewer: The quicker they were posted to —
BS: The quicker you were out. But they never started demobbing until about August really. I mean this is what I gather the film on TV, one of these Foyles War things a guy came back from North Africa. He was out. Well, he wouldn’t have been out just like that. He’d have waited weeks you know. Things like that you notice.
Interviewer: Well looking at it the demob procedure was very well done.
BS: It was very well done. Everything was so organised believe me and I mean even the demob suits. I mean the lovely beautiful material. They were wonderful material. Shirts, all the ties.
Interviewer: A pair of shoes.
BS: Coat, hat, shoes. Everything.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: I mean —
Interviewer: And a suitcase was it?
BS: And a suitcase.
Interviewer: And a suitcase.
BS: That’s right. Yes. So anyway, so we got, oh yeah it was a very very pleasurable voyage. Actually, I enjoyed troopship life because you know funnily enough just to go back a bit going out to South Africa was where I learned to play chess and bridge on the deck for days on end. In the afternoon you were quite free and you’d sit about on deck you know and play cards or [pause] so I know quite a few games like that and you know so, oh I thought it was tough, spartan conditions. You know the food was very spartan and and once you got over the morning with boat drill and all that sort of thing. Of course, you know it’s, it was [pause] anyway so we got back through to Liverpool and, oh yes I’m sure it was Liverpool we docked at. And then of course we were sent our demob disembarkation leave and I went back down to Southend to my home.
Interviewer: And you’d been away —
BS: To my mum.
Interviewer: And you’d been away for a good long time then.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: When you —
BS: Yeah. Can I go back a little bit?
Interviewer: Of course you can.
BS: My two sisters at home who had left home the younger one she joined the Wrens and she was actually stationed down in the tunnels at Dover. They had tunnels under the castle which they had and she was a wireless operator there and she was involved in all that recording all the traffic on the Channel. Which they did you know with the German traffic and everything else. She was involved in that. My other sister who’d been a dressmaker joined the RAF and became a radio operator. Wonderful things they trained girls to do.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: She hadn’t a clue what electricity was almost and here she was just an ordinary dressmaker joined the Air Force and they trained her to be a wireless op down at Yatesbury. Is it Yatesbury? Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Yes, that’s right. Yatesbury.
Interviewer: Near Bristol.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yes. Down there. And you know she qualified and eventually she was posted to Chichsands Priory which was an out station of —
Interviewer: Bentley Priory. Bletchley Park.
BS: Bletchley Park.
Interviewer: Bletchley Park.
BS: And she used to listen to all the German aircraft recording messages and pass it on to Bletchley Park. So an ordinary dressmaker. You see the people see they trained people up to do in the war you know.
Interviewer: And the responsibilities that they had.
BS: And the responsibility.
Interviewer: At a very young age.
BS: I know. Yes.
Interviewer: So much so that certainly after the, when the war came to an end a lot of women who had been trained wanted to keep, use that training.
BS: Well exactly. Oh yes. And she found it useful my, this other sister because when I got back from South Africa she was still in, still in the WAAF and about the following year she wanted to go out and join my sister in South Africa. But you couldn’t get passage anywhere at that time on the ships or anywhere and so she got together another group of like minded people and they bought an ex-Naval air sea rescue launch. Only about sixty seventy feet long. These twenty thirty people and they equipped it and they had these petrol engines with huge fifty gallon drums of, of fuel latched on the deck and they set off for South Africa. Took them three months to get there and she eventually did get there and of course it was in all the papers at the time. This wonderful trip made by these people.
Interviewer: That must have been an experience.
BS: And then when they got there they sold their boat and my sister went up to join my other sister up in Johannesburg. Well, that’s another story but so, you know those sorts of things people did you know in those days. Anyway, so, so that so I got home and when I got back I was home for a month and then I wondered where I was going to get posted to and of all places I was posted to RAF Westwood at Peterborough. There was an RAF station there training, training Free French Air Force pilots.
Interviewer: Is that just north of Peterborough?
BS: No. It’s on the edge of Peterborough. Right on the edge. Do you know Peterborough?
Interviewer: I do but I, I —
BS: If you go out to Westwood area it was you know the bit that was the Baker Perkins factory there. It was just at the back of Baker Perkins. In fact, the airfield stretched right up to Baker Perkins fence and that was all RAF Westwood. It’s all housing now and factories.
Interviewer: Yes, I knew there was an airfield around but I wasn’t sure where it was.
BS: So I was stationed there. I was stationed there for a short while and then after a few months, I wasn’t there all that long really I was posted to Japan.
Interviewer: Right. And we’ll talk about that in the next recording.
BS: Yes. Ok.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: I’m with Bertie Salvage and we’re talking about his experiences in the RAF and after your time in the Second World War Bertie I understand you ended up in Japan.
BS: Yes. It must have been sometime in early ’46 I was posted to Japan. Of course, this came as quite a surprise to me. Of all places to go to. To the occupation force in Japan because at that time Honshu, the main island was divided into half. The Americans occupied the upper part and the British Commonwealth Occupation Force as it was called occupied the lower half of Honshu, you know which was between Army and RAF. And what, what they’d done is when the occupation forces moved in they’d taken over old Japanese military establishments including airfields and when I got there I was posted to a place called Miho which had been another Japanese airfield where they trained the Kamikaze pilots. And the south, the south of Japan, or the south west southwest corner of Japan. But anyway going back to to going we set off from Tilbury in an old boat called the SS Ranchi and this had been an old P&O boat you know. Quite an old boat and it had been fitted out as a troop ship and it took us six weeks to get to Japan believe it or not. We think these days they are there in about sixteen hours. Almost. Not quite. A bit more than that but it took us six weeks to get there. All through the Med and down through stopping off at, in Port Said, Aden, Columbo, Singapore. It was quite, Shanghai, Hong Kong then into a place called Kure in Japan which had been a big Japanese naval base. And it had been fantastic, you know the thought of going to Japan. You know this place that we’d all heard of as you know created such, you know treated, given our boys such a bad time in the war in the Far East and it was quite a fascinating thought of going there. Anyway, arrived at Kure and going through the Japanese inland sea was quite an experience. All the little volcanic islands which were quite picturesque. Eventually landed at Kure. Anyway, we were entrained across to Miho, this ex-Japanese base and of course it’s quite interesting to see the Japanese landscape. It was very hilly and mountainous. Very forested all over. Of course it’s a volcanic, volcanic origin Japan so it is, you know it is very hilly. So we landed at Miho and I was posted on to, well basically 17 Squadron Spitfires but 11 Squadron was there as well and basically I was really working on both squadrons but administratively I was sort of on the strength of 17 Squadron. And the object of the, was although we were an occupation force the main job really was to patrol the sea around Japan off the, across the Yellow Sea and you know as far on the way across towards China and all over that area for some reason or other. But anyway, so that was very interesting being there.
Interviewer: Did you get to see much of the country at all?
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: Whilst you were there.
BS: Yes. I got, I just to go back a bit it was interesting because all these, all the domestic staff on the camp were Japanese. Ex-Japanese Army and lots and lots of Japanese, and lots and lots of Japanese girls used to come on the camp every day doing all the menial tasks. In fact, the funny thing was that the, I was a corporal when I went there still and whilst had been there nearly a year I was promoted to sergeant. After I was promoted to sergeant I was moved to the Sergeant’s Mess. I was given my own sort of room and I was issued with a room girl who used to attend to all my domestic requirements. She used to clean my room and keep doing my washing and ironing and everything else. So that was quite an experience in itself and whilst I was there we had a NAAFI canteen of course which we, which we used to use and this was staffed by English girls in the WRVS who had been sent in to to run the canteens for the troops you see. And I happened to meet the manageress of the local NAAFI canteen and get to know her quite well. Gladys. And she, like the other girls were living in the Officer’s Mess. They were given the honorary rank of flight lieutenant because there was no other sort of way we could accommodate them really.
Interviewer: The equivalent. Yeah.
BS: You see. Because the Japanese were really off limits in the sense, in the sense that when you went out in Japan we were pretty well limited to we’d go in the shops and things. We weren’t really supposed to go in their houses and that sort of thing you know. You know, we were and all our provisions were you know were provided by either America, Australia or New Zealand or Australia. They used to come from all over the, the western world one might say. Of course, the Japanese had nothing. They had only rice and fish to eat you see. Of course, they weren’t ever proper meat eaters before that. They’d sort of produced dairy herds and that sort of thing. They lived on rice and fish. Anyway, so that was the situation there. So I got to know Gladys very very well and we eventually at the time I was there we, we courted as one might say and eventually I married her in Japan. And by this time she had been sent down to Iwakuni which was the main RAF base headquarters down, down near Kure. The RAF airfield at Iwakuni and it was the Communication Flight there. They had Dakotas there which they used to supply the, communicate with the RAF other establishments in Honshu and she got posted there to the WRVS canteen there and I wangled, by this time I’d been promoted to sergeant, by this time I wangled a posting down there myself you see. I think they took pity on me at Miho. Anyway, so I was posted down to Iwakuni as well. It was at Iwakuni that Gladys and I had as service wedding. And of course the funny thing was that of course I was working on the Dakotas there and the funny thing was that she was living in the Officer’s Mess there and I I was living in the Sergeant’s Mess. So after we got married we had to go back to the same situation. The only time I could see her was in the Officer’s Mess at Iwakuni. The WRVS had a separate sort of living room you see and I could visit her in this living room, you know. The only time I could see her inside anywhere. This went on for about nearly two months after which time we came home. But it was very interesting and when we did get married there we, we had a honeymoon up at a place called Koana just outside Tokyo. This was a beautiful hotel on the shores of the Pacific. It had been built by the Japanese to house the 1940 Olympic games which never took place. To house the contestants and everybody. So this was taken over as one of the leave hostels. Of course, what happened was that when the occupation force moved into Japan they sorted out all different sort of different sort of posh places around the country for troops to have a break.
Interviewer: R&R. Yeah.
BS: And one of them was at [Kyrenia?]. At Kyoto. Beautiful old famous beauty spot in Japan and going back a bit before I was married to Gladys I had a weeks leave up at Kyoto which was very fine indeed. It was up in the American sector actually near Tokyo. Anyway, so Gladys and I went to Koana. This was an absolutely wonderful fortnight and we actually had a week at Koana and a week down in Kobi at a beautiful Japanese house which had been the residence of the Baron Simotomo who had been executed as a war criminal and they’d taken over his old house as one of the leave hostels as it were. So we had the second week of our honeymoon there and it was absolutely fantastic. But the one of the things that you could see was in the distance to the top of Mount Fuji sticking up. You know with this white top. So that was that. Anyway, when it came time to come home I, we came home on a the old Dilwara which was a properly built troop ship and they used to call it the kit badge because they painted the big blue band around. And of course, Gladys came home first class as officer status.
Interviewer: Oh very nice.
BS: Whereas I of course was on the troop deck with the senior NCOs. Second class. So she came home first class and I came home second class and the only time I could see her was on the second class promenade deck. I wasn’t allowed through to the bloody first class either [laughs] Oh dear.
Interviewer: Only the Air Force could do that.
BS: And the thing is we had of course like all ships had OC troops on board. Like all troops had a usually a colonel who sort of late on in years.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: You might say.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: And at one stage she was, poor old Gladys got seasick. She wasn’t a good sailor and I got special treatment from the OC troops to go down to her cabin to give her first aid [laughs] Oh, it was, anyway we stopped off at Singapore and Columbo and we managed to get to shore and spend a bit of time together. BS: Not much though. So the only sort of married life I had was when we got back home to England really. So, but going back to but as 17 and 11 Squadrons on American Independence Day, the 4th of July, isn’t it?
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: We were invited, the whole, both squadrons were invited up to a place called [pause] called [pause] Oh dear. The name’s gone from me for the moment but a big airfield near Tokyo which the Americans had taken over. Kizarizu. Kizarizu. That’s the name of the place. And we were invited up there to help take part in their celebrations you see. As I’ve got pictures of the two squadrons all lined up at Kizarizu. Which I, which I took when I was there. And we had a nice two or three days there really at the Americans are very —
Interviewer: Very hospitable and all that.
BS: Very very hospitable.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: And they had [pause] yes what the hell, oh yes the famous American fighter. Lightnings I think they called them.
Interviewer: P38 was the twin engine.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: With the tail booms.
BS: That’s right. But before that going back to when I was at Miho the, the New Zealand air force they had corsairs used to land on —
Interviewer: They’re air craft carrier Corsairs yeah.
BS: And I’ve actually worked to service Corsairs as well.
Interviewer: Well, the Royal Navy had them as well of course.
BS: Yeah. That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Yes. So a corsair. They were nice aircraft. And so anyway so after six weeks we got back to England and of course when we got back to England Gladys the WVS, she had been in the Far East you see and of course when the, when the war ended she was moved up with the occupation forces so she was there before me you see. So anyway got back to England she was, and of course she went across to her home which was at Withernsea, East Yorkshire and I went for debriefing as it were to that place up on the Wirral. An old RAF station there. What was it? I’ve forgotten the name of it now but it was it was a sort of like a distribution place you know where you used to go for debriefing after being overseas and what not.
Interviewer: Before my time.
BS: [unclear] and all that and, yes. And of course, I and then of course I went on disembarkation leave and of course I went across to Gladys’ home in Withernsea on the East Yorkshire coast and for the first time I met her parents. It was ever so funny that. And, but I must say I did enjoy my time in Japan. It was eighteen months or so. It was quite an experience. Oh yes. Another thing I forgot to mention is that when I was at Iwakuni we were very near Hiroshima and I went to Hiroshima several times and I saw it in its devastated stated and all that and going back to that time unfortunately I lost my first wife to cancer. Breast cancer. She contracted it in 1954. ’54, and she died in 1960 and at the time they did wonder if she had picked up radio activity.
Interviewer: Out in Japan.
BS: Yes. Because we went to Hiroshima several times and you know saw it and also saw Nagasaki too at one time. So, anyway but Tokyo also Tokyo was an absolute mess as well. That was bombed to hell.
Interviewer: And did you get any feeling for what the Japanese thought about the war?
BS: The Japanese. Well, typical of the Oriental mind as soon as the Emperor said stop, finished and it was all bowing and cowing. Every time you spoke to the Japanese it was always like this. Even the military. And in fact, I don’t know whether you know it but after the war was finished when we, when we sort of took back Sumatra and Java like that we used the Japanese forces to control all the blooming rebels. They came under our control and we were, we were organising all their troops that were still there and they were as obedient as anything.
Interviewer: They had a very strong sense of leadership.
BS: This was their nature. Very very strong.
Interviewer: Very hierarchical —
BS: Yes. Of course.
Interviewer: Society.
BS: The Japanese on a parade if the officer was just for you to turn around and hit the sergeant, hit a corporal the corporal would pick a private out and give him a thrashing. That’s why we used to hand the can back as I say.
Interviewer: Hand the can back. I haven’t heard that before.
BS: Oh yeah. Hand the can back. Oh yeah. Yeah. Pass the can back yes. Hand the can back. Yeah.
Interviewer: But you enjoyed your time there.
BS: Oh, I enjoyed all my Air Force career. Every bit of it. I had, I didn’t want to leave. The only reason why I left I was over fifty five, late forties when I came out it’s because we were at Wittering and we’d bought a house in Stamford. My son was at Stamford School and of course it’s a very good school.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Stamford School. And my daughter was coming up for there and so I was due to be posted to Aden or due to be posted abroad And we didn’t want any. I didn’t think Gwen wanted to move, my second wife that is so we decided and I’d had this very good job offered me with PERA at Melton Mowbray so —
Interviewer: As we say it’s a no brainer at that stage probably to—
BS: Well, yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: It was Production Engineering and Research Association and I was offered a job as a senior author there. Of course, with of my technical experience in the RAF.
Interviewer: It was time to leave.
Interviewer: Yeah. The wonderful technical training I had in the Air Force was second to none.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And all the way through. You had your basic training but you keep on going on course after course after course.
BS: Again, back to —
Interviewer: I mean courses had six months.
BS: Back to that old training again.
Interviewer: Yes. I mean my electronic training and technical training was second to none when I came out.
BS: Ok. Well, we’ll talk about that in the next session.
Interviewer: Yes.
[recording paused]
BS: Do a quick sort of lead into that really.
Interviewer: Ok. Well, I’m with, I’m still with Bertie Salvage and we’ve gone through the Second World War. We’ve talked a little bit about time after the Second World War and now we’re starting to talk about his —
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Memories of the V Force and you know —
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: 1954 onwards.
BS: That’s right. Well, just to go back to 1951. I was posted out to Egypt. The Canal Zone. For three years on Deversoir on the Canal. On the Canal, you know.
Interviewer: Did that posting come out of the blue or did you ask for that?
BS: Oh no. That came out the blue because I can always remember when we came back from Japan going through the bloody Suez Canal I looked across at the bleak desert area and all the different military camps and I thought oh God I hope I never get posted here.
Interviewer: Yes. I hear that’s what most people say their first —
BS: I know I was posted out to Deversoir in Egypt. Of course, it was a bit of, a bit of a hammer blow to take but I actually it was quite nice there really. It was right on the edge of the Great Bitter Lake. I was on 249 Squadron. 213, on Vampires. And of course it was my first real, I had worked on Meteors before but it was my first real experience to be working on jet aircraft. They were lovely aircraft, the Vampire.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Have you ever flown one?
Interviewer: No. No.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: No.
BS: It took us, anyway so I worked on that and so in 1954 I got posted back to England and after my month’s disembarkation leave I was posted to RAF Gaydon. Never even heard of it before. But Gaydon had been a wartime station which they were re-starting again you know sort of —
Interviewer: They started to put some money into some of the —
BS: It had been held in like a sort of mothball condition.
Interviewer: Care and maintenance.
BS: Care and maintenance. Mothballed. And so they decided to start that off and start that off as as the initial V bomber training station you know. Of course, there would just be the V bombers. What happened was that the Victor, the Vulcan and the Victor were the first ones to be designed but they were going to take a long time to get into, into operations so they decided to as a stop gap to build the Valiant which Vickers had said they could build far quicker for them as a, as a stop gap and really until the Victors and the Vulcans were available. So I was posted to RAF Gaydon as an instructor on the Technical Training School. Of course it was going to be the OCU.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: The aircrew were going to be trained there and also the ground crew people servicing the aircraft you see. So I was posted on to be the instructor on instruments on the, on the Valiant first of all. So of course, when I got there I think the very first Valiant was there. Anyway, I was straightaway sent away on long courses. I had quite a few weeks down at Vickers at Weybridge where they were being made, built there. I went to different other manufacturers of different instruments and things. GPI and Mark 4s, these all sorts.
Interviewer: The navigation equipment on the aeroplane.
BS: Yeah. Yes. And also the NBS bombing system which they used. And so I went on these long courses and I got back to Gaydon eventually and by that time of course I think another sort of couple of others were there or something and we set up the school. And I was in instruments, we had all the other trades, instruments, air frames, armaments you know and so of course I had to straight away set about creating all my instruction notes, my instruction techniques and programmes. All the, when you go in to instructing you have that all to do.
Interviewer: Yes. I remember that. Yes.
BS: Because, [unclear] because you really start to learn other things you know. You really start to realise how much do I know about my job and that sort of thing. And when it came to start teaching of course it was, it was a bit tough at first but I really got into it you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: And I got so used to writing up the authorship, authoring my own notes that it I found it very interesting indeed.
Interviewer: And working with the manufacturers is normally quite —
BS: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: You get a lot of job satisfaction if you —
BS: Yeah. I went to Coventry to HSD, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and everywhere and also to [pause] no that was later on I went to Ferranti when I was on the Blue Steel. So, you know. So, yes you got used to it. I spent quite a month or two I suppose going around different manufacturers. Cheltenham down to —
Interviewer: Smiths.
BS: To Smiths. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: You know, all sorts of different places. Anyway, of course you collate all this knowledge, put it all together and you know and, and the first day I had to instruct, you know the chaps are sitting there. I thought it was, you know it was quite an experience really.
Interviewer: And what rank are you by now?
BS: I was still a sergeant.
Interviewer: Still a sergeant. Yeah.
BS: Yes. Promotion was a bit slow and anyway I was going to go for the chief tech which I got a bit later on.
Interviewer: And what was living I mean England was still rationing going on in this period.
BS: Yeah, so what happened was when I first went to Gaydon of course there were no married quarters so they said to us go and find yourself a hiring somewhere and we’ll take it on. So I looked around South Warwickshire. I don’t know whether you know South Warwickshire. It’s a lovely county.
Interviewer: Not really. It’s a nice part of the world though, isn’t it?
BS: [unclear] and all down Stratford Upon Avon. All down that way because we were near Stratford you see and so I found myself a little —
Interviewer: This was before the M40 of course.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: I found myself a little village called, down near Moreton in the Marsh called called Brailes and I found a little tiny cottage there. A country cottage. And so I moved Gladys down there, my wife with, who had our first boy then, our son by then. She was also, no she had got the two boys by then. We had two sons. So she came and so I was living out. It was about twelve miles away from there so I used to go in and backwards and forwards to Gaydon every day. So we were living in married and they started to build married quarters but they weren’t going to be ready for another year you see. So, so that went on really and of course getting to know the aircraft better and the chaps coming through. It used to be a fortnight, two weeks course or two or three weeks and then would be about a week and then have another lot come in then.
Interviewer: And is National Service still going on at this stage?
BS: And I’m going to say this, oh yes, National Service run to 1960 ’61. So National Service but what impressed me was a lot of national service chaps coming through HN, Higher National Certificate. Well trained chaps.
Interviewer: Chaps that decided to join the Air Force rather than —
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: And they were a two year commitment were they?
BS: The two year commitment.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: But they were most interesting to teach because they were so receptive. I bet you could tell them something they’d know straightaway through their engineering background. They were a joy to teach really you know. They were so good. It’s like it was during the war of course where they had all these skilled people in from outside and —
Interviewer: The interesting thing to me if people joined on a two year National Service if they spent a year or eighteen months training they would be only be productive for six months.
BS: Oh, I know. That’s right. Well, they used to spend about six months training I suppose up to the basic mechanics but I’d get these chaps in and you know they were highly really highly qualified.
Interviewer: And of course, in the early 50s of course, there was a massive expansion of the Air Force because of Korea.
BS: Oh yes. That’s right.
Interviewer: And a lot of training schools were set up then.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: A lot of aircrew were pumped through.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: And obviously there would have been all the Meteor training outfits.
BS: That’s right. Yes. So I was at, I was at Leconfield when the Korean War was on and we sent aircraft. Oh yes, when I was at Gaydon the Suez Crisis erupted.
Interviewer: ’56.
BS: Well, because I’d just come back from Suez only the previous year.
Oh, of course. Yes.
BS: And I was, I got we went through quite a lot of trouble out there with it before it fully broke out really. You know had a lot of trouble really. Anyway, but the Suez Crisis broke out and of course we had to get involved in that and we sent two or three Valiants out there with bombed up and ready to go and you know.
Interviewer: They went to Malta, didn’t they?
BS: They went to Malta.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Yes. The service sort of evolved in that. So after, oh about 1957 or thereabouts we had the first Victors and so yes I also went then. I went on. I was taken off and went on the quite a few [unclear] of course to Handley Page at Radlett and did the Victor. On the Victor. So when I came back I was trained up on the Victor but what happened was that because it was a bit of a struggle to teach on two aircraft like that because we still had the Valiants there. A few Valiants. They had another chap come in to supplement me to, you know on the Victor so I did a bit of teaching on the Victor but this other guy sort of did more and more of that really on the actual instrumentation side. So I still sort of really concentrated on the Valiant. But I did, when he was away I used to do the Victor as well you know. So but very similar the systems really you know. Particularly the NBS system and the navigation equipment and everything else and basically the flying was pretty much it was just the layouts and things. But general principles were the same. So it was all very interesting though while I was there. So I suppose do you want me to go on from there?
Interviewer: Yeah, I just wondered, you know —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: So how long did you stay on at Gaydon?
BS: Sorry?
Interviewer: How long did you spend at Gaydon then?
BS: At Gaydon, I was, what happened was when I was at Gaydon unfortunately while I was there my first wife contracted cancer and she was given basically first of all two years to live then she actually lived for five so although I was really screened on this instructing job. It was how shall I put it? More heavily emphasised that I was screened because of Gladys’ illnesses.
Interviewer: Yeah. Domestic situation. Yeah.
BS: And through that time I was put up for a branch commission in the engineering branch but I had to turn it down because I couldn’t leave my wife, you see.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BS: So that, so that was that but anyway that didn’t matter. So that was that so, and then, so she died in 1960 and eventually I left in 1962. I was posted to RAF Newton. Not got posted but I was despatched there on the Skybolt course because I was designated. Because of my experience of technical you know side of thing they decreed that I should go on the Skybolt.
Interviewer: They needed someone to bring Skybolt into service.
BS: So I went to Newton for six months. I’d all the instrumentation electronic side of control and guidance of the Skybolt missile.
Interviewer: And did you get out to America?
BS: No.
Interviewer: During that time.
BS: Unfortunately, I got back to Gaydon and we were given a couple of weeks to pack up and we’d packed up almost with a few, well with a week I think of going to America. My wife was, well the whole family was going to go together to Denver in Colorado and then after that we were going to go down to Florida to Eginton or Eglington.
Interviewer: Eglin.
BS: Eglin.
Interviewer: Not Elgin. Eglin.
BS: We had to go to Eglin.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Down on the Caribbean.
Interviewer: On the —
BS: Yes. Where we were —
Interviewer: The Florida coast.
BS: Two years and got fully Skybolt trained to come but a week or two before they decided to ditch Skybolt in favour of the Polaris for the submarine as a strategic missile.
Interviewer: Well, my understanding is Skybolt isn’t doing very well and —
BS: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: JFK met with Macmillan.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And —
BS: Yeah. That’s right.
Interviewer: JFK offered, the Americans offered to give the Brits the chance to develop it and, and Macmillan thought the best way out of that was to buy Polaris instead.
BS: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Which JFK agreed to.
BS: Yes. So that’s why I didn’t go. So that, so that was that finished. So of course I was then it was a few weeks in. I was a chief technician by this time well I had been for a flight sergeant. Anyway, so I think because of my Skybolt experience they decided that I should go to Blue Steel.
Interviewer: Quite logical. Yes.
BS: Yes, so because of my, so back I went to Newton and because I’d already done the Skybolt six months I was spared the initial training on Blue Steel because it was still the basic sort of training on electronics you see.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: So I went back to Newton for three months on the Blue Steel system itself. So I went back in, that was 1963 and I went back until March 1964 or March or April of ’64. So I learned all the, when I was involved on Blue Steel what was the control, the guidance system. The inertial navigation system, the control system which was the gyro control like auto pilot.
Interviewer: You had an inertia navigator didn’t it?
BS: Oh yes. Yeah, I did, I had to go to Ferrantis for that, you know. And also the flight rules computer. I was involved with all this, that [unclear] on that so I was really fully technically trained on the control and guidance system of the Blue System. I don’t think there’s many people left.
Interviewer: Just a handful I think probably that remember it.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: In any details.
BS: Anyway, so that was very interestingly and fantastically the courses I went on what you learned.
Interviewer: Who built the missile Blue Steel? Do you remember?
BS: It was HSD, Coventry.
Interviewer: Oh, Hawker Siddeley. Yeah.
BS: Yes. So, we went across there again as well. So, so I went back to Newton for that and eventually then I got posted to, well it was either Scampton or Wittering. We didn’t know. Anyway, I was, I was posted to Scampton, to Wittering. But of course, all the time I was at Wittering we had this strong liaison with Waddington with, with Scampton.
Interviewer: Scampton.
BS: Because I mean the systems on the two were, the Blue Steels were identical really. I mean —
Interviewer: A missile is identical it’s just —
BS: A missile. Yes.
Interviewer: It’s just a question of how it plugged in to the aeroplane.
BS: That’s right. Yes. But so when I went to Wittering they had built a huge new hangar there with all the servicing workshops and offices. Administrative parts and also the HTP as you called it.
Interviewer: High test peroxide.
BS: Yeah. The —
Interviewer: The Gin Palace.
BS: The Gin Palace. Yes. That was right next to the hangar and they were closely associated so I was straightway when I went to Wittering I was put in the, they had a, you know the laboratories and the calibration rooms of the workshops for the controls guidance systems. And so I was put in, I was put in charge of that really and you know obviously had staff who would be trained up like me but so for several, a year or two I was involved in the service and maintenance of the systems going on the missile.
Interviewer: And can you remember any test firings and things like that?
BS: Well, yes. I didn’t actually. I think they took off from the Welsh coast didn’t they?
Interviewer: They would have fired probably some in the Aberporth range.
BS: Yeah. The Aberporth ranges. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah but —
BS: But I never went over there. Some people did but I never got in because I was involved in the, in the servicing.
Interviewer: Servicing.
BS: Testing and calibration of the systems really, you know.
Interviewer: And it was quite a complicated piece of kit, was it? My understanding was that you had to align the inertial and fly [unclear] and then —
BS: Oh lord. Oh yes. Yes. You did. Yes. You did all that and of course we had in the iron department as we called it we had a higher complex system of calibration instruments to land the [tryoscopic] the brake hold, brake control charge had to be absolutely perfectly set up and [unclear] you know you set that with the oscilloscopes and that sort of thing and the Flight Rules Computer, the FRC, what happened was that the, the Blue Steel would be dropped from about forty thousand feet. The motor would kick in, climb up to about sixty thousand, fly for about two hundred miles, then freefall on the target. That was the [pause] Now as soon as it was launched they got up to altitude then the control system would fit in, it would click in to the control and guide the thing directed by the Flight Rules Computer which was the FRC. So the computer would take it to target with the controls being functioned by the control system provided.
Interviewer: And Ferranti I presume did all the, did that part of the —
BS: That’s right. Yes. Yes, it’s from the [INC] to the FRC to the control system and they did. Everything would lock off at a certain point and it would just freefall on to target. That’s the, that was the theory. But so all three were closely combined really. [INC[ IN, THE FRC, the control system.
Interviewer: And how did they get on regarding the aeroplane and guiding the missile when it was loaded with its, with the weapon?
BS: Well, I’ve been, well let’s put it this way I never actually went out to the, out of the QRA system. What happened was that there used to be at least one, perhaps sometimes two at the end of the runway. Quick Retaliation Aircraft they called it. The QRA. And there was always an aircraft, one or two out there all the time.
Interviewer: Loaded up and ready to go.
BS: And the crew on board as well. Ready to go within minutes you know. To take off and there would have been a guard out there I assume. I never actually went out there.
Interviewer: So if you had to service the missile —
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: The warhead would be taken off.
BS: Oh lord, yes. Well, I was all the time you never did any servicing unless the missile was actually in the hangar. Not to the point of its control system. Oh yes. They’d take the pod out and then they’d bring the missile in. The pod was put in, you know —
Interviewer: So the warhead was called the pod, was it?
BS: The pod.
Interviewer: Ok.
BS: The pod, yeah. I saw several. Well, I saw. I never had anything to do with them but I mean they used to keep we had the bomb dump at Wittering. It’s still there I think.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
BS: The Navy used to, the Navy used it.
Interviewer: Well, the bomb dump at Wittering was used, you know.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: It was the first bomb dump for the first nuclear weapons.
BS: I think it’s still functioning is it? They, I think they were —
Interviewer: I’m not too sure what it’s used for now.
BS: I think I’ve seen Navy vehicles going in there. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Quite possibly being used as a storage area.
BS: Yes. Yeah. Oh yes. Yes. It was. I never actually went in it but I, you know, I know where it was [unclear] but I never actually went inside but yes they used to. There was a lot of, a lot of fuss when they used to be loading them up with the pod you know but that was quite, and then of course as I was saying what [pause] what was it? About 1967 or thereabouts they decided that they wanted more people to come into the system. Technicians you know. And they decided to set up the Blue Steel Training School. Technical Training School at Wittering. In the Blue Steel hangar. And I was appointed, because of my instructing experience, my vast experience they asked me to set it up and run it as as organiser and also to instruct myself as a flight sergeant at this time. Instruct. Instruct. Instruct on it you see as well as organise all the other trades. So we, we, we have this scheme running. We used to have them in for about a week or two and teach them the systems, you know. So I was running that, the Technical Training School there because of my experience.
Interviewer: And did that do that do, that did all the training for Blue Steel so chaps would come down from Scampton and to do the course with you.
BS: Well, I think Scampton had, I think they must have had their own scheme because I don’t remember people coming from Scampton. I think they had their own scheme running up there. I’m pretty sure because I was just really involved with those coming into Wittering really. But I’m sure they must have done. So I was heavily involved with that. So you see my experience is very deep on the technical side on the ring of steel.
Interviewer: The thing that appeals to me is the fact that you started on learning your trade back in 1939.
BS: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: And here we are thirty years on.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Still using the basics of electrics.
BS: Oh, that’s right.
Interviewer: But applying it into a much more modern system.
BS: Oh, [unclear] all, I mean I didn’t know a thing about electronics and a finite mechanism you know and the correlation between the two mechanics to electrics and backwards and forwards. You know what I mean.
Interviewer: The beginning of digital computing.
BS: The transfers, oh yes. Oh yes. That was a appealing. The FRC was. Of course, it was all sort of transistors then. You know, transistor technology. So, you know and, and of course, you know apart from being taught you learn a lot through reading too. You know, it’s all —
Interviewer: And you must have seen a terrific change in the Air Force to have gone from the Second World War.
BS: Oh, right through.
Interviewer: To the time of Korea.
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: And conscription still going on.
BS: Listen, this is about me. I think —
Interviewer: National Service.
BS: I went through the most fascinating period really right through to, you know from basic things like this blooming Valentia.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: To —
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: To, to V bombers, you know. And of course, at Cosford they have the, the Cold War hangar there.
Interviewer: They do, yes. Yeah.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: I’ve been just the once.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And I must go again.
BS: Yes, I, pardon?
Interviewer: I’ve just been the once and I must go again.
BS: Yeah, well you see my daughter lives at Lichfield so it’s only just a stone’s throw from there so when I go, I’ve been once or twice you know. She takes me there. Yes and of course they’ve got a Blue Steel there. And I’ll tell you where else I saw Blue Steel. Out at Newark. You know out at Newark.
Interviewer: At the Air Museum.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: I think there’s one.
BS: I found it a pretty tatty when I went down.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: [unclear]
Interviewer: That’s the problem with museums. They get things in quite bad condition sometimes.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And they have to allocate them time.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: To renovate them.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And bring them up to —
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: Their former glory.
BS: And the amazing thing is, or the sad thing is that there’s only one Valiant and that’s at Cosford. That’s the only one. The only is one that is in existence now.
Interviewer: Well, the problem with you know the large aeroplanes is that if you leave them out in the open —
BS: Oh aye, well —
Interviewer: They rot very quickly.
BS: They do.
Interviewer: So I know the Irish museum —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Say they have a problem with big aeroplanes.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: They just don’t have the room for them all.
BS: No. No.
Interviewer: And they’re wondering when the TriStar retires.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Where they’re going to have space to put one of those.
BS: Yes. Yes. So you know so when the Blue Steel they decided to start phasing about ’69 ’70. I just stayed on for a bit longer then I decided to retire from the Air Force.
Interviewer: Time for pastures new.
BS: Didn’t really want to go but I was really, circumstances made it. But fortunately, I went in to a very very good job at PERA and of course [pause] do you want me to go on?
Interviewer: Yes. Keep going.
BS: When I went to PERA at Melton Mowbray I don’t know whether you know or have heard of it.
Interviewer: No, I’ve not heard of them.
BS: Production Engineering and Research Association. They trouble shoot for the engineering industry. They’ve experts in every field.
Interviewer: And did, did they approach you or did you hear about it?
BS: No. I heard about them so I approached them and they wanted to interview me and I got the job before I left the Air Force.
Interviewer: Fabulous.
BS: Yeah. So that was it. So I, they have this, all these different departments for troubleshoot. Expert top engineers and you know —
Interviewer: Sounds a fantastic organisation.
BS: These particularly the machine tool industry would send people there on courses and they would have experts from PERA go to different factories to give them advice on production engineering.
Interviewer: Sounds fantastic.
BS: So they always had this large technical authorship department as well which they write up handbooks for different industries you know. So I applied but of course because of my RAF experience they had a contract. They had a contract with the Admiralty.
Interviewer: Right.
BS: To write up the manuals for the nuclear submarines at Barrow. So I was sent up to bloody Barrow in Furness on this contract. I was on HMS Churchill for months writing up the control systems on the nuclear submarines of the of the CO2 scrubber systems. You know the air is scrubbed clean and it’s ejected into the deep water to leave the oxygen to go back into the, into the hull. You know. And I wrote up all these you see because of my experience. But you know so that was a very fascinating really. So, so anyway after a couple of years I one of the member firms was a firm called Newall Engineering Group at Peterborough here. They wrote, they produced these, these very very sophisticated machine tools. Grinders and jig borers and things like that for the machine tool for the mainly for the automotive industry. You know, car factories. So they were a member firm of PERA and they were looking for a, and we used to write books for them. But they wanted their own chief author you see. So I applied and I got the job. I wanted to come nearer home.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: I was so fed up with —
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah, you get —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Commuting gets a bit wearing.
BS: That’s right. It’s interesting but you know.
Interviewer: No I thought —
BS: So I thought I would come so it was a very very good job and I’d be my own boss there you know and [unclear] so I went to PERA. I went to —
Interviewer: Right.
BS: Newalls at Peterborough and I had to really convert my mind but using basic engineering knowledge to these highly sophisticated machine tools. Jig borers and high speed grinders which used to grind crank shafts and [cannon] shafts. And that was fascinating because you use your basic engineering knowledge. Although I didn’t know anything about them you still get through.
Interviewer: Yeah, its —
BS: You, you have to spend all the time in the drawing office with them and the designers. The people and really pick their brains really.
Interviewer: But if you’d been trained well in the first place it’s not difficult —
BS: Oh no.
Interviewer: To pick up something new is it?
BS: No. No. Not at all.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And the idea being that you were, you could have this information, collate it write it in a presentable form you know people could read and understand, take it back and do you understand? Can you read it? And they would make, they would criticise.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: You know so you —
Interviewer: Critique.
BS: So that’s right so then you produce the complete manual. The interesting thing was that we supplied the machines all over the world to, to China, to, to Russia, to, to Sweden, to France to, you know all sorts of places we sold machines to, particularly Russia.
Interviewer: Did you get to travel there?
BS: Oh no. I didn’t unfortunately.
Interviewer: No.
BS: But my books of course had to be translated in to the —
Interviewer: The native language.
BS: Exactly. So as soon as I had produced a manual for machines that were going somewhere I had to get it and I had to go to the translator, we used to translate it in London. I used to go down to the translators, get the books translated, bring it back and then all us engineers used to come across you know to check the machines before going to the different countries. And they’d want to read the manual so you had to give them the manual in their language for to see if they understood you know and usually you know they went down pretty well really. And the thing is that trans, technical translation is not like ordinary translation it has to be done by A — a national of the country concerned which was just going plus the fact it has to be an engineer.
Interviewer: Yes. You’ve got it. Yes.
BS: So you’ve got to have the two. There’s no good getting a chap whose learned Russian or French to do it.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: It’s got to be a national of the country concerned.
Interviewer: Have you ever read any books, manuals on Japanese hifi you’ll know.
BS: Oh, I know.
Interviewer: It says press button B to —
BS: In my experience I’m, oh I’m very critical of that. Very critical. So that was that really. So —
Interviewer: Well, very well. Thanks for telling me about your, a little bit of time about your time after you left the Air Force.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: Thank you.
BS: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bertie Salvage
Salvage, Bertie-Cold War-World War II
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v67
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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01:38:46 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Bertie Salvage joined the RAF in 1939 as an apprentice and initially began his technical training at RAF Cranwell before training was transferred to RAF Halton and also shortened because of the start of the Second World War. Bertie was present when Lord Trenchard addressed the ground staff at the station. Bertie was sent to South Africa to work on aircraft there for the Empire Training Scheme. He was then posted to Japan in the post war years. He progressed in his career with post war aircraft including the V bombers and then on to missiles systems such as Skybolt and Blue Steel.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
South Africa
Japan
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Southend-on-Sea
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
218 Squadron
ground personnel
military living conditions
RAF Cranwell
RAF Halton
RAF Marham
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/964/46464/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v300002.mp3
5e59e5bf4d71c5f11d1ec0bf1d0caeac
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
Avey, Charles George
C G Avey
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Charles Avey. He flew operations as an air gunner with 617 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Avey, CG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer 1: This is an interview with Mr Charles Avey at Thorpe Camp on the 14th of May 2011 about his experiences at the end of the Second World War as an air gunner with 617 Squadron.
CA: Well —
Interviewer 1: So, Charles —
CA: What particular question would you, you can think of the questions better than I can think of the answers I suppose.
Interviewer 1: So, you joined the RAF.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 1: In —
CA: Yeah. I volunteered to join when I was eighteen and got called up later in the year. 1943, of course. Yeah. But I, we were crewed up eventually with, but we lost, we lost our captain. We had a Flight lieutenant. We lost him because he got lumbago or something of that nature so he couldn’t carry on with us. So we ended up at Lanc Finishing School, picked up another Canadian, a Canadian captain. Flight Lieutenant Gordon Price who was going back on he’d done a tour and he was, and he was going back on main ops. But we got posted then directly to 617 Squadron.
Interviewer 1: How did you feel about that?
CA: Well —
Interviewer 1: Had you heard about it?
CA: Well, I knew of it. Particularly as it was getting near the Tirpitz business thing you know and while I was there that’s what, as we arrived the Tirpitz business was just over so we missed that of course. But I did it. I did about eleven ops after that to various places. Bielefeld and Hamburg, Bremen, Ijmuiden, [Porteshaven], Bergen. I can remember them anyway. And we lost a few crews. Four. Four crews I think in that time you know. Well, what I think about it mainly is that 1945 that early spring we were doing daylights of course. Frequently we’d go off like to Bielefeld having heard the Met man say it would be all clear. When we got there, no. It wasn’t all clear at all so you would come back. We did three trips there before [laughs] before they demolished the darned thing which the people, the local people must have been very pleased with because we kept going over threatening them and nothing happened. There you are. But I remember it. Particularly good weather you know. Apart from when we went to Bergen January the 12th and we lost a couple of crews there I think it was but coming back across the North Sea the combination of rain and sleet and snow the waves were coming up to the aircraft and the cloud was coming down to the waves. The most frightening thing I’d ever known. It really, it was more frightening than anything else I think. I couldn’t believe it. If anybody went down in that you’d never survive. And although I was born in Brighton I couldn’t swim. It wouldn’t have done me any good anyway. But oh, it was quite, it was quite an experience at Woodhall Spa living in spartan conditions. Springtime was nice but the winter was pretty, pretty grim like most airfields. I mean the ground staff had it even worse. They were wallowing about in mud a heck of a lot. I mean without them where would we be? We took everything for granted that when we went to the aircraft it would be spot on and they were, you know. Every admiration for the ground staff.
Interviewer 1: So you were an air gunner at this time.
CA: I was a gunner. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer 1: Did you choose that or is that what —
CA: Yes. Yes, when I went up I did attestation as they called it at St John’s Wood and they took various information from us and said, ‘Well,’ you know, ‘What do you want to do? Do you want to be a pilot?’ I’d joined up. A mate of mine, I worked in a factory which meant I could stay there through the war. It was a sheltered sort of thing. Making things for the Admiralty I was at the time and a mate of mine wanted to go in. He was fanatical about the RAF and he wanted to go in. He talked me into going as well. So we both joined up together. Went up together. He subsequently, he wanted to be a pilot. Nothing else. It was all Fighter Command and the glamour and so forth but I thought, I thought, well I know that if you do that it’s a very long course obviously. So, I thought no. I’ll take the short route. I’ll be a gunner. Subsequently, I came on holiday, on leave at the end of the war and he got on the train at Victoria Station and he said, ‘How have you been doing?’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ve done a few ops with 617 Squadron,’ and so forth. ‘What have you done?’ He said, ‘Well, I started my flying training. Then they said they didn’t want any more and now I’m making tea in the Air Ministry.’ [laughs] That cheered me up enormously that did. Yeah. He was the bloke that talked me in to going in. Yeah. Oh dear. And I went back to the factory where I worked and he was there. He was there. I had to keep ribbing him about that of course. Yeah.
Interviewer 1: Were you on the last operation to Berchtesgaden?
CA: No. I didn’t do that. No. I seem to have missed one or two good ones. We used to go on leave every six weeks you see. Had a week’s leave. Lord Nuffield would give us a few bob. Something like that. I suppose you’ve heard of that. That we always had this extra bit of cash and yeah, every six weeks we were on leave it seemed. And then you’d come back and find that somebody had done, they’d been out and that. Then the weather clamped down and you’d have a couple of weeks loafing about because that’s what most of war is isn’t it? You loaf about and then you get little bits of danger. Then, then it’s all a matter of hanging on and getting bored and flying training and so forth.
Interviewer 1: Did you get used to flying backwards?
CA: It never occurred to me. Oh yeah. It never occurred to me to be otherwise you know. No. But —
Interviewer 1: And you coped with the cold and all the other —
CA: Oh well. You had to cope with all the cold but, mind you when we, not like the earlier aircraft I mean we had electric socks which plugged into the suit and electric gloves. Like four pairs of gloves and I mean you know it’s, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all really except as the rear gunner I did the rear gunner now and again with my partner and we had a clear vision panel. So it could be a bit drafty right but no I didn’t feel any great any discomfort. I didn’t even feel any danger. I suppose I thought you know there was a chap up the front looking after me. I had my faith in him. Whoever I flew with. Yeah.
[another voice in the room]
Interviewer 2: Can I ask you where you did your training as an air gunner?
CA: Well, where was it? Bridgnorth was, I went up to Bridlington as an Initial Training Wing and then Bridgnorth was Elementary Air Gunnery School and Stormy Down at Pyle in Glamorgan was —
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: The Air Gunnery School where we did flying in Ansons and simulated attacks and so forth.
Interviewer 2: And did you use when you were in the initial stage I’ve seen pictures of air gunners training on the ground in turrets.
CA: Oh yes. We had —
Interviewer 2: You went up and down on the —
CA: And a railway thing went around.
Interviewer 2: That’s it.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Can you tell us about that please?
CA: Well, I only, we only went once. That was at Port, Port Talbot I think in South Wales but I can’t remember it very much. It didn’t seem too relevant somehow sitting there in, but we did do that. That was, it wasn’t a major feature of our training as such.
Interviewer 2: What about the skills of deflection shooting? How did, how did that work?
CA: Oh yes. We were trained on that. We had, when we had Ansons we flew in, we went up three or four in an Anson and, and marked aircraft would attack us and we had a cine camera thing which people presumably played later to see how we did. But nobody ever came back with any results about what we did, you know.
Interviewer 2: So you really just had to learn it yourself.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Rather than be trained.
CA: Well, it was we were taught. A lot of classroom work but the same as dismantling the guns.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: And so forth. But everybody passed out as satisfactory, I think. That was the word that covered everything you know. Very few were exemplary. We didn’t quite know what exemplary would be.
Interviewer 2: We’ve read how when you were firing at the drogues —
CA: Oh yeah.
Interviewer 2: The bullets had paint on to see if you hit. Was that the case? Was that how it worked?
CA: Yes. Yes. We, I know we went out over the, coming down the North Sea coast and we were firing and we lost a drogue. It wasn’t very good that really but suddenly somebody said, ‘What’s all that in front of us? It’s all it looks like a big sandbank or something.’ Apparently, the navigator had got things a little bit wrong and we were approaching Texel.
Interviewer 1: Oh dear.
CA: Which was, which was [laughs] a German fighter base. So we had a quick turn to starboard and hared back into RAF Heyford, Upper Heyford.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: Yeah. That was our —
Interviewer 2: Yes.
Operational Training Unit, was it?
Interviewer 2: Yes, I think it was. Yes.
CA: Something like that.
Interviewer 2: Did you ever meet Tom McLean?
CA: Oh, I heard a great deal about Tom McLean. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: What can you tell us about him? Because —
CA: Well, no. I didn’t hear anything special and I subsequently read that he was quite, he was a gunner with some prowess. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: Yeah. Yeah. I mean apart from one or two occasions during 1945 of course we were escorted. We didn’t even see the escort half the time unless they dropped their fuel tanks and they were all flashing being aluminium.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But so we were, we were in the main untroubled other than flak.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: Which was which was the worst thing really. That’s what took our losses but I think it was over Bremen we were attacked coming back from bridges over Bremen and they had the jet aircraft. German jet aircraft coming through.
Interviewer 2: You saw a 262, did you?
CA: Well, I saw them and then they were gone you know. We were at the front of a big main force.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: And I saw these ME262s I think.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But by the time you saw them they had gone like.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Did you make up your own loads?
CA: No. No. No. We always —
Interviewer 2: [unclear] the load were you?
CA: We were always told what ammunition.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: No. No. I never had to do that at all. No. The ground staff did it all.
Interviewer 2: We had heard that some gunners did choose their own loads and I didn’t know whether you knew about that at all.
CA: Well, I knew that, I think when we were training it was mentioned sort of thing but we were never called upon to do that.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: In fact, we were never called upon to do much at all. Apart from get in the aircraft quite frankly you know.
Interviewer 2: Gosh. When I came in you were talking about some of the raids and I know that some of those raids you were dropping Grand Slams.
CA: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: What was it like when the bomb left the aircraft?
CA: Oh well, I don’t know. It’s like getting a kick up the rear you might say. Yeah. It was quite noticeable. They reckoned the aircraft used to say thank God [laughs] and the wings would go up or something like that. You know, yeah, I think we, I think we dropped one. I mean it was very rare. Most of the people at the front, the CO and the two flight commanders they would have them while the rest of us had Tallboys.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: But, as I say we, while I was there we didn’t drop many bombs. We brought quite a few back because nobody wanted, they were so expensive we didn’t want, didn’t want to scatter them all over the fields of Germany and do no good with them. I know some chaps went to Sheffield I think where they made these things and they came back and they said these ten tonners there’s a man inside with earmuffs, masks and all that, goggles and everything with a wheel going [unclear] wheel.
Interviewer 2: Spinning it up.
CA: Yeah. Tidying it up I suppose when it was forged. Yeah. I thought what a job. We thought we had a bad job. I wonder what he’d get, I bet he got paid more than us mind you. He should have done. I felt good God what a thing to do.
Interviewer 2: Have you been back into, into a Lancaster since? Since those days have you been back into the turret at all?
CA: No. No. I’ve been, I’ve been to East Kirkby and that.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: And I’ve been to Coningsby but East Kirkby well we can’t get in there. It’s all a matter of insurance isn’t it, I think?
Interviewer 1: That’s at Coningsby I think. You have been in the one at East Kirkby. It’s Just Jane that taxis.
CA: Yeah, I haven’t. No. They wouldn’t let us in there. No. We saw the farmers. We met the two farming gents there but I know —
Interviewer 2: You should have been given a privileged tour.
CA: Well —
Interviewer 2: That’s another story.
CA: You can’t, you can’t trust people. I might go and pull something and bring the undercarriage up [laughs]
Interviewer 2: We heard a story about how some young RAF people were looking at the turret of a Lancaster. You know, fit young people couldn’t get into it and a gentleman such as yourself was standing there and said, ‘This is how we did it in 1943 and slipped into the rear turret as though it was yesterday.
CA: Oh yeah. Well, the rear turret you could slide down a padded thing and slid into it. The mid-upper was darned awkward.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: A leg came down like. You put one foot on it, hoist yourself up in there and, well then you were in. But that was it. I always thought that was if you were a rear gunner you could have a pilot type chute and sit on it and turn it ninety degrees, open the tin doors at the back and you hoped they’d open because they would slide. If you get a mechanic in there with massive great boots and he kicks it the chances are they’d jam but there you are. You had to think about that. But then you could roll out the back. Not the, I mean the alternative is, well we won’t talk about that bit but I thought getting out of a mid-upper could be really dodgy. You’d have to find your foot to get down and then you would have to go and open the back door, sit down and roll out. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: We rehearsed it in our mind several times. Never had to do it.
Interviewer 2: Thank goodness.
CA: I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have wanted to sit on this step and freeze.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: Really. Because, you know if you freeze well it might be too late.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: And remember which side the grip, the release was. No good grabbing a hand over this, over this side.
Interviewer 2: Wearing your braces too —
CA: Yeah. These things go through your mind don’t they?
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: But I never had occasion to worry about such things fortunately.
Interviewer 2: When you hear the Lancaster or see the Lancaster today —
CA: Unmistakable, isn’t it?
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Does it bring back all sorts of memories to you?
CA: Well, I always like to see it when it comes over here. When we, when I was up here a few years back when we had this, a wedding at the Petwood I was in the doorway with the bride and groom. As it happened I was standing at the doorway just before their wedding and the Lanc came over from Coningsby right down low. So I said, ‘We ordered that for you especially.’ Whether they believed it or not [laughs] but, oh that’s quite something when that comes over isn’t it? I’ve seen it on several places you know.
Interviewer 2: Well hopefully it will fly over, you know this weekend at some point.
CA: Well, I asked if our squadron was coming down for the flypast but I’m told that they’re probably in Afghanistan or something. Somebody sent them away. That’s what they told me.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But John Bell, ex-Wing Commander John Bell who is here with us here, he said, ‘I think 9 Squadron are going to do the flypast. If they can find us.’ There was always something like that.
Interviewer 2: The rivalry still exists.
CA: There’s always this dig you see. These people [laughs] us at 9 Squadron and they’re still arguing over the bit of bulkhead of the Tirpitz that passes from hand to hand when people can rescue it so to speak. Yeah. Theres been several occasions apparently on that.
Interviewer 2: Your spirit is absolutely remarkable. The same humour and the same spirit from those days. You still have that and its absolutely inspirational.
CA: I laugh. I’ve often laughed my way through life I suppose really. Done nothing special. Boring job. Sixty years of marriage. I lost my wife last July.
Interviewer 2: She’s just here I think.
Interviewer 1: No, his daughter.
Interviewer 2: Oh, daughter is it?
CA: Are they there? I’m on the radio, yeah and sixty years we were married and I lost the wife last year.
Interviewer 2: Oh, I’m sorry.
CA: But they kept me going. These two. I wasn’t allowed to become a recluse and cut myself off from the world. No. No.
Interviewer 2: Well, it’s been a privilege hasn’t it to meet you and to listen to what you’ve been saying. An absolute privilege.
CA: Well, I think nobody realises I’m eighty six. I laugh when the man in the fish shop said to her, ‘This old boy comes in here with a cap on.’
Other: ‘He’s come up from Brighton,’ he said.
CA: She said, ‘That’s my dad.’
Other: He said, ‘Have you seen him?’ I said, ‘He’s my dad.’
CA: A skinny little bloke with a cap on. About sixty.
Other: ‘He’s moved up here from Brighton.’ I said, ‘I know.’
CA: Sixty [laughs] I thought whoopee.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Charles Avey
1028-Avey, Charles
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v30
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:20:31 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Charles Avey volunteered for the RAF with his friend who was fanatical about the RAF. Charles trained as a gunner. His friend was posted to the Air Ministry. On one training flight the crew were suddenly concerned at the sight ahead of what looked like a large sandbank. This turned out to be the island of Texel where German fighters were based. The first pilot Charles was crewed with became unable to fly on medical grounds and so Charles and his crew had to find a new pilot. They were posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Woodhall Spa
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46458/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v250002.mp3
8a097d5b21ae450b8b5f698d153762aa
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Wilf Keyte on the 15th of November 2010 at his home in Lincoln regarding his experiences in the Second World War.
WK: I joined the RAF in December 1937 and I eventually made my way to RAF Scampton and joined 83 Bomber Squadron and I was working in the stores, in the Maintenance Flights of 83 Squadron. It had recently moved down from Turnhouse in Scotland and I stayed with the squadron until 1940 [pause] 1940, when I was posted down to RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire where I was, I was working on such things as the Queen Bee which was a guided missile aircraft which we had and it was used quite a lot in those days. But I eventually left. Left Henlow and was posted to the Orkney Island to RAF Skeabrae where I was the barracks, in charge of the barrack stores in in the Orkneys. I was only supposed to have stayed there for a maximum of nine months but in fact I was there from January 1942 until November 1943. I was given a home posting so they said to RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire and I found myself in charge of the barrack stores at Swinderby. We had, it was a heavy bomber Conversion Unit where they were converting crews from twin-engined aircraft to four-engined aircraft. A mixture of Stirlings and and Lancasters they had there. I stayed, I stayed at RAF Swinderby for the best part of two years and I used to live near a village called Burton and the most remarkable thing about living out there that there was the ditches were filled with thousand pound bombs on the roadside. In fact, I had a bungalow which was next, next door to a bomb dump and I used to ride through this bomb dump to get to Swinderby. I stayed at Swinderby until in 1945 and I was, I was posted to RAF Syerston and at RAF Syerston I found myself involved with a force which was called the Tiger Force which was supposed to be to assemble a force of Lancasters, three squadrons I think it was to fly to Okinawa and the intent was to bomb Japan from Okinawa. And I was told that I was due to fly out to Okinawa in a Lancaster on the 15th of September 1945. Events of course took place with the bombing of Japan with atomic bombs which meant that the Tiger Force was was cancelled and they wrote, all the people were being sent here, there and everywhere. That as far as I was concerned it went on for about three months where I was sent down to number 5PDC I think it was. It was based at, in London and the Viceroy Court was the block of flats that we had. And we were repeatedly let go on leave and I finally finished up with amongst us there were six of us that had been there since August waiting to go overseas and the CO saw us. We decided that we’d had enough of messing around with waiting for this movement and we went off to the orderly room to ask if we could go on leave. And the CO came out and saw us and he said, ‘What are you —’ so and sos, ‘Doing here?’ And we said, ‘Oh, we’re waiting to go on leave sir.’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ll fix you.’ Well, the result was that next day we found, we found that we were, we were on orders to move and we went up to Waterbeach in Cambridge and we eventually flew out of Waterbeach in a Liberator and I was down in the bomb bay of this Liberator. We flew to Malta and stayed overnight and then the next day we went on to place called Castel Benito in Libya. It was called Idris Airport afterwards but we flew on from there the next, not the next day because we sat. There was no movement the next day. We flew on to Cairo and we stayed in Cairo for five days and then we flew on to Habbaniya in Iraq. And we eventually the next day we flew on to Karachi which is now in Pakistan of course and there they decided where we were going. Somewhere in India. And I was one of the people who was selected to go. Go down to Puna. What it was that the, we’d been going to the cinema and playing bingo and we started checking on how much was being paid out in prizes because we found out that the sums that were given in prizes didn’t work out how much people were paying. They did. The army were running it and they weren’t very pleased with us and they got rid of us to Puna over Christmas in 1945 and we stayed at, stayed at Puna until after Christmas. Then I went on to where I was scheduled to go and that was Avadi, which was a big base near Madras. And that’s when I came up against the Tiger Force again where I found out that the base had been built for springboard for the attack against Japan and it was for all three services. Fifty miles of rail tracks gives you some idea of the size of the place and we had even three English style pubs there. But before I left England I’d been selected for a commission and I went on from Avadi. I was given a hot weather posting up to a place called Kanpur in the Central Provinces. And it was while I was at Kanpur that a posting came for me to go down to Ceylon to do the officer’s training. And I was down in Ceylon at a place called Kandy which was up in the hills and I then found out why Mountbatten had moved his headquarters from Delhi, actually and the rest of the command had moved it from Delhi because it was beautiful in Kandy. It was like a warm summer’s day. And I completed my course, courses at Kandy and went back to where I came from which was Kanpur in India. But the wing commander I worked for said it was unfair for me to be promoted or commissioned on the same unit as I’d been working as a flight sergeant and he thought I should be posted but the CO said, ‘If he’s any good now’s his chance to prove it.’ But it didn’t last very long because they had a vacancy for an equipment officer at a place called Chakulia which was in the state of [Baha.] That was out towards the east side of the country and I went. I went to Calcutta where the headquarters was and I went in to see the group captain administrator and I was told I’d got to close this unit within a fortnight. And I visited the unit. It was three hundred and twenty miles from Calcutta and said, ‘No. It will take me six weeks to close that station down.’ And there was a door opened in the office and I didn’t take any notice of it but then the AOC walked in and he said, ‘The trouble with you people at Chakulia is that you’re away from all discipline and you’re enjoying yourself out there.’ And the group captain finally got a word in and he said, ‘He’s only been there forty eight hours, sir.’ Anyway, I went back to Chakulia and it did take six weeks because there were, there were several storehouses full of equipment plus a lot of vehicles we had to get rid of and the only place we could get rid of the vehicles was a place called Ranchi which was a two hundred mile trip by road and then you had to wait for the drivers to come back before you could send any more vehicles. But I finally did finish it and went back to Barrackpore near Calcutta and when we got there we were told, ‘Well, you’ve wasted your time because we’re scrapping all this stuff.’ And that’s what happened. It was all put up for sale. Everything that we had there. And I was sent to, to the on another closure job which was at RAF Dum Dum which is now Calcutta Airport and to close that station down and one of the things that we had there was, there was some Spitfires which were being shuffled from England out to Australia and they, we couldn’t get any pilots to fly them and so we were told to put the axe through them and make them unflyable. Well, eventually we moved. We did. We did manage to close the station down and took all the airmen out to Delhi for them to be sent elsewhere and I went up to Delhi and reported into the air headquarters and I was told by two flight lieutenants ‘Oh, you’ll be going to Singapore now but you’ve got to wait to see the wing commander.’ And I waited to see the wing commander and he said, ‘Oh, you’ve been here long enough. Go home.’ So that was the end of my tour in India. And I came home and eventually I was sent up to a unit called RAF Montrose. Eventually I found myself having to close Montrose down. I was, I was made the officer in charge of the marching out and I had to go through all the buildings handing them over to the Works Department to close RAF Montrose. And we moved up to a place called Edzell which was twelve miles inland and they tried to get me posted earlier but the CO said, ‘No. You wait until he’s finished his job,’ and they said, ‘Well, you’re not going to keep him.’ And they sent me down to the Group Headquarters at Hucknall and I left. I left that all behind me. Eventually I got to a place called Kidlington near Oxford. I’d been on an explosives course on handling and sorting explosives and I found myself closing units down all below. They were getting rid of all the bombs from RAF stations and they were being shipped and dumped out to sea. And I finally finished that job and I found myself being posted overseas again. So that’s, that’s the end of the story as it were.
Interviewer: You were, your time in the Orkneys attached to Fighter Command.
WK: Yeah.
Interviewer: Can you tell us what you were doing? Your job more specifically?
WK: Well, I was, I was, I went up there and I was in charge of the barrack stores.
Interviewer: Right.
WK: And I found, found myself getting another job because the RAF was expanding and the Navy were pulling out of a place called Grimsetter just outside Kirkwall and I was sent over, sent across to Grimsetter to go around and check all the barrack equipment. Blankets etcetera. In other words take over the station so that the RAF could move back into Grimsetter and that took me several months of course. Two months when I was working with the Navy.
Interviewer: And you had your family up there.
WK: Yes, we were fortunate enough that my wife and two sons they came up to the Orkneys and we, we lived on a farm in [unclear] and they enjoyed the life there. The one thing they didn’t enjoy was the wind which [laughs] because there was a paper in those days in the Orkneys which was called, “The Orkney Blast,” and it was aptly named, “The Orkney Blast,” because I was blown off my bicycle several times with the strong wind and even our coal lorry was blown off the road with the strong winds. But we lived with the cold wind in the Orkneys. You got used to it but when we left in November 1943 and we got on this ship at Stromness the sea was flat calm. It was just like sailing across a sheet of glass. It was most uncanny because the Pentland Firth is well known for the ferocious seas that you can get up there.
Interviewer: Pathfinders.
WK: Well, not so much the Pathfinders as it was. It was the [pause] I can’t remember the name now. The Tiger Force.
Interviewer: Oh.
WK: Yeah.
[recording paused]
WK: When I was in India I had, I’d been selected for an officer’s training before I left and I arrived, when I arrived in India they knew all about it and they sent me down to Ceylon and there was, there were two squadrons of Dakotas in those days. One was based, well both were based at Karachi and one flew eastabout and the other flew westabout and I went on the eastabout route which we took off at 6 o’clock in the morning because of the weather conditions. The heat was uncomfortable for flying and we landed for breakfast and then we flew on for another two hours and landed for lunch and night stop and it took a week to fly from Delhi down to Ceylon and [pause] sorry. Oh yes. The, when I, my final unit in, in India was in a place called Dum Dum. It was a village which had a reputation for rebels and one the reason it was named Dum Dum was because that was where the Dum Dum bullets were made originally which were well known worldwide for use by terrorists and the, they were flying the people out from Dum Dum when we, when we closed down up to Delhi and the CO decided that we were not going to. He and I were not going to fly in these Dakotas. That he sent the rest of the station and we we were sent aboard a BOAC York flying first class up to Delhi and the pilot was very kind to us. He did a circuit around Calcutta so that we could take a last look of it before we went home. Where they used to get, used to get tea —
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Wilf Keyte
1018,1019-Keyte, Wilf
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v25
Creator
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
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2010-11-15
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Royal Air Force
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eng
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Sound
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00:20:26 audio recording
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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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.
Description
An account of the resource
Wilf Keyte joined the RAF in 1937 and was based with maintenance units. He was posted to Scampton and Henlow where he worked with the Queen Bee missile unit. He was then posted in charge of stores to the Orkneys and then RAF Swinderby. Wilf was then posted to India where again he was in charge of stores and was given the task of closing stations in India before returning to the UK where again he continued this role including working with the Royal Navy to close their station at Grimsetter to return it to the RAF.
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1942
1943
1945
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
India
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
India--Delhi
Scotland--Orkney
Contributor
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Julie Williams
ground personnel
RAF Henlow
RAF Swinderby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46447/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v180002.mp3
9e1a59f8b5d86e0f3686b1aabcb7d54a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
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
2017-06-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: We’ll start again.
PS: Right.
Interviewer: It’s the 25th of January and I’m here at Westmoor Farm and I’m talking to Peter Scoley who is the sort of founder and landlord of the friends of Metheringham Airfield. Peter, you’ve been in this area for a very long time. Like all your life. Is that right?
PS: More or less. We came to Martin Moor in 1937.
Interviewer: Gosh.
PS: And, but we had to leave of course when the aerodrome was built. That was in 1943. And then Zena and I came back here to live in 1968 so most of my life with a little chunk in the 40s and 50s.
Interviewer: And a bit missing. When you had to leave where did you go to?
PS: We went to another farm at Bracebridge Heath at the north end of Waddington aerodrome a quarter of a mile or so, between a quarter and a half a mile from the end of the northern end of the main runway. And so we were entertained nightly by Lancasters taking off and landing at Waddington.
Interviewer: Right. So, so I mean you wouldn’t have been very old then. About eight years old.
PS: Ahum.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Yeah.
Interviewer: So would you have seen action from Metheringham itself or didn’t you get down as far as here?
PS: No, I never saw Metheringham operations. I only saw it built but not operational. Though on occasion because we had this barn here still operational during the war.
Other: As a farm.
PS: As a farm. Father visited weekly because my uncle really looked after it but my father came here every week and it was on some of those occasions when I was on holiday from school that we saw things like the FIDO operating and the odd aeroplane going in the circuit and so on. But —
Interviewer: Were you allowed to stay up late enough to [laughs] —
PS: [laughs] No.
Interviewer: To see FIDO operating.
PS: The FIDO that I saw operating was actually during the daylight hours. One very foggy day, I can’t remember now whether it was the Christmas holidays or the April holidays. I think it might have been Christmas holidays actually in 1944 it was operating during the day.
Interviewer: Was that a test run or did they actually need it?
PS: I don’t think so. I think it was, I think it was operating because air ambulances were coming in from Europe with American wounded on.
Interviewer: Peter, excuse me.
PS: For Nocton Hospital.
Interviewer: It’s absolutely stone cold. Can you get the girls to come back collect it and warmed up for us.
PS: Righto, duck.
Interviewer: Shall we?
PS: Can you, can you pause?
Interviewer: Yes.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Stopped it so [pause] So they were running FIDO during the day.
PS: Are we on now?
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Oh right. Yes. I can remember. I can remember it very clearly because on that particular day father was bringing a battery to Smalley’s, the motor engineers of Martin for recharging. In those days if you, if you remember the wireless sets we had weren’t plugged in to the electrics because we didn’t have any but there were on big glass batteries filled with acid that was re, that were recharged every week. And we were coming down to Martin to have this battery charged. To get there of course we had to come through Metheringham Aerodrome. Now, the road was closed but because father had this farm here he had a pass to come through so we came up to the main gate and he showed the pass and we were waved through. But he was warned at the sentry post, guardroom that the FIDO was running and there was a guard on the road, to take directions from him. So further up the road we came across this guard with a 303 rifle and a fixed bayonet and in front of us we’d seen a lorry disappearing into the fog past this chap with a bayonet and father stopped and said, ‘Is it safe to go through?’ And so the guard said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘That lorry has just gone through,’ he said, ‘So I think you can.’ So off we went and the roar as we went through was terrific and the flames as I recall were not the same as you see on the films and pictures of FIDO working which tend to show a very low flame.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Very close to the ground. The flames that I remember, don’t forget I was eight, nine years old were much higher than that. They were more like eight to ten feet high and they were blue and with a yellowish tinge.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And the roar was fantastic and the heat terrific. But anyway —
[recording paused]
PS: Switch on then. So we drove through and went off down to Martin to get the batteries recharged. Mission successful.
Interviewer: Yes. It is interesting what you say because all the pictures or almost all the pictures of FIDO are taken at night so the only bit you see is the yellow part of the of the flame and no one every talks about the noise. They only talk about the flames and the fumes and everything like that.
PS: That is my recollection of it.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Don’t forget as I say I was eight nine years old.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And that is my memory.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Fickle though it might but with a picture that I have of FIDO is quite different from that shown in the books.
Interviewer: Yes. Well, that’s, that’s quite amazing. So what was going on at Waddington? I presume that you had a much closer view of, of events there.
PS: Not really. I suppose because one was only at home during school holidays though obviously during those weeks you got the aircraft flying overhead every night taking off on operations. And being only half a mile or so from the end of the north, north south runway at Waddington fully loaded Lancasters coming over twenty or thirty at a time and skimming the house by about sixty to a hundred feet the noise was rather shattering and if you were trying to get to sleep a fairly, you were given a fairly impossible job.
Interviewer: Did you ever get used to it?
PS: No. Never really got used to it. But you counted them out and you counted them back. The other thing that I recall from my bedroom window there was an air raid siren two hundred yards away on the AV Roe aircraft factory roof end and every now and again it would go off. And I don’t know whether anybody remembers air raid sirens these days but believe me in those days if it went off the heart raced a bit.
Interviewer: It is frightening.
PS: We, I was ill with measles at the time but in March of 1945 Bomber Command suffered the last intruder raids of the Luftwaffe when various night fighters flew over aerodromes in the UK and shot the place up and on two occasions that happened at Waddington. On one occasion the bomb dump was set on fire and we had shell cases littering through the trees. You could hear them hitting the trees and bullets whistling through the air. That was rather frightening and then they did in fact manage to set the Waddington bomb dump on fire one night. And the —
Interviewer: What were the bombs, were they exploding?
PS: No, they weren’t. No. Fortunately not.
Interviewer: Because they weren’t fused, were they?
PS: No, they hadn’t got that far.
Interviewer: No.
PS: But something was burning there.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And various people from RAF Waddington came around to all the outlying houses, farms and everyone telling everyone to get out quick because if the bomb dump went off it would level a fair, it would level a fair area of land.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: And so mother explained that we couldn’t because my brother and I were in bed with measles and my father was in bed with flu. ‘Righto,’ said the officer. He said, ‘We’ll lay an ambulance on.’ As it turned out before the ambulance arrived they got the fire under control so it was all cancelled but it was a little bit of a hairy old do for an hour until things got under control.
Interviewer: Yes, I can imagine.
PS: Well, that was the nearest I got to the war.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Because most of the time with being away at school, in the latter half of the war at anyrate, in Yorkshire we very rarely saw any aircraft up there and German aircraft in particular. But further south of course things were rather different.
Interviewer: Yes, I can imagine. Well, I grew up in London but I’m not quite old enough. It’s strange because I have a memory of getting out of bed and lifting the edge of a blackout curtain and looking out and seeing searchlights panning the sky. Now, it couldn’t have been the Blitz because I wasn’t around in the Blitz.
PS: No.
Interviewer: So I’m not quite sure what this memory was.
PS: Well, don’t forget there was a little Blitz in 1944.
Interviewer: Ah, well it could have been something like that. Yes. Yes. I didn’t think much about it. It just looked like all pretty lights in the sky you know.
PS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Obviously, obviously very young. Now, you are now with your connections to the Metheringham Airfield and considered by lots of us as, as a chief archivist.
PS: God. Yeah.
Interviewer: You must have the odd story to tell. Things that were related to you or, or something like that.
PS: Oh God. Now, my mind’s gone a blank.
Interviewer: Of the —
PS: Yeah.
[recording paused]
PS: Yeah. Yeah, well perhaps for a start we could talk about the origins of the, of the Visitor Centre because they were not simple. Zena and I had thought, had been wondering for a long time about a Memorial to the Bomber Command people here during the war but we could never really think of anything that we could do. We didn’t particularly want, just want to put a Memorial slab or stone. We wanted something a bit different but nothing occurred. In any case at that time we were both busy with our own lives. Me in farming and Zena with local government. But it just so happened one day that Zena was at a meeting with North Kesteven District Council officials at a time when — [beeping noise] I think I can —
Interviewer: Ok.
[recording paused]
PS: So anyway, Zena was at this meeting with the North Kesteven District Council at a time when they were having to rethink the financial aspects of local government because agriculture which up ‘til then had been the mainstay of rural life was ceasing because of the end of the Cold War was ceasing to be as important as it had been hitherto. And so the local authorities were having to reassess businesses and tourism and all sorts of other things that were happening in their areas in order to get revenue for the county. One of the things that the Tourism Department at Sleaford was concerned with was the wartime aviation and they were creating what became known as the Airfield Trail which it was hoped would attract tourists into the area to go around and visit all these old aerodromes which by then were becoming of national interest. So during the conversation Zena happened to mention that we had got some old wartime, World War Two buildings on the farm and would they be interested. They said they would. They’d come and have a look which eventually they did and it was decided that one of the buildings in particular would be a good place to have what at that time was going to be known as a Memorial Room. The council would renovate part of it in which the exhibition would be and then the place would be open for people to visit when they were in the area. At that time nothing more was planned. It, coincidentally one of our neighbours on the other side of the airfield had built a Memorial to 106 Squadron which in 1992 was dedicated at a squadron reunion.
Interviewer: Was this the one that is actually on the airfield site?
PS: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: When it was dedicated and we talked to the squadron about our plans they showed interest and asked to be invited to the dedication of the Memorial Room when it was opened. And we said yes. In the meantime, John Pye who had done the other Memorial said would it be appropriate for him to build another Memorial outside the Memorial Room? So we thought it was a good idea and which he did. That was in 1993 and in July of ’93 at the squadron reunion they came here for the dedication of the new Memorial and —
Interviewer: Partial opening.
PS: Yeah [pause] Ok? Yeah. So anyway, the squadron arrived in July of 1993 for the dedication of the second Memorial.
Interviewer: When you say the squadron you mean the Squadron Association?
PS: The Squadron Association.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: Yeah. And had a look at the half-finished Memorial Room and there was a preliminary suggestion that it mightn’t be a bad idea if we were willing for it to be also the Squadron Museum. So anyway, we all went away and thought about that. We had to think about this. They, and they came back again in October of that year when the Memorial Room was finished and opened for a month for local people to come and have a look and we had an official opening with the chairman of the North Kesteven District Council and a little ceremony and we closed again for the winter at the end of the month. During the winter we had a general meeting when the Friends of Metheringham Airfield was set up. The title was, as I recall was suggested by our number one member who has only just died a week or two back. Ron Mitchell. And we’ve been the Friends of Metheringham Airfield ever since and the committee was formed and it went on from there. The following summer in July when the squadron came down for their reunion, or the Association came down for their reunion they of course visited the Centre and we had a little party there. And one of the squadron members had a quiet think and thought it would be a good idea if we renovated the end room. Well, we hadn’t got any money to do that at the time so nothing much happened. But it just so happened that the poor chap died that winter. Then we found out that he had left us two hundred pounds in his will for to help with renovations at the Centre. And so we renovated the end rooms and they’re now called the Carey Powell Room.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: In memory of our benefactor who’d in fact had been a rear gunner here. He was a two tour rear gunner which was a very rare bird indeed.
Interviewer: Yes.
PS: In World War Two.
Interviewer: It certainly was.
PS: And a very nice man and a great supporter. So we were very pleased to, to name the room after him and to keep his name alive. So the, the museum has sort of developed from the there. The next job we did was to clear out the old gymnasium which had become redundant as far as the farm buildings were concerned and so, we cleaned it out and freshened it up. And since then we’ve had all our meetings and things in there. The lectures we started in the Centre in 1994 as it happened. I think Jim Shortland gave the first one and I believe we had about seventy people in there at the time. But gradually as time went on numbers increased and the centre wasn’t big enough and so we moved across to the school room, what is now the school room and a gymnasium until that became too small when we started having the lectures and things in the main room in the gymnasium. And that basically is an outline in how we first started and has carried on to this day with under the guidance of a group of very dedicated volunteers. We are now a charity and which has been helpful with the financial aspects of the friends and we hope that interest will survive because we believe that the memory of Bomber Command people deserves it. There may be controversy over what Bomber Command did during the world war but one can’t get away from the fact that fifty five thousand men, young men, young boys lost their lives serving their country and that is the main thing as far as we’re concerned in preserving the memory of 106 Squadron.
Interviewer: That’s, that’s really the core purpose of the organisation, isn’t it? That it’s totally wrong and mercifully I think the country is now decades too late beginning to realise it totally wrong to blame brave volunteer —
PS: Yes.
Interviewer: Service personnel.
PS: Yes.
Interviewer: For the mistakes, perceived or real of their political masters.
PS: Absolutely. It’s been most unfair and again well we’ll not mention any politics in this but we know the guilty ones.
Interviewer: I’ll not mention any names. Well, Peter, I think we’ve come to the end of the session now and thank you ever so much for talking to us and I’m sure that your name won’t exactly be in lights but your voice might well be coming out of peoples computers. Thank you.
PS: [laughs] Right.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Peter Scoley
1008-Scoley, E Peter G
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v18
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1992
1993
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:23:19 audio recording
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jeff Williams
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Scoley was born on a farm which became RAF Metheringham during the war. After the war Peter and his wife were fundamental in creating a museum on the site.
106 Squadron
bombing
FIDO
Lancaster
memorial
perception of bombing war
RAF Metheringham
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1359/45820/PSmithRW23010022 copy.1.jpg
239a4e02dae10fc6ef4d7c90e11d40de
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
Smith, Bob
Robert Wylie Smith
R W Smith
Description
An account of the resource
125 items. An oral history interview with Bob Smith (b. 1924, 425992 Royal Australian Air Force) photographs, documents and navigation logs and charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 15 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Smith, RW
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Course 71N2 Empire Air Training Scheme
Description
An account of the resource
A group of 24 trainees and two officers positioned in front of an Anson.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSmithRW23010022 copy
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Alberta--Edmonton
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
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.
Anson
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1918/45662/PCrawfordJ1712.1.jpg
3e81272831fc3b2c6996dd0a13dbb9cd
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Crawford, Jack 416818
John Crawford
J Crawford
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
2017-08-08
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
Crawford, J
Description
An account of the resource
18 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer John "Jack" Crawford (416818 Royal New Zealand Air Force) and contains his diaries, documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator/ air gunner with 189 Squadron and was killed 4 March 1945. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by john Herbert and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.<br /><br /><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW220471175 BCX0">Additional information on John "Jack" Crawford</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW220471175 BCX0"> is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/105207/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jack with aircrew and family
Description
An account of the resource
From top left,
A group of 13 uniformed airmen arranged in two rows outside an open window in a tile fronted building. Seven standing all with half caps and six seated in front, including two officers. The individuals are annotated, from the top left 'F/S's Spencer, Runl, Porter, Roberston, Sheperdson, Launder, Podborski' and front left ' Bercuson, Tees, P/O's Rolfe, Wittmack, Sgt's Crawford and Smith'. There are blue X's marked against Robertson, Bercuson, Tees and Wittmack. The image is further annotated 'C Squad WAGs 23.8.43';
A group of 27 men in uniform, 24 wearing training half caps, Two individuals are annotated with an M and four with an X. The group is arranged in two rows, one of 18 standing and 9, seated in front; Annotated 'Class 48D - 20 weeks on course Missing and fatalities marked by Jack.',
Seven airmen in uniform, arranged in two rows The back row are annotated 'Jack, Bert Jackson, Eric (?)' and the men in front, 'Stan Jones, Tom Dykins ad Dave Cook'. Labelled 'First Crew'.
From bottom left,
A half portrait of John 'Jack' Crawford in his training half cap;
A man sat in an open topped two seater car with the number 7 on its side;
Jack in uniform, annotated 'In Paisley, Scotland';
Jack, in uniform, stood behind two two men and two women, annotated 'With uncle Bob's family in Paisley';
A head and shoulder portrait of Edna Crawford;
Jack and Edna, both in uniform, annotated 'The Crawford's honeymoon';
A seated Jack in uniform, showing his warrant officer's badge;
Jack and Edna.
The page is labelled ' 1943-44'.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
1944
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
Scotland--Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire--Paisley
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
11 b/w photographs
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCrawfordJ1712
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
aircrew
ground personnel
killed in action
love and romance
missing in action
pilot
training
wireless operator / air gunner
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1918/45589/MCrawfordJ416818-170808-08.1.jpg
64c43bfd5d6a18238783a2fb011c2241
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
Crawford, Jack 416818
John Crawford
J Crawford
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
2017-08-08
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
Crawford, J
Description
An account of the resource
18 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer John "Jack" Crawford (416818 Royal New Zealand Air Force) and contains his diaries, documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator/ air gunner with 189 Squadron and was killed 4 March 1945. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by john Herbert and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.<br /><br /><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW220471175 BCX0">Additional information on John "Jack" Crawford</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW220471175 BCX0"> is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/105207/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
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
Aircraft in flames
Description
An account of the resource
A brief first hand description of aircraft in flames, crashing and the loss of crew member Gallagher.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One hand written sheet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MCrawfordJ416848-170808-08
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John 'Jack' Crawford
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
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.
anti-aircraft fire
crash
killed in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2451/45542/LTaylorPR1580457v1.1.pdf
ba9dceeb07a487fbda73057dc7a6e3de
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
Taylor, Peter Ross
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection concerns Sergeant Peter Ross Taylor (1922 - 1979, 1580457 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and a photograph. He flew operations as a navigator with 38 Squadron in the Middle East.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ross Taylor and catalogued by Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-08-03
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Taylor, PR
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
P R Taylor’s observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
P R Taylor’s Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, from 26 April 1943 to 25 October 1945, detailing training and operations as a Navigator (occasionally Bomb Aimer) in the Mediterranean area. Based at: Oudtshoorn (No. 45 Air School), George (No. 61 Air School), RAF Ein Shemer (No. 78 Operational Training Unit), Berka 3, Kalamaki, Grottaglie, Foggia and Luqa (all with No. 38 Squadron). Aircraft flown: Anson, Oxford, Wellington XIII, Wellington XIV, Warwick. Records 30 sorties, including bombing, anti-submarine patrols, armed/offensive reconnaissance, anti-shipping strikes, mine laying, flare illumination, convoy escorts, leaflet dropping and supply drops. Named targets/areas include: Portolargo (Leros Island), Karlovasi Harbour (Samos), Chalcis, Iraklion aerodrome (Crete), Aegean Sea, and Kalamaki. His pilot on operations with 38 Squadron was F/O Webster. On 17 February 1945 he notes “President Roosevelt aboard Cruiser Quincey”.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-07-17
1944-07-20
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-24
1944-08-27
1944-08-30
1944-09-01
1944-09-02
1944-09-03
1944-09-05
1944-09-08
1944-09-09
1944-09-12
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-10-07
1944-10-08
1944-10-13
1944-10-14
1944-10-17
1944-12-19
1944-12-27
1944-12-31
1945-02-17
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-20
1945-03-23
1945-03-24
1945-04-03
1945-04-06
1945-04-07
1945-04-12
1945-04-13
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-24
1945-04-29
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Croatia
Croatia--Kamenjak
Greece
Greece--Crete
Greece--Ērakleion
Greece--Chalkida
Greece--Rhodes (Island)
Greece--Samos
Greece--Zakynthos
Israel
Israel--ʻEn Shemer
Italy
Italy--Foggia
Italy--Grottaglie
Italy--Trieste
Italy--Venice
Libya
Libya--Banghāzī
Malta
Malta--Valletta
Mediterranean Sea
South Africa
South Africa--George
Greece--Leros (Municipality)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LTaylorPR1580457v1
38 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
mine laying
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45505/LFoskettW1323050v2.1.pdf
d2a755280d8713bc33c070907e78a1e2
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Foskett, William
Description
An account of the resource
104 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant William Foskett (b. 1921, 13230505 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, correspondence, documents, and photographs.
He flew operations as an air gunner and navigator with 214 Squadron. After the war, he was stationed in Italy, France, Germany and North Africa.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Foskett and catalogued by Barry Hunter with the assistance of Roberto Bassi of the Aeroclub Friulano Campoformido.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-04-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Foskett, W
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bill Foskett’s Royal Air Force Pilot’s Flying Log Book. (Log Book 1)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LFoskettW1323050v2
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Foskett’s Flying Log Book from 20th March 1942 until 9th August 1943. Training started at 3 EFTS before moving to training bases in America. Returned to England to 15 OTU from July 1943.
Served at RAF Shellingford, Souther Field USA, Cochran Field USA, RAF Harwell.
Aircraft flown were Tiger Moth, Stearman PT17, Vultee BT13A, Wellington.
No operational flying.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Berkshire
England--Oxfordshire
United States
Georgia
Georgia--Americus
Georgia--Macon
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
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
15 OTU
aircrew
Flying Training School
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Harwell
RAF Shellingford
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2573/44655/PUreIL18020021.1.jpg
95a2d69ae549de7898b0113591cef055
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2573/44655/PUreIL18020022.2.jpg
f9db2f6281a6e14c9eb19a730b54b745
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
Ure, Ivan Lochlyn
I L Ure
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. The collection concerns Ivan Lochlyn Ure (b. 1922, 1323004 Royal Air Force) and contains his memoirs, prisoner of war log, correspondence, documents, and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 10 Squadron before he became a prisoner of war.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Tim and Heather Wright and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ure, IL
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
Three Halifaxes in Flight
Description
An account of the resource
A port side view of three Halifaxes in flight.
On the reverse 'Not[underlined] a nice way to fly 1943 10 Squadron Property of Ivan Ure [redacted].
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PUreIL18020021, PUreIL18020022
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
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.
10 Squadron
Halifax
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1409/44337/STaplinJA1268696v10025.2.jpg
cdd9a5857bfb070bbab4007a8129ccad
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
Taplin, J A
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
2016-01-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Taplin, JA
Description
An account of the resource
128 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant John Albert Taplin (b.1919, 1268696 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, documents photographs and two audio interviews. He flew operations as an air gunner with 408 Squadron before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Kevan Taplin and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Stevenage Airmen Missing
Description
An account of the resource
An article reporting that John Taplin and W Clarke are missing.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Stevenage
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
STaplinJA1268696v10025
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
aircrew
missing in action
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1409/44322/STaplinJA1268696v10034-0001.2.jpg
ef027ef2491bec5cd386e82d64679395
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1409/44322/STaplinJA1268696v10034-0002.2.jpg
c4638d9d1b7bd84965d79d37fb8b8973
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
Taplin, J A
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
2016-01-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Taplin, JA
Description
An account of the resource
128 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant John Albert Taplin (b.1919, 1268696 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, documents photographs and two audio interviews. He flew operations as an air gunner with 408 Squadron before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Kevan Taplin and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Telegram to John Taplin's Parents from RAF
Description
An account of the resource
The telegram states that John is a prisoner based on information from the International Red Cross.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One double sided printed sheet with handwritten annotations
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
STaplinJA1268696v10034-0001, STaplinJA1268696v10034-0002
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
aircrew
missing in action
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1807/44144/PKilburnG1704.2.jpg
1f7f3f8dcb0d8fea517c200ea3fbeb47
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
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
2017-03-10
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
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.
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
Frank Kilburn
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Kilburn aged 21 wearing a flying jacket and parachute harness.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PKilburnG1704
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/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
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
2017-03-10
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
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
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[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
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page type written document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MKilburnG[Ser#-DoB]-170310-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
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/2405/44014/LMillsJF14682v1.1.pdf
7ffa8d8d9a954c03eabfa884a8e7e0a9
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
Mills, Joseph Forster
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Joseph Forster Mills (b. 1916, 174682 Royal Air Force) and contains a copy of his log book and correspondence. He flew operations as a navigator with 61 Squadron. Many of his operations were flown in Lancaster ED860.
The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jane Towler and catalogued by Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-07-20
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Mills, JF
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
Joseph Forster Mills flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for J F Mills, Navigator, covering the period from 20 September 1942 to 24 September 1950. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and post war flying with 1332 heavy conversion unit, 246 squadron, number 23 reserve flying school and 59 squadron. He was stationed at RCAF London, RAF Kingstown, RAF Staverton, RAF Moreton Valance, RAF Saltby, RAF Market Harborough, RAF Wigsley, RAF Skellingthorpe, RAF Coningsby, RAF Longtown, RAF Northolt and RAF Bassingbourn. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Tiger Moth, Wellington, Halifax, Lancaster, York, Oxford, and Hastings. He flew a total of 38 operations with 61 squadron, 5 Daylight and 33 night. His pilots on operations were Wing Commander Scott, Wing Commander Doubleday, Flying Officer Street, Flight lieutenant Forrest, Pilot Officer Auckland, and Flying Officer Stone. Targets were Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Chateauroux, Frankfurt, Nuremburg, Tours, Aachen, Paris, Brunswick, Louailles, Brest, Duisburg, Saumur, St Pierre du Mont, Argentan, Poitiers, St Cyr, Givors, Cahagnes, St Leu D’Esserent, Sequeville, Ladbergen, Essen, Lutzkendorf and Bremen. He also flew 3 operation Exodus and 2 Cooks tours.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMillsJF14682v1
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cumbria
England--Gloucestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
France--Argentan
France--Brest
France--Caen Region
France--Châteauroux
France--Creil Region
France--Givors
France--Le Mans Region
France--Paris
France--Poitiers
France--Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer
France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes)
France--Saumur
France--Tours
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Merseburg Region
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Ontario--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-01-30
1944-01-31
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-21
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-03-10
1944-03-11
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-13
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-05-06
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-11
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-22
1945-04-30
1945-05-04
1946
1949
1950
61 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Cook’s tour
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Oxford
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Coningsby
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Northolt
RAF Saltby
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Staverton
RAF Wigsley
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2573/43995/PUreIL1801.1.pdf
98494b46f0ae693603cf5fc9e71662e6
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
Ure, Ivan Lochlyn
I L Ure
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. The collection concerns Ivan Lochlyn Ure (b. 1922, 1323004 Royal Air Force) and contains his memoirs, prisoner of war log, correspondence, documents, and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 10 Squadron before he became a prisoner of war.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Tim and Heather Wright and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ure, IL
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Dairy contains drawings, poetry, names and addresses, and cigarette packets.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PUreIL1801
Title
A name given to the resource
Ivan Ure's prisoner of war diary
Ivan Ure's wartime log
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ivan Lochlyn Ure
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
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
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Poetry
Artwork
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Lithuania
Poland
Germany--Barth
Lithuania--Šilutė
Poland--Tychowo
aircrew
Battle
Halifax
military living conditions
prisoner of war
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 4
Stalag Luft 6
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2556/43914/MLongNJ1581956-190516-01.2.pdf
eed9f017f42bc56ad98f0cc2f870849f
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
Long, Norman J
N J Long
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Norman J Long (1923 - 1994, 1581956 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 460 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Kathryn Lawrence and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-16
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Long, NJ
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
ROUTINE ORDER BY GROUP CAPTAIN K. R. PARSONS D.S.O. D.F.C
COMMANDING R.A.F. STATION, BINBROOK.
Serial No. 39
Page. 1
Date. 12.5.45.
427. SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY by AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR A. T. HARRIS. KCB. OBE. AFC.
“Men and Women of Bomber Command.
More than 51/2 years ago, within hours of the declaration of War, Bomber Command first assailed the German enemy.
You were then but a handful. Inadequate in everything but the skill and determination of the crews that sombre occasion and for the unknown years of unceasing battle which lay behond [sic] horizons black indeed.
You, the aircrews of Bomber Command, sent your first ton of bombs away on the morrow of the outbreak of war. A million tons of bombs and mines have followed from Bomber Command alone. From Declaration of War to Cease Fire a continuity of battle without precedent and without relent.
In the Battle of France your every endeavour bore down upon an overwhelming and triumphant enemy.
After Dunkirk your Country stood alone in arms but largely unarmed between the Nazi tyranny and domination of the world.
The Battle of Britain, in which you took great part, raised the last barrier strained but holding in the path of the all conquering Wehrmacht, and the bomb smoke of the Channel ports choked back down German throats the very word ‘Invasion’; not again to find expression within these narrow seas until the bomb disrupted defences of the Normandy beachheads fell to our combined assault.
In the long years between much was to pass.
Then it was that you, and for you long alone, carried the war ever deeper and ever more furiously into the heart of the Third Reich. There the whole of the German enemy in undivided strength, and scarcely less a foe the very elements, arrayed against you. You overcame them both.
Through those desperate years, undismayed by any odds, undeterred by any casualties, night succeeding night, you fought. The Phalanx of the United Nations.
You fought alone, as the one force then assailing German soil, you fought alone as individuals isolated in your crew stations by the darkness and the murk, and from all other aircraft in company.
Not for you the hot emulation of high endeavour in the glare and panoply of martial array. Each crew, each one in each crew, fought alone through black nights rent only, mile after continuing mile, by the fiercest barrages ever raised and the instant sally of the searchlights. In each dark minute of those long miles lurked menace. Fog, ice, snow and tempest found you undeterred.
In that loneliness in action lay the final test, the ultimate stretch of human staunchness and determination.
Your losses mounted through those years. Years in which your chance of survival through one spell of operational duty was negligible. Through two periods, mathematically Nil. Nevertheless survivors pressed forward as volunteers to pit their desperately acquired skill in even a third period of operations, on special tasks.
In those 5 years and 8 months of continuous battle over enemy soil your casualties over long periods were grievous. As the count is cleared those of Bomber Command who gave their lives to bring near to impotenance [sic] an enemy who had surged swift in triumph through a Continent, and to enable the United Nations to deploy in full array, will be found not less than the total dead of our National Invasion Armies now in Germany.
In the whole history of our National Forces never have so smaller band of men been called to support so long such odds. You indeed bore the brunt.
To you who survived I would say this. Content yourselves, and take credit with those who perished, that now the ‘Cease Fire’ has sounded countless homes within our Empire will welcome back a father a husband or a son whose life, but for your endeavours and your sacrifices, would assuredly have been expended during long further years of agony to achieve a victory already ours. No Allied Nation is clear of this debt to you.
I cannot here expound your full achievements.
Your attacks on the industrial centres of Northern Italy did much toward the collapse of the Italian and German Armies in North Africa, and to further invasion of the Italian mainland.
Of the German enemy two to three million fit men, potentially vast armies, were continuously held throughout the war in direct and indirect defence against your assaults. A great part of her industrial war effort went towards fending your attacks.
[Page break]
You struck a critical proportion of the weapons of war from enemy hands. On every front.
You immobilised armies, leaving them shorn of supplies, reinforcements, resources and reserves, the easier prey to our advancing Forces.
You eased and abetted the passage of our troops over major obstacles. You blasted the enemy from long prepared defences where he essayed to hold. On the Normandy beaches. At the hinge of the Battle of Caen. In the jaws of the Falaise Gap. To the strongpoints of the enemy held Channel ports, St. Vith, Houffalize and the passage of the Rhine. In battle after battle you sped our armies to success at minimum cost to our troops. The Commanders of our land forces, and indeed those of the enemy, have called your attacks decisive.
You enormously disrupted every enemy means of communication, the very life blood of his military and economic machines. Railways, canals and every form of transport fell first to decay and then to chaos under your assaults.
You so shattered the enemy’s oil plants as to deprive him of all but the final trickle of fuel. His aircraft became earthbound, his road transport ceased to roll, armoured fighting vehicles lay helpless outside the battle, or fell immobilised into our hands. His strategic and tactical plans failed through inability to move.
From his war industries supplies of ore, coal, steel, fine metals, aircraft, guns, ammunition, tanks, vehicles and every ancillary equipment dwindled under your attacks.
At the very crisis of the invasion of Normandy, you virtually annihilated the German naval surface forces then in the Channel, a hundred craft and more fell victim to those three attacks.
You sank or damaged a large but yet untotalled number of enemy submarines in his ports and by mine laying in his waters.
You interfered widely and repeatedly with his submarine training programmes.
With extraordinary accuracy, regardless of opposition, you hit and burst through every carapace which he could devise to protect his submarines in harbour.
By your attacks on inland industries and coastal ship yards you caused hundreds of his submarines to be still born.
Your mine laying throughout the enemy’s sea lanes, your bombing of his inland waters, and his Ports, confounded his sea traffic and burst his canals. From Norway throughout the Baltic, from Jutland to the Gironde, on the coasts of Italy and North Africa you laid and relaid the minefields. The wreckage of the enemy’s naval and merchant fleets litters and encumbers his sea lanes and dockyards. A thousand known ships, and many more as yet unknown, fell casualty to your mines.
You hunted and harried his major warships from hide to hide. You put out of action, gutted or sank most of them.
By your attacks on Experimental Stations, factories, communications and firing sites you long postponed and much reduced the V. weapon attacks. You averted an enormous further toll of death and destruction from your Country.
With it all you never ceased to rot the very heart out of the enemy’s war resources and resistance.
His Capital and near 100 of his cities and towns including nearly all of leading war industrial importance lie in utter ruin, together with the greater part of the war industry which they supported.
Thus you brought to nought the enemy’s original advantage of an industrial might intrinsically greater than ours and supported by the labour of captive millions, now set free.
For the first time in more than a century you have brought home to the habitual aggressor of Europe the full and acrid flavours of war, so long the perquisite of his victims.
All this, and much more, have you achieved during these 51/2 years of continuous battle, despite all opposition from an enemy disposing of many a geographical and strategical advantage with which to exploit an initial superiority in numbers.
Men from every part of the Empire and of most of the Allied Nations fought in your ranks. Indeed a band of brothers.
In the third year of the war the Eighth Bomber Command, and the Fifteenth Bomber Command, U.S.A.A.F. from their Mediterranean bases, ranged themselves at our side, zealous in extending every mutual aid, vieing in every assault upon our common foe. Especially they played the leading part in sweeping the enemy fighter defences from our path and, finally, out of the skies.
[Page break]
Nevertheless nothing that the crews accomplished and it was much, and decisive could have been achieved without the devoted service of every man and woman in the Command.
Those who tended the aircraft, mostly in the open, through six bitter winters. Endless intricacies in a prolonged misery of wet and cold. They rightly earned the implicit trust of the crews. They set extraordinary records of aircraft serviceability.
Those who manned the Stations, Operational Headquarters, Supply lines and Communications.
The pilots of the Photographic Reconnaissance Units without whose lonely ventures far and wide over enemy teritory we should have been largely powerless to plan or to strike.
The Operational Crew training organisation of the Command which through these years of ceaseless work by day and night never failed, in the face of every difficulty and unpredicted call, to replace all casualties and to keep our constantly expanding first line up to strength in crews trained to the highest pitch of efficiency; simultaneously producing near 20,000 additional trained aircrew for the raising and reinforcement of some 50 extra squadrons, formed in the Command and despatched for service in other Commands at home and overseas.
The men and women of the Meteorological Branch who attained prodigious exactitudes in a fickle art and stood brave on assertion where science is inexact. Time and again they saved us from worse than the enemy could ever have achieved. Their record is outstanding.
The meteorological reconnaissance pilots, who flew through anything and everything in search of the feasible.
The Operational Research Sections whose meticulous investigation of every detail of every attack provided data for the continuous confounding of the enemy and the consistent reduction of our own casualties.
The scientists, especially those of the Telecommunications Research Establishment, who placed in unending succession in our hands the technical means to resolve our problems and to confuse the every party of the enemy. Without their skill and their labours beyond doubt we could not have prevailed.
The Works Services who engineered for Bomber Command alone 2,000 miles of runway track and road, with all that goes with them.
The Works Staffs, Designers and Workers who equipped and re-equipped us for battle. Their efforts, their honest workmanship, kept in our hands indeed a Shining Sword.
To all of you I would say how proud I am to have served in Bomber Command for 41/2 years and to have been your Commander-in-Chief through more than three years of your Saga.
Your task in the German war is now completed. Famously have you fought. Well have you deserved of your country and her Allies.”
[signature]
Adjutant.
R.A.F. Station. Binbrook.
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
Special Order of the Day by Air Chief Marshall Sir A.T. Harris
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Arthur Harris
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05-12
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Dunkerque
France--Normandy
France--Caen
France--Falaise
Belgium
Belgium--Saint-Vith
Belgium--Houffalize
Germany
Germany--Rhineland
Italy
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
Wehrmacht
United States Army Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three typewritten sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MLongNJ1581956-190516-01
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Message from Arthur Harris to all Bomber Command Personnel.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kathryn Lawrence
aircrew
bombing
ground crew
ground personnel
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
RAF Binbrook
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2341/43832/PDennettGJ18010002.1.jpg
57f6a151832d4578b0ef22350ac3e1ba
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
Dennett, Gordon John
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns Gordon John Dennett (1195401 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 196 Squadron and 355 Squadron in the Far East.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Kate Smart and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-17
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dennett, GJ
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
Gordon Dennett and Ruth
Description
An account of the resource
Three photographs from an album, annotated 1943.
#1 is a half length portrait of Gordon, in uniform.
#2 is a near full length portrait of Gordon, in uniform.
#3 is Gordon, in uniform, and Ruth sitting on a grassy bank.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDennettGJ18010002
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.
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Dennett, Gordon John. Photos
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2454/43697/PThompsonJ1801.1.jpg
9acb544a40ed14f9ade8a11772dbfcf3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Thompson, Jean
Howe, Jean
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. The collection concerns Corporal Jean Thompson (b. 1920 Royal Air Force) and contains photographs. She served as a WAAF at Bawtry Hall, 1 Group RAF Bomber Command Headquarters.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Stephen Howe and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-27
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thompson, J
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bawtry Hall 1942- Hut 7
Met Queens
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of head and shoulder portrait photographs on a piece of card. The photographs are annotated with names and dates of WAAF personnel at Bawtry Hall: [indecipherable], Pat Garlick, Pamela Hiosell, Joan Shingler, Cissy Ward, Marion Hennessey, Joy Greenwell, Bessie Whitfield, [Pat] ‘Little Dot’, Betty Stead, Muriel B Lord.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Annotated collection of b/w photographs
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PThompsonJ1801
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Paul Baguley
William Cragg
ground personnel
RAF Bawtry
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2565/43665/PSaundersJWG18020096.1.jpg
0c97289f1d600ebe9c14b1f07c7d0bb0
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
Saunders, John Walter Gifford. Training
Description
An account of the resource
118 photographs and a diary. The folder covers John Walter Gifford Saunders’ travel to South Africa on board the Highland Princess accompanied by 1,700 other Royal Air Force and British Army personnel. In 1942/1943 John visited family in Durban before continuing his journey to Zimbabwe by train. During his time there, he went to the Victoria Falls, relaxed with friends and took part in training exercises including camping in the largely uninhabited wild region far from towns. Subjects includes accommodation, transport, landscape, and local scenes.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Clive Saunders and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan, with additional contributions by Ella Keogh and Lucy Liu.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Saunders, JWG
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
The Victoria Falls Hotel
Description
An account of the resource
The two storey hotel with a tiled roof, a portico entrance and a balustrade at first floor level. The ground floor windows have shutters and there are palm trees and a pond in the formal front garden at the front.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942
1943
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Zimbabwe
Africa--Victoria Falls
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
P SaundersJWG18020096
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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2559/43602/SLambertBrownP19330417v10002.1.jpg
0eb8b66ecfd7c1c492e3449c097941dc
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
Lambert-Brown, Peter
P Lambert-Brown
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. The collection concerns Peter Lambert-Brown (b. 1933 Royal Navy). A collection of documents compiled for the Admiralty detailing the bombing of the Royal Navy Dockyards in Malta. The collection covers the siege of Malta and includes the various vessels and docks that were damaged, and the repairs that were undertaken carried out.
The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jacqueline Sherman and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-05-12
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LambertBrown, P
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
Y.L 1097.
[underlined] HISTORY OF MALTA DOCKYARD DURING WAR [/underlined]
A. L. D. 13594/45 of 21.6.45 (1446).
SECRETARY OF THE ADMIRALTY.
The attached papers give a general “history” of Malta Dockyard during the War as requested in Admiralty letter D. 13594/45 of 21st June 1945.
2. (a) [underlined] The General Narrative [/underlined] (Appendix I) was written by Mr E.W. Colvill, the Secretary, who was in Malta for the whole period.
(b) Workpeople. (Appendix II)
(c) [underlined] Important Items of work [/underlined]:
(i) New Construction. (Appendix III)
(ii) Major refits and/or Battle repairs etc. (Appendix IV) For details of the repairs to USS. “SAVANNAH” and USS. “PHILADELPHIA” see Yard letters Nos. 15 of 6th January 1944 and No. 894 of 9th September 1944. These were the two largest jobs.
(iii) Other work. (Appendix V (a) to (f)).
(d) Air Raids. (Appendix VI)
(e) Narrative of Dock. (Appendix VII)
(f) List of vessels sunk. (Appendix VIII)
(SD.) PIERS K. KEKEWICH
COMMODORE SUPERINTENDENT, MALTA.
[indecipherable words]
[underlined] [indecipherable words] [/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
History of Malta Dockyard During War
Description
An account of the resource
A letter written by the Commodore Superintendent Piers Keane Kekewich to the Admiralty, detailing the various reports on the the Malta Dockyard during the war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Piers Keane Kekewich
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-09-29
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1944-01-06
1944-09-09
1945
1945-06-21
1945-09-29
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Malta
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Typewritten letter
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Benjamin Turner
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SLambertBrownP19330417v10002
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.
bombing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2559/43584/SLambertBrownP19330417v10007.2.pdf
0bb2050b60b291b538babc1c2a62613e
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
Lambert-Brown, Peter
P Lambert-Brown
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. The collection concerns Peter Lambert-Brown (b. 1933 Royal Navy). A collection of documents compiled for the Admiralty detailing the bombing of the Royal Navy Dockyards in Malta. The collection covers the siege of Malta and includes the various vessels and docks that were damaged, and the repairs that were undertaken carried out.
The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jacqueline Sherman and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-05-12
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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LambertBrown, P
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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Appendix V(a, b, c, d) Vessels Docked at Malta
Description
An account of the resource
A list detailing the different types of vessels that were docked at Malta between September 1939 and May 1945. Classes of ship are listed with the number of each vessel that was docked. Ships also refitted at the docks are recorded, by name and how long the refitting work took. Landing craft repairs and alterations are also recorded, with what work was done and how long it took.
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1939-09
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1945-05
Spatial Coverage
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Malta
Coverage
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Royal Navy
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Format
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Four page typewritten report
Identifier
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SLambertBrownP19330417v10007
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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2559/43581/SLambertBrownP19330417v10006.2.pdf
2e3a15b1078f86c9ed9f451b2cc312fd
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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Lambert-Brown, Peter
P Lambert-Brown
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. The collection concerns Peter Lambert-Brown (b. 1933 Royal Navy). A collection of documents compiled for the Admiralty detailing the bombing of the Royal Navy Dockyards in Malta. The collection covers the siege of Malta and includes the various vessels and docks that were damaged, and the repairs that were undertaken carried out.
The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jacqueline Sherman and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Date
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2023-05-12
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LambertBrown, P
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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Appendix IV. Large collision & enemy action repairs carried out since September 1939
Description
An account of the resource
List of 68 vessels that were docked in Malta’s yards for repairs from September 1939: Chenonceaux, Franconia, Garland, Keppel, S.S Cornwall, Imperial, Decoy, Hotspur, Havock, Andromeda, Illustrious, Coral, Beryl, Essex, Ploughboy, Encounter, Medusa, Fermoy, Trusty Star, Sydney Star, City of Calcutta, Rowallan Castle, Aurora, Lance, Gloxinia, Beryl, Decoy, Girl Margaret, Robust, [indecipherable], Boxol, S.S. France, Badsworth, Matchless, Hebe, Coral, V.Y. Lighter, M/V Brisbane Star, Tanker Ohio, M/V Rochester Castle, Lance, Ancient, No.3 Caisson, Kingston, Derwent, No.2 Caisson, Bicester, Speedy, USS Swanson, Eskimo, Brissendon, Indomitable, Cleopatra, Newfoundland, USS Mayrant, USS Shubrick, USS Savannah, Boston, Warspite, Uganda, Delhi, Laforey, Linnet, Blankney, Ulster, Dido, USS Philadelphia, Abercrombie. Majority of the vessels were docked due to damage from collisions, torpedoes and bombs. Repairs were undertaken throughout the war until the last recorded vessel was completed in July 1945.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Malta
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Navy
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Format
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Three page type written report
Identifier
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SLambertBrownP19330417v10006
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
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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Paul Baguley
William Cragg
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2559/43577/SLambertBrownP19330417v10003.1.pdf
ffc1125b58cb57991dbec86e6204283b
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
Lambert-Brown, Peter
P Lambert-Brown
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. The collection concerns Peter Lambert-Brown (b. 1933 Royal Navy). A collection of documents compiled for the Admiralty detailing the bombing of the Royal Navy Dockyards in Malta. The collection covers the siege of Malta and includes the various vessels and docks that were damaged, and the repairs that were undertaken carried out.
The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jacqueline Sherman and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-05-12
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LambertBrown, P
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] APPENDIX I [/underlined]
[underlined] MALTA DOKYARD- PERIOD OF SIEGE 1940-1943 [/underlined]
During the first 9 months of the war nothing unusual took place at Malta xcept [sic] the withdrawal of the Fleet to Alexandria and the Levant.
2. When Italy entered the war, however, Malta became a very accessible target, situated only some 60-70 miles from Sicily, and during the greater part of the next 3 years the Maltese Islands were surrounded on all sides by enemy occupied territories.
3. Air Raids commenced at daybreak on the day on which Italy entered the war- 11th June 1940 – and continued intermittently for over 3 years, the Aerodromes, Dockyard and Harbours being the principal targets. ( [underlined] NOTE [/underlined] : There were 3328 raids, 1106 of which were at night)
4. These attacks reached their peak during the first half of 1942. Their strength and frequency then gradually diminished with the success of the Allied Arms in North Africa, and had ceased altogether by October 1943 after the surrender of Italy.
5. During this period the Dockyard establishments, maintained their constant effort to keep H.M. ships in service dealing with damage repairs, defeats, fuelling, storing, equipping and generally servicing as required the ships of operating forces, convoys and their escorts.
6. As many skilled workmen as would volunteer transferred to Alexandria to man up the dockyard there and for other eases in the Eastern Mediterranean. Technical and Clerical Staff were also transferred for the same purpose.
7. The Dockyard also did a considerable amount of work for the other Services in Malta. Repairs to vessels, plant and machinery and manufacture of many thousands of articles, fittings and spare parts which were either not obtainable from the United Kingdom, or if shipped failed to arrive.
8. The Dockyard machines were adapted with considerable ingenuity for these purposes which in many cases were completely different from their normal functions.
9. In addition to the above, services performed for the Civil Government, included conversion of machinery at the Generating Station and the Breweries to oil-fuel burning, and provision of expert advice and assistance for the following vitally important services:
Flour Mills
Generating Station
Shelter Construction Department
Organisation for Co-Ordination of Supplies (C.O. SUP: )
10. Numbers of workmen were loaned to the other services as necessary for various urgent requirement. For example :-
(a) Servicing aircraft until such times as the necessary ground-staff could be obtained.
(b) Clearance and restoration work at the aerodromes, often under conditions of hardship and much danger.
(c) Skilled work at R.E.M.E Workshops etc.
11. [underlined] DOCKYARD ACTIVE DEFENCE ORGANISATIONS [/underlined]
[underlined] DOCKYARD DEFENCE BATTERY [/underlined]
In September 1939 the Dockyard Defence Battery (30 th L. A. A. Battery R. M. A (T) ) WAS formed from amongst the Dockyard Officers and Workmen for the purpose of manning the Anti-Aircraft guns allocated to defend H.M. Dockyard from attack by low flying aircraft.
12. The Battery ….
[page break]
12. The Battery attained a strength of some 15 officers and 412 O. R’s, showed a fine fighting spirit and did excellent work throughout the period of air attacks on Malta. Its success [deleted] are [/deleted] [inserted] is [/inserted] evidenced by the number of honours given to its members: -
[underlined] O. B. E. [/underlined] – Major L. B. Bolton, Officer Commanding
[underlined} M. C. [/underlined] – Lieutenant F.W. Angle
[underlined] M. C. [/underlined] – Major L. T. H Cooks R. A. (O.C)
[underlined] M.M. [/underlined] – Sergeant L. Atap
[underlined] M.M. [/underlined] – Sergeant H. Andrews
[underlined] M.M. [/underlined] – Bombardier G. Balzan
[underlined] Mention in Despatches. [/underlined] – L/Bombardier M. Castles
[underlined] Commendations by H. [deleted] indecipherable [/deleted] [inserted] E [/inserted] the Governor for gallant conduct. [/underlined]
L/Sergeant R. Vella
L/Bombardier S. Cacciottolo
Gunner W. Atkins
Gunner C. Zammit (1)
Gunner A. Pool
Gunner L. O’Toole
Gunner Zammit (2)
Gunner V. Sultana
Gunner P. Mangion
Gunner G. Tabone
13. With the exception of a few men who rejoined the battery on a regular enlistment, all the Officers and men were returned to their normal Dockyard employment in July 1942.
14. [underlined] ANTI-PARACHUTIST COMPANY (“PARASHOTS”) [/underlined]
In May 1940 a Company was formed from amongst the English Officers and Agreement Workmen, with the Captain of the Dockyard ad Commandant for the defence of the Dockyard against attack by airborne troops. All members were trained in the use of the rifle and organised in platoons conforming to the A. R. P. sectional organisation.
15. [underlined] DOCKYARD GUARD [/underlined]
In June 1941, consequent on the stationing of a detachment of troops in the Dockyard, the “PARASHOTS” were disbanded and a new corps, called the Dockyard Guard was organised, composed of all fit Agreement Workmen (in fulfilment of their Agreements) and a number of Dockyard Officers who volunteered for this service.
16. The Duty of this Force was to co-operate with the troops in the defence of the Dockyard, and all members underwent a course of training to equip them to carry out their role efficiently. They formed a reserve available to reinforce the troops in emergency, and when fully trained could be employed in the important duty of providing guards for vital points in the Dockyard as the circumstances might require. ( [underlined] NOTE: [/underlined] In this connection it is interesting to note that according to local records there was a Malta Dockyard Battalion of Artillery in 1852-1855, and it is believed that clause 7 of the agreement for service at H.M. Naval Yards abroad was introduced then owing to the refusal of a workman to undergo training. The formation of the Dockyard Guard in 1941 was the first occasion, since that period, of implementing the defence clause in the English Workmen’s Agreements by the formation of such a corps.)
17. [underlined] CONDITONS DURING BOMBING PERIOD [/underlined]
Meanwhile it was vitally necessary to excavate rock shelters for the protection of personnel and important plant, and to get as many workshops and offices as practicable sited underground as quickly as possible. This work was pressed forward with the limited labour available for the purpose.
18. Many of the….
[page break]
18. Many of the families of Naval and Civilian personnel from the United Kingdom were evacuated in 1939 and early 1940 to the Near East, South Africa and United Kingdom. A large number of families still remained in Malta, and took up residence, some 5 miles away from the Dockyard, at the St. George’s Barracks which were allocated by the Army Authorities for this purpose. There they were able to organise Messes [deleted] s [/deleted] , and although there were no rock-shelters but only slit trenches they and their men folk were able to feel some degree of confidence in that they were away from the main targets of the enemy.
19. It was not until April 1942 that the enemy concentrated air attacks on these barracks, which were then very severely damaged and had to be evacuated.
20. It had been necessary from the start to provide living accommodation in the Dockyard for staff required for A. R. P. and Fire Services , and for emergency work. As the enemy attacks increased, the bulk of the population of the Three Cities were evacuated to more distant places in the Island. This resulted in the withdrawal of the shopping and domestic services which were necessary to enable staff to live in these towns, and accommodation had to be improvised in the Dockyard for the majority of the Officers and Agreement Workmen. Emergency Messes were formed, but the conditions under which the Officers and Men had to live were not only devoid of comfort, convenience and means of recreation but positively unhealthy due to the damp.
21. The local workmen were now dispersed to living centres away from the Dockyard but means of transport for them were reduced to a minimum owing to general shortage of petrol, loss of supplies and loss of vehicles by enemy action. The daily journeys of the workmen between their homes and the Dockyard had to be made on foot for the most part, and were arduous journeys and full of uncertainties. As enemy action might at any time have resulted in some thousands of men being unable to leave the Yard, perhaps for some days, [deleted] and [/deleted] preparations to meet such a situation were organised and emergency food dumps prepared in suitable positions with the co-operation of the Civil Government.
22. On 23rd February 1942, owing to the shortage of petrol and need for economy in transport, a 5 day working week was adopted throughout the Island. To conform with this the Dockyard working hours became 9 1/2 hours daily, Monday to Thursday inclusive, and 9 hours on Fridays and this arrangement worked very smoothly. The establishments reverted to the normal 6 day working week on 1st November 1943.
23. After each bombing raid prompt action was taken to clear debris and fill craters, so as to keep the roadways and wharves as clear as possible to allow of the passage of the fire engines and other vital traffic.
Electric Light, power and telephone cables were broken and the installations put out of action time after time. These vitally important services however were always restored in a short space of time.
24. The water and gas services were put out of action early in 1941. Improvis [sic] [indecipherable arrangements for supply of water throughout the Dockyard were organised by means of water-carts and tanks placed in shelter under rock as far as possible.
25. The town of Senglea was completely isolated except b passing through the Dockyard, and was completely deprived of water supply. A tank vessel from Victuall [sic] Yard was placed alongside Senglea Marin [deleted] e [/deleted] [inserted] a [/inserted] to keep the remaining inhabitants supplie [inserted] d [/inserted] with water.
26. As much undamaged machinery as could be so dealt with was transferred [inserted] under [/inserted] rock shelter. Damaged machinery was rescued and brought into use again either [inserted] under [/inserted] rock shelter or in its original position [deleted] . [/deleted] [inserted] , [/inserted] [deleted] T[/deleted] [inserted] t [/inserted] he damaged shops being patched up [inserted] to [/inserted] provide the necessary protection from the weather.
27. Aggregations of large parties of personnel in the open or in exposed buildings were to be avoided. The Muster and Pay Stations had been demolished by enemy action, and lost muster-tickets could not be replaced. Ordinary mustering [inserted] was [/inserted] therefore impracticable and alternative arrangements were introduced. Payment of wages was made under rock shelter, but even so, currency notes were sometimes scattered by bomb blast.
28. The cumulative…..
[page break]
28. The cumulative effect of the damage mounted rapidly with the increasing force of the raids. Docks were put out of use, cranes and machinery throughout the Yard were destroyed or rendered useless, tugs, lighters and boats were sunk, workshops demolished, and stores and storehouses destroyed.
29. In order to maintain effective working, the Dockyard developed methods by which work usually done by machines, was done by hand. Though slow in operation, this meant that effective functioning was still maintained.
30.[underlined] EFFECTS OF DAMAGE [/underlined]
The air attacks on Malta reached their peak in April 1942 during which month there were no less than 283 raids.
31. The situation then was as follows: -
(a) All docks out of action. The only one capable of being used in the near future was No. 1, provided masonry could be repaired satisfactorily and if power supply to the pumping station could be kept in repair.
(b) The whole electrical distribution system, including underground and overhead lines for power, lighting and telephones had been repeatedly and severely damaged. Limited electric supplies were restored intermittently in the Nos: 4 and 5 Docks area round No. 1 Dock. Power could only be supplied with any reliability to the following, which were underground: -
M. C. D’s Small Ship Fitters’ Shop and Hand Benches
M. E. D’ s Optical Instrument Repair Shop, Tool Room, Coppersmiths’ Shop and Foundry
(c) No. 1 Ship Fitting Shop was severely damaged and completely out of action, and machines were being transferred to the first chamber of the underground shop, the incomplete excavation work being suspended for the purpose. Excavation of the second chamber was commenced.
(d) A limited amount of joinery and smiths’ work could be undertaken by hand.
(e) Pending extensive repairs to air mains, compressed air supply was dependent upon portable compressors loaned from salvage plant and by Civil Government, about 5 compressors being serviceable at any one time.
(f) Electrical Engineering work was limited by lack of material rather than damage. The damaged workshops were in process of moving into prepared sites underground or into such excavations as could receive them for the time being.
(g) Most of the Naval Stores were under masses of debris. Both diesel fuel lighters were sunk, and R. F. A. ‘BOXOL’ and two furnace fuel lighters damaged.
(h) Three tugs and one mooring vessel had been sunk, leaving only one tug and one mooring vessel available. The tug was undergoing extensive machinery repairs.
Many boats and lighters had been destroyed and many severely damaged. There were some 34 wrecks in the docks and harbours, besides remains of various lighters and small craft.
(i) The Victualling Yard and other adjacent establishments were without light, power and telephones, the cable routes and distribution having been damaged in far more places than it had been possible to cope with.
(j) The Armament Depot was without power and light, and all hydraulic cranes were out of action. A few hand cranes were expected to be useable when the wharf could be cleared, but all railway lines were broken. All of the workshops were demolished and all the above-ground stores and laboratory rooms damaged. Some gun and mine spares were recoverable. Half of the lighters had been sunk.
(k) The greater
[page break]
(k) The greater part of the Yard area was pitted with orators and strewn with debris, which in many places was of a massive nature and tangled with girders. Frequent air raids still continued to do damage.
32. [underlined] RECUPERATION [/underlined]
At the end of July the situation was as follows: -
[underlined] Docks [/underlined]-
No. 1- In full use, with power supply and welding facilities.
No. 2)- Repairs to caissons well in hand and pumping serviceable.
No. 3)
No.4- Out of Use.
No. 5- Preparations in hand for an attempt to repair the breach in dock walls. One pump serviceable.
[underlined] Power Light Telephones [/underlined] –
Restoration proceeding satisfactorily. Cables being led through excavated rock passages to minimise future risk of damage. Limited supplies of power and light restored to adjacent establishments but no E. H. T supplies yet possible.
[underlined] Shops & Plant [/underlined] –
Many motors for driving machine tools repaired and others in hand. Sufficient machines in operation to meet current requirements.
Compressed air available in No. 4 and 5 Docks and Factory area, and being extended to No. 1 Dock.
Eight fixed and travelling cranes restored and operating.
[underlined] In full working [/underlined] :-
Underground Compressor and Oxygen Plant
Underground Tool Room
Underground Gunmounting [sic] Shop
Underground Fitting Shop
Tube Shop
Welding Tube Shop
Temporary Smithery
Main Electrical Shop (Underground)
Extempore electrical workshops for mains, and telephones.
[underlined] Working with limited output [/underlined] :-
No. 1 Ship Fitting Shop
No. 3 Ship Fitting Shop (Underground)
Joiner’s Shop (extempore)
Foundry (Underground)
Coppersmiths’ Shop (Underground)
Boiler Shop
Saw Mills
Drawing Office- M. E. D. (Underground)
[underlined] Stores & Fuelling [/underlined] –
Recovery of Naval Stores proceeding. ‘BOXOL’ and two barges repaired and one of the barges reserved for diesel.
[underlined] Armament Depot [/underlined] –
Light restored, also limited 440 volt D.C. power. One 2 ton derrick and two 1 1/2 ton hand cranes operable.
Road and single rail facilities restored.
All workshops functioning by hand in improvised accommodation. No machines working.
Above ground stores and laboratory in partial use.
Recovery of buried material progressing.
18 lighters in service.
33. On 1st August 1942 the following signal was addressed to the Admiral Superintendent by the Vice-Admiral, Malta : -
“The recuperative power of the Dockyard, and steady progress are most satisfying.
“You and all others are concerned deserve high praise for what has been accomplished
“in so short a time. Please convey my congratulations to all. “ (T. O. O. 1129)
34. At this…….
[page break]
34. At this period the further restoration of the electrical system was hampered by shortage of cable and other materials. In the case of the telephone lines, undamaged lengths of cable were recovered from other routes and used for the repair of the most important lines.
35. Repairs to buildings were rendered difficult owing to shortage of materials and the slowness of removal of spoil from underground excavations, this being handicapped by lack of fuel.
36. The next 5 months showed a steady increasing rate of progress towards normal working capacity, in spite of the continual air raids, shortage of supplies and plant, and the demands on the Yard arising out of the development of Allied Operations for the liberation of North Africa, Sicily and Italy.
37. The great anxiety now was the shortage of food supplies in the Island. The August convoy brought partial relief and supplies were carefully husbanded, but by October the outlook had become very grave.
38. Civilian rations had been reduced until there was scarcely anything beyond a small ration of very poor quality bread and a very insufficient amount of corned beef. The arrival of the famous November convoy towards the end f November 1942, brought the much needed relief just in the nick of time, and removed what threatened to become the main weakness of the Island’s defences.
39. The situation at the end of December 1942 was as follows :-
[underlined] Docks [/underlined]
No.1 – In full working
No.2- In use for small craft. Wreck of ‘LANCE’ had been floated and redocked on 29th October and undocked 12th December. Dock then occupied by Caisson of No. 3 Dock for repairs. Power and welding facilities available.
No. 3- In use as a wet berth for small craft only as wrecks outside preclude [inserted] d [/inserted] entry of anything larger than a trawler. Expected to be available with power and welding facilities about end of March.
No. 4- Repairs to Caisson and face of groove in hand. Expected to pump out mid January and commence work on wreck of ‘KINGSTON’ .
No. 5- Repairs to masonry well advanced. Expected to pump out about 26th January.
[underlined] Electricity and Telephones [/underlined]
Restoration progressing satisfactorily to meet all requirements. Supplies of power to Armament Depot and Rinella not yet restored owing to lack of material.
[underlined] Compressed Air [/underlined]
Leads extended to No. 1 Dock via Cospicua, Store Wharf, Church Tunnel and M.C.D’s Fitting Shop. All M. E. D’s underground shops supplied and work in hand to supply to Boat House, Canteen Parlatorio Wharves.
[underlined] Workshops- Percentage of normal capacity [/underlined]
[underlined] C.D. Dept. [/underlined] –
Sail Loft 50
Rigging House (re-sited) 70
[underlined] Constructive [/underlined]
Smithery 85
Joiners 60
Paint Shop 90
Plumbers 90
Sawmills 40 (steadily improving)
Boat House 60
Welding 90
No. 4 & 5 Dock Shop 60
Destroyers Workshop 90
Ship Fitting Shops 60 (one underground)
Submarine Workshop 20
[underlined]Engineering[/underlined] …….
[page break]
[underlined] Engineering (Aboveground) [/underlined] –
Fitting Shop 40
Foundry 70
Coppersmiths 50
Motor Repair Shop 80
Tool Room Nil
Pattern Shop 75
Yard Machinery Shop 30
Gunmouting 40
Tube Shop 90
Other Boiler Shops 20
Smithery All hand work. Low output. No heavy forgings
[underlined] Engineering (Underground) [/underlined] –
Tool Room & Fitting Shop 100
Coppersmiths 50
Foundry (Not yet complete)
No. 60 Fitting Shop 100
No. 60 Gunmounting Shop 100
[underlined] Electrical [/underlined]-
If adequate supplies of material and stores were available 90
[underlined] Cranes [/underlined]-
Following cranes had been repaired and in full operation :-
Burmola Wharf 20 tons
Boiler Wharf 50 tons
No. 4 Dock 10 tons
Machinery Wf: 5 tons
(Six other 10 ton and 5 ton travelling cranes but limited by damaged tracks.)
Canteen Wharf, one fixed, 4 tons
Hamilton Wharf, one fixed, 4 tons being erected with 120 feet travel.
[underlined] Naval Stores [/underlined]
Recovery progressing steadily.
Greatly increased fuelling requirements being met successfully despite restricted facilities. Length of 12’’ fuelling main to Dolphins, 250 feet recently renewed.
[underlined] Armament Depot [/underlined]
Greatly increased commitments being met despite disabilities. Laboratory work reduced by weather pending repair to buildings. Mine Shop, capacity (Aircraft Mines 100%, Moored Mines 60%). Work of supply much hampered by lack of Hydraulic Crane System pending receipt of parts.
40. The limitations in general Yard capacity at the end of December 1942 were mainly due to :-
(a) Lack of berths alongside, owing to submerged wrecks.
(b) Lack of docks (situation improved by early April).
(c) Lack of welding and compressed air facilities at available berths.
(d) Lack of sufficient portable air compressors and welding sets.
(e) Lack of lifting facilities at available berths.
(f) Lack of materials and stores.
41. The redevelopment….
[page break]
41. The redevelopment undertaken was dealt with on the following general lines :-
(a) Underground excavations to be provided as an alternative for all the more important workshops and plant.
(b) Re-conditioning of normal workshops and provision of temporary aboveground accommodation for those items in (a) which had, of necessity, received a low priority, and for which it was not possible to provide rock cover in the immediate future.
42. Much of the progress was achieved by salvaging damaged machines and scrap materials which were freely used in extemporisation.
43. At the beginning of 1943 further progress was limited by the following factors:
(a) Civil Engineering Labour, of which there was a marked shortage due to heavy demands by all the Services and the Civil Government. This seriously affected excavation of underground shops, sub-stations etc, and repairs to buildings, roadways, mains etc.
(b) Lack of materials for repairing and re-roofing damaged buildings.
(c) Shortage of stores of all kinds.
(d) Lack of experienced salvage party with full equipment adequate to clear sunken wreckage from approaches to wharves and docks.
(e) Additional supervising staff was required by all Departments in order to expedite the redevelopment programme.
44. On 18th January 1943 the Commander-in-Chief sent the following message to the Vice-Admiral, Malta and the Admiral Superintendent :-
“I have read with much interest and pleasure the account of the present state
“of H.M Dockyard at Malta, contained in the Admiral Superintendent’s signals
“………and V. A. M’s letter ……….. and signal ………….
“The immense strides made in the way of recuperation since the days of
“intensive bombing have been clearly due to special efforts on the part of
“every Officer and man to achieve so much in such a short space of time, and
“reflects the greatest credit on all concerned. (T. O. O. 2136)”
45. Nos. 3 and 4 Docks were brought into use again early in April 1943, but the use of Nos. 2 and 3 Docks was still restricted by the presence of wrecks in the approaches. The repairs to No. 5 Dock were satisfactorily completed so that on 4th July the Dock was ready to take a Tribal Destroyer and on 24th July ready to take a cruiser.
46. In January 1943 in order to make the best use of the man power available, the employment of women in the Dockyard was introduced for the first time. They were allocated to jobs which were normally performed by men, but which were well within the capabilities of women, thus releasing men for other work of a nature requiring men’s efforts. At one time as many as [underlined] 700 [/underlined] women were employed, with success, but it could not be described as a popular venture as the industrial employment of women is not in accord with the traditions and beliefs of the Maltese people generally.
47. A Salvage Party arrived in February 1943 and set to work on the clearance of the dock approaches and harbours.
During the period prior to the advent of the Salvage Party, the Dockyard had salvaged the following vessels, in spite of the lack of adequate salvage plant, by persevering efforts and resourceful improvisation :-
[underlined] Number Salved [/underlined]
Tugs 4
Drifters 2
Trawler 1
Steam & Motor Boats 29
Lighters (Dockyard) 32
Lighters (Civil Govt: ) 104
[underlined] Put back into Service [/underlined]
Tugs 4
Drifters 2
Trawler (scrapped)
Steam and Motor Boats 7
Lighters (Dockyard) )
Lighters (Civil Govt : ) ) 121
48. Whilst.
[page break]
48. Whilst recovery was in the progress the Dockyard was faced with additional problems connected with the preparations for the invasion of Sicily and Italy for which Malta was the assembly port.
49. At this stage the receipt storage, and disposal of Naval Stores became a particularly difficult matter. Malta came into use as a storage and transit port for vast quantities of stores of all kinds destined for various future advanced bases. The lost storehouses could not be rebuilt, and space was not available in the Dockyard. All suitable accommodation elsewhere had already been taken up.
50. As general clearance progressed and nissen huts could be obtained and erected, some improvement took place, but the vast quantities of stores and materials to be dealt with continued to increase, presenting a formidable problem.
--------
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
Appendix I. Malta dockyard - period of siege 1940-1943
Description
An account of the resource
When Italy entered the war in 1940, air raids were conducted over key military targets and peaked during the first half of 1942. Attacks ceased altogether by 1943 once Italy had surrendered. The various dockyards maintained efforts to keep ships in service, even though many workers were transferred to Alexandria and other docks in the Eastern Mediterranean. Workmen carried out numerous jobs for various branches of the armed forces and government. An anti-aircraft battery was also formed amongst the workmen of the dockyards. Various decorations received between members of the battery and dockyard workers formed guard units. Shelters were excavated in order to get facilities underground. Many families evacuated in 1939 and early 1940. Barracks were severely damaged, and living conditions were without comfort, many of the living centres were situated in the dockyards. Various utilities were damaged during the raids. In the height of the air attacks, docks were out of action, vessels sunk, yards covered in debris and depots without power. By July various docks were running with some still in need repair. Food shortages made the outlook grave. By December almost all docks restored and working capacity almost normal. By 1943, salvage and clearance of the dockyards finished whilst Malta became an assembly port. Storage became an issue whilst preparations for the invasion of Sicily and Italy took place.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1939-09
1940
1940-05
1940-06-11
1941
1941-06
1942
1942-02-23
1942-04
1942-07
1942-08-01
1942-12
1943
1943-01-18
1943-02
1943-04
1943-10
1943-11-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Malta
Malta--Isla
Malta--Cospicua
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Nine page typewritten document
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Benjamin Turner
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SLambertBrownP19330417v10003
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E.W. Colvill
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
bombing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1472/43563/MHuntMJ[Ser -DoB]-151125-01.pdf
b287df5f65a5c4029f59929d3351b99e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hunt, Mark James
M J Hunt
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
2015-11-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hunt, MJ
Description
An account of the resource
One item. The collection contains a diary.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Mark James Hunt and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
1943 pocket diary
Description
An account of the resource
The diary records the publicly announced operations and bomber losses over Europe for 1943.
Another entry records the death and funeral of Sergeant Bill Forster (1533997 Royal Air Force) who flew with 156 Squadron did not return from an operation 12 June 1943.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
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
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Diary
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One pocket diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MHuntMJ[Ser#-DoB]-151125-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
killed in action