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Dublin Core
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Title
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Seagger, Alan. Album 01 General
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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.
Identifier
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Seagger, A
Description
An account of the resource
89 photographs of scenery, aircraft and service life taken in Italy and the Middle East.
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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Mount Vesuvius eruption
Description
An account of the resource
Four images of volcanic eruptions taken from the air and two of lava flow in a street.
Format
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Six b/w photographs
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PSeaggerA16010060, PSeaggerA16010061, PSeaggerA16010062, PSeaggerA16010063, PSeaggerA16010090, PSeaggerA16010091
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Civilian
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Italy
Italy--Vesuvius
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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1944-03
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1235/16323/MReynoldsWT[Ser -DoB]-150731-04.pdf
7b07b7559d8284d88baca24385f458cf
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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Reynolds, William
W T Reynolds
Bill Reynolds
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns William Reynolds who was stationed at Branston Mere Y Station, a wireless intercept and direction finding station. the collection consists of three photographs and four copies of 'Mere Gen', the stations unofficial newsletter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Linda Smith and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-31
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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Reynolds, WT
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Mere Gen
R.A.F. Insignia
March 1944
[Page break]
From the Editor’s Chair
Editor: Cpl. Liddell. Associate Editors: Cpl. Speak. L.A.C. Bolt. Cartoonists: Cpl. Batley. A. C. Potts
While this issue has suffered some delay owing to illness and contributory causes, we hope its quality atones for the delay. We must thank you all for your splendid support of Xmas Number and accept with due modesty your approbation and helpful criticism. In this issue we have endeavoured to introduce new ideas, and at the same time rejuvenate favourite features. Morag Morrison, the “Mighty Atom”, has written a dramatic flying epic in serial form – a new venture in our Editorial policy, and once again “people in the news” have been fearlessly if somewhat ruthlessly “quizzed”. Our “John Bull Sheet” offers unlimited moaning scope and please let us have your views through our Letter Bag, together with contributions of any type.
The Editor.
[Underlined] FIVE WAAFS GAVE ME SPLIT MIND – RAF Sergeant. [/Underlined]
An ex-R.A.F. sergeant successfully appealed at Liverpool Pensions Appeal Tribunal for a pension because “great mental stress and stain” had caused him to develop a split personality.
“I was all right with my five airmen and storekeepers until they were replaced by five W.A.A.F.s” he said. The Waafs were intelligent, but it took me two months to make them realise they were not at home. It was a hard task to teach them the business. I often worked late at night correcting their mistakes”.
[underlined] P.S. [/Underlined]
N.B. As Sgt. Thacker submitted this item, we are wondering if he doesn’t feel so good himself! (Editor)
[Page break]
[Underlined] A MOONLIT MORNING [/Underlined].
A scene from a little village on the Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond.
A perfect moonlit morning, so perfect as to give a theatrical look to the familiar scene.
The wan waters of the loch lie still, below a sky of rich blue, with its full metallic moon, and a few stars here and there to emphasise her splendour. The hills rising from the lochside show dark and clear-cut. Farther off are two peaks, each with a sprinkling of snow, while at the limit of vision stands a white-mantled sentinel, its superior height hardly noticed at other times.
Across the hard white surface of the road the shadows of oak and lime are cast, in detail unbelievably clear, while overhead the birch, dainty as ever, stands etched against the blue. The sound of trampling feet on the low road breaks the stillness. Lost for a minute, it comes again, clear on the hard road, accompanied by the cheery whistling of the Pioneers marching to work.
Wisps of smoke from the morning chimneys hang motionless above the darkened houses. A few clusters of faint lights mark the sites of the camps on the hill.
Across the Loch comes the steady clip-clop of Meg’s hoofs. She is on her milk rounds, so that makes the hour just half-past seven. Passengers for the Train for Glasgow are figures, and not just shadows, this morning. Even the train itself, when it puffs in, is something more than three fiery red eyes.
J. Tweedie.
“Mere Gen” has made its assault on the Navy now. In a recent letter from Wren Walker, M.H., “B” Site, R.N.A.S. Eglinton, Co. Derry (a young lady who did sterling work on the reproduction of the Mag. before volunteering for the W.R.N.S.) she tells us that the copy her parents (Messrs. Walker) send her, goes right round the cabin and the office, and they have lots of laughs out of it.
[Page break]
[Underlined] In which we fly [/underlined]
(Serial by Morag D. Morrison)
Dedicated to ‘Mac’ and Him (R.F.C.)
It was late evening in January at a Bomber Command Station somewhere in England. Patches of heavy cloud obscured the moon at intervals making the night perfect for the fully-loaded bombers, lined up ready on the concrete runway, to do their deadly work over enemy territory.
Shadowy figures moved about the tarmac making last-minute preparations, while the bomber crews received their briefing in Operations Room and discussed the best route to be taken according to the military objective. At exactly 11.30 p.m., No. 1 machine, a four-engined [sic] Handley Page Halifax long-range bomber, piloted by Flight-Lieutenant Temple Ainsley, took off with her load of “eggs”. After circling the ‘drome to get the feel of the controls with the six members of his crew standing around him, chatting and arguing through the ‘intercomm’ he headed out east over the Channel, slowly gaining height. The crew went to their various positions and a few minutes later came the sound of machine-gun fire as the front and rear gunners tested their guns to make sure they were in perfect order. The target that night was Ermerrich aerodrome outside Emden.
On the way over Northern France they ran into quite a display of searchlights. As Temple throttled down the A.A. guns came into action. Keeping well on the edge of the searchlight circle, he zig-zagged about to avoid the white puffs which appeared ominously all round the plane with amazing accuracy. Then, suddenly, the bomber captain put the Halifax into a sweeping dive, while his front gunner poured tracer down one of the beams. A few moments later it went out – and stayed out. At 10,000 feet the pilot eased her on to an even keel, too low for the A.A. or searchlights to have any effect, and then beat it out to sea and safety for the time being, getting away with only slight damage to the starboard wing. Turning inland again, Temple climbed and set course for Emden. Thereafter it was fairly quiet up to within a few miles of their specified objective. There was no mistaking that, because the Nazis were already preparing a really hot reception round the aerodrome area. Phillips, the wireless-operator, got in touch with the home base and gave the receiving operator their position in code. Once the message was through, Temple came down to 17,000 and circled once more over the target, trying to get his bearings, despite the intense barrage. Petrie, the bomb-aimer, lay flat on the floor of the
[Page break]
nacelle, trying to pick out the camouflaged hangers, his hand ready on the bomb release button. Temple called through the ‘Intercomm’ to his crew that he was going in to have a crack at the runway first, and as he put the bomber down in a steep dive, the moon came into view from behind a cloud patch in all her full glory, showing up the hangars and a number of scattered aircraft on the runway in perfect detail. Petrie chuckled with delight at their luck and released a stick of incendiaries just before the pilot pulled the Halifax out of the dive and climbed to a safer altitude. The rear gunner reported that one of the hangars was blazing madly and that some of the machines on the runway were taking off – probably fighters. Coming round in a steep bank, Temple prepared for another quick run in, but got caught in a couple of searchlights beams. Bending down low so that the glare would not blind him for the instrument panel, the pilot manoeuvred to get free. He almost succeeded, but not before an A.A. shell burst within a foot of the starboard engine. Almost immediately it misfired, connected again for a minute, and then cut out altogether. The Halifax began to lose height. But Temple was determined to have another go at the target, even if it meant risking the lives of seven men. He handled the damaged bomber admirably. Holding her at 8,000 feet with great difficulty against a devastating barrage, his bomb aimer released the remainder of “eggs” which were high explosive only, on the runway. “Bombs gone” came the call from Petrie. A second later there was a vivid orange flash followed by an upheaval among the remaining stationary aircraft on the ‘drome. Several were blown to pieces, the petrol tanks of two others exploded, craters appeared in the runway and all that was left of one hangar was a mass of twisted girders. But that last gallant attack by the British bomber lost Temple his only slender chance of getting away to safety. Try as he might the Halifax couldn’t be coaxed to climb. Things weren’t going too well. A faint drone from the rear warned the rear-gunner of the approach of enemy fighters. “A spot of trouble coming up behind, skipper” came over the ‘Intercomm’. The A.A. Guns ceased, but the searchlights continued to play over the sky. A formation of Focke-Wulf’ F.W. 190’s bore down on the crippled bomber, their guns hosing lead into its most vulnerable spot – the tail. The Halifax’s altimeter needle flicked over the 6,000 mark and Temple was thinking of abandoning her as their only means of escape when the bomber suddenly lurched, side-slipped and dived into a spiral spin – temporarily out of control. Not content with seeing their prey going to its inevitable doom, one of the Focke-Wulfs broke formation and followed in the wake of the Halifax – typical of Nazi warfare. Temple fought to regain control in the hope of pulling her out in time to pancake. The plane responded very slightly to his pressure on the control column, the strain of which caused perspiration to stream down his face inside his oxygen mask, momentarily blinding him. And as it happened at
[Page break]
moment the pilot of the pursuing fighter was in the act of pressing the button which fired his machine guns, but the unexpected change of the bomber’s angle caused him to pause for a few seconds and in that time his fate was decreed. Although wounded, Anderson, the rear-gunner, pulled himself upright with a supreme effort and fired a long burst into the nose of the Focke-Wulf. The German fighter rocked with the impact of the bullets, then sagged, lost way and went into a steep dive, smoke pouring from the engine cowling. A minute later the Halifax crash landed into a belt of trees which surrounded the bombed aerodrome of Emmerich.
To be continued.
[Underlined] “Quote” [/Underlined]
How often do you use familiar expressions without giving a thought to their origin? Here are one or two of the better known and their sources. How many did you know?
“Mind your Ps and Qs. [sic] 17th century public house expression, indicating “mind your pints and quarts”
To be or not to be, That is the question. Hamlet. (Shakespeare)
Here’s looking at you! Casablanca! (We apologise for this Hollywood intrusion)
‘Tis a wise father that knoweth his own child! Merchant of Venice.
If I should die, think only, think of me. “The Soldier” (Rupert Brooke)
It is a far far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before. “Tale of two Cities” (Charles Dickens)
A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. Keets.
[page break]
[Underlined] “Quote” [/Underlined] (continued)
“More sinned against than sinning” Hamlet.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet!” Coriolanus.
And now abideth these three, faith, hope, charity, but the greatest of these is charity 1. Corinthians. Chap. 13. v.13
Ancient fight unnoticed as the breath we draw. Kipling.
The sets must be left in a tidy condition, and a chit put in for a change in “Day off”. The Gospel according to W.O. Alcorn.
[Underlined] India calling. [/Underlined.]
S/Ldr. Cushion, lately O.C. of this station, writes from Ceylon to congratulate us on “Mere Gen”, and sends good wishes to all at the old Station! Among other things he mentioned running into that bunch of trouble Cornelius (Casanova) somewhere in Calcutta, and points out very gently that life out there with camp conditions, palm leaf sides and roofs to the quarters is in very sharp contrast to conditions on the Branston front!
[Page Break]
[Underlined] Leap Year [/Underlined]
While we shudder for the welfare of those airmen still in a “single” state of blessedness, in view of the matrimonial weapon placed in the hands of our emancipated, yet alter-minded Waaf owing to the incidence of Leap Year, we look forward to the news of the Fall of some Airman. A rather interesting sidelight on Leap Year proposals was given us recently by Frank Potts through the medium of his grandmother. Apparently the custom was that, if a girl taking advantage of the calendar and the weakness of man, proposed and was rejected, her rejector [sic] was in duty bound to buy her a pair of gloves, while she in turn showed him her pink petticoat!
We pass this information on for what it is worth, but we hope you young people don’t attempt to modernise this custom!
[Underlined] Our Letter Bag [/Underlined]
The Editor.
It is a matter of regret that the Hostel Xmas parties were marked by two surprising features. The first, and perhaps the least disturbing, was the regrettable lack of organisation, and the second was the surprising indifference displayed by some airmen and airwomen. The height of this indifference was reached when certain people with deplorable bad taste, left the Hostel party to attend some other neighbouring party!
Five Waaf.
Sir,
Could some effort be made to persuade the Lincolnshire Road Car Coy. to allow us to return to Branston on the 10.15 bus? If, as we understand, their objection is based on their assertion that Branston personnel deprive “Through” passengers to Blankey/Digby of transport, we can readily and concretely refute this charge. Here’s hoping.
All at the Hostel.
(We understand the O.C is making representations in the matter. Editor.)
[Page Break]
[Underlined] Letter bag (continued) [/Underlined]
Sir,
A very commendable Xmas number was to our way of thinking marred by a rather deprecating article headed “The road to Promotion”. We carefully read and re-read this, and as mere “duration” minions can only interpret the gist of this diatribe as being a not too cleverly camouflaged detraction from the efforts we non-regular personnel are making. Admittedly, there was a reluctant admission that we had done splendidly, [underlined] but [underlined] – (and it is to these buts that we offer battle) – we have not done splendidly because we are [underlined] highly efficient [/underlined] but because we are doing our best after a short period of training! This, coupled with an immediate reference to our faults, enumerated as incapability, lack of pride in our jobs, tendency to discard faulty equipment (a charge which even if substantiated could not be levelled at the tradesman, but at his immediate C.O. whose policy this was) and an expectancy of promotion without exertion, removed all doubts G.H.F.H. was not on our side! It is a matter of historical record that non-regulars have in this war held pride of place operationally, scientifically and academically, with peace-time personal, and it must be remembered that the majority of us had already established ourselves in some civilian calling before taking up our new service task. Perhaps in sagacious if embittered conclusion, we ought to remind G.H.F.H. that there is a war on!
[Underlined] Yesterday [/Underlined]
As I fell asleep one winter’s night,
The room was filled with a soft blue light,
And there in this transparent hue,
I saw myself that once I knew.
Though it seemed a body, a soul I saw,
Or a mind, with its secrets laid bare and raw,
Yet naked as birth it knew no guile,
Shone sweetness and innocence all the while.
Years as a stream of water passed,
Still the spirit in my room held fast,
Then I saw myself as I am to-day,
Fell on my knees for I wanted to pray.
Let something of innocence, a ray of light,
Stay with me from the once-was night,
Let not my childiness [sic] be gone,
With years let innocence live on. Mee.
[Page Break]
“Crikey”
[Picture]
[underlined] 2that’s a Flight Sergeant [/underlined]
Than Was2!
With apologies to Shell.
[Page break]
[Two pictures]
“a rank injustice”
[Page break]
[Underlined] STATIONALITIES.[sic] [/Underlined]
[Underlined] W.O. Alcorn [/underlined]
Pride of place in this month’s Stationalities [sic] goes to W.O. Alcorn who since our last issue has been promoted from F/Sgt. to W.O. and in addition has become the first Waddite to be mentioned in despatches. To mark this double event we have asked our cartoonist to draw a special cartoon.
Congratulations Flight – er, beg your pardon, Sir.
[Underlined] Arrivals. [/Underlined]
We extend a cordial Branstonian welcome to the following persons who have recently joined our ranks:-
A.C.Ws. Crossley, Pell, Whitwham.
Cpls. Bennett and Stevens.
[Underlined] Departures. [/Underlined]
L.A.C.W. Kathleen (Kasher) Langley left us on the 6th February on her discharge from the W.A.A.F. and we feel sure that her many friends will join us in wishing her good health and good luck. Cheerio, Kasher!
[Underlined] Births. [Underlined] Congratulations to
Mrs. Monica Bell ( Ex Waddite) on the birth of a daughter.
L.A.C. Fred Bolt on the firth [sic] of a Son – William Fred.
Cpl. Liddell on the birth of a son – Keith, and our best wishes for Mrs. Liddell’s speedy return to health.
[Underlined] Marriages [/Underlined]
In our last issue we had only time to shoot a little “Quiz” flack at Sgt. And Mrs. Norman. We take this opportunity of recording our first “combined” operation in marriage when Sgt. M. Norman was married to L.A.C.W. Phyl Carr at St. John’s Church, Welling, Kent, on 22.12.43. We wish them a long and happy life together.
Our best wishes go to L.A.C.W. Bunny Ryan on the occasion of her marriage to the Rev. J.H.J.D. Galbraith M.A.C.F., on Jan 29th at All Saints Church, Kings Langley, Herts.
[Page Break]
[Underlined] STATIONALITIES (continued) [/Underlined]
[Underlined] Promotions. [/Underlined]
Or perhaps this should read “Apology” for we owe one to Cpl. Eric Brame whom we omitted to mention in our list of promotions in our December Issue. Congrats, Eric.
[Underlined] C.M.F. Ex-Waddites. [/Underlined]
We hear that ex-Waddites L.A.C’s Bromley, Christie and Marsh have been exalted to the rank of Cpl. and we send to them and to all our comrades in the C.M.F. our best wishes for 1944.
[Underlined] Sick [/Underlined].
[Underlined] L.A.C. Black. [/Underlined] Our latest news of Hugh Black is that he is in a civvie hospital in Oxford and that his arm is progressing favourably.
[Underlined] Christmas Carols. [/Underlined]
We feel that we should give the “Honourable mention” to L.A.C. Stan Akers and all who took part in the Carol Party at Christmas when the sum of £30 was raised for the Prisoners of War Fund. Congrats to Stan and his Silver Songsters.
[Underlined] Postings. [/Underlined]
We must make special mention of the posting of those two stalwart “Normans” – Cpls. Laycock and Royle. Good luck and Godspeed wherever you may go.
[Page Break]
[Underlined] “Raffology” [/Underlined]
[Two pictures]
[Page break]
[picture]
[Page break]
[picture]
[Page break]
[picture]
[Page break]
[picture]
[Page break]
[Underlined] THE SCOTT COUNTRY. [/Underlined]
The Border counties of Scotland, sometimes known as “The Scott Country” are full of charm and interest. The countryside is not merely one of great natural loveliness; it is rich in historic and romantic associations as well. First of all, we will visit Melrose, a quiet town lying in the very heart of the borderland under the protecting guardianship of the three mountain peaks, “The Eildon Three”. The river Tweed, like a broad, silver ribbon, winds down its picturesque valley. The Great Minstrel who is so closely identified with it has said:-
“If thou woulds’t [sic] view fair Melrose right,
Go visit it by pale moonlight.”
That we cannot do. By day, however, it is every whit [sic] as enchanting. It is region renowned in ballad, legend, song and story and glorified by the genius of Scotland’s Wizard of romance, Sir Walter Scott. His “Lay of the Last Minstrel” has filled the Border country with romantic notes whose echo never dies away. Abbotsford, the great romancer’s lovely Tweedside Home, is a castle of enchantment. Everything is practically as he left it in 1832. In it are a wealth of relics and mementoes, each with its strange and thrilling tale. Here are the keys of Loch Leven Castle which were thrown into the Loch when Queen Mary escaped, the sword of Montrose, the gun of Rob Roy and the drinking glass of Robert Burns. There are two superb armchairs, the gift of Constable, carved with groups of children, fruit and flowers in the Italian style; they came from Rome and are much admired. In the grounds is the effigy of his favourite dog, Madia; the head of Tom Purdie, carved by one of the masons who built Abbottsford, and a host of other features of interest.
Returning to the inside of the house, we visit the library which has an oak ceiling and contains countless treasures and relics, a chair carved in bogwood presented by the Pope; Napoleon’s writing case, taken from his carriage at Waterloo; momentoes [sic] of Flora Macdonald, Rob Roy, Robert Burns and Mary Queen of Scots, locks of Nelson’s and Wellington’s hair; several pictures of the poet’s home and 20,000 volumes.
The story of Abbotsford is a tragic drama in itself. No sooner was the great house finished and the dream of Sir Walter’s life complete; than the crash of ruin fell on his fortunes. The dreamer proved himself as great a hero as any his pen had portrayed. The effort cost him his life, but it made him the most heroic literary figure in the world. He died in his beloved home on the 22nd of September 1832. And in the peace of St. Mary’s aisle in Dryburgh Abbey, amid verdant lawns sheltered by ancient trees and caressed by the soft twining of honeysuckle and clematis, repose the remains of one of Scotland’s greatest sons.
Morag D. Morrison.
[Page break]
[Underlined] OUR “JOHN BULL SHEET. [/Underlined]
From time to time we are appalled at the paradoxical inconsistent happenings that are incredibly enough being enacted in this 5th year of war. In order to allow you to cite such cases (after several appeals by individuals)we have introduced a new feature – “The John Bull Sheet” into our columns and though its medium you can voice such experiences as you consider are worthy of ridicule, criticism or appreciation! Here are the first batch.
An L.A.C. musician, giving his services free in the dance band, at a Sergeants’ dance, approached a Waaf of his acquaintance for a dance at the interval. In the middle of the dance the S.W.O. (bless ‘em all) approached him aggressively and ordered him from the floor! Surely this was completely unnecessary and showed a deporable [sic] lack of taste and good manners on the part of a senior N.C.O. who at least owed his rank if not himself a greater degree of courteous self control, and that it is time that this rank complex which is more deeply rooted than ever in certain mushroom-like promotres [sic], should be checked, and finally that it is always well to remember that the war won’t last for ever!
Our second effort appears to have been cribbed from a letter sent to the Daily Mirror live letter box. In this an ex-soldier, 1914-18, states that as a coppersmith, post war days found him unemployed and virtually destitute. Came ’39 and with it immediate employment in his own craft and in consequence he was able to marry, furnish a home and save money. In conclusion he asks with naïve bewilderment – who is responsible for this fortuitous change in my affairs – Hitler? Our reader asks “Is there an answer to this?”
Blackpool Watch Committee recently had two important items on their agenda. The first business was a motion to increase the Chief Constable’s salary from £750 to £1000 a year. After 10 minutes this was agreed to. The second business was to consider the award of some form of a pension to a former Blackpool policeman, who had volunteered for paratroop duties, and as a result of active service, had been discharged from the Army, and was unable to continue in his former position as a policeman. After 90 minutes heated dissension, by a small majority it was agreed that he should be award a temporary allowance of 6/- per week! So much is heard of empty phrases like “equality of sacrifice”, “democratic progressiveness” etc. that we wonder !!
[Page break]
[Underlined] Competition Page [/Underlined]
In an effort to revive our interest in one another – be it inimical or amicable, we offer you a rather unusual competition. If you were to be shipwrecked on some remote desert isle and had to choose 8 companions from among personnel on this station, that is 4 Waaf and 4 airmen to share your isolation, whom would you select? On the entry forms (issued separately) you are to put down your own name followed by the 8 selected and at the side of these a brief remark as to why you made such a choice, viz. A.C. Plonk – Reliability. A.C.W. Blank – Cheerful personality, etc. There will be two prizes awarded for the best entries received, and a general summary of the answers printed in the next Mag.
BE [Underlined] BREVITIES [/Underlined].
[Underlined] Cpl. Jewell [/Underlined] states with feeling how superior (in all spheres) air-borne troops are to R.A.F. personnel.
[Underlined] Gen. (Quiz) [/underlined] wanted on that exclusive Guffite “Lindy Lee” Newton! All contributions in confidence to Editor.
[Underlined] Platonic Friendships. [/Underlined] Wanted by several Waddone personnel since recent posting of Waaf.
[Underlined] Will Someone [/Underlined] (preferably a Yank) teach Margaret Pickup how to ride a bicycle?
[Underlined] Joyce Porter [/Underlined] offers life-story with all its trimmings, to any enterprising Editor (except Editor of this Mag!)
[Underlined] Congratulations [/Underlined] to “Joe” Links on his recent marriage.
[Underlined] Welcome [/Underlined] to our American friends and may they have a pleasant and profitable stay with us. “England expects that every Waaf —“
[page break]
Lost – Pump One – W.O – For The Use Of
[two pictures]
This Picture Is Dedicated To Pat Buckingham & Daisy Wiles The “Hyar [sic] Joe Whadya [sic] Know” Girls.
[Page break]
[Underlined] “WHAT HAS THE SERVICE DONE TO/FOR YOU?” [/Underlined]
In yet another “Mere Gen” Mass Psychology Quiz, we offer you the analysis of your answers to the questionnaire we circulated. To each of the following twelve questions we invited you to give the direct answer “More” or “Less”. Well, here are the tabulated results.
[Mass Psychology Quiz results]
It has been suggested that to give the direct answer “More” or “Less” was in some cases difficult, and we appreciate this and welcome the interest the questions have aroused. The results were more or less as anticipated – surprising features were (1) 3 people admitted appreciating home “Less” and (2) 56% avowed they grumbled less – we have our doots [sic]! (3) 1 person had apparently lost all interest in this life, answering “Less” to each question except No. 9. (4) while another entry showed “no change” to each question. (5) and finally, we must question with a little more than Editorial authority
[Page Break]
The statements of “Johnny” Dale and Morag Morrison that they take less interest in the opposite sex! However perhaps Service life does foist upon us a Jekyll and Hyde complex in some instances! Anyhow, thanks, everybody.
[Underlined] A MIXED GRILL. [/Underlined]
Two Englishmen met in Aberdeen. The first Englishman said to the other “No use coming to Aberdeen to make a living”. Second Englishman – “I’m not coming to make a living, I’m coming to finish my education”.
Two Scots, on seeing Nelson’s signal –
1st. “Just as usual – nae [Sic] word of Scotland”.
2nd. “Do you think Scots need to be told to do their duty?”
[Underlined] Church Notice. [/Underlined] “The speaker for the evening service will be nailed to the door”
An intimation from the same Church – “The flowers in the church will be distributed to those who are sick after the evening service”.
“You’ve got a model husband”, said the minster.
The wife looked up the dictionary – “A small imitation of the real article”.
Two Highlanders were discussing the fall of France. One said “Jock, it will be a stiff fight for us if the English give in next”.
A farm servant joined the Forces and seemed to lose his name; he was just 167. 167 do this, 167 do that. The climax was reached on Sunday. He heard the minister say, “No.167 – Art thou weary, art thou languid?”
We strongly suspect the perpetrator of this “grill” was no Sassenach! (Editor)
[Page break]
R.A.F. Newbold,
Revel (Pailton)
Hello Waddyites,
I am writing this from my lonely WAAFless (mixed blessing!) outpost of the Empire in the heart of England.
As I write I can almost feel the vibration and hear the throb of the mighty engines of our war factories (but not quite!)
It is certainly a change of scene here though, as from my comfortable billet I can look over rolling undulating country, lanes with high hedges, fields sugar-beetless, and with hardly a “tate” in sight.
I am still following events at the Mere with close interest, through the medium of your excellent mag “Mere Gen”, which I am lucky enough to have sent on to me. I have been asked to put down a few impressions and incidents which have stuck in my mind during my 2 years 9 months at Mere, so here goes.
(A) Thanks to a certain Geordie civilian for his patient initiation of me during the halcyon days of “the few” (1941) at Mere.
(B) Apropos the Radio Ops “Sines I shall never forget”. “Twasna her-r-r fault Geo-rge! [sic]” “Friends! – are there any in this world?” “What [Underlined] did [/underlined] I tell you!”
(C) My “fellow cads” breathless first-night query :-
“Know-your-lines-Geoff-how-do-you-feel-where’s-the-whisky?”
(D) “We must have bags of bodies on days next week you blokes”.
(E) “But [Underlined] darling! [/Underlined] – you know how frightfully rude these dirty big L.A.C’s are!
(F) Memories of hectic (?) days at egg-packing with the Branston R.A.F.
(G) My unbounded admiration for Bill Reynolds’ good natured stand in the face of a continuous heavy barrage from W.I.
(H) Happy recollections of good times spent at
(a) The pool – with the sun-worshipping types.
(b) The B & B – Many’s the time and oft......[sic]
(c) The Plough – Branston Booth.
The Red Lion – Dunston. Branston “Palais de Jive”.
(d) The “Hostile” – whoo-ooo! and lots more places where we sought relaxation awhile, and found it.
Thanks blokes for companionship and esprit-de-corps which I really think is difficult to surpass elsewhere. As for the WAAF – I can only echo the words of the old song “Bless ‘Em All!” Cheero.
Cpl. Geoff Hickman, Old Waddonian.
(Thanks a lot old man. Very glad to hear from one who was always a stalwart in our ranks. – Editor)
[Page break]
[Underlined] QUIZ [/Underlined]
“Gig” Young’s brazen “oomphensive” on that civilian technician left even the most seasoned campaigner breathless.
Dot Wallace defending – among other things – her title as the “most kissable Waaf of the year” made a grand come-back. But then look at the practice she has had with the crew of P for Peter.
And, by the way, the most daring diabolical Jezebel-like man poaching ever experienced went to “Glamour Girl Gledhill” who literally swooned her way into the arms of that P.O. and froze Anne! This gilded “G” swaying sensuously to the swing of her alluring ear rings admitted that she wore the latter to give her “poise”. We thought the spelling was “BOYS”!
Perhaps the most astounding affinity of the festivities was that of the usual “frigidaire” Burbury for Johnny “Zero” Sale. Frank Potts assures us that it won’t happen again!
The passage of time has revealed our Xmas Quiz to be at fault. Our reference to V. Lee and Boom Town A.J. should be amended to read “and is not A.J. brushing up his basic Gallic in order to “Hogmonhay [sic]” with Pud Rice”. However, at the material time, Vera was “bobbing” in that direction!
Cpl. Jarvis – (yes, It’s taken some time to pin you down, Chas.) seen in friendly escort of a charming blonde Dianne!
That little black-eyed bundle from “Hell’s Kitchen” Chris Paterson taking a very healthy interest in “Oh Johnnie – oh!
S/O Scott, a normally very discreet individual, somewhat challengingly described herself in our hearing as a “blameless woman”. We accept this assertion, but we would like more details of her trip to Nottingham and even more details of “John”!
Playboy Simmons doing the rounds with a striking civilian brunette.
Luscious Laura showing great concern for the Padre’s shoes at the Xmas Party. Quite a shoe-shine-boy effect!
Cowgirl Standford now in love with a far distant A.C.2 – described as a bird fancier. Or is this propaganda to stir Bernard Wynn from “evasion” into “action”?
[Page break]
Maisie Bassford on a man hunt at the Astoria!
Perhaps the most pleasing of the tail end of ’43 was the “friendship” which “embraced” Cpls. Akenhead and Robertson.
“Honey chile” Billington, after assisting Bunny Ryan to renounce single blessedness apparently got lost with the best man, a U/T parson in London. She denies she persuaded him to consider a conversion course.
Anne Thompson asks us to make public her intense disapproval of this “Quiz Biz”. We can’t understand why!
We commiserate with the Waaf who was advised by her doctor to exclude potatoes and bread from her diet! Did he realise this would have meant “day and night” starvation?
The Gledhill-Beard combine are keen to cultivate the acquaintance of any sailor. We must warn any suppliant Matelot however that it is only a means to an end – the end being the purchase of some blankets at reduced prices, through some sailor’s stores!
Andy Adamson settling well in Branston’s social whirl!
Our condolences to the airman who when taking his landlady’s dog for an airing omitted to salute the officer in charge of a passing squad, and as a “Salut”ary [sic] punishment was made to fall in plus dog, with the squad!
A news flash from Cheadle “Quiztapo” tells us that Johnny Dale left behind him a trail of broken hearts, on his not so “detached” visit to our “Alma Mater”!
Joan Carruthers unusually talkative to her Yankee Cpl!
With Sgt. “Spike” Hughes in our midst again, we warn all Waaf to pay particular heed to warnings (a) Gypsy (b) Maternal!
Eunice Austen progressing by “leaps” and bounds with a paratroop N.C.O! However, she refers (in orderly room fashion) to another paramour as “Charlie” among her friends. (But of course that’s not how we got we know).
Our commiseration with Fred Palin who in an endeavour to discover the programme at the Regal Cinema, approached the shadowy figure of the commissionaire with “What’s on mate?”, to find he was addressing a R.A.F. Officer!
[Page break]
General surprise is expressed at the acceptance of a “Yankee” blind date by a certain diminutive “steady” L.A.C.W. We accept her explanation of the circumstances, condemn the influence of the two Waaf who accompanied her, and commend the efforts of the L.A.C. Harrison/Allman to prevent the date and guide her in the paths so few of us want to follow!
“Davey” Jones blushing in his own “mechanical” fashion admits the “chase” of a certain Joyce!
Cpl. Robertson having no difficulty with Waaf “transport” these days.
“Wee .Three” Mesdames Crossley, Pell and Whitwam have started a new fashion in Hut 1 by kissing each other “nightie night”! Very touching kid – don’t you fink?
Blackout conversation piece. Scene – Canwick Hill. Time 2250 hours. A Yank mutters something unintelligible and out of the inky night floats the voice of Blondie Barnes, “Can you see any green in my eye?”
L.A.C. Lott deserting his democratic principles and dancing attention on ? Very sporty – Oh, Scotty!!
Lost – one ground sheet belonging to L.A.C.W. Fitz. She would welcome its return but takes a poor view of the suggestions forthcoming as to how it might have been lost!
Bunny Galbraith taking a very commendable interest in a learned treatise on Theology. It has been rather unkindly suggested by a certain senior N.C.O. that she would be more profitably employed in the study of a handbook on “The Art of Handwriting!”
[Underlined] THEY SPEAK NOT WITH THE TONGUES OF MEN---! [/Underlined]
Some current peculiar expressions heard on the Station which we think warrant your attention.
(a) She’d make a smashing wife – but a rotten sweetheart!
(b) Dim! He’s as dim as a Toc H Lamp!
[Page break]
(c) Oh, yes. He’s in a “deserved” occupation!
(d) Now these fellows had never even heard a bullet fired in anger!
(e) He “jived” with his boots on!
(f) Now I like to call a spade a shovel!
(g) I get around – I’ve got a bike!
(h) My landlady continuously described herself as a working woman I didn’t get it, because that was the one thing she didn’t do!
(i) I used to look after the W/Commander’s cat when I was at Cheadle!
(j) Have you ever been with, or alternatively, have been done by?
(k) If you go off without a pass you’ve only two things to worry about – and S.P’s are both of them!
(l) We had cab horse rissoles at the Naafi – you eat one and the other moves up!
L.A.C Harry Davis (late cartoonist “Mere Gen”) now with the R.N.A.F. writes to say
“Thanks a million for the copy of Mere Gen only just received. It has apparently travelled all round North Africa and done a few round trips from Tunis to Algiers! Wish I were back at the Mere again helping with the “Gen” “
(Thanks a lot Harry – we haven’t forgotten you. Editor.)
[Underlined] COLLECTED JOKES [/Underlined]
Two airmen sat on a pyramid reading letters from home. “Hurrah” yelled Bill, “the wife’s had another baby son!”.
“But you haven’t been home for 3 years”.
“What’s that matter, there’s was three years between me and our George!”
[Page break]
[Underlined] COLLECTED JOKES (continued) [/Underlined]
Overheard in a Waaf Hostel —
1st Waaf. “I’m going to have my fortune told. Do you think I should see a phrenologist or a palmist?”
2nd Waaf. “I should go to a Palmist. After all, you have two hands, haven’t you, dearie”
Put the milk down, boys.
A wise man is one who has never allowed a woman to pin anything on him since he was a baby.
It’s a stiff neck that knows no turning when a short skirt passes by.
The doctor stroked his chin and looked rather worried. “H’m, this is serious” he said, “have you told your husband?”
“But doctor, I’m not married!”
“H’m. That makes it worse, have you told your young man?”
“But I haven’t got a young man – as a matter of fact doctor, I’ve never been out with a man in my life”
The doctor didn’t answer but went to look out the window – then out of the door. This went on for some time until the patient’s patience was exhausted.
“See here doctor, what’s the idea leaving me half dressed while you look up and down the street?”
“Well miss, last time this happened, three wise men came from the East – I was looking to see if they were on the way again!!!
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
Mere Gen March 1944
Description
An account of the resource
a 29 page duplicated magazine produced by the personnel of Branston Mere Y station. All the items are original, mainly 'in' jokes consisting of stories, jokes, poems and cartoons.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
A 29 page duplicated magazine
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Poetry
Artwork
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MReynoldsWT[Ser#-DoB]-150731-04
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Bradley Froggatt
Steve Baldwin
arts and crafts
entertainment
ground personnel
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
searchlight
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/730/19608/PBurkittWF17010005.2.jpg
073207a920b8d0440e4b2cbf21bc8ee6
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
Burkitt, William Frederick
W F Burkitt
John Burkitt
Description
An account of the resource
16 items. A photograph album, photographs and documents concerning Sergeant William Frederick 'John' Burkitt (1922 - 1944, 1320846 Royal Air Force) He flew operations as a flight engineer with 9 Squadron from RAF Bardney. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Hilary Crozier about her uncle. <br /><br />Additional information on William Frederick Burkitt is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/103229/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Hilary Crozier and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Burkitt, WF
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Victoria 1244, Extn. 624.
[crest] The War Office. (AG.13).,
32 Grosvenor Gardens,
London, S.W.1.
NMF/4266/AG.13. 10th August, 1945.
Dear Madam,
Further to my letter to you of 10th July, 1945, the Graves Registration Services in Belgium report that a German Burial Party deposited an “authority for burial” with the cemetery office at the time of the burial of your son, Serjeant [sic] W.F. Burkitt, Royal Air Force. This document has been inspected and it states that “Burkitt, an English Flyer, died at Lembeck, Brussels, on the 22nd March 1944, and was to be buried at Evere on the 24th”. At the bottom of the sheet appears:-
ERK-MK (Erkennung Marke, which means: Regimental details)
1320846
CE
RAF
Burkitt
W.
This would indicate that the identity of the body had been taken from a standard R.A.F. disc.
The Graves Services in Belgium confirm that Sjt [sic] Burkitt's grave is Plot 10, Row 17, Grave No: 14 in Brussels (Evere) Cemetery.
Yours faithfully,
WC Turner Staff Capt
Director,
Graves Registration and Enquiries.
Mrs. M.E. Burkitt,
29 Raleigh Road,
Hornsey, N.8.
GEC.
[page break]
[photograph]
[page break]
[photograph]
[page break]
[Air Ministry letterhead and crest]
[inserted] Sloane 3467 [/inserted]
AIR MINISTRY
[inserted] 2, Seville Street, [/inserted]
LONDON, S.W.1.
[inserted] 6th April, 1948.
P.415042/44/S.14.Cas.A.3. [/inserted]
Madam,
I am directed to forward for your retention photographs of the grave of your son Sergeant W.F. Burkitt, who is buried in Brussels (Evere) Communal Cemetery, Belgium, Grave No. 14, Row 17, Plot 10.
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
Location of William Burkitt's grave
Description
An account of the resource
Album page displaying:
- Letter from War Office dated 10 August 1945, to William Burkitt's mother, confirming to her that he had been buried in a cemetery near Brussels.
- A letter from the Air Ministry dated 6 April 1948, forwarded with two photographs, one of a row of white crosses, the second of an individual cross marking his grave, and informing her of the plot location of William's grave in Brussels (Evere) Communal Cemetery.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-08-10
1948-04-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two printed letters, two b/w photographs on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBurkittWF17010005
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Brussels
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
1945-08-10
1948-04-06
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
Roger Dunsford
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. War Office
Great Britain. Air Ministry
final resting place
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40562/SAnkersonR[Ser -DoB]v10004.jpg
684299109f1a10f4b9ad255c8b6c012c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40562/SAnkersonR[Ser -DoB]v10005.jpg
94cde780d6e204a37eda8d094b1b79f3
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
Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association
Description
An account of the resource
97 items. The collection concerns Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association and contains items including drawings by the artist Ley Kenyon.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Ankerson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-29
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RAF ex POW As Collection
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
List of Prisoners Executed after the Mass Escape
Description
An account of the resource
Two typed sheets with handwritten annotations listing the escapees.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1946
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Poland
Poland--Żagań
Poland--Gdańsk
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 Canadian Air Force
South African Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Free Norwegian forces
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten sheets with handwritten annotations
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]v10004, SAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]v10005
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Air Ministry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
escaping
prisoner of war
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1765/30777/EIrvinLLLayneAJ440307.2.jpg
ccccb96e15d44cba062ffbddf81f9e67
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
Layne, Wally
Walter Henry Layne
W H Layne
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
2017-06-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Layne, WH
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. The collection concerns Walter 'Wally' Layne (b. 1916, 963012, 40348 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, prisoner of war diary, personal and official correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 97 Squadron and became a prisoner of war after being shot down.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by D Layne and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CATERPILLAR CLUB
March 7, 1944.
Mrs. W. H. Layne,
97, Harlaxton Road,
GRANTHAM...Lincs.
Dear Mrs. Layne,
I was very glad to hear from No. 97 Squadron last month, that your husband had saved his life with one of our chutes.
I have much pleasure in welcoming P/O. W. H. Layne as a member of the Club, and in sending you his membership card herewith, which I have made out for his rank at the time he baled out.
P/O. Layne is also entitled to a small gold Caterpillar Pin, but I regret that due to supply difficulties it may not be possible to let you have this until after the War. I am very sorry, but can only promise to send it at the first opportunity.
With best wishes for your husband's early return home. I remain,
Yours sincerely
[signature]
Sec. to L. Irvin.
MEL.
Encl. Card.
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
Letter to Wally Layne's wife from the Caterpillar Club
Description
An account of the resource
Glad to hear that her husband's life was saved by one of Irvin's parachutes and welcomed him to Caterpillar Club. Regrets that was not possible to let her have badge until after the war.
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
1944-03-07
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page typewritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EIrvinLLLayneAJ440307
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
L L Irvin, Caterpillar Club
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
97 Squadron
bale out
Caterpillar Club
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/39642/EDarbyCAHWellandJ440316-0001.1.jpg
1de302b1c79a9492544ac7c0324fae41
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/39642/EDarbyCAHWellandJ440316-0002.1.jpg
3d3a518892bfc0de047f430daf7d9a15
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Darby. Charles Arthur Hill
Darby, CAH
Jack Darby
Johnny Darby
Description
An account of the resource
203 items. The collection concerns Charles Arthur Hill Darby (1915 - 1996, 154676 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, documents and correspondence. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard John Darby and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, CAH
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Jean Welland from Jack Darby
Description
An account of the resource
He thanks he for the socks and her letter. He describes training at his camp.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jack Darby
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-16
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Broadstairs
England--Filey
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
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
Three handwritten sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDarbyCAHWellandJ440316-0001, EDarbyCAHWellandJ440316-0002, EDarbyCAHWellandJ440316-0003
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
aircrew
RAF Hunmanby Moor
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/727/11317/EBrooksWBrooksP440321-0002.1.jpg
601298b1b75c189288e652f3102f6d7d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/727/11317/EBrooksWBrooksP440321-0003.1.jpg
d49af10f6d50c727227ab7a24c4bc2a6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/727/11317/EBrooksWBrooksP440321-0004.1.jpg
3f08c0725c8b2fb98a8f70e4d0022997
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/727/11317/EBrooksWBrooksP440321-0005.1.jpg
e4ada3fdc4407e093ba2a296a7652f3d
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
Brooks, Harry
Brooks, C H S
Brooks, Charles Harry Sidney
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains 18 items concerning Sergeant Harry Sidney Brooks (1915 - 1942, 1357673, Royal Air Force) who was killed in an aircraft accident 20 December 1942 while serving as a wireless operator with 9 Squadron at RAF Waddington. Collection consists of pages from logbook, letters and telegrams to his wife from Harry Brooks, Brooks' father, official sources and others of condolence as well as photographs of him and family. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Pamela Tickner and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Harry Sidney Brooks is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/102784/">IBCC Losses Database</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
2015-10-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brooks, HS
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
The Corner Shop
Lindfield
21st March 1944
My dearest Winnie
I believe mother has written to ask you to bring Pamela to stay with us but you yourself have not been asked to stay.
I think you know that it was always my wish ever since the day when we lost our darling that you should come & live with us. This was made impossible by the attitude taken by mother, & I guess you realise that you would not have been very happy here with us. It is a great pity, but I just can’t do anything about it.
I believe you have confided in my sister at times & I have spoken
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
to her about having letters from you to me enclosed in an envelope addressed to her at Myrtle Cottage, Denmans Close, Lindfield, Haywards Heath. She knows how difficult mother is at times and she sympathises with you very much & will gladly pass on to me any letter you may address to her. You see, mother seems so jealous if I receive a letter from you so, to avoid a scene, it would be best to send letters to my sister who will pass them on to me without mother knowing you have written.
You can confide in me absolutely, dear Winnie, as I would so gladly do anything I can for you. I can’t understand mother’s attitude to you, & it distresses me very much. I know she will do all she can to make little lovey happy as she is very fond of little children & you know that if Pamela comes to us I will look after her all right.
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined]
It is a very unhappy business having to write like this but I got into hot water for writing to you day after day just before dear Harry’s funeral & then on the day of the funeral I was taken to task for making such a fuss of you and calling you darling Winnie on the way to the Cemetery. If you don’t answer mother’s letters to you immediately, I hear about it. To avoid trouble I refrain from speaking about you.
It is mother’s own suggestion having Pamela here & I know she will look after her well. The pity of it is that she is not so kindly disposed towards you. She says that in my eyes you can do no wrong & I guess she is about right when she says that.
I never had five minutes dispute with Harry’s own dear mother all our married life together & I just can’t make out how it is things are not harmonious
[page break]
[underlined] 4 [/underlined]
with me nowadays.
Do write to me dear Winnie and tell [deleted] you [/deleted] me anything you would like me to know, but, if you write to mother at the same time, make sure that the right letter goes in the right envelope as the fat would properly be in the fire if we got the wrong letters.
Fred is getting on all right now I am glad to say. Poor chap, I am afraid he gets rather hen pecked by Marjorie. I shall have to persuade him to stand up to her a bit more.
Now, dear Winnie, God bless you. It is nice to know that our darling comes to you so often.
Much love to you & Pamela
Your ever loving
[underlined] Pop [/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
Letter to Harry Brooks' wife Winnie from his father
Description
An account of the resource
Letter from Harry Brooks' father ('Pop') to his daughter-in-law Winnie. His wife has written to Winnie asking that her daughter Pamela be sent to stay with them but without inviting Winnie herself. He does not agree with his wife's attitude towards Winnie. Writes that they have both been in contact with his sister and he has arranged for her to pass on his letters which he will send her under cover. Mentions he 'got into hot water' for writing to her frequently around the time of Harry's funeral. Encourages Winnie to write to both of them separately (being careful to put letters in the correct envelopes) and mentions that Fred is 'getting on all right now' apart from being 'hen-pecked' by Marjorie.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E Brooks
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-21
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Alan Pinchbeck
David Bloomfield
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter and explanatory note
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EBrooksWBrooksP440321
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
killed in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/782/9301/ETroglioPTroglioJ440330.1.pdf
c8eb558d8bd0c1c94a36225b4bd4aa63
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
Troglio, Paolo and Bernabè, Angelo
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Troglio, P-Bernabe, A
Description
An account of the resource
<p>40 items. The collection consists of the service and private papers of Paolo Troglio (b. 1921), an aviere of Regia Aeronautica later attached to the Luftwaffe. Paolo was stationed in Italy, France, Greece, Albania, and on the Russian Front where he became a prisoner of war. He escaped and was posted to a Luftwaffe logistic unit with the rank of Gefreiter. Toward the end of the war, back in Italy, Paolo became an informant for the Resistance, to which he passed military intelligence. The collection comprehends photographs of barracks, aircraft, airfields, ordnance, and his friends in informal settings. There is also correspondence exchanged between Paolo and his family, letters from the 'Italia' partisan brigade, and a pair of Deutsche Afrika Korps googles. The collection also include correspondence about a war damage claim lodged by Angelo Bernabè, whose daughter would later be married to Paolo. </p>
<p>The collection was donated by Sara Troglio and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff, with the valuable assistance of the Archeologi dell'Aria research group (<a href="https://www.archeologidellaria.org">https://www.archeologidellaria.org</a>) and further identification provided by Claudio Gioia.</p>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-02
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[letter in Italian]
Title
Letter from Paolo Troglio to his family
Description
Paolo Troglio mentions his imminent departure from the Nidda prisoner of war camp, complains about the lack of letters and the delay in getting parcels, and finally urges them not to worry about him.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ETroglioPTroglioJ440330
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Paolo Troglio to his family
Description
An account of the resource
Paolo Troglio mentions his imminent departure from the Nidda prisoner of war camp, complains about the lack of letters and the delay in getting parcels, and finally urges them not to worry about him.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Paolo Troglio
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-08
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Nidda
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One handwritten letter with envelope
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Language
A language of the resource
ita
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Other languages than English
prisoner of war
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/779/10552/EPayneMHWeeksD440312-0004.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/779/10552/EPayneMHWeeksD440312-0005.2.jpg
83f34893d05f72bdfb9f39cfd3b95a31
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/779/10552/EPayneMHWeeksD440312-0006.2.jpg
c64dacfa4476a44abb0dd13bae65b3cb
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/779/10552/EPayneMHWeeksD440312-0001.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/779/10552/EPayneMHWeeksD440312-0002.2.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Payne, Malcolm
Malcolm H Payne
M H Payne
Description
An account of the resource
54 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Malcolm L Payne (417512 Royal Australian Air Force). He flew operations from RAF Bardney as an air gunner with 9 Squadron and was killed in action along with other members of his crew on 13 July 1944. The collection consists of his letters to Miss Doris Weeks, letters from Doris Weeks to Malcolm Payne's mother after his death and official letters to Doris Weeks from the Royal Australian Air Force concerning his death, grave and bequeaths. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Debbie Brown and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Malcolm L Payne is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/118239/">IBCC Losses Database</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
2018-05-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Payne, MH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
[postage stamp]
Miss Doris Weeks,
37 Hawthorne Rd.,
Bunker’s Hill,
[underlined] Lincoln [/underlined].
[page break]
[Royal Canadian Air Force crest]
[page break]
A.417512
F/Sgt. Payne M.H.
No. Ante Rm.
R.A.F. Stn.
Wigsley
Newark
Notts.
[underlined] 12-3-44. [/underlined]
Hello Darling,
It seems ridiculous that I should have to put such a huge, idiotic address on such a small page but the R.A.F. are experts in the art of Bull. S. after 5 years of practice and it’s one of their gawky regulations.
However, let’s not worry too much over such trifling things.
I feel an utter pig darling. I left the mess less than five minutes before you rang this evening. After waiting 15 minutes I decided you weren’t going to call me and the weather was beginning to get
[page break]
- as I thought – too rough for you to venture out. That’s twice I’ve let you down now and really [deleted] darlg [/deleted] ([symbol] damn) darling. I’m awfully sorry. Please forgive me.
We’ve not long since finished a thick “cup of cocoa and a tin of peaches which Donald condescended to open. Most generous of him don’t you think, and don’t make noises as though your mouth waters!
I’m lying flat on my tummy, (which is making queer jingling noises) and find its most difficult to write in such a position.
I’ve spoken to
[page break]
Midge Angel and have tried to make him turn his bed over to you, but nothing doing so I guess you’ll just have to put up with me for a bed mate! D’you mind?
[indecipherable name] and I left the garage at 12.15 last evening and were in the billet at precisely 1. AM so I’m beginning to think one can do amazing things with such ridiculously short legs as mine, and a “bike”.
We are supposed to be doing P.T. tomorrow my Pet but I’m afraid they’ve “had” me as I want to tear into Lincoln to cuddle my beloved xxx [circled x]
[page break]
I must say dearest “its” almost a glorious change to have my old bicycle out here. The odd little pieces of energy it saves me are countless.
Know what Darling? I’m terribly much in love. What’s more [deleted] its [/deleted] (Bugger!!!) it happens to be you I’m loving.
I must mentally hug and kiss you good night for now my darling and please may your ear burn just a weeny bit
Bye bye dearest
my very fondest
love and kisses
[underlined] Malcolm [/underlined]. xxxx
Xxxxx
Xxxxxx
[circled x] [circled x] [underlined] Specials Returned [/underlined]
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx behind the [deleted] op [/deleted] counter.
[inserted] P.S My writing isn’t really like all [underlined] this trash always. [/underlined] M.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
A name given to the resource
Letter from Malcolm Payne to Doris Weeks
Description
An account of the resource
He writes apologising for missing her phone call, about his friends' antics and his activities. Says he is happy to have his bicycle. Ends with endearments.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-12
1944-03-13
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EPayneMHWeeksD440312
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter and envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
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
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
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Malcolm Payne
love and romance
RAF Wigsley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/40063/EDarbyCAHWellandJ440303.2.pdf
6aa6cc38f9c74e00773921b4ddb0b7da
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
Darby. Charles Arthur Hill
Darby, CAH
Jack Darby
Johnny Darby
Description
An account of the resource
203 items. The collection concerns Charles Arthur Hill Darby (1915 - 1996, 154676 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, documents and correspondence. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard John Darby and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, CAH
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Jack Darby to Jean
Description
An account of the resource
He describes his journey back to Filey. His camp is very bleak, they are staying in concrete chalets. He gets a lot of marches, drill and marching. Food is not great but they have been on a pub crawl.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jack Darby
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-03
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
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two handwritten sheets and envelope
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
EDarbyCAHWellandJ440303
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
aircrew
RAF Hunmanby Moor
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/40064/EDarbyCAHWellandJ440312.1.pdf
ade5091169e83a9b1706815d9598ea13
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
Darby. Charles Arthur Hill
Darby, CAH
Jack Darby
Johnny Darby
Description
An account of the resource
203 items. The collection concerns Charles Arthur Hill Darby (1915 - 1996, 154676 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, documents and correspondence. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard John Darby and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, CAH
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Jack Darby to Jean
Description
An account of the resource
He asks about her knitting and fire watching. The weather is less cold and he has been out drinking beer. He has visited Scarborough to watch films.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jack Darby
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-12
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
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
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Two double sided handwritten sheets
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
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EDarbyCAHWellandJ440312
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
aircrew
civil defence
entertainment
home front
RAF Hunmanby Moor
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9216/EGortonHGortonLCM440305.2.pdf
e0899c6e15f40064543cd7370820fc3d
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
Gorton, Harold
Description
An account of the resource
136 items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Harold Gorton (1914 - 1944, 120984, Royal Air Force) and contains eight photographs and 126 letters to his wife and family. Harold Gorton studied at Oxford, and throughout his time in the RAF he continued studying law. He completed a tour of operations as a pilot in 1941 and was then posted as an instructor to RAF Cark. He returned to operations with 49 Squadron stationed at RAF Fulbeck in 1944. He was killed 11/12 November 1944 during an operation to Harburg.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mair Gorton and Ian Gorton, and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Harold Gorton is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108964/">IBCC Losses Database</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
2017-05-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gorton, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TEL. SILVERTONE 252
OFFICERS’ MESS,
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION,
[deleted] SILVERSTONE [/deleted] [inserted] Turweston [/inserted],
[deleted] NR. TOWCESTER [/deleted] [inserted] Nr. Brackley [/inserted],
NORTHANTS.
[Royal Air Force crest]
Saturday.
Dearest,
I’m beginning this letter tonight, but I’ll not finish it until after I’ve been to Brackley tomorrow.
I’ve just looked up the trains from Marylebone to Brackley, & they are as follows:
London: 1.50 3.30 4.54 4.45 6.0 8.30
Brackley: 4.8 5.6 6.48 7.17 8.22 10.55.
You may not find this route any better, but you’ll be able to decide from these times.
I did another dual trip today – high level bombing at 10,000 ft. The temperature was -20oC, & I had an icicle dangling from my oxygen mask.
Sunday 7.30 p.m.
I had to give up writing at this point last night, because the other members of the hut kept talking, but I’ll try & cope tonight.
I felt as miserable as sin at tea time today. I borrowed a
[page break]
3
cycle & went to Brackley after lunch – 20 – 25 minutes ride.
After a bit of a search I found the temperance hotel but the place looked so lousy I didn’t try it. Then I went to the Red Lion & thought it looked too much of a pub. The Crown looked O.K., but they simply laughed at the idea of a room for next week-end. Then I tried the other two & several more places without success, & came away feeling very gloomy about the whole business.
As a last resort I rang up the Crown just before dinner, and asked them if they’d got a double room on Monday March 13, and to my surprise they said yes. So the position is that you can come tomorrow week, but before that there’s no room.
I don’t know if I have told you that there’s a spare bomb
[page break]
4
aimer on this course. He’s waiting for a crew that’s short of a bomb aimer, & for the time being is acting as my bomb aimer. It’s very lucky for me, as the main thing we do here is bombing, apart from circuits & bumps. So it means that I shan’t have to hunt around for a bomb – aimer when I want to fly.
He was saying yesterday that he’s arranged a 48 for next week-end. Frankly I don’t believe he’ll get it, but if he does there seems to me no reason why I shouldn’t get one too.
This is all very much in the air at the moment, but if it does come off, I propose that we spend it in London. Then you could wait there until Monday (perhaps buy yourself a costume?) and come to Brackley then.
All this is just to prepare you in case the unexpected comes off. Of course I’ll ring you
[page break]
5
up if anything like that should happen, but personally I don’t expect it.
Another matter you need to consider is this. The system at this place is to pay little attention to the junior course, & concentrate on getting the senior course finished. That is why I’ve had very little to do this week, but by the time you arrive I may be having more flying than I want. It’s nothing for them to start you off at 7.30 a.m., keep you going till, say, 2.0 p.m., & then put you on night flying the same night. In addition, you may be on several nights running. A lot, of course, depends on the weather we get, but it’s been very good this week.
Anyway, I’m getting cheesed with the R.A.F., because
[page break]
6
I want to see you again! It’s only an existence, not living, when I’m not with you. Every day I keep wishing the war was over so that I can live with you in our own house (if that’s ever possible! I doubt it sometimes).
I suppose you’ve heard nothing of our utility furniture, have you?
All my love,
Harold.
Darling,
I can employ all your energies agreeably. With any egg [deleted] stick [/deleted] stir your essence, beating well by your muffin.
The above was meant to be a cookery recipe (imaginary) but it didn’t work out well at the end. Still, see if you can decipher it!
[inserted] I AM LONGING TO SEE YOU [/inserted]
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
He writes of his flying training and domestic arrangements.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harold Gorton
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EGortonHGortonLCM440305
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
aircrew
bomb aimer
military living conditions
RAF Turweston
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9217/EGortonHGortonLCM440309.1.pdf
5b1935838659611d3d4d30731952ee2c
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
Gorton, Harold
Description
An account of the resource
136 items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Harold Gorton (1914 - 1944, 120984, Royal Air Force) and contains eight photographs and 126 letters to his wife and family. Harold Gorton studied at Oxford, and throughout his time in the RAF he continued studying law. He completed a tour of operations as a pilot in 1941 and was then posted as an instructor to RAF Cark. He returned to operations with 49 Squadron stationed at RAF Fulbeck in 1944. He was killed 11/12 November 1944 during an operation to Harburg.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mair Gorton and Ian Gorton, and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Harold Gorton is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108964/">IBCC Losses Database</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
2017-05-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gorton, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TEL. SILVERSTONE 252
OFFICERS’ MESS,
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION,
[deleted] SILVERSTONE [/deleted], [inserted] Turweston [/inserted],
[deleted] NR. TOWCESTER. [/deleted] [inserted] Nr. Brackley, [/inserted]
NORTHANTS.
[Royal Air Force crest]
Thursday evening.
Dearest,
It’s 8.15, & I’ve just spent half an hour after dinner trying to light the stove in the hut, so that I can write to you in peace & quiet. I think it’s going now, but it’s always a toss up with these stoves, as we have to light coke direct from wood.
It’s been a good day, as I’ve had two letters from you, and have talked to you on the phone. I’ve even flown as well – the first time since Saturday. I’m not solo, yet however. All we did was two hours I.F. & beam practice, and one landing at the end. I’m telling the other pilots on the course now that the trouble is that none of the instructors will take the responsibility of sending me solo. Actually, I don’t care how long it is before I’m solo, as long as I’m doing something useful, but there are several solo exercises I want to get cracking on.
[page break]
2
(Interruption at this point to put some more coke on the fire).
I thought I’d ring up tomorrow & find out if the bike had arrived. I’ll ask them to let me know when it does come, but it won’t surprise me if it’s late, knowing how trains are nowadays.
It’s a bit unfair to tell me of your jam tarts, when I’m not with you to eat them! Or was your idea to remind [deleted] ho [/deleted] me how much I’m missing?
Have you noticed how erratic the post is? Your letter of the 7th reached here this morning, & this afternoon I got the one written on the 8th.
Bob is in Corsica as far as I know.
I’m glad your watch is going well. I’d given it up until after the war, because you were wearing the Marks & Spencer one.
I’m sorry I misled you about that hotel booking. I’m afraid I never dreamed that you’d think I’d booked the room for one night only, & that’s presumably why I didn’t explain it better.
[page break]
3.
My remarks about the night flying were not intended to mean that you’d better not come. I was merely apologising in advance in case I found I was unable to spend much time with you.
I don’t know if you realise that I’m expecting to be away from here in about a fortnight or so. The month will be ended two weeks today, but we shall probably be two or three days late. I’m not quite certain what I shall be doing then, but what I expect is that my course at O.T.U. will then considered to be finished, & I shall be ready for posting. In that case I shall get at least a week’s leave before moving on to my next unit.
Still we shall be able to talk all that over when you come here. I can’t tell you how much I am longing to see you.
[page break]
4
I seem to be living in a vacuum until Monday.
All my love,
Harold
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
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Description
An account of the resource
He writes of his flying training.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harold Gorton
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EGortonHGortonLCM440309
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Northamptonshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
aircrew
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Silverstone
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9212/EGortonHGortonLCM440302.1.pdf
91a713007c557e99a5590ba0a5249db8
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
Gorton, Harold
Description
An account of the resource
136 items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Harold Gorton (1914 - 1944, 120984, Royal Air Force) and contains eight photographs and 126 letters to his wife and family. Harold Gorton studied at Oxford, and throughout his time in the RAF he continued studying law. He completed a tour of operations as a pilot in 1941 and was then posted as an instructor to RAF Cark. He returned to operations with 49 Squadron stationed at RAF Fulbeck in 1944. He was killed 11/12 November 1944 during an operation to Harburg.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mair Gorton and Ian Gorton, and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Harold Gorton is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108964/">IBCC Losses Database</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
2017-05-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gorton, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TEL. SILVERSTONE 252
OFFICERS’ MESS,
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION,
[deleted] SILVERSTONE, [/deleted] [inserted] Turweston, [/inserted]
[deleted] NR. TOWCESTER[/deleted] [inserted] Nr. Brackley [/inserted],
NORTHANTS
[Royal Air Force crest]
Thursday 8.0 p.m.
Dearest,
I nearly wrote to you this morning, when I spent a couple of hours in the Intelligence Library, but I decided to leave it till later, & I’m glad I did, as I got another letter from you today, - the third in three days running! – and I can also tell you about my first trip.
I therefore had an early dinner, and have come back to the hut so that I can spend the rest of the evening writing to you.
(At this point two others came in & interrupted me – that’s one of the snags of living in a hut like this. I’ve forgotten where I was!).
I suppose I’d better get my flying off my mind before I go any further, or else I shan’t be able to answer your letter properly.
We went out to the aircraft at 2.30, & were just going to start up when we found that the hydraulics
[page break]
2
were u/s. We waited until 3.15 without any luck, & then went to another aircraft. In consideration of my experience, I was allowed to taxi out & take off without demonstration. The take off was easy, but I found the auxiliary controls (u/c & flaps) very awkward to handle, especially as flying the Wellington is a two handed job at the best of times. You can’t just put it into the desired altitude and leave it there as you would with an Oxford or Anson – you’ve got to keep fighting it all the time.
Anyway, we went up & did some stalling & feathered an engine – for single engine flying - & then came back & did some landings. I did them all myself without demonstration. I was pleased with that fact because it confirmed the theory I’ve had that anybody with my experience ought to be able – after being
[page break]
3
shown the knobs, to take any aircraft up & bring it down safely.
However, we got held up on the circuit several times & had to do overshoots, so that by the time we’d done three or four landings it was 5.30 & time to stop. Although it would have been nice to have gone solo immediately, I was so tired after flying 2 hours that I didn’t want to go solo. I expect I shall do a check circuit on Saturday (if I can get a trip then, & then go off on my own.
Forgive all this (no doubt boring) description of my first trip. I’ll now settle down to answering your letters.
Thank you very much, darling, for doing my washing. I’ll try & not ask you to do any more.
The weather here has been quite cold, sharp frosts each
[page break]
4
night, but there has been quite a lot of sun & good flying weather.
I’m afraid I haven’t noticed the cut in the fuel ration. The only think I notice is that we seem to have no coal at all, & as you probably know, lighting a fire with wood & coke isn’t too easy.
My suitcase stood up to its last move very well, but I don’t know how long it will last. I thought that if it went again, I might be able to get a leather handle that was attached to some straps round the case.
From your letter I got two or three days ago, I thought you were going to look into that furnished flat in Cardiff. Still, as you say, if you’re going to live in lodgings, you may as well be near me.
Incidentally, re your remarks about the accommodation at Silverstone, I may as well
[page break]
5
tell you that there’s a spare bed in the hut here, only I won’t guarantee that there’s a pillow on it, as we’ve only had pillows for the past two nights. I call them “pillows”, but actually they are only pieces of sacking filled with straw – airmen’s pillows, not like the comfortable officer type I’ve been used to!
I’m glad you liked the chocolate. I hope it wasn’t too smelly! The Canadian chocolate came from a chap at Silverstone who’d been a staff pilot in Canada, & had just received a parcel.
The snag about the cottage at Ossington, is that even if I get to Newark, I’ve still ten miles to go. If I had some form of transport, of course, I should be all right.
I rang up Silverstone yesterday to enquire about “Genius of Friendship”. The girl there said
[page break]
6
she'd posted it off on Monday, but the post between there & here seems to be slower than between here & Abergavenny.
I got it this afternoon, & read it before dinner. Actually I was disappointed in it. While I was in Oxford I read half of a book by Henry Williamson, - his diary for the year 1936. I think that may have prejudiced me, because not only did he take himself far too seriously for my liking, but also a damning fault in these days, he then regarded Hitler as the world’s great man.
My opinion of “Genius of Friendship”, is that it boosts H.W. & forgets T.E.L. Since I don’t think much of the former, & have a high opinion of the latter, the result doesn’t please me. That’s a very sweeping & partial criticism, but I find it difficult to criticise properly in a letter
[page break]
7
You will know by now that I should like my bike. You had better address it to me here, and the railway station will let me know when it arrives.
Brackley is not an easy place to get away from unless you go along the main line, or the bus routes. Oxford unfortunately doesn’t lie on either of these.
The first chance I get, I’m going in to Brackley to book a room for you. I think I’d better go in person rather than phone, so as to make sure the place is O.K.
Whether the Yorkshire place will want you or not, I don’t know, but I’m sure you don’t realise how short they are of teachers. I shan’t be at all surprised if you get the job.
If you think you’d like the Clitheroe job, apply for it. It’s a very nice country town, just
[page break]
8
at the foot of the Pennines, but of course, not very easy to reach from the east of England.
As you say, I’m not able to do any studying at present. Even so, while I was in Oxford, I bought a large book on Roman Law (16/6) since I thought I shouldn’t have so good a chance of getting it anywhere else.
Somewhere in your letter, although I can’t find it, you discuss when you are to come here. You suggest next Thursday or Friday, or whenever I have a day off. That made me laugh sardonically, I fear, as we don’t have days off here! The first fortnight, that is until the end of next week, we fly & have lectures on alternate days. I expect I can cut the lectures without much trouble, but it would probably be easier to get an afternoon off when I’m supposed to be flying
[page break]
9
That will mean next Wednesday or Friday [inserted] Mar 8 & 10 [/inserted] or any day of the following week as we have no lectures then. When I go to Brackley I’ll book a room provisionally for next Friday, & make it definite when I hear from you. (N.B. Bring your cards. I don’t think I have any here!)
I’ve just realised that the first letter I answered tonight was one I’d already answered! I’ve found today’s letter in my pocket.
To reach Brackley, the best thing is to go to Paddington, cross over to Marylebone Station, & you can get a train direct. They may not allow you to travel that way on a Brackley ticket but it will pay you to buy a ticket to London and then to Brackley. I shouldn’t try & go cross country if I were you.
[page break]
10
If you are coming here to please yourself, then you’ll please me. The only reason [deleted] b [/deleted] I’ve been so negative & gloomy about your coming here is that I was afraid you would be unhappy. Actually, I think I want to see you more than you want to see me!
I think that’s all for now (9.45 p.m.). There are three chaps sitting round me talking, & its simply impossible to think now.
All my love,
Harold.
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
He writes of his first training flight in a Wellington, the weather and domestic details.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harold Gorton
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Ten handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EGortonHGortonLCM440302
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
aircrew
military living conditions
pilot
RAF Turweston
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9214/EGortonHGortonLCM440303.1.pdf
c333d978fc57bfb3364faadfbfb3d534
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
Gorton, Harold
Description
An account of the resource
136 items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Harold Gorton (1914 - 1944, 120984, Royal Air Force) and contains eight photographs and 126 letters to his wife and family. Harold Gorton studied at Oxford, and throughout his time in the RAF he continued studying law. He completed a tour of operations as a pilot in 1941 and was then posted as an instructor to RAF Cark. He returned to operations with 49 Squadron stationed at RAF Fulbeck in 1944. He was killed 11/12 November 1944 during an operation to Harburg.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mair Gorton and Ian Gorton, and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Harold Gorton is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108964/">IBCC Losses Database</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
2017-05-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gorton, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TEL. SILVERSTONE 252
OFFICERS’ MESS,
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION,
[deleted] SILVERSTONE [/deleted] [inserted] Turweston [/inserted],
[deleted] NR. TOWCESTER, [/deleted] [inserted] Nr. Brackley. [/inserted]
NORTHANTS.
[Royal Air Force crest]
Dearest,
I got yet another letter from you today! If you keep on at this rate, I’m going to be badly disappointed if you ever miss a day!
I sent the T. E. Lawrence book off [deleted] yesterday [/deleted] this morning, & I am enclosing the book list so that you can send for another book.
I don’t think I shall be able to go to Brackley until Sunday. I am supposed to be flying tomorrow, & may be busy all day. On Sunday I should be Orderly Officer, but I am going to do it tomorrow & so ought to be free on Sunday, apart from Church Parade. I’ll then fix up somewhere for you to stay, & write on Sunday night so that you will have the address. I must say that I am becoming very thrilled about the idea of having up here.
[page break]
2.
Now you have decided to come, I am all for the idea.
I got a letter from Bence this morning. He sends you his best wishes, and hopes that you “will soon be happily settled at home.” So do I.
A letter from Bob arrived today, too. He seems to be O.K., & has just put up his Africa Star ribbon. He says that Norman Seddon spent Christmas & New Year in No Man’s Land. Not very good, I should think.
I’ll try & get a room in a hotel for you for next Friday (provisionally) & then you can look around & see what you fancy.
It is just possible that I may be sent abroad for my Ops, but practically everyone from here goes to Bomber Command, so I don’t think there’s much danger of it.
All my love,
Harold.
[page break]
3.
P.S. I’ve just realised that you’ve filled up the book list, so I’ll send it off direct.
Your list seems a very interesting one. Quentin Reynolds should be good, & the reviews of Shinwell’s book were very favourable, on the whole. I rather fancy I’ve read a summary (Readers’ Digest, I think) of “Father was a Handful”, and it sounded good. “Random Harvest” I’ve read, & didn’t enjoy it as much as the film. I’ve also read “Put out more flags”. It’s a rather biting satire on the phoney war period – 1939 – 40, with a particularly brilliant bit in the middle about billeting evacué [sic] children.
I hope the next to the last book on the list “Men are just marvellous” makes you agree with the title, at least as far as I am concerned!
Harold
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
He writes of his possible operations postings.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harold Gorton
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EGortonHGortonLCM440303
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
aircrew
RAF Turweston
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Davies, Dave
D Davies
David Howell Davies
Description
An account of the resource
26 items, including 22 letters, three photographs, and a service and release book. The collection consists of correspondence sent by Sergeant Dave Davies (1923 - 1984, 1653015 Royal Air Force) during his pilot training in Canada to his fiancée, Betty Hughes, who lived in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, Wales. It also includes photographs of Dave Davies in Royal Air Force uniform, one with his bride, Betty, in wedding dress; and his service and release book. Dave Davies served with 48 Squadron from 28 January 1942 to 1 October 1946.
The collection was digitised on behalf of the IBCC Digital Archive by Edward Davies and catalogued by Monica Emmanuelli with additional contribution by Natalie Brimecome-Mills.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-10
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
Davies, DH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
Miss Betty Hughes.
50 Portland Street.
Aberystwyth.
Cardiganshire. Wales.
1653015 SGT Davies DH.
M.P.O. 304.
R.C.A.F.
Ottowa. [sic] Canada
[page break]
1653015 SGT Davies D.H.
M.P.O. 304.
R.C.A.F.
Ottowa. [sic]
Canada.
6th Mch 1944.
My Dearest Darling.
Received two letters from you yestrday [sic] dated 8th & 10th of Feb. Thanks very much for the
[page break]
congratulations darling I’m glad you feel happy about it I'm glad too, it's all over. The course was terrible the last few weeks, but it was all worth it I guess. If anybody tells me that we do’nt [sic] earn our wings, he w’ont [sic] have the chance to say it again. Well darling I'm afraid there’s still no news of being posted. I waited until today because I thought I might be able to tell you something definite, but no luck. It might come unexpected one day though, in any case they wo’nt [sic] give us much notice. I do’nt [sic] know how long I shall be over there before I get some leave, not very long I hope. I hear too that they get quite long leaves after coming arcross.[sic] Wo’nt [sic] it be nice darling to spend a few weeks together again? I'm looking forward to it so very much. I miss you so very much darling. I’m longing to see you more than ever darling. I wish I could be with you right now instead of sitting around doing nothing. I'm in the Y.M.CA [sic] at the moment with my pal. we're both writing to the ones we love. we often talk to each other about our sweethearts back home, he tells me all about his girl. and I tell him all about you darling. Well I'm afraid I hav’nt [sic] much news to tell you darling. I can only tell you how much I love you, and there is'nt [sic] much use in that, because you know I love you more than anything in the world darling.
[page break]
I shall love you always whatever happens. So keep waiting patiently for me darling. It shant [sic] be too long. Keep that chin up and think of me always. Remember me to mam and daden [sic] hoping you are all in the best of health.
Your darling husband (to be)
Dave
xxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxx
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
Letter from Dave Davies to Betty Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
Acknowledges some earlier letters and reflects on the exertion of attending pilot training without knowing his future post. He writes of being at the Y.M.C.A with a friend, both missing their loved ones. Dave speaks with love and devotion of his fiancée, Betty, hoping to be soon reunited with her.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dave Davies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-06
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Monica Emmanuelli
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDaviesDHHughesB440306
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.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Ottawa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
love and romance
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/636/40415/SRoyallGL1801494v10039-51.2.pdf
6f430a2711cd739e7bd8e60657eec07b
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
Royall, George
G Royall
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Royall, G
Description
An account of the resource
46 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer George Royall (1801494 Royal Air Force) his flying log book, photographs, correspondence, course notes, examinations, newspapers and parts of magazines. He served as a bomb aimer on 166 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Royall and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-20
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
Lancasters issued to No. 166 squadron between September 1943 and April 1945
Description
An account of the resource
12 pages listing 204 aircraft that were flown by No. 166 Squadron. Six columns record each aircraft's registration number, the date received, where it came from, the code letters and details of it's loss or disposal. For some aircraft the number of hours flown is also recorded. The list is ordered by registration number. There are eight addenda, each giving further details about an individual aircraft and it's crew. The cover page has an image of a Lancaster carrying the code letters of No. 166 Squadron.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Twenty-one pages printed document
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Royall, George. No 166 Squadron
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SRoyallGL1801494v10039-51
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09
1943-10
1943-11
1943-12
1944-01
1944-02
1944-03
1944-04
1944-05
1944-06
1944-07
1944-08
1944-09
1944-10
1944-11
1944-12
1945-01
1944-02
1944-03
1944-04
1944-05
1944-07
1944-12
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
France
France--Abbeville
France--Aube
France--Aubigny-sur-Nère
France--Calais
France--Dieppe
France--Poitiers
France--Saint-Cyr-l'École
France--Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne)
France--Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
France--Thoiry (Yvelines)
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Maldon
England--Lincolnshire
England--Barnetby le Wold
England--Barton-upon-Humber
England--Brigg
England--Caistor (Rural District)
England--Lincoln
England--Market Rasen
England--Nottinghamshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Diepholz
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau
Germany--Geilenkirchen
Germany--Gerolstein
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Hennef-Sieg
Germany--Lehnin (Kloster Lehnin)
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Nordstemmen
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Steinheim (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Treuenbrietzen
Germany--Welver
Germany--Westerburg
Netherlands
Netherlands--Apeldoorn
Netherlands--Nijmegen
Netherlands--Oisterwijk
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. Personal research
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Pending review
100 Squadron
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
12 Squadron
153 Squadron
1656 HCU
166 Squadron
1660 HCU
1667 HCU
300 Squadron
460 Squadron
49 Squadron
550 Squadron
57 Squadron
576 Squadron
97 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bomb aimer
bomb struck
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
crash
final resting place
flight engineer
forced landing
Fw 190
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Ju 88
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Me 109
Me 110
mid-air collision
mine laying
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Bradwell Bay
RAF Coningsby
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Leeming
RAF Lindholme
RAF Manston
RAF Syerston
RAF Woodbridge
shot down
tactical support for Normandy troops
take-off crash
training
V-1
V-weapon
wireless operator
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mitchell, Mitch
John Ernest Francis Mitchell
J E F Mitchell
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Mitchell, JEF
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. Flight Lieutenant John Ernest Francis 'Mitch' Mitchell. Joined the RAF as a boy entrant in 1934 and trained as a wireless operator. Flew on Vickers Virginia, Handley Page Heyford and Whitley before the war. Completed an operational tour on Whitley 1939-41. After being rested he flew a second tour of operations as a wireless operator with 207 Squadron before retraining as a pilot post war. Collection contains his flying logbooks, memoires of his air force career and first operations, lists of his operations, correspondence and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C A Wood and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[John Mitchell - notes for memoire]
1.
Describe first raid of war 3rd Sept 1939. Leaflets.
Loaded up A/C day before. Work Out details flight & route.
YORK across North Sea & DENMARK. Turn in via KIEL CANAL. OVER GERMANY TURN SOUTH INTO RHUR [sic] HEIGHT 12,000 SEARCH LIGHTS IN VIEW NO SIGN OF FIGHTERS
*LEAFLETS OUT* STARBOARD ENGINE OVERHEATING THROTTLE BACK TO COOL CHECK RADIATORS RAN FOR ½ HOUR AT LOWER TEMP LATER INCREASED AGAIN WENT ON RISING – HAD TO BE STOPPED INCREASE POWER OF PORT.
*PARACHUTE ON*
ONE HOUR TEMP RISING DANGEROUSLY HIGH – DECIDED BALE OUT OR FORCE LAND [deleted]ENGINE HAD TO BE STOPPED[/deleted] OR USED TO LAND
[page break]
2.
GROUND MIST – GETTING LIGHT USED LAST OF ENGINE POWER FOR LANDING BEFORE GOING ON FIRE.
FRENCH GATHERED ROUND A/C GERMAN LEAFLETS SCATTERED PITCH FORKS STICKS STONES CARTED OFF TO GATHERED UP BY ARMY. POLICE HOUSED IN OLD BARN – STRAW DOCUMENTS SECURITY 3 DAYS LATER DH116 FLY LONDON FLYING BOOTS NO HAT LIFT ON MOTOR CYCLE ISSUED RAIL WARRANT BACK TO BASE
[page break]
3.
1) FIRST RAID OF WAR 3 SEPT 1939
2) ENGINE FAILURE FORCED LANDING AMIEN[sic]
3) RETURN BOAC 2 DAYS LATER
4) CONVOY PATROLS WEST OF FRANCE
5) 1940 MINE LAYING CHANNEL KEIL CANAL
6) APRIL NORWAY (PAGE 1) STAVANGER
7) APRIL NORWAY OSLO
8) MAY HOLLAND & GERMANY DESCRIBE PREPARATION FOR RAID
9) JUNE [underlined] ITALY[/underlined] – TURIN ENGINE ICING UP 8 HOURS LIGHTNING – [indecipherable word] OF ICE ST ELMO FIRE PARACHUTES ON
10) JUNE FRANCE 3 – 5 HOURS RECALLED FORCE LANDED GERMANY 6 HOURS TRAINING SCOTLAND
[page break]
4.
11) TO 207 SQUADRON
APRIL 43 DUSSELDORF BOCHUM
JUNE FREIDRICKSHAVER [sic] 9.45 LANDED BLIDA N/AFRICA
JUNE BLIDA TO BASE VIA SPEZIA BOMBS
26 JUNE GELSENKIRKEN [sic] SHOT UP FORCED LANDED COLTISHALL
JUNE 43 BERLIN LEIPZIG GLADBACH [sic]
AUGUST SEPT OCT NOV INVASION PORTS
DEC 43 PARIS FRANCE ANTWERP VISITED SUB PENS
FEB 44 BERLIN LEIPZIG
MARCH SUB PENS “V” SITES
JUNE 45 RHUR[sic] MUNSTER DUSSELDORF
AUG 45 NORTH LUFFENHAM TRAINING
NOV 46 POSTED 91 GROUP MORTON HALL 5 GROUP
5.
9 AUG 48 TO TERNHILL
20 AUG 53 TO 202 SQUADRON ALDERGROVE HASTINGS AIRCRAFT
26 AUG TESTING FOR RUSSIAN ATOM BOMB CLOUDS CAPTAIN FAILURE FORCED LANDED
NOV 53 MARITIME TRAINING ST MAWGAN LANCASTERS
JAN 54 220 SQUADRON ST EVAL SHACKLETON
MAR 54 236 OUT KINLOSS SHACKLETON
JUNE 54 224 SQUADRON GIBRALTAR SHACKLETON
FEB 55 GIBRALTAR EXERCISE FORCED LANDED MALTA
[page break]
6.
10 FEB 55 GIBRALTAR FORCED LAND IN MALTA
16 AUG 55 GIB TO EL ADAM – ENGINE 1 U/S 5.06
18 AUG 55 EL ADAM MAURIPUR
19 AUG 55 MAURIPUR NEGOMBO
6 SEPT NEGOMBO POONA 5.30
8 SEPT POONA MAURIPUR 3.00
9 SEPT MAURIPUR HABBANIYA [sic] 6.30
10 SEPT HABBANIYA[sic] – IDRIS 7.45
11 SEPT IDRIS – GIBRALTAR 6.30
11 DEC 55 MADEIRA – AZORES EXERCISE TWO A/C MISSING AFTER HEARING RADIO
14 MAY 56 FLYING IN SUNDERLAND FROM PEMBROKE DOCK TO GIBRALTAR
15 OCT 56 AT LUQA MALTA HYDRAULIC FAILURE
15 NOV 56 S/L FLOOD LANDING GIB WIPED TAIL WHEEL ON RUNWAY THRESHOLD
OCT 57 POSTED VAMPIRE TRAINING WORKSOP
[page break]
7.
1954 ALGERIA EARTHQUAKE
1955 SUEZ UPSET
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Mitchell - notes for memoire
Description
An account of the resource
Notes describing first leaflet sortie, problems with starboard engine, forced landing and activities in France and return to England. Then moves on to 207 Squadron and lists operations and flying after finishing second tour and post war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J E F Mitchell
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMitchellJEF550261-160125-03
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kiel Canal
Norway
Norway--Stavanger
Norway--Oslo
Netherlands
Italy
Italy--Turin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Algeria
Algeria--Blida
Italy
Italy--La Spezia
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
France
France--Paris
Belgium
Belgium--Antwerp
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
North Africa
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
1940
1940-04
1940-05
1940-06
1943-04
1943-06
1943-08
1943-09
1943-10
1943-11
1943-12
1944-02
1944-03
1945-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
207 Squadron
bombing
forced landing
mine laying
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/356/5776/LFirthJB1850441v10001.2.pdf
a2137d5c93c3996f27821f2f91c5393c
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
Firth, John
John Firth
J B Firth
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer John Bernard Firth (1924-2016, 1850441 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a home-made prisoner of war Christmas card, and seven photographs. John Firth was a flight engineer with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe June to August 1944. He was shot down in August 1944 on his 20th operation and became a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft 7.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Firth and catalogued by and Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Firth, JB
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Firth's navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal
Format
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one booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
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LFirthJB1850441v10001
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book for Sergeant John Firth from 31 March 1944 to 7 August 1944. Detailing training and operations flown. Served at RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Skellingthorpe. Aircraft flown were Stirling and Lancaster. He carried out a total of 19 operations as a flight engineer with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe on the following targets in France and Germany: Bois de Casson, Cahagnes (Normandy), Gelsenkirchen, Givors, Joigny, Kiel, Limoges, Prouville (Pas de Calais), Revigny sur Ornain, Secrueville, St Cyr (Paris), St Leu d’Esserent, Stuttgart, Thivergny, Trossy le Maximim, Vitry le Francois. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Palandri. The log book ends with a last operation to Secrueville and the word ‘missing’.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Germany
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Normandy
France--Paris
France--Creil
France--Givors
France--Joigny
France--Limoges
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Vitry-le-François
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
1944-04
1944-05
1944-06
1944-07
1944-08
1944-06-19
1944-06-20
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-07
1944-07-08
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1654 HCU
50 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of the Creil/St Leu d’Esserent V-1 storage areas (4/5 July 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
missing in action
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1005/10746/AColbeckJC170524.1.mp3
523a16a235ce2e945b8a2efc683102c5
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
Wenham, John
J Wenham
Description
An account of the resource
46 items. An oral history interview with Joy Colbeck (b. 1923) about her brother John Wenham (1925 - 1945, 1894709 Royal Air Force) documents and a family photograph album. He flew as an air gunner but was killed in a training accident 4 January 1945. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Joy Colbeck and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. <br /><br />Additional information on John Wenham is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/124831/ ">IBCC Losses Database.</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
2017-05-24
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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Wenham, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name Is Chris Brockbank and today is the 24th of May 2017 and I am in Luton with Joy Colbeck and we’re going to talk about initially Joy’s experience in the war in the Royal Navy as a Wren but principally we’re talking about the experience of her younger brother who was killed on a training flight in the RAF and, in a crash near North Marston near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. So, Joy, what are your earliest recollections of early life?
JC: Well, I think it was recollections were moving house. I remember the house I was born in and my brother was born in. When we were about six or seven we moved to the next road to a slightly bigger house.
CB: In Maidstone.
JC: In Maidstone. All the time my father was a second in command in the grocery shop to Mr Henry Topley, his partner. And my father was, ran the business by his hard work. Mr Topley used to wear a top hat, stand outside and take the customers to the pay desk etcetera but, but my father was the one who drove the van, and he went to all the biggest houses in our part of Kent. Castles. Boarding schools. Had to pick, to pick up the orders from the cookhouse keepers, take them back to the shop, and a fortnight later my father would drive the van and deliver them back to the big houses before all, all mass buying. And so my brother, my brother never seemed to be part of this performance because he was always two years younger than me if you know what I mean. He, he took second, played second fiddle really. He [pause] I don’t remember him. He was a Boy Scout and all the way up and on, on the, we have a photograph here of his War Memorial, my brother’s death, in the Scout camp next to Guy Gibson who was a friend of Scout Master and practicing for the —
CB: The dam’s raid.
JC: The dams.
CB: Yes.
JC: On the Scout master’s lake. In his garden. But that’s beside the point but my brother was, he did it. He, my brother for some reason and we never know, we never got to the end he, he could not read. Now, we find this, I find this extremely difficult. He was [pause] I had left school and had been to secretarial college and was working at County Hall when my brother left school, because the school became a hospital and we were in a war zone. Whatever’s the word. Not war zone, is it? It was [pause] that we were in, it was, yeah, I suppose you’d say it was a war zone in England really, and was treated as such. My father was the chief air raid warden so he knew what was going on. And my brother just got on his bicycle and followed every Spitfire that was shot down and every German plane that was shot down. That was his whole interest in life that I remember. When I used to come home from work we used to say, ‘What have you got hold of today?’ And it was a bit of plastic or something which they all sat down, this little group of boys and made a little cottage out of the, out of the plastic windows. And he didn’t have a lot of friends and when, when his school closed my mother was so worried. He was in elementary school. He couldn’t pass any grammar school at all. And his reading and writing was extremely bad, but of course nobody took much notice of it and we wondered if he was dyslexic would he have been discovered by the RAF? How on earth did he become a bomber when he couldn’t read when he was thirteen?
CB: Extraordinary.
JC: I don’t know. Nobody ever mentions it. But he was, he was a nice boy. He was a lovely boy. People liked him but he, he didn’t shine. He didn’t shine at anything. So when he left school it would have been [pause] 1941 I suppose. I was seventeen in 1941. ’42, the school would have closed and my mother just had a tutor for him and my father got him a job in the brewery next to the shop, the grocery shop. Style and Winch’s brewery. And he worked in the lab washing bottles I suppose. But I don’t know. I’ve got a big gap because I wasn’t there.
CB: So, at seventeen what did you do?
JC: At seventeen I volunteered for the Wrens.
CB: Right.
JC: I left my job at County Hall and was supposed to go in the Wrens with my best friend who as soon as we got to London said she didn’t want to go and she became a Land Girl and I became a Wren. And they put me, I had no preliminary war training whatsoever. They sent me a letter saying, and a railway ticket to report to [pause] I was just going to say Paddington. It wasn’t Paddington. To the, to go to Lowestoft to report to HMS Minos as a writer to the captain. A writer meaning a shorthand typist but the rank is writer [pause] and I wasn’t welcomed. I was the first Wren and they didn’t want me because they were regular sailors. They weren’t service, there was no conscription in to the Navy at that time so they didn’t really want the Wrens but they got them. And so by the time I would get home on a weekend’s leave all the way by train across London and back by train down to Kent there wasn’t much left of a forty eight Wren’s pass getting there, and I didn’t see a lot of my brother. All I got was that he was working at Style and Winches. He was doing quite well in, in the brewery section and the next thing was that he had volunteered. He volunteered. He wasn’t conscripted. Volunteered for the RAF. And I think I only saw him two or three times after that. I, I’m trying to think how many times I saw him back. Not a lot.
[telephone ringing]
CB: I’ll just stop there.
[recording paused]
JC: And of course then we got, we got, I got shifted from up in Norfolk back down in to London to HMS Pembroke which is all the Wrens working in London. Whitehall. And I stayed there until I went to Westcliff on Sea which was a holding base for sailors waiting for Dunkirk, not Dunkirk, for D-Day. But I spent nearly two years in London.
CB: What were you doing in London?
[pause]
CB: What were you doing in London?
JC: Well, I just worked in in offices. Office job. And —
CB: Secretarial.
JC: I also, I did one interesting thing. I, because I had worked very hard on the setting up this, I’d been promoted to leading Wren and I was working very hard on the setting up of this holding camp and we had a lot of rather important people on the staff there. And we, the whole of Westcliff on Sea Promenade and the roads adjacent to the Promenade were requisitioned as a block and the civilians were moved off. It was mostly holidays. Small hotels. Private hotels. So it wasn’t difficult but the whole lot moved off and we moved, the Navy moved in and there were four thousand sailors and about four hundred Wrens.
Other: You had your choice ma.
JC: And then I worked very hard. Very, very hard because I worked for a wonderful woman called First Officer Bowen-Jones who was quite a high up ranking officer in the Wrens and she used to push, give me lots of difficult jobs to do. And one day she called me in and she said, ‘You’ve worked very hard. I want to send you on special duties.’ And she said, she’d got a lovely smile and she said, ‘You’re going to, maybe you’ll go with Churchill on one of his ventures abroad, to one of the conferences.’ She said, ‘Go and enjoy it. Report tomorrow to the Admiralty.’ When I got to the Admiralty it was a busy, busy, busy office full of American officers and British Naval officers from all over the world. And they were all [pause] well they would sort of shuffle up. We went on the back of a Land Rover from our billets in in [pause] oh, it was a long time ago. I’ll tell you in a minute. But we assembled at 6 o’clock in our billets. We were taken by Army car to the Admiralty. They had been working all day long deciding which way they’d go. Who’d go, who went and who didn’t. And as soon as we got there at 6 o’clock in the evening, it would be about seven we got there we started and we typed all that the, you know the ships and Naval officers had learned during the day. We typed it during the night on stencils on [reniers], and then we ran them off and we did that for six weeks and we had no time off. And then we were sent back to our posts and told to keep quiet. Not to say where we’d been. Not even to our officers. And we had done the invasion of Sicily and Italy, but in fact we didn’t know it was Sicily and Italy because we didn’t know and they didn’t tell us they were going to go to Italy. They just gave us a map reference along the, along the garden and up the stairs on the, on the grids. It was all done on the grid. And it’s all boring. There you are.
CB: Right. We’ll just take a break.
[recording paused]
JC: You mean one of the AGs ones.
CB: Now, we’re just going to recap quickly on yourself because you had two interesting experiences. One, Joy early on, one experience you had early on was in Lowestoft.
JC: That’s it.
CB: What happened there?
JC: What happened there? It was a Tuesday.
CB: Yeah.
JC: I had every Tuesday off. Worked the rest of the six days. In the mornings we did our washing and sewed on our buttons, etcetera. Well, about half past one the girls, we were, we were billeted in a private hotel in the attic. There were two rooms in the attic either side of the stairs and three of them were occupied over the stairs. They didn’t work, they worked in HMS Minos 2 which was a holding base. I worked in HMS 1, which was a minesweeper base, active service. So, they knocked on the door and said, ‘Are you coming down in to Yeovil, err into Lowestoft for a cup of tea at Waller’s Restaurant because they have cream buns. So I said, ‘Yes. I think so.’ So, they said, ‘Pick you up in half an hour.’ Half an hour later it was snowing. I said, ‘I think I’ve got a cold coming and it means walking both ways to Lowestoft in the snow. I’m not coming.’ And they said, ‘Ok. We’ll go without you.’ I’d been, I decided to have a bath. I was in the bath when the claxon went. We had no air raid warning. The claxon went. Out in the garden. Get in the shelters. Hit and run raids. So we, we just went. Ran down the stairs, out the back door, got in. We’d only just got in the air raid shelter when there was the most enormous explosion and about, we just didn’t know anything about it. About half an hour later the Wren officer on duty said, ‘Wren Wenham,’ that was me, ‘Back to duty.’ So I got dressed in to my uniform and walked in to Lowestoft and the whole of Lowestoft High Street was flattened. And I’ve got a picture. I, I don’t know.
[pause]
CB: Ok. Well, we’ll look at the pictures in a minute.
JC: No, we don’t. Here it is. Here’s my whatnot.
CB: Oh, report.
Other: Yes.
JC: There they are. Digging up twenty years later.
CB: Right.
JC: But, and I went into my office and the captain said that we had to stay on duty because the bomb had fallen on the main supply department and all, all my three, and it had fallen on Waller’s Restaurant next to the Naval supply because we were all in the High Street. So bang on Waller’s and every one, I think there were, seventy were killed. So, I lost my three friends. That was, that was number one.
CB: Right. Very hard.
JC: About three weeks later I was.
CB: This was 1941.
JC: About three weeks later I was machine gunned with two other Wrens walking to our quarters along the cliffs at Lowestoft. We just got down in the, in the whatnot. You had no warnings. So, that was two. I can’t think what the third one was.
CB: Right. So, if we go now towards the end of the war there were the V-1s and V-2s. So what experience did you have?
JC: Oh yes. That was dreadful.
CB: That’s in London.
JC: I, I was, I was at Westcliff. HMS Westcliff. After D-Day they began to get rid of, the numbers went down and the places were closed. We were just a closure. In August, in August 1944 I was promoted to chief, to Wren petty officer and it meant that I had to be moved because there was no, no requirement for a petty officer in there. So I was sent to the Royal Marines at Burnham on Crouch on a single posting as petty, just as what would be called secretary to the Marine’s officers because they had a big Court of Enquiry of, of, to do with the firing of an officer. And I had to go every day and take down in shorthand the doings of the court. I don’t know whether I made a very good job of it because nobody then was interested in, in talking slowly or [laughs] even knowing how to put questions. It was very difficult. And so there I was down in Burnham on Crouch, and every Sunday morning all the Royal Marines assembled outside of the Burnham Yacht Club for Sunday morning divisions. In the middle of the second, second hymn we got this colossal blowing, and we were all flattened on to the roads. Yeah. Onto the ground. Nobody was hit. The thing, the thing exploded up in the air, away up in the air and if it hadn’t exploded we wouldn’t probably have been here I suppose. But that was the third time that and after that I couldn’t sleep. And my posting came to an end and I went to the Royal Naval College at, hospital at Chatham and I was turned out. My husband came to tell me and [pause] I was still packing up my belongings when he came back again and told me that John had died. And —
CB: This is January 1944. Your brother John.
JC: Yes. And my father had phoned my husband who was on duty and he’d been to see the captain who gave him permission to come to Burnham because there was, it was the back of beyond to tell me and take me home. And I went home and, and it was awful really when I got home because my mother and [pause] when, when I was two and a half years old I had double pneumonia, and there was no hospital. I was just, my mother cared for me. My brother was eight months old and John went to stay with my father’s sister for [pause] I’ve no idea but he was certainly away from home for three months. So my mother couldn’t see him. There was, it was a real break and —
[doorbell]
JC: It was a real break. Not very nice I suppose. I don’t know how my mother would have coped to have her baby boy taken away from her. She had to look after me at home. I had pneumonia. Pneumonia for six weeks and my father took me out on my first walk and I cried so much that he kept on walking rather than take me home, and the next day I had pneumonia again. So that, so my brother still stayed with, with Auntie May and she features in this book. So he had a real break in his parenting. I don’t suppose it would have been a very quick cut off when I had pneumonia. I mean the doctor would have come. Our doctor, he came on a horse, on a horse, horseback. Privately. And, and my father took my brother in the van and off he went. So I don’t know what effect that would have had on my brother. It must have broken my mother’s heart I think. She was a wonderful mother wasn’t she?
Other: She was a lovely lady.
JC: Lovely woman.
CB: You said, you said your brother John had difficulty with reading.
JC: Yes.
CB: Did that get linked with that experience?
JC: I don’t know. Of course, he was only eight months old. I don’t [pause] that’s the only time. I know that it was snowing and there was no ambulances available. The doctor and the, and the vicar spent three nights at our house. Did their calls in between. He was very well looked after but —
CB: We’ll just stop there again.
[recording paused]
CB: These are all very important experiences to know in the background but returning to your brother John. Returning to your brother John. He joined the RAF on the 24th err the 28th of April 1943. Well, he attested then but he was only seventeen.
JC: Yes.
CB: He started, according to the records we’ve looked at, at Number 19 ITW on the 5th of February 1944 and shortly after that he was admitted to hospital and then he was temporarily discharged and put into hospital again. He then went to a different Initial Training Wing on the 24th of April 1944 and according to the records he then had been identified as an air gunner and you mentioned his difficulty with reading and so on and it may be that that had some bearing on the selection.
JC: Yes.
CB: Of his position in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
CB: He then went to Number 1 Air Gunnery School on the 1st of July ’44 and from there in October, the 19th of October 1944 he went to 11 OTU, Operational Training Unit which was at Westcott. Which is the point of our story.
JC: Yes.
CB: And then he was killed in the crash on the 4th.
JC: Yes.
CB: Of January 1945.
JC: Yes.
CB: So my question there is that as you were in the Navy and busy and had little opportunity of finding out what was going on, what do you understand about what he was doing and what your parents knew? What did your —
JC: You mean while he was still training?
CB: While he was in the RAF.
JC: I don’t know. You see it was such a different life. Everybody’s son was in, in the Army, The Navy or the Air Force all of the way around him. If, if you weren’t, if you weren’t in the Forces there was something funny with you and I suppose you had to, I suppose you had to accept that your son or your daughter would go off into the Army. And, take my father, he’d spent four years of his, six years of his youth, of his young life not his youth because he married during his service but they’d all experienced Army life. So it was nothing different in a way. And I think they would have accepted what was going on. That he would join. He would join up but whether they would have ever accepted that he was going to be in the Air Force I don’t know.
CB: Why did he join the RAF?
JC: Why did he join the RAF?
CB: And not the Army or the Navy.
JC: I have no idea. I have no idea.
CB: And did you have any, you saw him rarely but did you have any conversations with him?
JC: No.
CB: About his service.
JC: No. No. I had no, you see I saw so little of him. I wouldn’t like to say how many times I saw him. Definitely not during the previous year to his death did I. I was going to. I told you, it’s in my husband’s diary we were going, I was going to take my husband home to meet my parents on a weekend leave because my husband had, we were already engaged but we were going to go home. Became engaged on my twenty first birthday and so [pause] I, when it came to, it’s just written in some, about the middle of October, November we were going to, my husband was coming to spend the weekend with, and would have slept in my brother’s bed and I was going to join them and I was hit by this bomb, V-2 bomber thing. So I was in [laughs] I couldn’t go to Maidstone. So my husband went by myself to meet my parents.
CB: For the first time.
JC: I think he’d met my mother because he came, he came to my mother at Southend on my twenty first birthday when I was in sick bay for a different reason, and they had given me [pause] He had produced my engagement ring while I was in bed covered in, I had a series of boils, awful things all the way around my neck and I’d had them for about a year, and they were trying to do what they could to get rid of it in the sickbay. But they couldn’t and I was swathed up in all these bandages and my mother came on the train to celebrate my birthday and she met Gerry there and he gave me my engagement ring. There it is. There we are.
CB: Very nice. Yes.
JC: And [pause] so it was, it was so natural in a way. It was happening all the way around him.
CB: And people didn’t talk about what they did in the Forces.
JC: They didn’t talk about it.
CB: They weren’t allowed to, and they didn’t want to.
JC: And they weren’t allowed to. They didn’t have the time. They were so worn out. My father was head of the ARP and they met, we were about the only people who got an air raid, a decent air raid shelter, and we had it because our next door neighbour’s brother built the new County Hall. He was a big builder, and while he was building the big County Hall he dug the hole with his digger of our, of our air raid shelter and he built us a double deck, double brick air raid shelter in our, half in their garden, half in ours. Two doors. We were very posh. We had radio and we had electricity and, but my father came home from work he, we were, we were down there. We, we put our pyjamas on as soon as we came home from work and we went straight down and we had our tea down in the air raid shelter. My mother, of course women didn’t work so my mother, my mother looked after my father and all the people who worked for him. And as soon as my father had had his tea he became the air raid warden. So I mean he didn’t talk about, we didn’t talk about family.
Other: I think the horrors were so bad as well.
JC: Yes.
Other: People didn’t want to dwell on them.
JC: They didn’t want to. They used to say —
Other: They wanted a change in their lives.
JC: My, my brother’s friends, four boys came to Maidstone in 1939 when his father built the A20. Not the M20. The A20 over, over the hill, down into the Weald of Kent and he bought these, his four sons all at school. And my father saw the for sale notice on the house and investigated who was moving in. Met them and said, ‘I’ll be your grocer. I’ll take your cards from you.’
CB: Ration cards.
JC: The [Riccomini] family. I’d love to know what happened to the [Riccomini] boys because as far as I know only the eldest one, who had a cleft palate survived and I think my brother was, was very friendly with the second boy called Geoffrey. And I don’t know what the other two were and I wouldn’t have met them anyway but Geoffrey used to come and play in our garden, and was the same age as my brother. And to think that they could, my father knew the mother and parents. To think that he knew that there was a family losing three and his was one. It was—
Other: I see what you’re saying.
JC: I’m sorry.
CB: Very difficult.
JC: We’re getting off, aren’t we?
CB: Well, it doesn’t matter because the point in the background there is Maidstone is in the front line.
JC: Yes.
CB: Effectively closest almost —
JC: It was.
CB: To the continent.
Other: Well, it’s about —
CB: So to what extent did you suffer air raids there?
Other: [laughs] She was hit by one.
JC: Well, we didn’t really suffer any real damage but we did have an unexploded bomb come through the roof of our detached house and my mother ran. Obviously, it was in the middle of the afternoon. There were no men. My mother, when the men came home from work ran to the ARP post, and said that there was a hole in the roof and they sent, they sent a man, an ARP man to investigate and he went up inside the house on a ladder and he got stuck in the hole. In the, in the, he was a big fat man and he got stuck.
CB: In the loft hatch.
JC: And [laughs] he became [laughs] didn’t he? All our children remembered the second world war was the man who got stuck in the hole. We had, we had behind our house was a place called Vinters Park which was a big private place and was used as a war, as a hospital in the war and their guns came over in to our garden at the back. So we were very close to the, we had every night we slept when we were there. Even when I came home on leave we slept down in the, we had six bunks in our —
CB: In your air raid shelter.
JC: Mr and Mrs Shaw didn’t have any children so there was my mother and brother. We mostly played cards and sent the money to the Red Cross. But we don’t, I don’t remember that we talked about people who’d died that day.
CB: What about these, these were anti-aircraft guns.
JC: The?
CB: Anti-aircraft guns you are talking about are you?
JC: We didn’t meet them.
CB: No. You had anti-aircraft guns next to you.
JC: They were over the field.
CB: Right.
JC: In Vinters Park, and they came over. The men didn’t come into our garden but in 19 — before I joined the Wrens, that was July ’41 Detling Aerodrome which was a mile from our house was bombed by the RAF and obliterated.
CB: By the Germans.
JC: And my father was on duty that night at the top of the road called the Chiltern Hundreds, the public house and he, he had the road closed and they wouldn’t allow anybody to come over the road. Well, about 11 o’clock that night he, my father brought two men to our house. They were soldiers. They were men from the Royal Air Force Defence Regiment. It wasn’t a very, it wasn’t an active, it was [pause] then anyway, they’d come back from a day, they’d come back from holiday leave to find they’d no air, no, no air base left. Not allowed up on the road. My father brought them home and they slept upstairs in my father’s bed that night, and the next morning they went back on duty. And the following night they came and knocked, morning they came and knocked on the door and said, ‘Can we, can we please come and sleep again because we’re frightened.’ And my father said they looked it. And they came for about three weeks and my father said, ‘Yes. You can come and you can sleep in a bedroom in the house in the daytime and you’re to help the men dig the hole and finish off the air raid shelter.’ So these men built our air raid shelter. And that was the only contact we had with, with soldiers.
CB: Yeah.
JC: But they were all the way around us. So my brother must, my brother was down in that air raid shelter every night. Had to be. And they weren’t allowed, boys they weren’t allowed to go off to the cinema in the evening. I mean, you didn’t go out. You went in to the air raid shelter. And what he did I don’t know, apart from the fact that after I left probably somebody else came and borrowed a bed for the night. Any vacant bed was taken up and it was, it was busy. It was really, really busy.
CB: We’ll take a break there.
[recording paused]
JC: My husband.
Other: Just one second.
CB: Right. So where did you meet your husband?
JC: At the Royal Palace Ballroom, Southend on Sea. And it was, I’d been in the Navy then for, I met him on the 28th of April 1944, Saturday night. And it was only the second dance I had been to in the whole of the war and the whole of my service. We seemed to spend all our time working. And so I met my husband at the dance and he asked me for a dance, and I met him then. And he was, he had just arrived at HMS Westcliff. I had been there already since, I think the 4th of September 1942. So I had been there nearly two years. My husband was a year younger than me.
CB: And what did he do? What was he?
JC: He was, he was, he was a sub lieutenant in the Naval Coastal Forces. He tried to be in the RAF VR but he failed one of his. I don’t know which one it was, but he failed one of his tests.
CB: And when were you married?
JC: 31st of March 1945.
CB: Right.
JC: And that was arranged before my brother died and we hadn’t told my brother. That would all have been, I don’t know if, well I suppose of course my husband would have told his future brother in law that wouldn’t he? So my brother must have known, but we didn’t send many letters. I can honestly, I can’t remember sending many letters.
CB: So —
JC: We didn’t send many. Didn’t send many [laughs] we sent food parcels to each other [laughs] but we didn’t send much else.
CB: We’ve talked about the fact that what your brother John was doing that your parents didn’t seem to know about it.
JC: Yes.
CB: And you certainly didn’t know.
JC: No. I didn’t know.
CB: So, how was it that you learned about your brother John’s death?
[pause]
JC: But what I learned, I arrived home with my husband on the 6th. Let’s see. Yes. It took, it took twenty four hours for the news to get through to my husband so that would have been the 5th of January. And we travelled back. There was no over, no trains out of Burnham on Crouch in the evening so it was morning of January the 6th that we got the train to Maidstone. And my mother was sitting there with her sister in law, Auntie May who’d brought John up as a baby, and they were just sitting there on the settee next to each other. They didn’t, they didn’t even seem to talk. It was absolutely unbelief on their, on their face that this could really have happened.
CB: Then what?
JC: Hmm?
CB: So you got there and saw mother and aunt.
JC: Saw mother and aunt and then all the, all the family and friends came up. I had to, my husband had to go back the next day. They wouldn’t give him any more leave. I had. I was given seven days, because by this time I was already on, I’d already been shifted to the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham for despatch. And it was the old Naval physical standard.
CB: So, when your parents knew about your brother’s death, Joy —
JC: Pardon?
CB: When your parents knew about your brother’s death.
JC: Yes.
CB: What happened next?
JC: Well, we heard that, my father got on the phone to the, to the vicar in Buckinghamshire and asked him to find out some news. This young curate, eighteen, nineteen, no he would be about twenty. Twenty years old. He went to Westcott and requested an interview and was told, they said they wanted a letter. Well, actually my parents were very happy when they got this letter which is dated the 9th of January. But what they didn’t know was that every one of that, every one of the aircrew got the same letter. I mean actually lettered the same letter. I mean this must have been the standard letter one or two because we’ve seen it mentioned in the New Zealand papers. So, my father, all the other members of the crew, the five members were buried at Westcott.
CB: At Botley.
JC: Nearby. My father arranged, my father was church warden of our church and he arranged that my brother would have [pause] my brother would be buried at, from the funeral in his own church. My parents were Christian. Church of England. I’d say fairly strict Christian people but were very good people. Very, very good people. They, all the way through the war they entertained next to the church. Our family church was the Kent Royal Regiment’s Headquarters at Sandy Lane, Maidstone and every Sunday we entertained soldiers. And these soldiers were collected at church. I think the word got around, ‘Go to church on Sunday morning and Mr and Mrs Wenham will invite you to lunch,’ because we had a procession of soldiers and my father would write letters for them, because lots of soldiers were illiterate. My father would write letters. My mother mended them their socks, knitted their things for them. So they, they were very good people. They weren’t [pause] how do you put it? I don’t think they showed their grief apart, my mother became very quiet. She, she must have talked to my father about it. She must have told to him she didn’t want to stay. And as soon as we’d married within a year they’d sold the business which was due to be, my father had always hoped that John would follow in his business but that was no longer possible. And they, they sold everything up and moved to Hastings. Although my father at that stage was only borderline retirement and he went on to work for a further twenty years, but he really didn’t know what else to do with himself.
CB: So after the, after the funeral.
JC: Yes.
CB: The funeral was in the church at Maidstone.
JC: No. No. The funeral in the church was absolutely full of people. There was standing at the back. We all went and there were six airmen who carried the hearse, and we all went by transport of some sort to the Maidstone Cemetery. The military cemetery attached to Maidstone Cemetery and we had another service at the graveside and we had the Last Post and it’s the one bit of music I cannot abide. But it was snowing. Snowing again. Afterwards we went back to my parent’s home and his close relations were there and our neighbours and people from the church and we all had afternoon tea provided by my mother. Two of the airmen came up to, to my father and said that it made life easier to know that people could be so sensible over the loss of family they, they just thought that the fact that my mother had baked all these cakes for them eased the problem. It didn’t, did it? But so they all came back and then the men, we’d no idea they, I seem to remember I didn’t speak to them an awful lot but I seem to remember that, that they weren’t close members of [pause] they weren’t colleagues. They didn’t actually know my brother. Perhaps they had a special job, ‘Your turn’s come up,’ you know.
CB: They were representing the RAF.
JC: RAF. Yeah. Representatives of the RAF.
CB: Were, were they ground crew or aircrew? Do you remember whether they were —
JC: The men? I’ve no idea. No. No idea at all. But they spent the whole afternoon and part of the evening with us. And we didn’t know. We had no idea. I think that my father must have known that the New Zealanders were involved, but apart from that I don’t think my mother and father knew anything about these airmen.
CB: The other five were buried at the —
JC: Hmm?
CB: The other five were buried at the Military Cemetery at Botley.
JC: Yes. Yes, and there are pictures.
CB: Oxford.
JC: In it. In Sue Chaplain’s book.
CB: So when did you find out details of the crash?
JC: Oh, well that was when I belonged, I joined the U3A in Luton about ten years ago, I suppose. And I joined the family history group because I’d got an awful lot of pictures and things of Maidstone and that’s my that’s —
CB: Did you —
JC: That’s Maidstone. London Road, Maidstone. Sharp’s Toffee Factory Headquarters. That was the Sports Club.
Other: That was a Sports Club.
JC: And that house was built by my great grandfather.
Other: That’s right.
CB: Now —
JC: There he is.
CB: Just —
JC: And there she is.
Other: Listen. Listen, Chris is saying something.
JC: Hmmn?
CB: Just quickly, just —
JC: Yes. So, that —
CB: You didn’t know from the end of the war, well January ’45, until ten years ago are you saying you did not know how the crash had occurred?
JC: No. No. No, it wasn’t —
CB: And —
JC: It wasn’t mentioned. And I, I believe I’m positive that my father and mother, or my father never knew that. How the plane had crashed. I think he would have talked to us, don’t you?
CB: Did, where, when your own children were born did that cause your parents to wonder how their son, your brother had died?
JC: I don’t somehow think it did. We weren’t [pause] we weren’t actually living close to them. But Christopher the oldest was born when my husband was in Germany and my husband didn’t see Chris until he was nearly eight weeks old.
CB: Right.
JC: Graham was born, and his father had just had a heart attack so myself and Christopher and baby Graham we couldn’t go back. We were, we were living with my father in law. We couldn’t go back there. We had to catch a train and go to Maidstone where my mother took over.
CB: But your parents weren’t prompted to recall.
JC: No.
CB: The death.
JC: No.
CB: Do you think they had —
JC: No.
CB: Accepted that they would never find out or they were pushing it to the back of their minds?
JC: I don’t know. I can’t think. I really can’t think what —
CB: I think we’ll have a pause there.
[recording paused]
CB: We’ve talked about your perception of your parent’s attitude and the fact that they didn’t really talk about it but when your parents moved up here to the Luton area and settled here they had pictures, family pictures in the house did they? And how did they explain that?
JC: My parents.
CB: Yes.
Other: Yeah. They didn’t.
JC: My parents never lived in Luton.
Other: Luton.
CB: Oh, they didn’t.
Other: No. We lived together.
CB: No.
Other: We lived together after my parents, my grandparents moved to Hastings. My father my mother and us moved to Somerset to his parents and we were born and brought up in Somerset. So they never lived, we lived together.
CB: Ok.
Other: In Somerset. My grandparents then moved to Somerset so the whole family were in Somerset.
CB: Ok. So, I’m trying to focus on the pictures that your, your parents, Joy had in their house.
JC: Well, they had —
CB: They had pictures of your brother.
JC: My mother’s, my mother’s brother in law, her eldest sister’s husband was a photographer. A private. Made his own, hung his own things across the —
CB: For drying them.
Other: Plates.
JC: The negatives. And developed his own, and this was my mother’s and she had another one and she was very proud of the fact that they were always taking photographs and putting them in this book.
CB: But what I meant was in the house.
JC: In the house.
CB: Did they have pictures and how did they explain?
JC: Yes. Inside the house you mean.
CB: Yes. And what, how did they explain the picture of your brother?
JC: I don’t, I don’t think they needed to explain because —
CB: If they were asked.
JC: Because my brother was so much a part of, of the tight little family that there was then in Maidstone.
CB: Yes.
JC: That we all attended all the family dos. My father wasn’t very happy about it because they would drink, and they would have a singsong around the, around the, around the piano but my father wasn’t very keen on that and neither was my mother. But we all met together and I think my father was, you would describe him as the steady one of the family wouldn’t you? He was the one who, who worked hard and bought his own house.
CB: Yes.
JC: And he bought his sister a house because she was a complete invalid and any family trouble they went to my father, and my brother grew up in that. They didn’t have to talk about him because he was part of it.
CB: Yes. I’ve got that. What I was trying to get at was after the war.
JC: Yeah.
CB: After the war.
JC: After the war.
CB: There would be pictures in the house and your children —
JC: There was always a picture of my brother.
CB: Yes.
JC: Yes. There isn’t one in my house because I decided that that we’ve always got our poppy and we always talk about him but I, we’ve got three great grandsons. Nine, twelve and twelve. And although they came to, they were there at, at the parish meeting. You know. The church.
CB: In North Marston. Yes.
JC: They came to them all but I was, I was delighted. The two didn’t come up from Bath because it was a long way. No, but my, Sue’s daughter brought Woody who is now twelve. He came and he was a good boy. He enjoyed it and he, he, you know, took part. But apart from that I think on the whole that we, we don’t talk about it but they all have four of these books.
CB: Yes.
JC: This is the first book one. And then each one. We did it because in 1986 my husband had to leave the Civil Service because he was a driving examiner and he was injured in three work accidents.
CB: Right.
JC: And couldn’t, couldn’t undertake doing eight or nine emergency stops every, every day.
CB: Yeah.
JC: And he worked for Brian’s family and, but we, we, I was having to make the decision to carry on working.
CB: Yeah.
JC: Because otherwise we, you know we couldn’t manage to pay the mortgage etcetera and it was, it was [pause] oh, I don’t quite know how you would explain it but we felt a bit as if we were the bottom of the pile. All our children were successful. They were all running their own businesses except for Richard in Canada who worked in a furniture store. But all the rest were very successful and we felt that our grandchildren were growing up thinking of us as these were poor relations down the bottom. We didn’t have this and we didn’t have that, you know. We didn’t have lots of things. And so I sat down not thinking in, in 1986, three weeks before Christmas I wrote that book in my lunch hour at work.
CB: Right.
JC: Straight on to the typewriter. Straight on to the photocopier.
CB: Yeah.
JC: At the Post Office.
CB: Right.
JC: We had no other equipment. And it was to try and show them that we didn’t all have all these wonderful trips to America. One of them had been off in Concorde. That we didn’t live that way.
CB: No.
JC: Ours had been a wartime struggle.
CB: Indeed.
JC: And of course there’s that, part of my book was about telling them about my brother.
CB: Right.
JC: So we, we put it in to print for them.
CB: Yes.
JC: And they’ve still got that book.
CB: Right.
Other: Treasure it.
CB: A real treasure.
JC: Reduce them by half.
Other: It’s lovely. A lovely book to read.
CB: Yes. So the reason I asked the question was because so many people after the war, veterans didn’t talk.
JC: No.
CB: About their experiences.
JC: No. True.
CB: And what happens is that grandchildren, children of the children, children don’t, direct children often don’t get the information but the grandchildren sometimes —
JC: Yes.
CB: Elicit the story from their grandparents. So that’s why I was asking about the picture.
JC: Every one of our grandchildren has taken that book to school, haven’t they?
Other: Yeah.
JC: And it’s as I say it’s only half this size.
CB: Yes.
JC: It’s —
CB: It’s A5 size.
JC: A5.
CB: Yeah.
JC: And they still produce it and on occasions and they take, all of them all of them have taken them into school and we heard from the teachers how helpful it’s been.
Other: Helpful.
JC: And Woody’s family, when he was leaving junior, infants [pause] Junior School to go to a Senior Academy they did turning Luton into wartime as an event.
CB: Did they really?
JC: With an evacuee section.
CB: Amazing.
JC: And he used to, he took our book, and they wrote a book for me. His class. Telling me about —
CB: About Luton.
JC: About what they knew about. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. It was a catalyst for wider.
JC: It’s been a real. I wish everyone would do it.
CB: Yeah.
JC: And it did help me. It did help me through going through the U3A. We had a wonderful tutor and she told us, I told her that I had got in the back of my book here the obituaries of my great grandfather, Mr Joe. And my husband’s great grandfather who was a wool merchant. A scrimmage man. And we got them printed from the paper and I showed them to her and in my husband’s book it said that Mr Colbeck’s background were mostly public ministers in the Methodist Church, but one of his great grandfathers fought at Waterloo. So she said to me, ‘Send your money to the Waterloo Society. Three pounds.’ I waited nearly six months for an answer.
CB: Did you?
JC: And the Waterloo Society Man said, ‘We’ve had a reply. Somebody would like to meet you.’ So I said, ‘Well, can I have their number?’ ‘No.’ she said ‘But you, can we give her your number?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And so I met my husband’s cousin. No. Yes. My husband’s second cousin. A lady in Lancashire where the family came from. Or Yorkshire. And they invited me to meet the family and I was the only relative left and it was incredible.
CB: Extraordinary.
JC: I don’t know. I can’t see that we can be any interest. Any, we haven’t got anything to tell anyone have we?
CB: People are very curious about their history.
JC: Pardon?
CB: People are very curious.
JC: Do you think so?
CB: About their history. Well, that’s why some —
JC: They are?
CB: Well, on the television there are two programmes based on finding out your history.
JC: Yes.
CB: Anyway, I think we’ll stop there. Thank you very much indeed, Joy.
JC: Yes.
CB: For a most interesting interview.
JC: Yes.
CB: To do with —
JC: Yes
CB: The air crash of John Wenham.
JC: Yes.
CB: And the loss of his life.
JC: Yes.
CB: In North Marston.
JC: Yes.
CB: In January 1945.
JC: You’ve got all the rest. It’s wonderful.
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 Joy Colbeck
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-24
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AColbeckJC170524
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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01:17:58 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Navy
Description
An account of the resource
Joy Colbeck was born in Maidstone, Kent and served within the Women’s Royal Naval Service during the war. Her brother, John, joined the RAF on the 28 of April 1943, qualified at as an air gunner in April 1944, before being transferred to an Operational Training Unit in October 1944 at RAF Westcot. It was here that he, along with the rest of his crew, crashed during a training exercise in January 1945. Joy goes on to explain that she doesn’t believe this affected her family very much, although she does state that people do not recall the war often, likely as they want to forget the experiences they had during it. Joy recounts several experiences of her own during the war, being a typewriter operator after volunteering at age 17. She served on board the destroyers HMS Whitehall and HMS Whitecliff, and the minesweeper HMS 01. She tells a number of anecdotes of her time during the war, including three stories of near-misses with bombs and machine guns. Joy was promoted to a petty officer before joining the Royal Marines at Bermondsey. She recalls meeting her husband during a formal dance at her naval base, but also recalls being incredibly busy during the war, an example being her husband having to meet her parents for the first time by himself as she couldn’t get the time off. Following the war, she believes that people did not talk about their experiences because they didn’t want to dwell on them and would rather move on. Joy continues to take part in memorial services, both Navy and RAF. As part of this, her mother, father, herself and her husband have all written books outlining their experiences during the war and she takes pride in her grandchildren knowing her story.
Contributor
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Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Suffolk
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
1943-04-28
1944-02-05
1944-03
1944-10
1945-01-04
11 OTU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
crash
home front
Initial Training Wing
love and romance
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Westcott
shelter
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/153/1614/AKohlerH170303.2.mp3
d2f0f472887d968b2df90cc90be0d7ad
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
Köhler, Helmut
Description
An account of the resource
The collection consists of one oral history interview with Helmut Köhler (b. 1928) who recalls his wartime experience as Luftwaffenhelfer and the breaching of the Eder dam. His recollections cover life in German bombing cities.
The collection was cataloged by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HZ: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Harry Ziegler. The interviewee is Helmut Köhler. The interviewee, the interview is taking place at Mr Köhler’s home in [omitted] Kassel on the 3 of March 2017. Also Herr Köhler, dann fangen wir mal an.
HK: Ja, also geboren wurde ich am ersten August 1928 und zwar hier in Kassel, im Rotenkreuz Krankenhaus und zwar in der Hansteinstrasse 17 haben wir gewohnt, das ist im Stadteil Wehlheiden, also nicht hier, sondern im Stadteil Wehlheiden. Und da bin ich, hab ich vier, drei Schwestern gehabt, ältere Schwestern, ich bin also nur unter Frauen gross geworden und leider ist mein Vater schon gestorben als ich knapp drei Jahre war, also 1991 ist, 1891 [?] ist schon der Vater gestorben und da war die Mutter mit vier Kindern alleine und der Vater war im Studienrat weil er einen Knieschaden hatte, desshalb ist er im Ersten Weltkrieg kein Soldat geworden, er hat also im Krieg warscheinlich einen Meniskusschaden durch Fussball haben sie gespielt und heute wär das operiert worden, aber damals konnten sie das nicht und desshalb ist er kein Soldat geworden. Und da hatt er hier in Kassel im Realgymnasium eins sein Studium, sein Abitur gemacht und hatt dann auch studiert in Marburg und zwar Geschichte als Hauptfach und hat da auch promoviert. Und a, und, er stammt also aus Gudensberg und die Vorfahren, also seine Eltern und seine Grosseltern und ich weiss nicht wie viele Generationen zurück, die hatten das Baugeschäft in Gudensberg, ein Bauunternehmen und meine Mutter, die stammt aus Rellingen bei Pinneberg in Schleswig-Holstein und die haben sich kennengelernt auf einer Hochzeit [laughs] die ein Gudensberger Freund von meinem Vater und einer Pinneberger Freundin von meiner Mutter, da waren sie beide eingeladen, haben sich kennengelernt neh und so. Na ja gut und so bin ich groß geworden praktisch ohne Vater und musste natürlich dann auch zum Gymnasium, Realgymnasium eins, das hieß damals Paul-von-Hindenburg-Schule. Und bin dann eben wie gesagt vier, fünf Jahre ganz normal zur Schule gegangen und am ersten September im ’39, Ostern bin ich dahingekommen, und im ersten September ’39 began der Krieg und da waren mit einem Schlag in einer Woche die ganzen jungen Lehrer weg und da kriegten wir die alten pensionerten Lehrer und dann waren aber zum Teil Lehrer, die mit meinem Vater zusammen an der Schule gelehrt haben [laughs], das war natürlich sehr interessant, ‚ach hier das ist der kleine Heinrich‘, neh, das war ich dann, neh. So und so sind wir dann, haben wir dann Schule gemacht war ganz normal, aber dann eben wiegesagt bis ’43 und dann wurde der Luftkrieg härter, da waren schon mehr mal Angriffe hier und dann kamen wir, als Schüler mussten wir dann Luftschutzwache machen nachts in der Schule, so fünf, sechs mit einem Lehrer zusammen, kriechten wir oben im Dachgeschoss so‘n kleines Zimmerchen mit‘em Feldbett und so haben wir den Krieg kennengelernt und in der Zeit ging dann auch in ’44, neh ’43, ging dann die Edertalsperre kaput, und das haben wir sehr gut beobachtet wie die Riesenwelle Wasser kam neh, na ja gut. [sighs] Jedenfalls, dann die Sommerferien waren rum und dann wurden wir zur Erntehilfe abkommandiert, vier Wochen mussten wir den Bauern helfen, Ernte zu machen und dann kamen wir kurz in die Schule und dann war am 22 Oktober 1943 der grosse Angriff hier. Und den habe ich in der Hansteinstrasse mitgemacht, wo ich geboren wurde. Und das war wirklich grauenhaft, also was ich da in den Keller so erlebt habe, auch die einzelnen Menschen, die da alle sassen, viel ältere Frauen und auch ein Paar Männer, ein hoher Offizier, der hier beim Generalkommando beschäftigt war der hat da immer ein bisschen beruhigt und so, also, es war schon grauenhaft, die eine Frau, die hat nur dauernd gesungen, vor lauter Anstrengung, und die andere die hat nur gebetet und so, und meine Mutter hat ganz still gesessen da, Hände gefaltet und dann gingen durch die detonierten Bomben dann gingen, flogen dann die Kellerfenster rein und dann, also er war grauenhaft. Na ja, und dann ist unser Haus nicht abgebrannt da sondern auch ein Paar Nebenhaüser und da hab ich mitgelöscht so und dann. Ja und dann waren die Schulen in Kassel alle kaputt, so und da haben wir drei Wochen, haben wir uns gefreut, hurrah die Schule brennt, uns gefreut alle, und so nach drei, vier Wochen dann haben wir dann doch bisschen im Zweifel geguckt und sind wir mal zu unser alten Schule gegangen, da war die ein riesen Trümmerhaufen aber die Kellergewölbe die waren noch da und da hatte die Schulsekretärin ihr Büro eingerichtet im Keller und da hatt‘se dann gesagt: ‘Jungs, also, Schule wird’s nicht mehr geben in Kassel’ und so war’s dann auch. Da wurden nach dem grossen Angriff, da sind ja etwa zehntausend Menschen umgekommen, und die ganze Altstadt, alles ein Trümmerhaufen, also es war grauenhaft neh und da sind die ganzen jungen Mütter mit ihren Kindern in einer Woche alle aus Kassel weggeschickt worden, die kamen alle in irgendwelche Lager, die Organisation die war damals schon wirklich klasse neh. So, und wir kamen in ein verlassenes Arbeitsdienstlager nach Bracht, bei Marburg liegt das, das war so alles ein Arbeitsdienstlager mit Baracken und da kamen wir alle rein.
HZ: Ist es Bracht mit B?
HK: Bracht mit B, R, A.
HZ: Ja.
HK: So etwa neh. Ich bin nachher nie wieder da gewesen. So und dann schliefen wir in den Hut, in den grossen Baracken da, zwanzig Leute gingen da glaub ich rein, dann immer zwei Lehrer dabei, die schliefen auf Strohsäcken dann und so und dann am Tag hatten wir da ein bisschen Schule und dann kriegten wir irgendwie die Nachricht das wir zur, als Luftwaffenhelfer eingezogen wurden und wir konnten dann nach Hause also im Dezember 1944, konnten wir, die wir bald eingezogen wurden, schon nach Hause. Und dann am fünften Januar mussten wir antreten Schule [unclear] Schule mit einem Papkarton und da stand da genau drinn was man da alles mitbringen durften, zwei Unterhosen, und ein Paar Socken, alles so was [laughs]. Und dann wurden wir auf’n LKW geladen und da stand da drauf:’Eltern durften nicht da mit’ oder so änlich wurde das da bezeichnet und von meinem Freund Erich, der mit mir grossgeworden ist, die Mutter die war klever, die ist dann hinter uns her gegangen wo wir zum, und wo wir auf der einen Seite von dem LKW standen dann ist sie auf der anderen Seite durch so’n Buschwerk und hat den Fahrer geholt und hat gesagt:’Hören Sie mal, wo fahren Sie den hin, mein Sohn ist hier bei’. Und da hat er gesagt: ‘Nach Heiligenrode’ und da wusste, wusste meine Mutter, hatte gleich Bescheid, wussten die zumindest wo wir Jungen hinkamen. Und da sind wir furchtbar ausgebildet worden, also furchtbar, jeden Tag acht Stunden und das im Januar bei Wind und Wetter und da wurden wir auch fast alle krank und erkältet und alles sowas. Und dann so nach’m viertel Jahr wurden wir eingesetzt und auf, ach so und dann fragte dann der Hauptmann, der Kommandeur, der war im Zivilberuf war der Studienrat und zwar in Matte, Mathematik [laughs] und der fragte dann:’was wollen Sie werden?’ Wir waren ja alle per Sie plötzlich mit fuffzehn Jahren und was wollen sie werden, was wollen Sie [unclear] , und da habe ich gesagt:‘Baumeister, Herr Hauptmann, Baumeister’. ‚Umwertung‘, das war also wo die Zielwege aufgezeichnet wurden, das wurde viel mit Zeichnung das war natürlich was neh. Und ein anderer Klassenkamerad der sagte: ‚ich will Elektroingenieur werden‘, der kam zum Funkmessgerät, das war der Vorgänger vom Radargerät, und so hatten manche schon Vorstellung und die die gar nix wussten die kamen zur Kannonen [laughs] na ja und so wurden wir dann ausgebildet. Und ja und so ging das weiter bis zum, also Januar bis etwa Juni und da wurden wir verlegt von der Flakstellung Heiligenrode zu der Flakstellung Niederkaufungen, da war nämlich ein grosses Heeresdepot und zum Schutz von diesem Depot wurde oben auf dem Berg, das ist heute noch hier, Papierfabrik heisst das, Richtung Kaufungen wenn se da mal [unclear], da waren wir zum Schutz da, so und dann war immer Fliegeralarm aber es passierte nix und da haben wir von der Umwertung, wir mussten auch Sperrfeuer schiessen und das wurde von der Umwertung aus gemacht, das war das Flug-Malsigerät, das war so’n, [unclear] und manchmal wurde Sperrfeuer geschossen, den das Vermessen der Entfernung war sehr schwierig damals neh, am Tag ging das durch die vier-meter Basis, aber am nachts war das schwierig. Und das war in der ganzen, in dem ganzen halben Jahr vorher nicht einmal passiert. Und da bin ich mit’m Paar die den Zielweg nicht aufzeichnen brauchten [unclear] Malsigerät wir haben oben zugeguckt wie da die Flak geschossen hat und da ist wohl das Stichwort gekommen Sperrfeuer und unsere Batterie hat das nicht gemacht weil ich net da war und meine Kumpels. Und da simma nächsten Tag wurde eine zbV Batterie aufgebraut und dann kam der Hauptmann schon auf mich zu und ’Sie wissen ja warum sie jetzt versetzt werden’. Da kam ich zur zbV Batterie mit vierleutenarme [?] und da wurden wir dann umgeschult, sollten wir eigentlich nach Breslau, [clears throat] und da haben wir schon das [unclear] gepackt und alles neh und da kamen kurz davor in der Doppelbaracke da war die andere Seite, da war der Oberleutnant, der Batteriechef und der telefonierte plötzlich, da haben wir alle gehorcht und da hatt er gesagt:’Wunderbar! Ist ja wunderbar! Herrlich! Toll!’ und so und da kam er gleich zu uns rüber: ‘Wir fahren nicht nach Breslau, das ist eingenommen worden von Russen’. Und dann kamen wir zur 12,8-Batterie, wurden wir umgeschult, nach Maronhüls [?], da in diesen ehemaligen,
HZ: Wie heisst das?
HK: [unclear] hiess das Nest, das Dorf, [unclear] ist eine grosse Stadt in das [unclear] gebiet da am Rand und da war eine V2-Herstellungs, so ‘ne Fabrik, die das herstellten oder auch schossen oder wie das war. Und die wurden da immer, wenn Flieger kamen, Feinde, da wurde das eingenebelt neh. Und dann wurden wir ausgebildet an den Kannonen und eines Tages da flogen mehrere Kannonen in die Luft durch Rohrkrepierung, das war also Sabotage von Munitionsfabriken, haben irgendwelche Fehler eingebaut.
HZ: Haben dann bei Ihnen waren da auch Russische Hiwis oder waren da auch andere in den Flak?
HK: Ja, waren da [unclear] dabei, Russische weniger, aber italiener, diese Badoglio-Truppen,
HZ: Ja.
HK: Diese von dem abgesprungenen General Badoglio neh, oder Serben glaub ich und so was, die wurden dann da beschäftigt. Und irgend einer hat da warscheinlich so was erfunden dass das und da krepierten in ganz Deutschland bei der 12,8 die Granaten und da hatten sie keine Kanonen mehr. Da kamen wir wieder nach Kassel, hier oben in Welhheiden da haben wir in so einer Baracke gewohnt vierzehn Tage oder was und dann kriegten wir den Einsatzbefehl zur Vierlingsflak Umschulung am Edersee auf der Talsperre. Die war wieder hergestellt, die war ja kaputt, wissen Sie das durch die Ballbombe,
HZ: Ja, die rolling bombs.
HK: Die da rotierte neh, das war ne ganz, technisch ne ganz tolle Sache neh, da muss ich wirklich sagen also war schon klasse aber als wir hinkamen war die schon wieder zugemauert, also das war für mich als Baumensch ein riesige Leistung innerhalb vom Jahr, oder halbes Jahr was die das alles fertigmachen, so sieht’s heute noch aus, ist da nachgemacht worden.
HZ: Wir sind da mal da gewesen, ja.
HK: Also das ist also eine riesige Leistung gewesen, wie die das alle gemacht haben, das weiss ich net, jedenfalls dann wurden wir auf der Vierling, da hatten wir oben auf der Mauer da war so’n holz, Holztürmchen aufgebaut da standen vier, drei Vierlingsflak [laughs] und da soll’n wir nun, wurden wir ausgebildet. So und dann am zwanzigsten, so und dann weil wir vier Kasselaner waren dann wurden wir immer weggeschickt zum Kurierdienst weil man der, Autos gab’s ja nicht, sie mussten also die Kurierpost, die musste zur Heeresgruppe, zur Luftwaffengruppe, des war hier in einer Kaserne auf der Hasenhecke hier in Kassel und da konnten sie an einem Tage nicht mit der Bahn hinfahren und wieder zurückkommen und da haben sie uns vier Kasseler immer eingeteilt, da konnten wir zuhause schlafen. Und da hatten wir das natürlich wunderbar. Und [unclear] ich mal wieder wegblicken, Anfang Februar oder irgend, Mitte Februar war das, da sagte mir der Schreibstubenbulle da, sagte:’Hör mal, wenn du jetzt nach hause gehst bring dir mal ein Paar Zivilklammotten mit’. Ich sag:’warum dann das?’. Das habe ich dann gemacht und dann zwei Tage später bei der Befehlsausgabe, da sagte der Hauptmann: ‘Wer hat Zivilsachen mit?’ Ich, Herr Hauptmann’, ‘morgen Abmarsch’ und da war die Entlassung hier neh. 20 Februar 1944 wurde ich von der Flak entlassen, ich war der erste [laughs], werde ich nie vergessen. Na ja, und dann war ich ein Paar Tage zuhause und da kriegte ich die Einberufung da, die hatte ich ja schon und dann hatten wir den Angriff hier etwa, ich weiss des Datum leider net mehr, am zweiten März oder irgendsowas, muss jetzt, grade jetzt auf die Zeit [unclear] muss das gewesen sein,
HZ: Ich hab mir.
HK: Da ist das Haus getroffen worden und ich war da zu Hause und da war ich mit ein Paar Freunden in einem Bunker.
HZ: Ja?
HK: Das erste Mal in meinem Leben in einen Bunker gewesen, weil da einer Musik machte, da war immer so’n bisschen was los. Und da kam ein Junge rein der sagte: ‘Helmut, stell dir mal vor, bei euch da in der Strasse brennt’s wie verrückt’. Und da bin ich raus, der Luftschutzwache wollte mich net raus lassen, da hab ich ihn weggeschoben, das war mich ganz egal [unclear] und da kam ich hin polterte die treppe hoch so, kurz vor mir ist die Holztreppe eingekracht, desshalb würde ich heute als Baumensch nie eine Holztreppe bauen, immer ne Betontreppe [laughs]. So und da stand ich unten und sah wie aus unserem Wohnzimmer, unserem Herrenzimmer die Flammen [unclear] schlugen und ich konnte nix machen. Da guckte ich so an mir runter da hatte ich Hose an und Schuhe an, keinen Kamm, keine Zahnbürste, da kam ich mir vor wie der ärmste Mensch den’s gibt auf der Welt, wirklich dieses Gefühl, das habe ich schon meinen Kindern erzählt, das war furchtbar, da stand ich da ach Gott, mein Wintermantel der hängt da an der Gardrobe, alles so und kam ich da gar net dran, das war eine furchtbare Nacht. Da bin ich mit meinen Freund, der war auch zufällig da, und da sind wir in den Keller, haben das bisschen was Mutter so’n Paar Koffer und so was, haben wir dann raus auf die Strasse gestellt, na ja und das haben wir dann, haben wir später mit einem Pferdefuhrwerk geholt und alles nach Gudensberg geschafft zu Verwandten.
HZ: Ja, die Geschichte wo Sie da noch zur Stadtkommandantur gegangen sind [unclear] mir erzählt haben.
HK: Ja, das ist da passiert.
HZ: Ja, die könnense noch amal für das Band erzählen.
HK: Ja, gut und da hatte ich ja di Einberufung und dann, so die hatte ich ja vorher schon deshalb bin ich ja bei der Flak entlassen worden, und dann einberufen sollte ich werden, das glaub ich am 6 März oder irgendwas sollte ich da antanzen und am zweiten oder so dann passierte der Bombenangriff und da hat der Onkel gesagt, neh, richtig, der Onkel hat gesagt:’Neh, das geht net, da kannste net weg’, ich sage:’Was mache ich den jetzt?’ ‚Ja dann, geh doch mal zur Ostkommandantur’, und da bin ich dann nach Kassel, ich glaub sogar gelaufen, [unclear] viele Stunden, und dann war die Geschichte ja mit der Ostkommandantur, wo ich draussen stand der Posten und da sagte ich, ‘Luftwaffenoberhelfer Koeler hier der will zum Ostkommandanten sprechen’, [laughs] das ich überhaupt den Mut hatte da staune ich heute noch, und wo er dann, wo ich dann sagte: ‘Ich bitte da um ein Paar Tage Urlaub, meine Mutter ist alleine und wir haben ein Paar Sachen rausgeholt aus’m Keller, die stehen da alle noch und ich muss, meine schwangere Schwester kann auch net helfen und so neh, und dann hat er dann gesagt also, na ja, mich mitleidig angeguckt und da hat er gesagt: ‘Na ja, melden sich in acht Tagen wieder’. ‘Jawohl!’ Und dann bin ich dann los und dann hat der Onkel gefragt: ‘Hat er überhaupt gefragt wo du wohnst?’, da hab ich gesagt: ‘neh’, ‚das ist gut, da gehst du nicht mehr hin‘. Und dann haben wir den englischen Rundfunk gehört abends, ‘Hier ist England, Hier ist England’. Und dann habe ich dann nun, haben wir dann nun bald erfahren wo die Amerikanischen Truppen, die sind dann in Remagen über’m Rhein weg, und dann waren sie schon über Frankfurt weg, und dann sagte der Onkel: ‘Das dauert keine zwei Wochen dann sind die hier’, und es stimmte auch. Am ersten April waren die ersten Amis in Gudensberg. Und so bin ich davongekommen. Und vorher hatte ich noch, da hatte mich mit so’n Mädchen da getroffen, standen wir so im Hauseingang, Ich konnte ja nur abends weggehen, am Tage lies mich der Onkel net raus, da kam einer plötzlich [makes a noise] stand einer neben mir, guckte mich an, sagte: ‘Bist Du den verrückt?’, der dachte ich wäre so’n Desertierter, er war nämlich auch einer. ‚du stellst dich hier hin, eben haben’se drei da oben erschossen‘, die haben’se erwischt neh, und da wurde es mir natürlich unheimlich, da bin ich auch abends weggegangen. Ja und bis die Amerikaner kamen. Das war ein Karfreitag, erster April 1945 [laughs], Karfreitag war das. Und die Tante hatte vorher schon ein bisschen Kuchen gebacken und dann sassen wir dann am Küchentisch und haben Kuchen gegessen. Auf einmal klopft es an der Haustür. Da kamen die ersten Amerikanischen Soldaten. Vor jedem Haus hielt ein, wie nannten die sich diese drei-achsler?, LKWs, na ja gut, weiss jetzt nimmer, und da sassen immer zehn Mann drauf, Amerikaner und im jedem Haus kam da Einquartierung und da mussten die Zivilleute alle raus. Und da kam der Unteroffizier oder was er da war, weiss ich net, der kam als erste sah mich an: ‘Raus!’, so ‘Raus!’. Da sag ich: ‘Moment muss ich Schuhe anziehen‘, zieh am ende Schuhe, dann kam ich die Treppe da runter und da standen zwei mit der MP und haben sie mich abgeführt zum Ostkommandanten. Und da war so’n netter kleiner Dolmetscher und der fragte: ‘Warum sind sie kein Soldat?’ Sag ich: ‘Ich war bei, als Luftwaffenhelfer’. Konnte er nix mit anfagen. [unclear] Und diesen Luftwaffenhelferausweis den hatte ich in der Tasche und dann wollte ich ihn zeigen und da fiel er vor lauter Aufregung fiel mir da hin, da war der schneller da und, ‘Ach!’ sagte ‘jetzt weiss ich was sie waren’. Da ist er zu seinem Boss hingegangen, zu dem Kolonel oder, neh Kolonel war er net, also der Offizier neh, und da kam der raus und dann guckte der mich an. This fellow is [unclear], ab und da bin ich auch schnell nach hause und so bin ich davongekommen. Draussen standen dann da, die haben sie alle aufgesammelt, die verwundet waren, Verwundetenurlaub und so und die sind dann alle nach Frankreich abgeschoben worden. Mussten ein Jahr im Bergwerk arbeiten und so. Ich bin da davongekommen. Das war meine Zeit in Gudensberg und da war ich eben fünf Jahre in Gudensberg, Fussball gespielt und so, das war eine schöne Zeit, aber in Kassel gab’s keine Schulen, des erste halbe Jahr gab’s nix. Und mein Freund hier, der Erich, der ist in Kassel weiter geblieben und der hat mich immer mal besucht in Gudensberg und der sagte eines Tages: ‘Helmut, im Herbst geht die Schule wieder los‘, die Albert-Schweitzer Schule, hier in der Kölnischen Strasse, die hiess damals Adolf Hitler Schule während des Krieges [laughs], und der sagte der Rektor da das ist der Ale Witschi [?], der mal zu uns in der Flakstellung kam und mit dem habe ich jetzt mal gesprochen über dich und der hatte gesagt ich sollte mal kommen, sollte mal gucken, der hätte einen Plan für mich. Da bin ich dann hingegangen, habe einen Ausbildungschef gefragt, hier ‚n Meister, darf ich da mal dahingehen? Ja selbstverständlich. Und da hat er gesagt: ‘Gut, zwei Tage Schule haben wir in der Woche. Und in den zwei Tagen kannste zur Schule gehen und die anderen vier Tage, weil ja Sonnabend auch ein Arbeitstag war, da gehste in die Lehre. Frag mal deinen Lehrmeister ob er das macht.
HZ: Und was haben sie da für eine Lehre gemacht?
HK: Maurerlehrer.
HZ: Maurerlehrer.
HK: So ich war im Baugeschäft, und meine Mutter stammte auch aus dem Baugeschäft, also für mich gab’s gar nichts anderes, ich war, begeistert bin ich heute noch. Ich wollte Baumeister werden, was das damals war weiss ich net, aber das wollte ich ja einfach werden und da musste ich, ja Schule gab’s nicht mehr und da hab ich gesagt, jeden Tag beim Onkel Stall misten wollte ich auch net, ich will Lehre machen und so. So ist das gekommen. Und die Tochter von dem Bauunternehmer hier in Kassel, die war eine Freundin von meiner ältesten Schwester. Also wir kannten die, die Familie kannte sich persönlich sowieso. Nun dann bin ich zum Vitrokin [?], das war der Rektor, der Kommissarische Rektor von der Schule und der hat mich begrüsst wie ein alter Kumpel den der kam in unser Flakschirm das hat man auch Unterricht gekriegt [unclear] Flakschirm weil wir Schüler waren neh und dann hatt er manchmal gesagt [unclear]:’Ach Jungs, habt ihr noch mal, nimmt mal eine Tasse Kaffee für mich’ Und dann kam so, alles zu Fuss, [unclear] und der war wie’n Kumpel für uns, das war der Lehrer, und dann hat er mich begrüsst wie ein alter Kumpel da neh, sagte mach dein Lehrmeister einen Vorschlag und da machste bis Ostern das und dann kriegste das Zeugnis der Mittleren Reife, das hatte ich auch net, hatte ich nix, Schule kaputt, und so haben wir das gemacht. Dann bin ich zwei Tage zu Schule gegangen, richtig noch Latein und Matte und alles sowas neh und dann habe ich so ein Einheitszeugnis, so gross, stand ‘Alles befriedigt’ [laughs]. Na ja gut, und das ist meine Schulausbildung gewesen, kein Abitur gemacht, gar nix. Na ja, und dann habe ich dann studiert, habe ich dann meine Maurerlehre gemacht, an der staatlichen Ingenieurschule beworben, und das war ja auch so tragisch. Da musste zwei Tage Aufnahmeprufung sein neh, mit dem bisschen Wissen was ich da aus der Schule hatte und dann waren, dreisig haben, wolltense aufnehmen, und driehundertsechsig Bewerber kamen da in die Schule am Königstor als Offiziere und hatten noch ihre Offiziersmäntel an und so weil wir nix kaufen konnten [unclear]. Und da bin ich natürlich mit Glanz und Gloria auch durchgefallen. Und da habe ich mich auf die Hose gesetzt. Mit einem Freund aus Gudensberg zusammen, den Roman [unclear], der stammte aus Litauen, der war da Flüchtling, und da haben wir da richtig gepauckt. Hier neben uns da wohnte der Doktor Enders, Mathematik, Studienrat, war’n Kollege, Freund von meinem Vater, genau hier in der Parallelwohnung in der [unclear] und der hat uns dann Mathe beigebracht. Plötzlich viel es mir wie Schuppen von den Augen, plözlich konnte ich ne Gleichung mit zwei Unbekannten, das war gar kein Problem mehr. Und so bin ich dann zur zweiten Prüfung ein halbes Jahr später und da hab ich’s bestanden und so hab ich meine Paar Semester, fünf, sechs Semester glaub ich, [unclear] Ausbildung
HZ: Gemacht.
HK: So ist das geworden. Und dann fanden wir keine Arbeit und so. Und dann bin ich da mit einem Kollegen hier rumgelaufen ob als Maurer ein bisschen Geld verdienen konnten, als Maurer kriegten’se [unclear] Arbeit das war ’52.
HZ: Das war [unclear].
HK: Das war ganz ganz schlimm neh. Und dann hatte ich durch einen Onkel, der war in Bielefeld Stadtrat und der hat mir vermittelt beim Bielefelder Tiefbeamt eine Aushilfstelle für einviertel Jahr und habe auch bei denen gewohnt, es waren so Industrielle die haben da heute noch so Fabriken und so was Graustoffwerk und da hatten sie aber keine Planstelle und mittlerweile habe ich mich beworben bei einer Hamburger Firma die ein Onkel von mir kannte weil der Besitzer, der Vater von dem jetzigen Besitzer er war, war ein Studienkollege von meinem Ober, so hat sich das ergeben. Und die bauten Helgoland wieder auf, weil Helgoland ja ein Abwurfgebiet von der Britischen Armee war nach’m Kriege, da haben sie X Bomben ausprobiert, die ganze Insel Helgoland die war praktisch unbewohnbar, Blindgänger und die mussten wir, wurde praktisch umgepflügt die ganze Insel, drei meter da weggetragen und dahingepackt und da gingen natürlich immer die Blindgänger und die Bomben hoch. Die Bagger die hatten solche Stahlplatten davor, das der Fahrer net verletzt wurde. Und kurz davor kriegt ich ein Telegramm, das habe ich übrigens noch, nächste Woche nicht, Telefon gab’s ja gar net, nicht nach Helgoland sondern Mönchengladbach. So, Telefonummer aufgeschrieben, da bin ich nach Mönchengladbach gefahren da kriegte, hatte die Firma einen grossen Auftrag gekriegt, das englische Hauptquartier, das Hauptverwaltungsgebaüde, das steht übrigens heute noch, da habe ich auch jetzt ein Bild gefunden noch davon und das hatte ja zweitausendzweihundert und so und soviele Zimmer, Britische Rheinarmee. Und das habe ich, da war ich Bauführer nannte sich damals. Waren wir drei Mann und hatten teilweise bis vierhundert Leute beschäftigt. Britische Rheinarmee hiess das glaub ich. Und da habe ich auch die Einweihung mitgemacht, da haben wir noch, vorne in den Haupteingang, in dem Pfeiler, da haben wir noch eine Kassette eingemauert die muss heute noch [unclear] sein, sind noch warscheinlich noch Namen die ich noch merkte, ich weiss es nimmer so genau, mit ne silbernen Kelle haben wir da [unclear]. Und das war meine Grösse und auch eine, da habe ich viel gelernt [unclear]. Ganze drei Jahre war ich da. Das war sehr interessant und da habe ich mit einem Englischen Pionieroffizier viel zu tun gehabt neh, das waren die die eher kein Deutsch konnten. Und ein Ziviloffizier der war mittlerweile dann, er war früher auch bei den Pionieren gewesen und der war dann entlassen worden wegen Alter, der war dann schon Ende fuffzig oder irgendwas, und der wollte noch als Zivilingenieur und der schlief auch in einer Barakke von uns und dem haben wir auch Skatspielen beigebracht.
HZ: [laughs]
HK: Und dann haben wir auch mit dem die Weltmeisterschaften damals wo Deutschland Weltmeister 1954, da hatten wir noch kein Fernsehen und alles so was. Da hat er mit uns geguckt, da haben wir auf’n Stuhlen gestanden und [laughs], na ja und das war der mister Webster und der hat mich so ein bisschen aufgeklärt, der sagte, hören sie mal Herr Koehler, der sprach ganz gut Deutsch, weil er eine Deutsche Frau hatte aus Aachen und der sagte: ‚Die können bestimmt auch Deutsch‘, und da habe ich mal irgendwie was falsch verstanden und da hat er mich zur Rede gestellt. Mister Buru, was er für einen [unclear] hatte weiss ich nicht, Major, Major Buru, und da habe ich gesagt: ‚so Major Buru‘, habe ich in Deutsch dann gesagt, ab jetzt kann ich kein Englisch mehr‘ und da hat er gelacht und da kam der mister Webster dazu und da haben die ein bisschen gequatscht und seit dem haben wir nur noch Deutsch gesprochen und mit den anderen Kollegen genauso [laughs]. Das war nun meine Zeit mit den Engländern und ich wollte immer nochmal nach’m Kriege hin, nach der Zeit hin, aber ich bin nie wieder dahingekommen. Es muss heute noch da und wenn sie mal da in der Nähe sind, Mönchengladbach, Ortsteil Hardter Wald, das ist ja’n Riesenbezirk, das sind ja, das ist hier wie ‚ne Stadt, da lebten fast zwanzigtausend Menschen, da gab’s Schulen und für die Offiziere, und Offizierskasino und Kino und Theater und da haben wir mehrere Baustellen gehabt, das war meine schönste Zeit so mit
HZ: Aus [unclear]
HK: Und von da aus sollte ich dann nach Berlin da kriegtense in Berlin ‚n Auftrag, und weil wir nun damals für das Englische Hauptquartier bauten, da waren wir für die DDR Feinde. Das war der Karl Eduard von Schnitzler hiess der, Sudel-Ede hiess der, der brachte so politische Kommentare jeden Tag, das war so’n Richter. Ich weiss nicht ob sie den Namen schon
HZ: Den Namen kenn ich noch ja.
HK: Eduard von Schnitzler, der Sudel-Ede hiess er bei uns, und der hat da mal gesagt: ‘Es gibt sogar Deutsche die für die feindlichen Truppen heute noch bauen’ und da haben wir sogar, wurden die Namen genannt, unsere drei Namen. Und ich hab’s selber net gehört, das haben sie von Hauptbüro aus Hamburg habense uns das gesagt, also hütet euch, die Verbindungsstrasse zu fahren zwischen Helmstedt und Berlin, [unclear] vielleicht festgenommen. Und dann sollte ich nach Berlin, da hätten wir nun fliegen können von Hannover aus und da hab ich dann hier alles mögliche mobil gemacht hier in Kassel neh. Durch so‘n befreundeten Architekten, dann kriegte ich dann ‚ne Stelle bei einem Architekten hier und von da aus, na ja, das interessiert sie jetzt [unclear]. Und so bin ich nachher bei der Stadt gelandet, bei der Stadt Kassel und hab für die die Kläranlage, das war der erste grosse Massnahme, die Kläranlage baute, seit dem haben sie mich übernommen und da war ich naher auch in zwanzig Jahren Sachgebietsleiter vom Brucken und [unclear] Bau. Wenn sie jetzt über eine Brücke fahren ist alles so [laughs]
HZ: [laughs] kann ich sagen.
HK: Na ja gut das ist mein Lebenslauf.
HZ: Ehm, so, weil sie schon mal angefangen, angesprochen haben mit dem Bombenangriff auf Kassel, was denken sie eigentlich wären so prägende Erlebnisse gewesen die sie vielleicht auch heute noch beschäftigen?
HK: Ja, die mich heute noch beschäftigen, ich seh’s jetzt erstmal vom baulichen Standpunkt her. Die ganze Altstadt, die aus‘m Mittelalter noch stammt, die ist mit einem Schlag innerhalb zwei Stunden war alles kaputt und zehntausend Menschen in den Kellern, so, und die haben einen schönen Tod gehabt. Die sind an Sauerstoffmangel eingeschlafen. Den Keller hat wir ja früher net met waagerechten Decken gemacht sondern es waren nur Gewölbe, sonst ging aus staatlichen Gründen net anders neh. Und da sind die eingeschlafen, die sind regelrecht gebacken worden, oben bis auf diesen brennenden Schutt rauf und dieses Gewölbe war wie Backofen beim Bäcker. Da sind die zusammengeschrumpft so wie wir, wir wären plötzlich so gross gewesen, dieses ganze Wasser wäre verdampft neh. Die haben eigentlich einen sehr schönen Tod gehabt. Entschuldige wenn ich das so sage heute, das will ja keiner hören. Die sind eingeschlafen, Sauerstoffmangel, eingeschlafen und nie wieder aufgewacht. Und sind gebacken worden. Denn Ich habe die ja nachher gesehen wo sie aus den Kellergewölben rausgeholt wurden, von Gefangenen her, die ehemaligen Nazis und die mussten die da rausholen. Nach’m Kriege und so neh.
HZ: Sind da eigentlich beim raümen weil sie da auch dabei waren, sind da auch Zwangsarbeiter und Kriegs, wie heiss’ns, Kriegsgefangene eingesetzt worden?
HK: Ja diese, Kriegsgefangene, waren da auch. Das will ich noch mal kurz sagen. Die Flakstellung wo wir waren bei der Flak. Ich war nun bei der Umwertung, und der, war mein Schulfreund hier und der Elektrofritze da, wir hatten zuhause, der Mann, der Ober der war schon ein grosser Elektroindustrielle und so, Funkmessgerät und so. Und wennse zur, an’s Geschutz kamen, da war, drei Kannoniere waren Luftwaffenhelfer, die stellten diese Messgeräte an, wir konnten das ja viel besser als die Soldaten die vorher da waren, weil wir schneller und pfiffiger waren neh, das waren drei Luftwaffenhelfer an jeder eine Kannone, die die Breitengrade, Höhengrade und die Entfernung eingestellt haben und der Ladekannonier das war ein Deutscher und die Zureichen die Munition, das waren meistens Russische Kriegsgefangene. Müssen sich das vorstellen, die saßen, oder Französische, die saßen mit uns in dem kleinen Wald da neh und haben gebibbert. Dann habe ich dann auch von denen die, zum Teil Deutsch, hattense immer Hunger und dann kriegten sie von uns immer eine Scheibe Brot neh und alles so was. Wir hatten ein gutes Verhältnis mit denen, das war das mit den Kriegsgefangenen und die waren natürlich auch viele in der Industrie hier in Kassel, in Kassel hatten wir die Junkerswerke und so,
HZ: Da hätten [unclear] der Fieseler.
HK: Fieseler und so. Und auch die Munition herstellten [unclear] war früher neh und so und deshalb war ja auch die Flak hier rings rum und so. Ja und so haben wir viel mit den Kriegsgefangenen, wie viel da nun tot gegangen sind hier in der Stadt, die wohnten ja net hier in so, die wohnten immer ausserhalb in so Lagern, desshalb sind net allzu viele da umgekommen von den Kriegsgefangenen.
HZ: Nöh, ich hab bloß, ob die dann auch eingesetzt, ob die dann auch eingesetzt wurden beim raümen. Ich hatte da, ich hatte da von dem, da hatt schon mal einer Überlebensberichte veröffentlicht ‚93, die habe ich mir mal angeguckt und da sind auch zumindestens zwei Holländer und ein Franzose dabei. Aber, weil halt dann die Zeitungen hier, die Regionalzeitungen, die fragen ja dann schon nach Zuschriften, aber weil das ja dann immer bloß regional gemacht wird, da kriegt man ja dann immer bloß die Deutschen Stimmen,
HK: Richtig. Richtig, genau. Richtig.
HZ: Die von dem anderen, da hört man ja nix und das wär natürlich auch mal interessant.
HK: Nein also Holländer waren viele, Kriegsgefangene Holländer waren viele hier in Kassel. Und hier eine kleine Episode wo wir aus dem Keller mit meinen Freunden, aus dem, irgendwo brannte es, aus dem Keller haben wir dann die Paar Sachen rausgeholt, die lagen tagelang, vier, fünf Tage auf der Strasse, da hat keiner was geklaut oder irgendwas neh. Und dann wo wir dann mit dem Pferdewagen hier nach Kassel kamen und haben das dann abgeholt wollen, da war mitten in der Strasse, also die Hansteinstrasse, die Uferstrasse ist, genau in der mitte der Strasse war ein Riesenbombentrichter. Wir konnten also mit dem Wagen garnet zu unserm Haus finden.
HZ: Ja.
HK: Es war nur so’n schmaler Streifen an dem Vorgarten links und da hätten wir die ganzen Sachen da vorne an die Hauptstrasse bringen müssen, wo der Wagen stand, und da bin ich unten in die Hauptstrasse rein und da kam mal zwei Männer und da sag ich:, kommt mal her, wollt ihr mir da ein bisschen helfen?‘, das waren Holländer und die haben mir geholfen diese Sachen dahin und da habense so’ne Flasche Wein also von meinem Vater her, der hatte noch so‘n Weinschrank und da waren noch ein Paar Flaschen Wein drin und da hab ich ihnen eine gegeben und eine habense mir noch geklaut, das hab ich aber erst später gemerkt aber das hab ich ja eingesehen, das war schon richtig neh und so und das waren Holländer. Die haben mir dann geholfen. Also die liefen dann hier rum, so Freizeit, haben net dauernd gearbeitet, aber wie das war weiss ich net. Also über diese Verhaltnisse weiss ich eigentlich wenig Bescheid, die waren nur da, aber was se sonst so gemacht haben weiss ich net.
HZ: Da hat’s, ’95, die haben mal eine Wiedervereinigung hier gemacht, da haben sich welche hier in Kassel sogar wieder, wieder getroffen. Aber wie gesagt, die, man hört halt die Stimmen, man hört halt immer bloß die, also die Deutsch waren und auch hier im Gebiet geblieben sind, weil ich glaube das da einer in Bad Nauheim zum Beispiel die Hannoversche Allgemeine liesst, die werden, da gib’s halt dann keine Zuschrifften, desswegen habe ich da bloß immer so, so gefragt.
HK: Also es gab ja viele persönliche Schicksale auch neh, das auch sich Freundschaften gebildet haben. Zum Beispiel hier hatte mein Onkel in Gudensberg, der kriegte einen Polnischen Kriegsgefangenen, so als Hilfe, und das war ein Polnischer Student, war ein hochintelligenter Kerl, Jurek hiess er, und der hatte vorher noch nie was mit Landwirtschaft zu tun gehabt, der musste da milken lernen und so, der hatte es sehr gut beim Onkel, der durfte nur net am Tisch sitzen, sondern der musste am Küchentisch, da wurde so’ne Platte rausgeschoben, da sass der. Und mit dem bin ich dann zusammen auf’n Acker und hab gehackt und so und da hab ich ihm die Deutsche Grammatik beigebracht, das wollte er gerne wissen und ich hab da auch die Polnische Grammatik mitgekriegt, also das war aüsserst interessant. Und die Geschichte, er interessierte sich für alles, also war schon interessant neh. Hatten ne richtige Freundschaft geschlossen neh, der war nur zehn Jahre älter oder was, aber trotzdem. Und der ist auf einem Polnischen Zerstörer Soldat gewesen und da kamen die Stukas gleich am ersten oder zweiten Tag und haben den versenkt in der Ostsee und da haben sich ganze drei Mann retten können und er konnte gut schwimmen und hatt dann, durch’s schwimmen hatt er dann sich’s Leben gerettet. Und dadurch das er nun gut Deutsch konnte und sehr intelligent war, ist er in dem Polnischen Reisebüro Orbis nachher angestellt gewesen, in Danzig, neh in Posen glaub ich war das, neh Danzig, Stettin, entschuldigung, es ist, so ist das heute mit dem alten Kopf, Stettin. Und der hat mich hier mehrmals besucht. Der war der erste Polnische Reisende der hier in Deutschland sich bewegen durfte und der hat die Deutschen Reisegruppen, die wurden an der Grenze abgefangen und dann, die mussten ja alles ohne Aufsicht neh und wenn ne Deutsche Reisegruppe war, dann haben sie ihn eingeteilt weil er auch Deutsch konnte und wenn hier eine Reisegruppe aus Kassel kam, dann hatt er gesagt: ‚Sie kommen aus Kassel?‘, ‚Ja‘ ,Kennen sie Helmut Koehler?‘ ‚Nöh‘. Dann hatt er ihn die Telephonnummer gegeben, ja da hatte ich schon Telephon richtig, Anfang der 60er Jahre oder wann das war, ändert doch, ja so ungefähr, was soll denn, und da hatt er gesagt: ‚Rufen sie an wenn sie jetzt zuhause sind‘. Und da kriegt ich da X Telephongespräche hier von allen möglichen Leuten, ich soll sie grussen vom Yurek, [laughs] war schon interessant. Und dann kam er dann wirklich mal an und hat, er war der erste Polnische Reisende der hier nach Deutschland kommen konnte. Und dann kam er hier an, hatte vorher angerufen, war meine Frau da, die kannte den Jurek ja net und dann sagt’se, rief sie mich an im Büro, sagt‘se:‘Der Jurek hat angerufen‘. Jurek, ja dein Polnischer Freund, ja ja. Und dann haben wir am Fenster gestanden, um fünf oder was wollte er kommen und hatt sich dann, savott, [unclear] sieht genauso aus. Und der war jahrelang gleich nach’m Kriegsende hier in einer Kaserne auf der Hasenhecke da kamen die ganzen Polnischen und Russischen Kriegsgefangenen wurden da erstmal einquartiert und da war er Chef der Lagerpolizei. Da hat er mich eingeladen zu seiner Hochzeit, da hat er geheiratet und da hat meine Mutter gesagt: ‚Du kannst da net hinfahren, erstmal komste da gar net hin‘, erstmal von Gudensberg aus nach Kassel fuhr gar kein Zug richtig, und dann von hier aus laufen bis zur Hasenhecke das war in Waldau ganz, ich weiss net ob sie das genau so kennense.
HZ: Wir sind heute oben gewesen.
HK: Waldau, das ist so ganz unten an der Fulda da neh. Das ist noch mal mindestens zwei Stunden Fussweg neh, wie willste denn dahin kommen und da bin ich da net hin. Und da hat er mich am Bahnhof abgepasst, ich hab ja da schon gearbeitet, da hat er gesagt:‘So, du bist auf meiner Hochzeit nicht gewesen‘, da hat er mich ein ganzes Jahr lang net angeguckt, da kam er [unclear]. Und der, ich hab noch Post von ihm heute, da hatt er mir, ach, x-mal geschrieben und da kam er hier und dann hatt er mir von der Polnischen Politik berichtet, hier bei mir durfte er das jetzt sagen. Also das waren Zustände, wissense [unclear], soundosoviel Quadratmeter eine Person, durfte glaub ich nur zehn Quadratmeter Wohnfläche haben für eine Person sonst musseste zahlen, also unmögliche Zustände. Na ja gut, das war mit den Polen.
HZ: Und noch, noch irgendwas von der, noch irgendwas aus ihrer Zeit von der, bei der Flak?
HK: Von der Flak, neh. Ja gut also, wie gesagt, hier wo wir am Edersee waren, alle, zweimal in der Woche musste ich nach Kassel fahren, ich hatt’s natürlich gut, da brauchte ich keinen Dienst mehr zu machen. Und so habe ich auch viele Angriffe mitgemacht, die letzten Angriffe neh. Und da war ja meine Mutter und meine [unclear] schwangere Schwester die waren dann schon in Gudensberg, aber die Wohnung war immernoch da, die ist erst ganz, ja, letzter Angriff oder vorletzter Angriff auf Kassel. Und da war die Nachbarin die hat ja gesagt: ‚Helmut, kannst ruhig hier schlafen, wenn Fliegeralarm kommt da mach ich dich schon wach‘. Weil ich das [unclear] gehört habe, als junger Bursche [laughs] und so war das neh. Ja also da gibt’s eigentlich und dann die Angriffe hier. Dann eines Tages hatten wir einen Blindgänger im Haus, das war in der Silvesternacht, vom ‚44 auf ‚45, da war ich am Edersee und Neujahr musste ich Kurierdienst machen und da war ein Zettel an der Haustür: ‚Vorsicht, Blindgänger‘. Alle Leute [unclear] raus, die mussten alle weg. Da ist durch die Decken, durch die Bäder, wir hatten sogar schon Bäder damals, ist die Bombe durch die ganzen Bäder durch und über der Luftschutzkellerdecke ist die Bombe hängen geblieben, wenn die explodierte waren sie alle tot. Und meine Mutter, wir wohnten im dritten Stock, die ist als erstes raufgegangen, die wäre fast da reingefallen in das Loch, die hat das erst gar nicht gesehen weil ja kein Licht da, kein Strom und nix. Und dann hat sie geschrien und dann die Leute alle: ‚Ach Gott!‘ durch die Badewanne durch, war plötzlich ein Loch [laughs]. Na ja, und das haben’se dann wieder irgendwie geflickt, bis es dann ganz kaputt ging. Ja und als Luftwaffenhelfer das was insofern ‚ne interessante Zeit weil das für uns eben, ja, wie soll ich das sagen, wir waren aufgeweckte Gymnasiasten und wir hatten plötzlich eine Zeit vor uns die, die wir net richtig begreifen konnten, habe ich ja eben schon gesagt was is wenn der Krieg jetzt zu Ende ist, was passiert denn mit uns? Diese Gespräche hatten wir schon.
HZ: Das könnten sie auch für das Band nochamal dazu sagen, weil das haben sie mir ja schon vorher mal erzählt. Die Gespräche dann das die vielleicht, das da vielleicht die Flakhelfer so einen Sieg des Dritten Reiches gar net so entgegengesehn haben.
HK: Ja, das war zum Beispeil nach dem Angriff, nach dem Attentat auf‘m Hitler, das war der 20 Juni, Juli, glaub’ich, Juni.
HZ: Juni.
HK: 20 Juni 1944.
HZ: ‚44.
HK: Und dann, wie gesagt, dann in der Kabine, von der Funk, ach wie heisst der, wo die Nachrichten kamen, da wurde dann immer so die Lage da mitgeteilt, Hitler ist davongekommen undsoweiter, aes wurde da immer mitgeteilt. Und da kam der Hauptmann, Leutnant [unclear] und konnte dann [unclear] hören. So und da haben wir abends im Bett gelegen und haben dann gesagt: ‚Hier, das was wohl jetzt wird hier‘ undsoweiter und der Hitler ist davongekommen und da hat der einer gesagt.‘So’ne Scheisse!‘ [laughs], das werde ich also nie vergessen. Und da haben wir schon drüber unterhalten. Was wäre gewesen wenn und da haben wir aber auch debatiert drüber was des auch der Stauffenberg neh, was der auch für Fehler gemacht hat. Wenn er schon sowas macht, das Attentat auf’n Hitler, dann hätte er das auch richtig machen müssen. Er hätte warten müssen bis der tot ist, net vorher schon weglaufen. Er ist ja weggelaufen wo es da explodiert ist, er hätte sich erkundigen müssen, ist er nun wirklich tot oder so, und dadurch ist [unclear] das alles entstanden, wäre er danach stehngeblieben und hätte anschliessend erschossen, dann wäre er zwar auch erschossen worden aber so ist er auch umgekommen. Also das haben wir damals diskutiert, also der Stauffenberg hat da Fehler gemacht. Also so sachliche Gespräche haben wir als junge Leute gemacht, das ist mir noch gut [unclear] aber sonst mussten wir immer das machen was befohlen wurde, eigene Initiative konnten wir net haben.
HZ: Die, ehm, da werden verschiedene Zahlen angegeben, wie viel Flakhelfer einen Luftwaffensoldaten ersätzt hätten, ‚43, da heisst es, die einen sagen das wären, ein Flakhelfer für einen Soldaten gewesen, andere sagen das seien drei Flakhelfer für zwei Soldaten gewesen. Wissen sie da irgendwas?
HK: Hab ich ihnen ja eben gesagt, also diese Posten die wir hatten an der Kannone, die wären sonst von Soldaten gemacht worden
HZ: Also eins zu eins.
HK: Also jede Kannone wurden drei Soldaten gespart. Und wenn’s so’ne Grosskampfbatterie, die hatten acht Kannonen, acht ortsfeste Kannonen, also drei mal achzehn, vierundzwanzig Soldaten wurden schon alleine Kannonen gespart. Und dann kam dazu noch Kommandogerät, da hatten wir auch pfiffige Schüler von uns, die waren am Kommandogerät, da waren auch mindestens dreie, ich weiss es heute nicht mehr so genau, jeden [unclear] und Funkmessgerät. Und dann hier die Umwertung, wo wir nur Luftwaffenhelfer waren, da waren ja früher Soldaten. Also ich hatte alleine, ich war mal eine Zeitlang [unclear] Unteroffizier der, des Befehlsgewalt hatte über die Umwertung, der musste zum Lehrgang, da muss ja einer Stellvertreter sein und da hatt der Hauptmann bestimmt das war ich. Und in der Zeit ist das passiert mit dem Sperrfeuer und da musste ich natürlich bestraft werden, da kam ich zur zbV Batterie [laughs] das ist so kleine Erinnerung, da wurde ich bestraft. Na ja aber schon, das sind dann schon also vierundzwanzig, ich möchte mal sagen schon fast dreissig Soldaten wurden da schon gespart an einer Flakstellung, und wir waren ja ungefähr dreissig Luftwaffenhelfer.
HZ: Sind da auch welche von denen die sie gekannt haben, sind da auch welche gefallen?
HK: Neh.
HZ: Neh.
HK: Also wir haben zwar einen Bombenangriff mitgemacht und zwar in Kaufungen, da wo des grosse Lager von Panzern und LKWs war von der Deutschen Industrie, da ist genau zwischen der Flak, zwischen der Geschützstellung und zwischen der Befehlsstelle, da waren ungefähr, hundert, hundertfuffzig meter dazwischen und genau da ist mal ein ganzer Bombenteppich runter [unclear], genau dazwischen, und da hatt einer noch hier, am Fuss hier, irgendwie‘n Stein oder was da, kam ins Lazzaret hatte eine Verse kaputt. Das war das einzige was ich erlebt habe. Aber hier vorne, in der [unclear] hier, wenn sie hier ein Stückchen runtergehen, zum Auestadion, da ist, geht’s links die Ludwig-Mond-Strasse hoch und das war früher alles freies Feld und da stand eine Flakstellung, die haben viele Tote gehabt da. Da ist mal ein ganzer Bombenteppich über die Flakstellung weg, aber wie viel das wurde damals nicht bekannt gegeben. Da waren also mehrere Schüler die sind dann umgekommen aber zahlmässig waren es verhältnissmässig wenig, dass muss ich schon sagen. Die haben schon ein Bisschen auf uns jungen, junge Burschen so’n bisschen Mitleid gehabt oder so. Auch die Offiziere, das waren alles Familienväter und so. Unser Batterieschef der war von Beruf Mattestudienrat und der sah nun die armen Jungen da und hatte vielleicht selber auch Kinder zuhause und so. Also die haben uns schon so’n bisschen [unclear], das haben wir damals nicht so gemerkt, das haben wir nur dann später so erzählt wenn wir mal zusammen waren, na ja.
HZ: Gut.
HK: Weiss nicht ob ich ihnen viel dienen konnte mit dem, also, eh.
HZ: Des ist, des is ok, da bedanke ich mich. Weil das geht ja um ihre Erinnerungen, das geht ja net da drum.
HK: Ja, sicher, ich meine, Politik wurde damals ja ausgeschlossen, Politik gab’s die ganze Woche Politik, das kannten wir ja net gar net, also wenn da einer was von Politik erzählte wusste da einer gar nix mehr da anzufangen. Was Hitler sagte das war Evangelium. Und ich kann mich erinnern, das war wo wir am Edersee waren, sind, Weihnachten, ja hatten wir keinen Ausgang, mussten wir da bleiben Weihnachten, Weihnachten ‚44, ah da gab’s da ein Festessen, da gab’s net nur Sauerkraut und Pellkartoffeln, das gab’s fünf mal in der Woche, da gab’s dann zu Weihnachten ein Stückchen Fleisch ob das nun vom Hund war oder vom das wusste kein Mensch. Und da sassen wir in der Kantine und da sagte dann der Hautpmann: ‚Na, nun wollen wir mal ein Weihnachtslied singen‘. Da waren wir alle so traurig, wir Jungen, kriegte keiner einen Ton raus und einer nach‘m anderen ging dann raus und ich musste dann auch raus weil Tränen kamen und dann standen im Saal und heulten aber wie, ein Geschluchze und so. Also man merkte dann doch diese innere Ergriffenheit unter uns Schülern, wir waren net alle so, und dann mussten wir dann die Reden von Goebbels glaub ich oder wer das war, mussten wir dann anhören. Also es war schon manchmal schwierig, das kann ich ihnen sagen. Genau wie ich mal als Pimpf, wie war denn das, ich war hier auch, Hitlerjunge net zuerst waren es Pimpfe neh, also Jungvolk hiess das, mit zehn Jahren und so, da kriegtense die Uniform da waren wir ganz stolz drauf. Und dann war, wie war denn das eigentlich, jetzt weiss ich nicht zu welchem Anlass, denn da musste ich in der Stadthalle auf der Bühne an der Fahne stehen und vor uns dann, war das nach dem ersten Angriff auf Kassel glaub ich, das war ‚42, was, so war das, da kam der Joseph Goebbels und hat’ne Rede gehalten, da [unclear] so fünf, sechs Meter hinter’m Joseph gestanden, mit der Fahne neh, da konnte sie ja nix ändern dran, sie wurden einfach bestimmt, konnte sie sich net wehren oder so, das weiss ich immer noch so und da hat unsere Herzen werden starker und was er da alles gebrüllt hat, das ist zu erinnern. Genau wie einmal, das war glaub ich zum Reichskriegertag, ‚39, da war ich grade so‘m Pimpf, da war der Hitler hier in Kassel, zum Reichskriegertag, das mus ‚39, nah sie konn’s ja besser recherchieren, ich weiss nicht mehr wann das war, und da waren wir an der schönen Aussicht und da sollten wir absperren und, aber die Leute haben uns kleinen Jungen ja weggedrängt. Da bin ich hinten auf die Mauer die ja heute noch da ist und hab von oben geguckt und ich sag immer heute noch zu den Jungen, da hat mich der Hitler begrüsst, da guckte er nämlich grade dahin, machte immer so net, und grade da in dem Moment wo er zu mir guckt, da winkte er, da sag ich er hat mir zugeguckt [laughs] [unclear] das wissen meine Enkel sogar [laughs] [unclear]. Ja, Hitler, das ist so, für meinen Begriff, war das schon ein grosser Stratege und ein unheimlich schlauer Mensch, ganz egal was er nun gemacht hat, das Ergebniss war ja schlecht, aber wie er das gemacht hat, es gibt in der ganzen Geschichte, sie kennen die Geschichte besser, so Napoleon oder, ganzen Kriegen so, wie der Cäsar und so, das waren Strategen neh, oder hier, Dschingis Khan und so, wenn man sich vorstellt, in der Zeit, die kommen von der Mongolei mit Pferden und was weiss ich alle hierher, und beherschen ganze Riesenreiche hier. Also das ist schon eine gewaltige Sache und in diese Kategorie gehört meiner Meinung auch der Hitler wenn auch jetzt negativ seine Taten waren, aber er war Stratege, er hat bestimmt was jetzt gemacht wurde und die ganzen Generäle, die Feldmarschälle mussten das machen was er wollte. Das ist gar nicht so einfach sich das vorzustellen. Ich will den net in Schutz nehmen, net dasse denken ich wär ein alter Nazi oder so neh [laughs]. Aber er war wirklich und mein Vater der war jawohl, gut ich wusste nur, er hat jetzt eine Doktorarbeit gemacht über den Alten Fritze da und den Schlesigen Kriege da, und was er verehrt hat, das weiss ich von meiner Mutter her, Napoleon. Das war für ihn ein Riesenstratege wohl. Da hing sogar im Flur ein Riesengemälde von Napoleon, da kann ich mich als Kind da noch erinnern. Also es gab in der Welt mal so bestimmte Typen die übernormal strategisch begabt waren, das wissen sie besser, [unclear] sowas hier dazu erzählen [laughs] aber das ist meine Empfindung hier, meine Empfindung.
HZ: Gut, dann bedanke ich mich jetzt auch [unclear] mal.
HK: Ja, ich hoffe das.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Helmut Köhler
Description
An account of the resource
Helmut Köhler (b. 1928) recalls his wartime experience as Luftwaffenhelfer. He provides a first-hand account of two attacks on Kassel, the first on the 22 October 1943 and the second in March 1944. He describes his time spent inside the air-raid shelter; how he helped extinguish fires; the destruction of schools and the entire old town being razed to the ground. He also discusses everyday life in an anti-aircraft unit, the process of matching skills to roles, training, and anti-aircraft fire. He mentions being posted to a special deployment unit as a punishment for noncompliance, following which he was re-trained on quadruplet anti-aircraft guns at the Eder dam. He briefly talks about the breaching of the Eder dam and the ensuing flood wave. Helmut Köhler recalls Russian and French prisoners of war manning flak batteries. He describes an unexploded bomb in his house on new year’s eve 1944. He stresses that Luftwaffenhelfer freed up soldiers for combat roles and highlights how the replacement ratio was almost 1:1. He mentions his first encounter with American troops in Gudensberg at the end of the war.
Creator
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Harry Ziegler
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-03
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Format
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00:59:29 audio recording
Language
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deu
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKohlerH170303
Spatial Coverage
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Germany--Kassel
Germany--Eder Dam
Germany--Gudensberg
Germany
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.
Coverage
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Civilian
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Temporal Coverage
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1943-10-22
1944-03
1944-12
1943-05-16
1943-05-17
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
childhood in wartime
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
firefighting
Luftwaffenhelfer
prisoner of war
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/342/3509/ATrumanEG170315.1.mp3
3c4b3518135201b262200ffa6d7f24b8
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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Truman, Ernest
E Truman
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Ernest Truman (b.1921, 418318 Royal Australian Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-15
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Truman, EG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
ET: I went to join, I tried to join the Navy one night and the bloke said, ‘We’re busy come back.’
JB: Did he?
ET: Yeah [laughs] So, I joined the Air Force.
JB: Where did you train?
ET: Oh, I went to [pause] they took blokes in and had them as aircrew guards and they did so much guard duty at various places and then they went in for training at Number 1 ES at Somers.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Somers camp. And that’s what I did. I was an aircrew guard. AC2 is what they called it at, in the Western District wouldn’t it have been?
JB: Yeah. I think my father was at Somers.
ET: Yeah.
JB: A lot of —
ET: He would have been. Somers is Number 1. Number 1 and ITS. Initial Training School.
JB: Yeah. And what did, a lot of blokes went over to Canada. Who were those blokes?
ET: They were no reason for going here, there or anywhere. They just did and they just sent them to Canada to train.
JB: Right. And so from training. So how long was training?
ET: Well, nine months.
JB: Nine months and I heard that —
ET: Nine months before graduation and then there was training and training and training and training.
JB: And did you want to be, did you, did you start off knowing the position you’d have in the crew or were you just —
ET: No. We weren’t, you were an individual.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I went to Benalla on Tiger Moths. Did well on Tiger Moths. Passed, and passed out ok. Then I went to Deniliquin on Wirraways, and I couldn’t handle Wirraways and they scrubbed me.
JB: Yeah.
ET: So, I said I’ll go as straight gunner and the, I was working in an office there and I got to know the sergeant there and the sergeant went to the chief ground instructor and was nattering to him and the chief ground instructor, ground instructor came out and says, ‘You’re not going to be a gunner. You’re going to be a navigator.’ No, sorry. ‘An observer.’ In Australia we were observers.
JB: Yeah.
ET: We did a three months course that were thereabouts at Mount Gambia and then we went to Gippsland. Did a gunnery course. And then we went to Evans Head, did a air, astro-navigation course.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Right. And then we came back and we was billeted at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. We were, by then we were either sergeants or pilot officers. I was a sergeant and we, I was booked one night to be orderly sergeant and I said to the officer, I said, ‘What do I have to do?’ He said just, he told me. So I go in at the airmen’s mess and I yelled out, ‘Stand fast. Orderly officer. Any complaints?’ And no complaints [laughs] So, we were billeted at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The best meals you’ve ever, you could ever imagine and we slept in the outer area near grandstands converted to a sleeping quarters and then we caught the Niew Amsterdam, a Dutch royal family liner out of Port Melbourne and went via Durban to England. Durban, South Africa.
JB: Did you stop off in Durban?
ET: For a fortnight.
JB: I mean, it would have been exciting to go.
ET: Pardon?
JB: It would have been very exciting.
ET: Oh yeah.
JB: The thought of going on an overseas trip.
ET: We had a ball. I was almost broke when I got to Durban because I hadn’t had much luck playing poker.
JB: So was that what you, all the way over everyone played poker.
ET: Oh no. There was two up school. We had the two up dice. Heads and tails dice. I think I’ve still got them somewhere and I wasn’t, look I wasn’t concerned with winning money on the ship. I played poker but if you’d got in to a job like Two Up or Ins and Outs, that was another game they had gambling or [pause] Crown and Anchor. Have you ever played Crown and Anchor?
JB: I’ve heard about it. I don’t think I’ve played it. No.
ET: Well, there’s a mat like that and there’s six squares. There’s hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades and a crown and an anchor and if you put your money on, on a heart and there’s three dice and you throw the three dice. If there, if no heart comes up you lose your money.
JB: Yeah.
ET: If two hearts come up you get two to one. If three hearts come up you get three to one. So you’d say it’s an even money bet but ahh there’s a trick to it. You see if three hearts come up the banker pays out on three to one on one square but he collects on five.
JB: So the odds are with the house.
ET: The other five you see. So the odds are with the house and after one the blokes said, ‘Go partners with me.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do.’ So we set up shop and I said two to one the treble two, sorry four to one the treble and everybody betted on us and then the silly buggers, I said this, the opposition said five to one the treble and had odds on the others, better odds and I said, ‘They’re losing odds. I’m not playing anymore.’ But we had a good night and —
JB: So, was the food, what was the food like on the ship?
ET: Oh, the food on the Melbourne Cricket Ground was the best food you could —
JB: Oh.
ET: Oh, it was beautiful. Yeah. You had to walk up about ten, right up to the top of the Melbourne Cricket Ground grandstands. The old grandstands. They’re not there anymore. And that was beautiful. Onboard the, we got plentiful going over on the, on the Niew Amsterdam. That was alright but and you got plenty to eat because half the blokes were seasick.
JB: And did you have to train on the boat or anything or did you just sort of play? Just gamble all day.
ET: No, we, they had, we had sports.
JB: Yeah.
ET: You know, but running on a boat that’s going like that is a bit a bit awkward but I had a, I had a go. Yeah. And we picked, we went to Durban and we picked up four hundred Polish WAAFs.
JB: Oh, that’s good.
ET: Oh, not four hundred. I don’t know. A number of Polish WAAFs. But they were watched. They were watched like a bloody hawk, you know.
JB: Hang on. I’ll just, make sure I’ve got it all. This is, hang on. So, I’ll just —
[recording paused]
JB: This is just such good stuff.
ET: When we got to Durban the only Australians that had been there before that apart from a ship’s crew was the 6th Division. Now, the 6th Division left Durban. Hello.
Other: Hello.
ET: They —
[recording paused]
ET: Central traffic area. Redirected the traffic in a different direction. They [pause] One woman was waiting at the, at the, for the traffic to stop with a pram and a couple of blokes walked out and stopped the traffic. This 6th Division soldier came back, picked up the woman’s pram and picked up the woman and took her across the corner. And she yelled off and smacked one of them. So, they picked her up and took her back.
JB: That’s fantastic. Yeah.
ET: And it was —
JB: So where did they go on to fight? The 6th Division. They would have gone in to Africa, wouldn’t they?
ET: They went to, went to England.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And —
JB: Yeah.
ET: I’m not an authority on that.
JB: No. it’s fine.
ET: I’m not an authority on that but they went up to, up to England. I know they had, a couple of them did work shearing in half a day. A week’s shearing in half a day but at any rate I had an uncle who was one of them and when we got there I heard somebody say, ‘These people are real gentlemen. Not like the last lot.’ [laughs] And you know they redirected traffic. They did everything. And we were taken for a drive. They commandeered the taxis and they took us for a drive into the Valley of a Thousand Hills or something like that and the taxi driver was a woman. She says, ‘I was taken with, we got the job of taking the Australian Army out,’ and she says, ‘I told them I couldn’t. I had to be back because I had to pick up my son from school.’ They said, ‘No, you don’t.’ They took, they took me to the school and I went and got my son and came back and then they said, ‘Where are we going?’ and she says well so and so. And they said, ‘No, you’re not. We’ll go somewhere else.’ And she says, ‘I had the best afternoon, best day I ever had with these Australian 6th Division blokes and my son had a whale of a time.’ And any rate, we went. We were there for about six days and we were, we went to the main hotel and one of the boys was Tully. I don’t know what, he was Tully’s. Have you heard of Tully’s whiskies and wines?
JB: Yeah. Yeah. And brandy.
ET: Well, that was one of, he was one of the sons.
JB: Cool.
ET: And we, we went there and oh, half a dozen, I think. More than, I think there was about nine of us walked into the pub and it was the same pub that the diggers before us took on the, took over and they got, we got, you know preferential treatment. Cleared the area. Got a big table out. Put the tables together and made it side by side and Tully he got hold of the head waiter and talked wines to him and we had a good meal. Yeah. And I, I bought a little trinket for my mum made of ivory. It was ivory. They make an ivory ball that you could see into and inside the ivory ball was an ivory elephant and I’m not too sure whether they’re ivory or bone but still and in all there you are. And then we, we arrived in the top of Scotland at a place called Crewe, I think. Crewe. And, no, it wasn’t a place called Crewe. We came down in a train and it happened to my uncle and to us exactly the same. We, we pull up at a place and one of, one of the blokes says, ‘Where the bloody hell are we?’ And a voice on the platform said, ‘This is Crewe.’ Just like that see. And then we came down. Went all the way down to, to Brighton. The RAAF bought one, two, oh at least four pubs in Brighton and a three storeyed house on the corner opposite one of the pubs and these pubs, two pubs. The Metropole. The Metropole and the, and the Grand I think was, were on the waterfront and the, and the other two in rear streets and we —
JB: The RAF, RAAF bought the pubs.
ET: Yeah. They bought them. And when the war was over people should say, were saying you were, you should let us have those pubs. They were, and the answer the RAF, RAAF gave was that when the, when we bought them they were sitting on the waterfront at Brighton and you look over the English Channel and there was Germany. All they had to do was to put a bomb under Germany and go straight in to the front of the bomb and go over the top and you were very very happy to get rid of them. Now, you’ll just have to wait until we’re finished with them.
JB: That’s fantastic.
ET: And from there we went to various training places. I went to Southern Ireland and they gave us all the warnings in the world about how to behave in Ireland. And that was a whole lot of bull.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Ireland was, you’d get in a, the first night we were there I bought three pots and three whiskies. And it was Irish whisky and the whiskies were oh bigger than any I’ve ever had before and there was three of us and we downed those and I paid. I gave him ten bob and he gave me seven and something change. So that’s not bad. And —
JB: And were the Irish people welcoming? Because it —
ET: We were supposed to stay. Oh, sorry I’m getting mixed up there. This is after the war.
JB: Yeah.
ET: This is after we’d done our ops you know and Symesy and I we were supposed to stay with the people named Lamb. Lamb’s Jam, they were famous for. But they had a death in the family so we fell on our feet. They took us out for a drive in their little horse and cart and very boring and very [laughs] lovely countryside and then they, they, they said, ‘Can you — ' we said. ‘Don’t worry about us. We’ll be right.’ So we went in to [pause] oh a pub. Booked in there and in the pub was all, lots of medical students. Doctors, you know. Trainee doctors and that and they immediately latched on to us and we were in civilian clothes because Ireland was still you know a a a non —
JB: Neutral.
ET: Neutral country. Yeah. Sorry. And so we, we put on these civilian suits and these couple of trainee doctors come in and said looked at our uniform and they went to the dance in our uniform so that and I, that was and yeah —
JB: So, then you, so —
ET: Then we came back and we were on the ship coming home.
JB: No. No. No. You’re in Ireland so you’re still training. So now —
ET: No. I’m sorry, I got out of, that’s this is the war is still going on but we’re, we were, sorry.
JB: We’ll start again.
ET: I was a POW.
JB: Sorry, but you, so you but you’ve reached England.
ET: Yeah.
JB: And you, and you get, how did you get in to 460 Squadron.
ET: Well, you see that’s where I’m wrong.
JB: Right.
ET: We, we, went to [pause] did go to Ireland.
JB: Yeah. Alright.
ET: But not, not the Ireland you mentioned. I got, that’s where I got side tracked. We went to Northern Ireland.
JB: Yeah.
ET: On a, on an Air Force base in Northern Ireland. The CO was about seven foot tall and he said, ‘You give me any cheek,’ he said, ‘You can come into the ring with me.’ Nobody gave him any cheek.
JB: Was he an Aussie bloke?
ET: No. No.
JB: No.
ET: No. No.
JB: Irish.
ET: Pom.
JB: Yeah. Pom. Right.
ET: Yeah, and we, I forget how long we were there but we were doing, you know routine training and then we came back and [pause] oh crikey. Can you tell me where are we?
[recording paused]
JB: So, you would have come back to [unclear]
ET: Keep going.
JB: Bombing. Bombing. Number 3 BAGS. I don’t know what that is.
ET: Keep going. Bombing and air, bombing and gunnery.
JB: Righto. Gunnery again. Astro-navigation. Oh rightio.
ET: That’s Queensland.
JB: Yeah, gee.
[pause-pages rustling]
JB: Broughton. Broughton. Church Broughton.
ET: Church Broughton. Now, that was —
JB: So that’s in May. May two thousand and oh two thousand, May 1944 it would have been wouldn’t it?
ET: Yeah. And Church Broughton was a, was a —
JB: So, you were still training then.
ET: Yeah. That was, yeah. But we were on —
JB: Wellingtons.
ET: On Wellingtons. That’s right. And we did, did oh various things. What did, what did they call it?
JB: Circuits.
ET: Circuits.
JB: Cross country bombing.
ET: Circuits and bumps.
JB: Yeah. Yeah.
ET: That right?
JB: Yeah.
ET: That was for the pilot. He was converting from ordinary aircraft to Wellingtons. Go on then.
JB: So you were on Wellingtons all that time and then, and that’s May and then June.
ET: What does it say? What are we doing?
JB: You’re doing, you’re doing cross country bombing. You’re training.
ET: Yeah. Alright. Go on. Keep going.
JB: And then solo cross country, solo cross countries and then in [pause] So then in September you’re at Lindholme.
ET: Lindholme was a, was a satellite drome from oh what’s the place? Anyway, go on. What am I doing there?
JB: And you got a flight. You’ve got Birt.
ET: Flight lieutenant Birt.
JB: Birt. Gardener and Birt.
ET: He was a, oh he’s a sergeant, flight sergeant. Birt. He was our pilot. He was a bloke. We’d crewed up by this time. We’ve got Birt, Symes, Truman, Benbow the wireless op and the two gunners, Wilson and O’Hara.
JB: So how did you, how did you find your crew? How did you crew up?
ET: They put us all together in a room. There must have been oh, about ninety or so. Anyway, there was a multiple of six.
JB: Did you feel nervous that you won’t be picked? Or —
ET: Eh?
JB: Do you sort, it’s like that old getting picked for the school footy team.
ET: Yeah.
JB: You feel nervous you don’t get picked. Or is it all sort of —
ET: No. No. No, you’re just all there in a hall like all individuals and a bloke comes up to me and says, ‘I’m a pilot.’ He had the pilot wings on.
JB: Yeah.
ET: He was a flight sergeant and he said, and I got the navigator badge and he said, he said, ‘Would you like to be in my crew?’ And I says, ‘Well, if you take me you take Spencer Symes.’ He’s my cobber. ‘Oh.’ And I said, ‘He’s a navigator. I’m the navigator bomb aimer.’ ‘Oh,’ so the first thing he said, ‘Alright.’ Symesy comes over and he asks Symesy. And Symesy said to him, ‘You any bloody good?’
JB: Oh.
ET: It’s typical of what you’d expect. He said, ‘That’s for you to find out.’ So, anyhow we got a pilot and then he went away and he got a wireless operator and he got, and we crewed up. We got six of us. And I remember I said, you didn’t know where you were going yourself see. So, I said, I prayed to God that I wouldn’t be, let my crew down. And well, that’s how, that was the case see.
[recording paused]
ET: So, and Symesy was a bloody good navigator. I relied on Symesy and I was a good mate to him. We, we had a bond that was something to be valued and I said to Symesy [pause] what was it? I’ve lost it.
JB: You’ve just, you’ve crewed up and you’ve —
ET: Yeah.
JB: Got your mate Symesy who was going to be the navigator.
ET: Yeah. He was a navigator. I was a navigator bomb aimer and that’s how we stayed and I I was quite happy with my position and I was quite [pause] then we start to do circuits and bumps.
JB: Yeah. Circuits and landings. Fighter affiliation.
ET: Yeah.
JB: That’s in October ‘44.
ET: Fighter affiliation where, where you get attacked by a friendly fighter and you take fighter —
JB: It’s when they you do that corkscrew stuff, is it?
ET: You do evasions.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And he, he chases you and we saw, we were at Hemswell, I think. I forget now when we saw a fighter and a Lancaster doing that and the fighter cut the tail off the Lanc and the rear turret landed in a football ground. The pilot landed, landed about from here to the house across the paddock and a, from the sergeant’s mess and the whole lot were killed plus the Lanc went in to the Gas Defence Centre and there were eleven or twelve bodies in that.
JB: Was that the first time you saw people killed in in, that would have been, I mean, yeah it would have been fairly frightening, wouldn’t it?
ET: I think it was.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I think it would have been the first. And anyway —
JB: So then in [pause] you’re at Binbrook with 460 Squadron.
ET: Binbrook.
JB: And you’re still, so —
ET: Binbrook was our squadron.
JB: Yeah. So —
ET: That was the head of the, Binbrook was the head of the, the Group. That means that it had all the high wigs there. The, the village inn was something to behold. The village, it wasn’t a village inn as you know it. Sorry, the officer’s mess. They called it that. And it was, the officer’s mess was something out of this world. Our CO was Hugh, H U G H, Edwards VC.
JB: Hughie Edwards.
ET: And VC was, being a VC everybody saluted him no matter how high the rank. All the high-ranking blokes, the whatsthename was there but everybody saluted the VC winner.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And he was, he was one of the boys, you know. He was. He, he was, he got in to all sorts of trouble. Low flying and all that. He he wrecked a couple of aeroplanes and he had a bad limp because of it. And —
JB: Was he well respected by everyone? All the —
ET: Everybody.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah. He, he’d come to the sergeant’s mess dances. Never missed a sergeant’s mess dance. I never saw him get drunk but I understand that he used to before then because, well he had a wife. He had his wife on the station and they had married quarters in those days.
JB: Oh.
ET: Yeah. And he, you got a story about him.
JB: Yeah. In that —
ET: In that —
JB: Yeah.
ET: What’s the name book there. So, and the first, our first raid was when?
JB: One thing I, so 460 Squadron you’ve got raids happening and people and training at the same time so it would have been pretty busy. I didn’t realise that. I thought they were sort of you trained and then you went to an operational squadron.
ET: Oh, no. You were —
JB: Yeah.
ET: You were, you were flying all the time.
JB: Yeah. So, you’re first —
ET: Yeah.
JB: Sorry. Oh. I think your first raid was at a place called, was it Düren? Düren. Düren.
ET: D Ü R E N.
JB: Yeah.
ET: With a circle.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Fixed over the U.
JB: Same as in the Champagne.
ET: Yeah.
JB: Düren. That was the first raid. In November.
ET: Yeah. Well, Düren that was a, they got word from, you can guess that Düren was a [pause] was a rendezvous for a SS —
JB: Oh.
ET: SS, oh division. Squadron. You know. Panzer division.
JB: Yeah. Yeah.
ET: A Panzer division was in Düren waiting supplies because Düren happened to be a junction of the railways and there was trains stacked up everywhere. What are the [pause] Tanks.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And so really and we went there and as we were there we were approaching this cloud. Ten tenths cloud and the master bomber, the master bomber was an invention brought in later in the war to give direction to bombers as they approached their target. The, and what they did was they used to say, they spoke in code. ‘Pickwick,’ they said. ‘Come down to ten thousand feet boys. It’s lovely down here.’ That’s, that’s the sort of talk they did. ‘It’s lovely down here. Down to ten thousand feet.’ And I said, ‘Bloody hell, a kid would be able to hit us with a pea shooter.’ But in, in the event there was no anti-aircraft fire whatsoever. There was nothing and so we went across and this bloke in the, the Pathfinder bloke said, ‘Bomb Pickwick boys. Bomb Pickwick. Beautiful. Doing well. Bomb Pickwick.’ And Pickwick was code for the leading edge of the smoke. So —
JB: Righto. Yeah.
ET: And as you bombed, as bombed Pickwick like that the smoke crept right across the town. And then when we got back the, they were ecstatic over the result. Right. That’s that one.
JB: When you told me that was the biggest. What was it on? Nuremberg the biggest. Was it —
ET: Oh, Nuremberg’s another matter. Go on.
JB: Well, then you bombed. You bombed Aschaffenburg. Ashfreiburg?
ET: Aschaffenburg.
JB: Aschaffenburg. Yeah.
ET: I don’t remember much about that one.
JB: Freiburg.
ET: Freiburg. Oh, wait a minute. Wait. What’s, what’s, tell me the story of Freiburg.
JB: Freiburg. Yeah. No [pause] then Merseburg.
ET: Merseburg.
JB: Merseburg. Yeah.
ET: Now Merseburg was an oil refinery.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And the Yanks went to bomb it and in daylight of course. They don’t bomb at night time. They bomb in daylight and I’m sorry but the, that bomb, that raid I just previously talked about on Duisburg.
JB: On Düren.
ET: Düren. That was in daylight. We decided to do that one in daylight. The powers that be they know what they’re doing see.
JB: Yeah. Yeah, that’s —
ET: But, but Merseburg the Yanks had tried to go at that and it was an oil refinery and it was just about [pause] it was about to start producing synthetic oil. Now, that’s a prime target. No one, know that Germany’s in trouble with shortage of oil. Shortage of fuel for aircraft. Shortage of fuel for tanks. Shortage of fuel for anything. So, the Yanks went there to do it in daylight and they shot the leading aircraft down just like that and the Yanks said we can’t handle it, they said. So, we said, they said all right we’ll, so we went the first night and there was more anti-aircraft fire than you can imagine. I reckon that the version was that they threw up more. Even somebody said the sink, they saw the kitchen sink come up at them. And anyhow, we followed. A Lancaster, got coned by searchlights and we followed him across the target area, dropped our bombs, no good. So the next, we had to go back again. They said no, no matter how far, how long it takes that oil refinery has got to be done. So anyhow, the next time we did it we did another trip to Merseburg.
JB: Yeah. You did two.
ET: Yeah. Alright.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Well, the second trip to Merseburg. I’ll do the Merseburg over first and this time we, we were, we were all of a sudden the bloody hell of an explosion came up. I could have read that book it was so bright in the cockpit and we were up at oh about eighteen thousand feet I suppose. Somewhere in that vicinity and I could have read that and I thought oh beauty. And then in the light of the aircraft and the explosion I could see a Lancaster there. Two Lancasters there and I says, it said, it could have been any one of the four. Four or five of us. So that finished Merseburg off.
JB: Nuremberg on January the 2nd.
ET: Yeah.
JB: Merseburg.
ET: Let’s [pause] you, you I jumped over it —
JB: You went to Gelsenkirchen.
ET: Gelsenkirchen. Yeah.
JB: Yeah. Gelsenkirchen. Yeah. [unclear] St Vith. St Vith.
ET: Oh. Gelsenkirchen. I can’t remember that one. St Vith. Now —
JB: Yeah. St Vith.
ET: Have you ever seen the picture the Battle of the Bulge?
JB: Yeah.
ET: And you’ve seen Clark Gable and Lana Turner in —
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah, in one—
JB: Oh, that was there.
ET: That was always, that was, that was their story. The Yanks, they all told the story of the Battle of the Bulge and Lana Turner where Lana Turner gets, dies of her wounds or something or other with Clark Gable and, but all of that was on one side of the Bulge, the Battle of the Bulge and the Canadians and the British were on the other side and that’s where St Vith was and we couldn’t, we were grounded by lack of, by cloud cover and then it cleared up and we went in and bombed St Vith. And we had to had to take note of the angle of incidents whether the aircraft was up or down at any time because some idiots had bombed the Canadian troops. But in the end we bombed, and we bombed St Vith and they were quite happy. Now, what else is there?
JB: So, Nuremberg.
ET: Nuremberg. The worst raid. The worst raid of the war was on the beginning of, the end of March 1944 on Nuremberg when how many [pause] oh, there was eleven hundred, no. Oh sorry. A thousand and ten Lancasters and Avro, Avro Lancasters and Halifaxes went to bomb Nuremberg and it was the worst raid in the world, of the war suffered by RAAF, by the RAF Bomber Command. They lost a hundred aircraft over the continent. Four-engined aircraft. And another thirty two crash landed in England.
JB: Jeez.
ET: They, they estimated that they lost more airmen in that one raid than in the whole of the Battle of Britain. Anyway —
JB: Because was Nuremberg just so heavily fortified.
ET: Yeah. But see things went wrong.
JB: Yeah.
ET: They were. But anyway we went back to Nuremberg and by this, at this time they had, and I was on the second raid on Nuremberg. I think it’s in there.
JB: Yeah. 2nd of January.
ET: Right. We, we went there and I was on that and I think we carried four long delays.
JB: Yeah. Yeah. I think that, yeah. Yeah. I can’t, I don’t know the coding but —
ET: What is it?
JB: It’s 1..4000. 12…500 DCO.
ET: Yeah.
JB: I don’t know the [pause] so it’s 1. 4000.
ET: I can’t read it any bloody way.
JB: [unclear]
ET: Any rate, we carried, Nuremberg was a long long flight. The more petrol you had the less bombs you carried. So —
JB: And, and Nuremberg it sounds as though everyone Nuremberg was a, was a, everyone was particularly scared of Nuremberg because of what had happened. Is that —
ET: Nuremberg was one of the places where Naziism started.
JB: Yeah. So it was a significant one.
ET: So Nuremberg Stadium there. I went past it in the train.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And they had the Nuremberg Stadium there and so and they had later on, after the war they had the Nuremberg trials there if you remember with Spencer Tracey in it.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And we, any rate we had the four thousand pound cookie. We always carried a four thousand pounder.
JB: That’s the —
ET: And we had, I don’t know what else we had.
JB: Four five hundred pound bombs.
ET: We had four five hundred long delays.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And well, the long delays they, they have a fuse in the tail. The bomb does. They screw this fuse into the tail of the bomb and when it, when it, when it hits on impact the, the it breaks a container of oil or acid that works on a, on a washer that’s holding back the firing pin. And it takes a minimum of six hours to, to dissolve that washer and release the firing pin and the bomb explodes. A minimum of six hours and a maximum of twelve hours. So, if you, after you drop your bombs you go, you’re back to England and a bit of supper, debriefed, put your flying gear away. Up in the contact. And your bombs are still sitting there waiting to be detonated. If they, and the fact that they don’t, delayed means that they, if they hit a building they penetrate the building and they’re right down in the guts of the building. If they’re in the guts of the building if somebody finds them if they try to unscrew that that fuse out of the bomb it automatically explodes. So I don’t know how many poor poor Jerries, and the bomb disposal people they they had that job in in Germany, in England. In every other place where there was bombs. It’s not a job you’d like is it?
JB: No. No.
ET: So any rate, there you are.
JB: So, then I suppose so then you bombed Stuttgart and you failed to return. So, what happened? You —
ET: Yeah. I blamed that to a certain extent on, oh you can always get, see that’s a lot. Yeah. You can, you can, you’ve got to [pause] when we were shot down as I think I told you earlier there was a, oh I can’t think of his bloody name. I know I had an argument with this. I had an argument. The bombing leader. We did, we did a few more daylights and I would tell the pilot to shut the bomb doors immediately I saw the bombs leave the aircraft. You see the longer you have the bomb doors open the least manoeuvrable your aircraft is and that, not much but enough. And that was what my pilot wanted and my pilot was my boss. And the flight, and the flight lieutenant was a rank higher than my pilot. That didn’t matter a bugger. The pilot’s in charge when he’s in, in the air. And I had an argument with this flight lieutenant. He said, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ I said, ‘You can tell me what you like but I do what my pilot tells me.’ ‘Your pilot is wrong.’ I said, ‘That’s in your opinion. In the air he’s the only man in charge.’ And it was getting a bit heated and the [pause] oh what’s his name? I can’t think of his name but he came over and said, get it, get it stopped you know. Poured oil on troubled waters if you’d like to put it that way. But we were right. We could, you know. The quicker you got your bomb doors closed the quicker you could get away and that and I could see the bombs go and I could. No. You can’t do that at dark time. At night time because you can’t see. It’s dark. Anyway, how’s that?
JB: So then you were shot down over Stuttgart.
ET: Yeah. Well, we, when we were at Stuttgart we, we did the stupid bloody thing and everybody can say that when they’re shot down I suppose. Before there was a squadron leader came up to us and said, ‘You’ve got a load of incendiaries.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, and that was the first time we carried incendiaries. We’d always carried high explosive and that was just how things worked out and he said, ‘Well, just to make things more effective could you fly at over twenty one thousand feet?’ And I said, ‘But our bomb sight’s only made to bomb from twenty thousand feet.’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, but —’ he said, ‘You could make allowance for that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I suppose I could.’ So, the navigator and the pilot were there listening to him and it was ok. We did that but you know that’s exactly where a night fighter would be. Just over twenty thousand feet and that’s where we copped it.
JB: And —
ET: Yeah.
JB: So you lost four crew, three crew.
ET: The pilot and two gunners were killed.
JB: In the, in the by the night fighter.
ET: Yeah. By the night fighter.
JB: So, how did your, how did the plane stay stable for you to bale out?
ET: I don’t know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I, I’ve often thought by the sacrifice of the pilot.
JB: Yeah.
ET: But how do I know that? I was, I was up in the nose of the aircraft. Therefore, I was the first man out.
JB: So, what’s it like parachuting out of a —
ET: Oh, I’m happy to get out.
JB: Yeah. It would have been a pretty —
ET: The bloody thing’s, we got the port inner engine windmilling. Windmilling means it’s out of control.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And anti-aircraft fire going. Circuit, there’s a, I can see the, see anti-aircraft shells explode. They explode if they don’t hit the aeroplane and you can see a load of explosions and where the aeroplane is. It makes it so you can see that and you go there and you know and so the, your pilot says, ‘Get out,’ and we got —
JB: So, he told you to bale out.
ET: Oh yes. He gives you the order to bale out and that’s it.
JB: Yeah. It would have been pretty lonely parachuting. Can you see the other crew members? Or were you on your own.
ET: No. I was happy to get out.
JB: Yeah.
ET: No, I [pause] I landed, when I was got out of the aeroplane I, trying to be cunning I got a, I put my hand over my head like that, knelt down at the opening, put me foot out and that tossed me, tossed me out but it also lost me a flying boot.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I lost a flying boot out there. So, I landed in the, in snow covered country and I’d never had any experience. I hadn’t seen snow in my life before I went to England. And I went there and I went walkabout and I walked in the snow until I got to [pause] until it got daylight and I turned in to the, in to the forest and walked a good distance through the forest. Got under a tree where, a pine tree and crawled under there and was sat there massaging my bare foot.
JB: That’s got to, yeah.
ET: And when it came daylight I was right at the edge of another bloody road and there was a bloke, a German bloke speed past and I could have [laughs] yelled out and shook his hand. And anyway, I I go on that road and I don’t take, I don’t take, oh more than [pause] don’t walk more than a hundred yards when I can’t feel my foot below the knee and I wake up then. I’ll have to knock on some bugger’s door which I did. And they, I said, there’s an older elderly couple there with a young girl. A young German girl. Rather nice looking. I said, I said to her, ‘Go and get the Luftwaffe.’ And she did. She got the Luftwaffe and they came and got me and painted my foot with blue purple dye.
JB: Why the Luftwaffe? Because you didn’t want to fall in to the Gestapo —
ET: I don’t know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: But, the Luftwaffe I go to the Luftwaffe’s camp. I asked for the Luftwaffe. I thought that was the best shot.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And I —
JB: I think you’re right too.
ET: Yeah. No, it proved to be right and they, this bloke comes to me and I throw a packet of Camels. I had a packet of Camels. I pulled it out my pocket and threw it to the old bloke and they took me and painted my left foot with purple dye. And —
JB: And did they treat you well?
ET: Couldn’t have done better I don’t think. Well —
JB: You’re lucky you got the Luftwaffe, I think.
ET: Eh?
JB: I think you were lucky you chose the Luftwaffe.
ET: Well, I, yeah. I don’t know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: You can answer. You can answer that question if you like but I, they took me in to Luftwaffe’s, they put me in a bunk and painted my foot and the young, young German girl came in and went crook at me [laughs]
JB: For what? For what? Because you were, you were in Bomber Command.
ET: I’m bombing their town.
JB: Yeah. Righto.
ET: Yeah. Yeah. ‘Why you bomb? Why you bomb?’ I said, ‘Well, you know it’s a, it’s a two-way street,’ or words to that effect and then I was picked up by [pause] we were marched. Oh, I get hazy on this. It’s a long while ago. And we went down and I can’t, they can’t walk me to the Interrogation Centre. The Interrogation Centre is on the banks of the Rhine. Oh, what’s the name? What’s the town on the Rhine? It’s the biggest town there is on the Rhine?
JB: Not Stuttgart. No.
ET: No. Not Stuttgart.
JB: It doesn’t matter.
ET: Anyhow, back on to the Rhine and we on a week’s solitary confinement and that drives you bloody nuts but —
JB: Could you, had you seen any other aircrew around or were you just absolutely on your own?
ET: No. On the first night I was there I met up with Doug Benbow. Our, our wireless op.
JB: Ah yeah.
ET: And that was, I was given a blanket and, I was given a blanket and he said, ‘Blanket?’ I said, ‘He’s cronk.’ That means I’m crook [laughs]
JB: Oh yeah.
ET: You don’t get one [laughs]
JB: Oh really [laughs] Yeah.
ET: And it was a good blanket though. And —
JB: So then you go off to a POW camp after the weeks’, so the week in solitary was pretty tough.
ET: Oh yeah. That drives me nuts. I wouldn’t have, there was, I understand there was a German officer [pause] sorry an English officer there. They were keeping him more than a weeks’ solitary confinement because they think he might have known something. But the interrogations officer oh, if you got Conrad Veidt, do you know Conrad Veidt? The actor. If you got him down and made him a little bloke he’d be a dead ringer for this bloke. He walks in, monocle [laughs] plus fours.
JB: Oh, like [laughs] —
ET: He just tosses a book on the table, ‘You can have a look at that if you like.’ So I said I liked and I remember, and I saw a photo of a fella I knew. They’d have known that any rate. And oh yeah, if you talked you were there for more. The longer you, the more the talk the more you stay there I think but any rate I was there, I was there for the standard size. A week. A standard time. And they gave me a pair of American Army boots. They were peculiar boots. They had wooden insert instead of using leather and I couldn’t work that out. But that’s, they were boots about that long. Yeah.
JB: So, then you go off to a POW camp.
ET: Yes. They took us to a train and they gave us a lovely cooked lunch. I said, ‘Oh, this is alright.’ So, I promptly ate it. Everybody else did the same. But that’s all we got for three days. Oh crikey. Yeah. That’s all we got for three days.
JB: So, what was life like in the POW camp? Boring. Or things to do all the time? Or —
ET: The Germans had finally woke up that if you keep, if you make a man hungry all he can think of is food. Any sort of food. But he, that’s all he can bloody well think of is food if you’re hungry enough. And there was one golden rule. You weren’t allowed to give, buy food with cigarettes. Like if there was a bloke who wants cigarettes he’ll even give food away to have one. But you never ever bought a man’s food from him.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And they gave us, they said we’ll have a shower. We go there. I had a towel that long and that wide. That’s all I had and that was filthy but I went to the shower and they, all they did was wet us. Then they turned the water off. No. They turned the cold water on and that was, I thought they, that was bastardly really because we were all wet cold. Worse, dirtier than we were before we got. Black water was falling down the fellas faces like that you know. And any rate, we, I was absolutely buggered. I mean a young bloke of you know, in my younger, a better half of twenties and I mean absolutely exhausted and get back to the hut and that’s it.
JB: You, the story about the commandant coming out in the morning and the bloke in the line saying —
ET: Yeah. Oh. There was a lot of funny things like that. This, we were standing there and we were cold, we had no, we, we our flying gear was warm but it wasn’t as warm as [pause] it kept us warm but we had heated, heated aeroplanes, you know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: It wasn’t cold so when we were on the ground in the snow we were bloody well shivering and we were kept waiting for them. There was about six or seven hundred blokes all in this one and this tall bloke, I understand he would have been in the Russian front and got back and he came back and so one of, one of the boys said, ‘He’s a great big dumb bastard.’ And the German behind me on the fence said, ‘I agree with, I agree with you emphatically.’ That’s exactly what he said. ‘I agree with you emphatically.’
JB: And he was a German guard.
ET: Yeah.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And that’s exactly what an Australian would say wouldn’t he?
JB: That’s right. Yeah.
ET: Eh? ‘I agree with you emphatically.’ Oh yeah.
JB: So, then you got, who liberated, who liberated the camp?
ET: Blood and guts.
JB: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
ET: Yeah. I didn’t see him but they tell me he walked, he walked around there. I saw the German front line going back there. They had nothing except, you know their fighting gear. Overcoats down to their bloody ankles and that and they had rifles and when they, our, our prisoner guards were all lined up ready to surrender to Patton when he came and they shot a few of those. Then they kept going past me.
JB: Who? The German front line did.
ET: Yeah.
JB: You’re kidding.
ET: Well, they were, they were surrendering you see. And these people are, are fighting. And the Germans fought. Fought. Fought. Fought. Fought. You’ve got no idea that they’re, if you want a soldier you go and get a German.
JB: So the German front line you could, like were marching down the road or —
ET: No. They’re, they’re running backwards.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And firing you know and but there there’s they got no. I didn’t see any mechanisation and they went past and that, you know and they weren’t firing at us. I was standing there watching them go past.
JB: And they shot some of the guards.
ET: And they shot, shot in to the guards standing outside the prison gates, you know.
JB: Gee whizz [pause] So, nice to be, I mean nice to be liberated. It would have been.
ET: Not bad.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah. We, we walked out.
JB: So, the way that operates they just open the door and off you go, is it? Or —
ET: Oh no. On the 4th of, the 4th of April they marched us out and they wanted, I think they wanted to march us away. I don’t know. It might have been a Geneva Convention arrangement or something like that but they did it everywhere. They opened, they marched the allied prisoners away from the advancing Russians and at least that was our theory. And on the 4th of April 1945 we marched out of Nuremberg prison and got on the road. And we start—
JB: Towards the advancing Americans or the —
ET: Towards the advancing Americans.
JB: Away from the Russians.
ET: Away from the Ruskies. A couple of interesting things. The, what was it, what was I going to say? Oh yeah, there was on the side of the road there was a, we saw them laying there. There was a couple of blokes and they had a great big quantity of German, German booze and they were handing it out to the people [laughs] And I went in to the town. Went in to this, it wasn’t Nuremberg but it was some sort of, some town on the road and I walked in there, in to this hardware shop trying to look for something, you know I can use because we had no tools or anything. And I got a, a cold chisel and then a bloke walked in the other door and I said, ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ And walked out. He was a German owner of the shop. It makes you sick.
JB: What? What —
ET: He was still living there.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah. The German front line had gone past him but I walked in to his hardware shop. The bloody hardware. The hardware was terrible, you know. And I walked in there. I picked up a chisel I think it was and, ‘I’m sorry.’ All I could think of was saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ Yeah.
JB: For pinching the chisel basically.
ET: No. For intruding in to his premises.
JB: Oh, yeah.
ET: I had no right to be there but I thought it was empty.
JB: Yeah. Sorry.
ET: Yeah.
JB: What’s, anything else? Oh, and then how long did it take to get back to Australia?
ET: Oh. We went to, they took us down to Brighton and we were given, we had a, we dressed [pause] my foot was better or just about and I’d got these bloody heavy boots on. Right. And we were in Brighton and there’s the dome and there’s two, two big dance halls there. And my cobber Murray Walsh he, I met up with him again. He’d, he’d fought four rounders in the stadium in Melbourne so he was handy. And they, a couple of sailors picked on him and he dropped them both. Then walked, walked in to the manager of the dome, the dance hall and said, ‘I’m sorry sir but I’ve just knocked out two sailors who’d picked on me.' And the bloke said, ‘You don’t have to pay a penny to come in to this place.’ [laughs] ‘From now on.’ Murray Walsh. Yeah. And —
JB: So just, when you got home how long did it take you to get home? Back to Australia.
ET: I was, when I was, we were marching back. I, just for curiosity I went up to a German couple. They [pause] they marched us from the 4th of April. They started to march us towards the Yank, advancing Yanks and I got, I was going past this German house and there’s folks walking everywhere and I said, ‘Good evening.’ And they, they could speak English quite well. ‘Good evening.’ And I asked them about the, the major raid on, on Nuremberg you know. And this was where I was of course. We were in, we just walked out of Nuremberg on the way home. That’s where the camp was. And they said there was oh sixty odd thousand killed. They had no electricity. No tap water. They’d no water. Therefore they had they had no sewerage. They had no wherewithal to bury the dead. And you can imagine you know how terrible that was and she, they said they had lots of homeless people. People who were living in, living in a building that’s collapsed and they were living, burrowing in to, in to the rubble of it and living there and that sort of thing. So, it’s not a very nice thing to happen.
JB: No.
ET: And any rate, I said, I said, ‘I will be home in Melbourne by Christmas time.’ And as it turned out I was home for the Melbourne Cup.
JB: Ah.
ET: Comic Court won, I think.
JB: Great horse.
ET: Comic Court. Forty to one.
JB: Ah.
ET: Yeah. We, we got to Wellington and we’d been in Wellington drinking in the pub. The first thing we do we go to the pub and I said to the Pommy sailors, I said, ‘Don’t, don’t treat this beer like English beer.’ It’ll probably be twice the strength. And a bloke comes up to me and says ‘What are you blokes doing?’ I said, you know, definitely a local Kiwi and he said, ‘Come with me.’ I said, ‘Why would I want to go with you for?’ And so I said, ‘All we want is a beer.’ And he said, ‘Come with me.’ And he said, ‘Come on.’ So we went with him and he went round gathering blokes. He took us to the Commercial Travellers Club up on the third or fourth floor and they turned on free beer and food and everything you could, whatever you could want. But they turned it on. That’s not bad is it?
JB: That’s fantastic.
ET: Yeah.
JB: And so you got home by, was your mum pretty happy to see you? She would.
ET: Yeah.
JB: They would have been.
ET: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My mum was. Yeah. My [pause] and before I left England I, we could get Yankee cigarettes so I filled up a box about that by about that deep and by about that. A wooden box and I said what have I got to lose and I put a, tacked a card notice on it. My home address in Yarraville. 10 Canterbury Street, Yarraville. And took the cords out the window. That wasn’t, that wasn’t damaged because we were going to rebuild these places anyway, and tied it all up and you know a bloke got a, I got a phone call from a bloke in the Yarraville station and he said, ‘Come and get this bloody wooden box that’s here addressed to you.’ It arrived in my door and there was a box of Prince Albert pipe, pipe tobacco and my old man said that’s, that made some beautiful cigarettes.
[recording paused]
JB: Rightio. I think [pause] I reckon that’s —
ET: Did you get all of that?
JB: I think so. That’s fantastic. I’ll, that’ll be for me.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ATrumanEG170315
Title
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Interview with Ernest Truman
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:18:56 audio recording
Creator
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John Bowden
Date
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2017-03-15
Description
An account of the resource
Ernest Truman completed his initial training in Australia as a navigator before arriving in the UK he was posted to 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook. One of his ops was to destroy the oil refinery at Merseburg and he recalls the explosion was so bright he could have read a book by the light. His plane was shot down on one operation by a night fighter. The pilot and two gunners were killed outright. Ernest lost one of his flying boots during his descent and knew he had to seek help. He knocked on the door of a house and told the young girl to, ‘Go get the Luftwaffe.’ Which she did and he began his time as a prisoner of war.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Stuttgart
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Temporal Coverage
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1944-03
1944-05
1945-04-04
Contributor
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Julie Williams
460 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
navigator
observer
prisoner of war
RAF Binbrook
shot down
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1122/11613/PSharrockR1802.2.jpg
74bc0490974fd0fb083d8e6ec4e0c5e7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1122/11613/ASharrockR180212.1.mp3
fd2a39f1b5015e098c0b9e67efd2639c
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
Sharrock, Bob
Robert Sharrock
R Sharrock
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Bob Sharrock (1924 - 2019, 2210141 Royal Air Force), his log book, a photograph and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 428 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Sharrock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-19
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
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Sharrock, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Flight Sergeant Bob Sharrock on Monday 12th of February at quarter past two, 2018 at his care home [buzz] in Lancashire. So, Bob, you joined, you joined the RAF but prior to joining up can you recall your home life? You were born on the 12th of February 1925. You're actually ninety three today.
RS: A long time ago [laughs]
BW: So happy birthday.
RS: I was only, I only know that I was born in a village called Digmoor.
BW: Digmoor.
RS: My father was a coal miner. I think, but I think probably that's all on the paper anyway. That kind of stuff that I’m telling you. Yeah.
BW: So your father was a coal miner.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And do you have any brothers and sisters?
RS: Did he?
BW: Did you?
RS: I had Eric. Eric. I think you were four boys. But they're on there.
BW: Yeah.
RS: They’re on there.
BW: Yeah. On the story you've written out.
RS: Yeah.
BW: So there were four boys and one of them was called Eric.
RS: Hmm he was the eldest.
[Knocking on the door - recording paused]
BW: Okay. So you have or had an older brother called Eric.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And your younger brother was called William.
RS: William. Yes.
BW: Or Billy.
RS: Billy.
BW: And apparently he died when he was only three.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Do you recall what happened?
RS: I don't. No. I don't know. I don't know why.
BW: Do you recall what your home life was like? With your dad being a miner was it a small house you lived in?
RS: It was a small house. Yes. It was. I didn’t know anything different, you know. It was my home. That was all I knew about. It was all right. I wasn't unhappy by any means.
BW: Do you recall whereabouts you went to school?
RS: Went to? What do you mean?
BW: Went to school
RS: What for?
BW: Do you recall whereabouts you went to school or what school was like?
RS: No.
BW: Were you good at certain subjects?
RS: No. I’d have difficulty doing that. Yeah. I mean, you know I have to have a bit of time to give me a chance to think and try to remember. I can't do it just on short like we’re doing. Talking.
BW: Okay. That's all right. You fell on some hard times as a family because the pit closed and your dad was out of work.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Do you recall that?
RS: I don't recall that but it's written in there, isn’t it?
BW: Okay. So he then went to work in Kent. And came —
RS: And then he came back pretty quickly. Yeah. But that's written in there.
BW: Didn't, didn't suit him then.
RS: No. I don't know why. I don’t know why.
BW: But you went to a school in, in Prescot.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Does any of this look familiar that you’ve, you've written down? Can you read what it says here?
RS: War broke out on the 30th of September 1939 and we were then living in a small semi-detached house. 121 Dragon Lane, Whiston. From then over about the ensuing months we could see the effect of air raids on Liverpool about nine miles away. A few stray bombs fell on Rainhill but did not signify the significant damage.
BW: So there was no significant damage from the bombs that were falling in the area.
RS: Not really. Not, well that's what I’ve put isn’t it? I don’t really recall. There weren't any bombs. I don’t think there were any bombs dropped in my area.
BW: No bombs.
RS: I could see the aircraft. I remember seeing the aircraft.
BW: And you dug a Anderson shelter in your back garden.
RS: Oh, I think lots of people had one of those. Yeah.
BW: Did you have to use it frequently at all?
RS: Oh, we always used it. Every time there was an air raid on we went and sat in there. Yeah. Every time.
BW: And what was it like to hear the sirens and the bombs dropped? Were you, were you afraid much at all?
RS: Not really. We knew very well the way we were fixed we were quite safe really. Yeah. They weren’t bombing us directly. They was bombing something else.
BW: You would be about seventeen at this point weren’t you?
RS: Yeah.
BW: When the when the war broke out.
RS: I would be. Yes. Yeah.
BW: And you started working in delivering milk. So you had some early starts. Can you tell me much about that?
RS: Men were getting called to the, is that the one — ?
BW: That’s it.
RS: The forces. And as a result of it I changed to milk delivering. This meant being up at 5.30 seven days a week. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Loading a hand cart with, with about half a ton of milk bottles and pulling it around Rainhill. I do remember that. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: What was that like? Half a ton of milk bottles on the back of the float.
RS: It was hard work and I was up early in the morning doing it. Yeah.
BW: What did you get paid?
RS: Not a lot. I think it was anything about [pause] if I’m right, I don't know but I think it was only about ten shillings for a week's work. Something. I don't know exactly.
BW: And then you met an old school friend who was working for the local gas company and you went and made enquiries about getting a job there for the local gas company. And the manager asked you a few questions.
RS: Oh.
BW: And you started work as a lab assistant.
RS: Ah yes. I remember working as a lab assistant. I can't remember the chemist's name. [unclear] willingly was soon involved in doing routine laboratory work. Testing work. Oh, I did that. Yeah.
BW: Can you remember what you did in the lab?
RS: I can't.
BW: No.
RS: No. No. I can’t.
BW: You were doing tests on calorific value flue gas analysis.
RS: I know, I remember we sort of walking around and taking temperatures of the retorts and things like that. Yeah.
BW: And then you started night school for maths, physics and chemistry.
RS: Oh. I probably did that because of the, you know it was necessary to get some education because I’d only had an elementary education really until I got that job.
BW: And at the same time, while you were working you joined the Air Training Corps.
RS: Ah, that's right. There was always one. A local one. We had a local one.
BW: Do you remember much about your time in the ATC?
RS: No. I don't remember detail. I don't. I’m sorry but I don’t.
BW: I’m sorry but it got you interested in flying didn't it?
RS: Oh yes. Aye. Oh, it was a regular thing, you know. Once a week.
BW: Do you recall whereabouts you flew from?
RS: No.
[pause]
BW: Would it be Woodvale perhaps?
RS: I can't remember. I can’t remember. I don’t. Isn’t it in there? Surely the place is. If I if I was writing about my flying it would have been be from where. Does it not say where from? The ATC. Took off from that point. Well, the ATC, there was no flying then as far as I remember anyway. Elementary navigation and drill. Two occasions when we went on a weekend camp yeah to Blackpool Airport and once to Crosby.
BW: Once to Crosby.
RS: Crosby on Eden. One day at Crosby I was hanging around the aircraft that were a test flight being sent to [pause] does it say? I’m not, I’m not reading along the lines. A test flight and did I want to join him. I sat in the observer's seat and we flew over the Lake District themselves. I remember that. Aye. I do remember that. Flying.
BW: So you were asked to in the observer's seat on a test flight.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And you went flying over the Lake District.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: What was that like?
RS: I do remember oh that. Oh, it was exciting. Very. Aye.
BW: It would be the first time you ever flew, was it?
RS: Yeah. I remember flying. Yes. It was good.
BW: What was it like being sat next to the pilot at the time?
RS: I was right behind him. Difficult for us to talk to each other really because he, we were both looking the same way and I was behind him and what we did, well we did manage it but it wasn’t a conversation. There was, was, there was some talk, yes. But I wouldn’t remember what we talked about.
BW: Do you remember looking out over the Lake District?
RS: Oh yes. Oh, I was always looking out. Always looking out at the ground below. Yeah. Aye.
BW: Did you get —
RS: Now that we’re talking about it it’s coming back a bit, you know.
BW: Did you get to see much of the lakes? Do you remember. Did you fly over anywhere like Windermere?
RS: I see them. Yes. I used to see the lakes. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Did you fly over Windermere or anywhere like that?
RS: I think so. I’m not sure really where we went. Where we went. Because I wasn't the navigator. Well, I wasn’t navigating it.
BW: And what made you join the RAF then because this is now during the early part of the war?
RS: Yeah.
BW: You've joined the ATC and you've had a limited amount of flying experience. What do you think made you join the RAF?
RS: Oh, it seemed to be the natural thing to do if you're in the ATC. I think so. Nothing's in, you know I was out. I’m pretty sure that I was looking forward to joining the RAF. Yeah.
BW: Did it seem exciting for you?
RS: Oh, it was interesting. Yeah. I don't know about exciting. Must be getting morbid but I can visualise now sort of going to [pause] well I don't know why, going to the local gas works and having a chat with the manager there and the, and the chap who was the chemist. I do remember. I only remember the event. I don't remember what we talked about. Only the business they were doing. I was learning a bit I suppose.
BW: And did you, when you joined the RAF did you want to be a pilot or did you want to be another trade like a gunner or something?
RS: I don't know because there was a period and it must have been about five or six months with some kind of school in preparation for joining. And we did all kinds of things in that time. I suppose it was to find out what we were interested in and what we were capable of doing. But that I remember. Not, not in great detail.
BW: You were called up to be interviewed at the aircrew selection board at Padgate near Burton Wood at Warrington. And you decided to go for PNB or flight engineer. And PNB stood for pilot —
RS: Pilot. Navigator. Bomb aimer.
BW: And then what happened during that time? During the selection?
RS: They all started their training together. A lot of, part of the, this in Canada. I never went there. Or in Rhodesia. As they went through their training selection was made. The best, the best continued as pilots. The next were navigators. I don’t think I left the country for my training. My training. I don't remember. I don't remember doing so. I’m sure I would have done.
BW: So, from the intake some went to Canada or Rhodesia.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And the best continued as pilots. The next best were navigators.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And then the rest of bombardiers.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Or bomb aimers I should say. And you selected flight engineer.
RS: Yes. I did. And that's what I was. A flight engineer. In, in, in practice, you know. Bombing. We did a bit of bombing of Germany as a flight engineer.
BW: And it says here, if you just recall this. Just read that.
RS: I joined the Air Force in June 1943 aged eighteen. I reported to the Lord's Cricket Ground in London. Aye. We were billeted in blocks of flats nearby. Here we were issued with uniform. Given a number of inoculations. Jabs. Initiated into drill, exercises and introduced to canteen food. Not a bit like home cooking [laughs]
BW: So, what was it like being in London at the Cricket Ground?
RS: Well, not very exciting. It was, it was all concentrated really. They were, they were only put there for a short time but it was part of my training. Yeah.
BW: So this, this isn't quite the first military experience you've had because you've had a uniform in the Air Training Corps presumably.
RS: Oh yeah.
BW: So you had some preparation for it.
RS: Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: And then you went down after two weeks to Torquay for initial training.
RS: Yes. Yes.
BW: And do you recall anything about, about the sort of things you were doing?
RS: No. I don’t.
BW: Learning Morse code.
RS: No. I don’t. I don’t. It was all kind of stuff we did. I can't remember it. I’m glad I wrote that down. It’s been a bit of a help to you.
BW: And you were either between sites when you were going between classes. You had to move either at running pace or marching.
RS: When was this?
BW: Do you recall that?
RS: When? Does it say?
BW: When you're doing?
RS: When or where?
BW: Yeah. This is in Torquay.
RS: In Torquay. Oh yes.
BW: Your initial training and running between places.
RS: Yes. Yeah. We ran everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. I do remember. We never marched. We always ran.
BW: And was that because the buildings were quite far apart?
RS: No idea. They were some distance away. Yeah. Yeah. Aye. Yeah.
BW: From there it says you were then posted to St Athan in South Wales.
RS: Oh yes. Yes. I remember all that. Yeah.
BW: So just read this section aloud for us.
RS: The next posting was to St Athan in South Wales. Here we started our technical training. Most of us were allocated the Halifax bomber, others the Stirling, the Lancaster and a few to Sunderlands. Flying boats. I was [pause] I was — I’ve lost the page. But I was — I’ve lost it. I was there. I was. Oh, this print. I was, and then the next line. Disappointed. I was disappointed not to be one of the latter [unclear]
BW: That you were going on flying boats.
RS: Sunderland Flying Boats. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.
BW: So you wanted to fly those.
RS: I wanted to fly those.
BW: Any reason?
RS: Oh, I don't know [laughs] I don’t know what the reason would be. No. Not now. I would have known then. Most of the time [unclear] we also, we also had a drift drill, PT, swimming and other recreational activities. About this time that with all leave I went to a dance at the Parish Room at Prescot. Yeah. Yeah. I met Dorothy [laughs] Yeah. I remember that. There she is.
BW: That’s your wife. The picture on the wall.
RS: Yeah. Aye. The following March 1944 I was posted to 1664 Heavy Conversion at, at Dishforth. This was where we went up with the aircraft. Trained on the two-engined aircraft. And we were made, were moving on to the heavy bombers. Oh aye. Aye. Sorry. I’ll find out what we did.
BW: So this is March 1944. You’re posted to 1664 Heavy Conversion Unit at Dishforth and that's where you met your aircrews.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Do you recall how it was that you were assigned a crew at all?
RS: I don't remember any particular reasons at all. There was, I wasn't the only one. It was happening to a few of us. It was just a case of the captains. I remember the captains of the crews were kept, made themselves very busy interviewing these future flight engineers. Yeah. They worked hard at it.
BW: So you met your captain and he interviewed you.
RS: Yeah. They were all Canadian.
BW: Were all the other guys in your crew Canadian?
RS: Yeah. I was the only one.
BW: And this pilot was named —
RS: I was a good friend of the mid-upper gunner. We were friendly.
BW: Do you remember his name?
RS: No. I don’t. I don’t.
BW: Your pilot was called Willard Mc, Mackeracher.
RS: Mackeracher.
BW: Mackeracher. That's M A C K E R A C H E R.
RS: Yeah. Willard Mackeracher. Yeah.
BW: Willard.
RS: Aye. Oh aye.
BW: W I L L A R D, his first name. Willard Mackeracher. What do you, what do you recall of him? Was he a friendly guy?
RS: He was alright. Oh yes. Yeah. We got on very well.
BW: But of course, in terms of being crew if you're his flight engineer you're sat right next to him in the aircraft.
RS: Yeah.
BW: I’m just going to show you a picture which is of the interior of a Halifax and the flight engineer’s position. And it's —
RS: I can't see it.
BW: The flight engineer would be sat here in this position.
RS: I can't, I don't recognize it. I don't recognize the picture at all. I don’t recognise it.
BW: Doesn't bring back any memories.
RS: No.
BW: Sitting next to him.
RS: No. No. You brought that with you. Yeah. I haven’t seen it before. I couldn’t, I couldn’t make it out.
BW: Can you recall anything about when you would do checks in the aircraft? Or when you would be getting the aircraft started up?
RS: We did all that. What was necessary. It was a matter of routine really but I can't remember what it was now. Yeah. Try one thing, and then another just making sure everything was working before we took off.
BW: And when he, during a routine sortie would be ready to take off what kind of things would you be doing? You're sat next to him and he gives you an instruction of some sort. Can you recall?
RS: Yeah. I can't remember. I can't remember the detail of what we did. How we flew the thing. But we did all right, you know. Did okay. Aye.
BW: I’m just going show you a colour picture here of a Halifax. You’re like —
RS: Oh yeah.
BW: Like the ones you flew.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. The Halifax.
BW: What was it like to fly?
RS: Quite good. It was good fun really. It was good. You know. Nothing, nothing very worrying about it. It was, yeah. I enjoyed it.
BW: Did you find it technically challenging at all?
RS: Timesing?
BW: Technically challenging. Was it demanding?
RS: Oh yes. Oh, part of life. Yes. Yeah.
BW: Did you feel you'd had thorough training before?
RS: I think you'd get.
BW: Doing the job.
RS: Yes. Oh yes. We went through a lot of training. A lot of training.
BW: Did you feel quite confident?
RS: Oh yes. I was quite confident about doing it all. I was taking it all in, you know. And it didn't seem to be too difficult. It was alright. It was alright. Nothing I didn't like about it.
BW: And you got on well with the rest of the crew. You said you were good friends with the mid-upper gunner.
RS: The mid-upper gunner. That’s right. He was the only one. Yeah.
BW: But you got on well with the others?
RS: We got, well enough. But he was my friend out of, out of the crew. He was a Canadian.
BW: And you were the only Englishman.
RS: Oh yeah.
BW: In a crew of seven.
RS: All the others were Canadian. Yeah.
BW: And you spent some time while at Dishforth doing training sorties. And it says that there were three trips. After you've done about ten hours there are three further trips made to give the gunners and bomb aimer some practice. And you crashed on your third trip to give them practice.
RS: I don't remember a lot about it. Only that we did crash. I don't remember much about it. I don’t think, nobody was hurt or anything.
BW: It says, it says here it was apparent and subsequently reported.
RS: I can't read it, sorry. Sorry. I can't find out where we're in we put all the subsequent reported that we were, had suffered an engine failure which slewed us over the [pause] over to miss the runway. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yes. Aye. But I don't remember. I remember it happening but I don't remember a lot about it.
BW: And as flight engineer one of your engines has failed.
RS: Yeah. Nothing I could do about it, you know. I’m the flight engineer but I didn't do anything to engines. They were on the air, they were on the aircraft wings. I couldn't get to them.
BW: Of course. So this is happening as you're, as you're just about to come in and land.
RS: Yeah, and I I think the job itself didn't have a very deep technical training. It was enough to help the pilot along. To take some of the load off his mind. To help him. That's about all there was to it.
BW: And on this particular instance as you're on the approach to touch down one of the engines has failed.
RS: Yeah. Did it? Is that what —
BW: And it's caused you to skid off the runway or slew.
RS: Yes. Aye. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't remember it sorry in detail did you see. Something that had happened and we were no worse off for it.
BW: And nobody was injured.
RS: No.
BW: It says that you remember being knocked about and then you opened your eyes to see you're in, you were actually a few yards in front of the nose of the aircraft.
RS: Oh heck.
BW: So somehow you’ve come out through the —
RS: I don't, I don’t know how. I wouldn’t know.
BW: But there was an Italian prisoner of war who's helped you escape.
RS: Was there?
BW: Got you out of the aircraft.
RS: Yeah. I don't remember. Well, you know it was all happening while I was being thrown about really.
BW: In the description it, it says that when you were examined in hospital you were found to have a compression fracture of the vertebrae in your lower back and a plaster of paris jacket was applied from the groin to the neck and you were in bed.
RS: Oh yes. Yes. I do remember. I vaguely remember that. I don't know why. Yeah. I know there was something wrong with me and they put in plaster. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s in there.
BW: So you could walk about fairly normally. You were in this —
RS: Just about. Upright all the time, you know. Aye. Yeah. I remember. Aye. God. You're reminding me now. I’d forgotten about it.
BW: And you couldn't, you couldn't bend down properly.
RS: No. No.
BW: So they sent you on leave and you went home and then you were at a convalescent home in Hoylake in the Wirral and you're in with other air crew who had also been, for want of a better term banged up.
RS: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Or banged about.
RS: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: In plaster casts.
RS: Aye.
BW: What was it like being there?
RS: I can't remember the detail. It would be alright. They did very well for us really. You know. They did give get us help in putting in things right. Aye. I got treatment. I got treatment. I was alright.
BW: Were none of the other crew taken to hospital with you?
RS: Oh no. That was the mid-upper gunner I was all friendly with. He was about the only one. The others —
BW: But none of the crew including him.
RS: Didn’t bother with me. No. Didn’t bother me. Only him. Just the pilot occasionally. I never had anything to do with the flight engineer err with the wireless operator or the navigator or anybody like that. Or, or the rear gunner. I didn’t have much to do with him at all. I didn't care for him very much. Yeah. But the mid-upper, the mid-upper gunner I was friendly with. Very friendly with. Canadian. Yeah. We were good friends.
BW: What did you do in your time off with these guys before before the accident?
RS: Didn’t do anything much with them. I used —
BW: But I mean with your mid-upper or the skipper. Did you go out?
RS: Yeah.
BW: Drinking with him.
RS: Yeah. I I don't know. We were good friends. That's all I can remember. Did a lot of things together. Whatever they were. I can't remember.
BW: And then while you were, while you'd been in hospital and convalescing the invasion of Normandy took place. And then in August 1944 it says you were posted back to Dishforth and you got another crew.
RS: Oh.
BW: And this skipper was R Anderson. And you knew him as Andy.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. [unclear] posted back to Dishforth to join another crew. What was it? I think it were Roy.
BW: Roy.
RS: I think so. It's just R Anderson. We knew him as Andy.
BW: What was he like? Do you recall much of him?
RS: He was alright. He was. He didn't have a lot to do with me out of, you know. I was, he was more concerned with the navigator and wireless operator and I mean we were a bit lower down in the scheme.
BW: So at this time you'd done, over a period of four weeks ninety eight hours flying in Halifax.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And then you were told you were going to be moving on to Lancasters. And you did about ten hours flying time in three days.
RS: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Which is good going. Before you were declared operational on Lancasters.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Do you recall much about the Lancaster? What it was like to fly in comparison to the Halifax.
RS: Not really. Not really. It's all a bit vague. It's too far away. I don’t remember it. I can remember where I sat and so next to the pilot. Next to the pilot to help him whenever he needed any.
BW: And your next posting was in October ‘44 to 428 Squadron.
RS: Where? 428.
BW: 428 Squadron. The Canadian squadron.
RS: 428 was a Canadian squadron. Yeah. Some of the numbers are still familiar to me. 428. Yeah. Well, I don't remember a lot about that in detail.
BW: The unit was based at Middleton St George in County Durham. And that's not far from Darlington is it?
RS: No. It’s not. No.
BW: Did you get to go into Darlington much on your time off?
RS: No. I can't remember. I don’t think we did. We’d get out on the, on the necessary occasions but we were on duty, you know. I mean, we were flying. We were kept busy because we were being used. We were flying quite a bit.
BW: And over the period of the next six months from October ‘44 to around about April ‘45 you did twenty eight ops.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Twenty eight trips.
RS: Aye.
BW: That was practically the full tour.
RS: Yeah. Aye. Not far off.
BW: Do you recall any night time trips at all?
RS: No. No. I don't. I can’t remember anything in detail like that.
BW: I’m just going to show you another picture which is of the interior of the, of the Lancaster which shows the flight engineer’s position.
RS: I can hardly see it.
BW: And at that, this is looking forward so the pilot sits on this side on the left and your fold down seat is here next to him. And your control panel would have been on this side. To your right hand side.
RS: Can't see much. Not, there you are, it’s too, too —
BW: A bit too dark.
RS: Not enough in it. Not a good, not a good picture. Not enough detail in it. It’s all black isn’t it?
BW: Do you recall what the Lancaster was like to be flying in?
RS: Oh yes. I don't recall it as such. You know. I wouldn't do that. But as I remember it was quite comfortable. Yeah. I enjoyed driving it. Riding in it. It was no, it was a good job for me to do. Yeah. I enjoyed it. I felt that I was being used properly. Yeah.
BW: Did it feel in that case like a, a proper engineer's aircraft in the sense?
RS: Oh yeah. Yeah.
BW: It was well put together.
RS: Yeah. Well I wouldn’t say it went as far as that.
BW: They say the Lancaster was made to get into and not get out of. Did you, do you recall what it was like trying to get into one and get over the main spar into the engineer's seat.
RS: I don't remember a great deal of getting in and out of the aircraft quite honestly. Don't remember. You know. Not much.
BW: And just.
RS: Just vaguely sort of climbing some stairs that had been put there to get you up to, to the point where you got in.
BW: At the side. This is at the side of the aircraft.
RS: Yeah.
BW: To get in at the rear door.
RS: Nothing wrong with that. I was [unclear] all the time. Yeah.
BW: And you would have had to carry your ‘chute in with you, your parachute in with you.
RS: Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: What did you do with it when you got in?
RS: Ah. I can’t remember now. I put it somewhere. I put it handy. I don’t. I wouldn’t —
[recording paused]
BW: Sorry, Bob. You, you were saying when you got into the Lancaster, up the steps at the, at the rear door you would have turned right to go up.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Into the front of the aircraft. Can you remember what you did with your parachute?
RS: No. I can't. I’m sure I’d carried it with me.
BW: Yeah.
RS: I think I would. I don't remember though.
BW: But it's quite cramped in a Lancaster isn't it?
RS: Yeah. Oh aye. Yeah.
BW: Because you had to get through a narrow space and then get in to your position next to the pilot.
RS: Yeah.
BW: What was it like when the aircraft was fully loaded with bombs and and fuel. Did you find it difficult to handle or —
RS: No. Not really. It was, oh everything was straightforward really. I just had a job to do and I did it. Yeah.
BW: And when, when you were on the runway and just about to take off what would you be doing to help the pilot?
RS: I was sitting next to the, helping the pilot with fixing the engine speeds and doing like that. All kinds of things but I was helping the pilot.
BW: And, for example as he runs the engines up and takes the brakes off to start —
RS: Oh.
BW: Moving down the runway what would you do?
RS: Just wait. Wait and watch. Make sure that everything was doing alright. Not much to do really once you were on the way. Everything was automatic.
BW: And do you recall any, any voices or instructions.
RS: No.
BW: You would get.
RS: Not really.
BW: Through the headset from people or conversations you had as you were —
RS: No. Not really.
BW: Cruising.
RS: I know, as I said, the [pause] the what do you call them? Operator. Wireless operator. There was a wireless operator and navigator. I used to see them but I didn’t have a lot to do with them. We didn’t work together.
BW: And you're taking off at night time and you’d to fly across the Channel into Germany and bomb certain cities. From your position right next to the pilot you must have had a good view.
RS: Oh yes. I did.
BW: Can you recall what you saw when you looked out the window?
RS: No. No. I’d have been in the dark.
BW: You didn't see any fires or anything like that.
RS: No.
BW: And were you ever caught in a searchlight or anything?
RS: Not that I recall.
BW: Were there many fighters around? German fighters. Did they come after you at all?
RS: I didn’t seem to see much of them. I think they were but we didn’t see much of them. No.
BW: So it seems like it's it was fairly quiet on many of these trips.
RS: Well, to be a flight engineer any aircraft flying, fighter aircraft flying they would have attacked us. And we never got attacked as I recall. Never.
BW: Did you see it happen to any of the other —
RS: No.
BW: Aircraft.
RS: No. No.
BW: So in some ways to do twenty eight trips in those conditions when it was fairly quiet for you was pretty fortunate.
RS: Yes. Yes. Oh yeah. I remember worrying about it. Never, I never tried to dodge it.
BW: And on one occasion when you came back there there was apparently a piece of shrapnel in the fuselage.
RS: Yes, there was. It was only a small piece but it was there. I found it.
BW: Where was it?
RS: Just in the side. Under the, just under the air [pause] the air there, the line. The wing there. Just under the wing. In the body. Yeah. I found it.
BW: Sounds like it was near the bomb bay then. If it's under, if it's under the wing where the —
RS: It would have been somewhere near the bomb bay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would. Aye.
BW: How did you manage to find that?
RS: Just accidentally really. As we were walking past I saw it. As we got out, we were walking away I saw it there. So I went and pulled it out. But it was just a piece of shrapnel. It was still in there. It was only a small piece.
BW: So, you, you had a lucky escape.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Had it been perhaps a slightly bigger piece.
RS: It were stuck, as I say stuck in the in the body. Very thin body but it was just stuck in there. I pulled it out with my fingers.
BW: And you, you've no idea what, how that happened. Whether it was a piece of a —
RS: No idea.
BW: German shell or a—
RS: No. No idea.
BW: A cannon shell or something like that.
RS: No. I don't remember it happening.
BW: Do you think —
RS: I think it was just that very end of a, of a shot and it was just getting towards the end of his run and hit the aircraft because it didn't go through. It got stuck halfway. In the fuselage itself. The fuselage is only a thin skin. So it wasn’t, couldn't have been very hot. Hard.
BW: Do you feel that your aircraft was a lucky aircraft or your crew were lucky?
RS: I felt confident. I wasn't worried. I knew, you know we were all going to come back. We'd go and come back.
BW: And you didn't have, or did you have any superstitions or rituals to bring you luck?
RS: No.
BW: No.
RS: No.
BW: So you all just thought it's a regular job. We'll get on and do it sort of thing.
RS: Yeah. Oh yeah. I was a, I had, you know I had my worries at times. Very often. I didn’t like it. Everything we did. But it wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t a bad life.
BW: What didn't you like? What sort of things?
RS: Oh, I can’t remember exactly. I can’t remember.
BW: I mean were there, were there things perhaps about, were they about dropping the bombs or was it about being over a heavily defended target? Do you — what, what do you think?
RS: Well, not much you could do about it. We had to bomb a certain target. And to get to it you had to fly over general, generally over a city. A built up area anyway. Yeah. And that's where the, the anti-aircraft guns were fitted too. We were — but we never got shot down. We got hit. As I say, that's one I remembered. The piece of shrapnel in the fuselage.
BW: Some of the air defences were over the coastline and some were around the cities.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Did, do you remember whether any were particularly —
RS: No.
BW: Heavy.
RS: I can’t remember. I can’t remember.
BW: Were most of your sorties at high level or did you ever bomb from low level?
RS: No. We never bombed from low level as I remember. Always at high level.
BW: And do you recall seeing many other RAF bombers or Canadian bombers in the stream at all?
RS: Not a lot. Just occasionally. We were going as a stream. When bombers were, it was all bombers. All the bombers. We all went as a bomber crew. It was a number of aircraft went and bombed it. Yeah.
BW: And do you recall seeing many of them in formation over the city?
RS: Not really.
BW: Or did you feel pretty alone?
RS: No. We didn't do much in formation. We flew together and we had an eye on each other. Yeah. That's all I remember. Not that I’m, not I’m still trying to sort of climb so far behind aircraft number so and so. You thought, you just sort of pitched yourself up in the in the crew. In the team of crews. Yeah. To just get where you could out of it like. Yeah. I can’t remember much of the detail quite honestly.
BW: So it was almost, I suppose as you describe it was almost like you were flying in your own aircraft. It was almost like you were flying solo as a crew. There was very little sight of other aircraft.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. Didn't see much of them. No. They were there. You knew they were not far away because you go over as a team of crews when you went bombing. You didn't go on your own. You went with a crew. You know a crew would have been about ten or something. Nine or ten aircraft.
BW: And could you see them dropping their bombs on the target?
RS: No. No. I say no. It's quite possible. We wouldn't have, it wouldn't have registered with me or anything. It wasn't important. That’s all we were there for. Dropping the bombs. And if I saw it dropping. Good. That's what he's going to do now.
BW: And you never had to turn back for any reason. You never missed a target.
RS: No. Not that I recall. No. Not that I know. I don't think we — there may have been but I can't recall.
BW: And you didn't see any other aircraft from your squadron get shot down.
RS: No.
BW: Or anything like that. So they were all I guess fairly successful.
RS: Yeah.
BW: In getting out to the target.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Dropping the bombs and getting back.
RS: And getting back home. Yeah. It was alright. It was an interesting life at the time.
BW: And when you were on the way back were there any instances where you had [pause] I don't know to, to swap fuel over from different tanks or when you had engine failures perhaps.
RS: Not that I can recall.
BW: No.
RS: There may have been some times but I can’t recall them.
BW: But you clearly all made it back safely. None of the crew were injured or anything like that.
RS: No. That’s right.
BW: So in some ways you've joined a lucky crew. Although you'd had an accident with your first crew in training.
RS: Yeah.
BS: When you've been with your second crew you've got through a complete tour of ops.
RS: Yeah. Yeah.
BS: Did you ever hear what happened to your first crew?
RS: No. No.
BS: Did you keep in touch with any of them?
RS: Not that I recall.
BS: Once they’d left.
RS: No.
BS: So when you get back to, when you get back to when you get back to base at Middleton St George what would you have been asked about the raid? Would you have been debriefed at all?
RS: Oh aye. We had. We ran through it but I don't, I don't remember it in detail by any means but we all always had interviews. Always interviewed. Reported back and saying if anything happened or hadn't happened. Say what we could about the trip. Yeah.
BW: And did they do that before you could be dismissed and have breakfast?
RS: Yeah.
BW: Because presumably you're coming back.
RS: That’s right.
BW: Very early in the morning.
RS: I don't, I can’t remember. I think they did. I think it was before we had breakfast. Before they provided us with any food. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t —yeah. It was a fairly quick do really being interviewed afterwards. Didn't take a long time. And you got used to it. It was a regular thing. Oh, there it is. I keep getting lost.
BW: Do you remember any of the other crews perhaps telling you stories of what they'd experienced or if they'd been hit?
RS: No. No. I was very friendly with the mid-upper gunner. Not so much the rear gunner. He was a different, a different character for me. Yeah. I didn't have much to do with him.
BW: So you've, at this stage got through your tour of operations and it's towards the end of April now in 1945 and coming up to VE day. Do you remember anything about the announcement of the end of the war?
RS: No. I can’t recall.
BW: Where you were.
RS: I can’t recall it. Aye.
BW: What happened to you after the end of the war? Because you're now a qualified flight engineer.
RS: Yeah. I was just, I wasn’t pushed out right away. I was still kept in all right. In fact, I spent some time on the south coast of England. I don't know why but we spent some time down there.
BW: It says here, just read that aloud to us.
RS: With the war in Europe ending in May 1945 and operating flying finished it was apparent that the authorities had to find something for aircrew to do to [pause] can’t find my line. System mechanics. After that I was posted to Kinloss where we spent time inhibiting engines on bombers in case they were needed again.
BW: So you were fitting engines on bombers in case they were needed again.
RS: Try them out. Yeah. Tested. Yeah. So they would run again next time. Aye.
BW: Do you remember any of your commanding officers? You would have had a, just thinking back to the time when you had joined the unit you might have seen your commanding officer or been briefed by him and then presumably when you've got to the end of your tour you would have had a, perhaps a sort of a farewell speech or dismiss parade or something like that.
RS: No. Not that I remember.
BW: Never.
RS: No.
BW: No. Never remember seeing any of the wing commanders around.
RS: No. No. I don't remember. Things would have happened but I don’t remember.
BW: So for some time you remained in the Air Force after the end of the war and you were demobbed in February 1946.
RS: Yeah.
BW: So that's almost exactly seventy years ago.
RS: A long time ago.
BW: Slightly more than that. Seventy two maybe. But you'd been in for two years and eight months. What happened to you after you left the RAF?
RS: I can't remember. I can't remember what I did. Some time later I learned that the Institution of Gas Engineers had arranged some courses for employees who had their technical education interrupted by war service. And I went and applied. Made an application. I went to Aston Technical College for six months to get the, my Ordinary Grade Certificate in Gas Engineering. Yeah. That's all there.
BW: So you've come out and gone to Aston Technical College to get an Ordinary Grade Certificate.
RS: Yeah.
BW: In gas engineering.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And then you've moved to Liverpool Gas Company. And then Birmingham Technical College to get a Higher Grade Certificate.
RS: Yeah.
BW: So you’d become a gas engineer. Now —
RS: Obviously, to get back to my gas works where I worked. Get back to my gas works.
BW: So it seems there’s been quite an industrial link or thread if you like through your life because your dad was a miner in the coal mines in South Lancashire and then you've been sort of a lab assistant and an engineer.
RS: Yeah.
BW: But then you've yourself gone into gas engineering.
RS: Gas engineering. Yeah. Oh yeah. Not a bad life. Not a bad life. Interesting. Yeah. And, you know, sort of important enough. Busy enough.
BW: And you mentioned during your time in the RAF that you met a young woman called Dorothy.
RS: Oh aye. Aye. I remember. There she is up there. Up there. Her photograph.
BW: And that was when you had started your training as a flight engineer.
RS: Yeah.
BW: You'd come home on leave, gone to a dance at the Parish Rooms in Prescot and met Dorothy Marsden.
RS: Yeah. That's right. I remember going there. Yeah. I remember the event.
BW: And do you recall what she looked like when you met her?
RS: Yeah. Her photograph’s up there.
BW: Yeah. Her photo’s there.
RS: Yeah.
BW: She —
RS: Oh, I —
BW: Photo’s there of her as an older woman.
RS: When I met her, you know. Yeah. Aye. I was anxious to marry her.
BW: And you married in 1947. What was that like?
RS: Alright. I was happily married but she died early. I don't know why. I can't remember why. I must, I must have known at the time but I don't know now. Yeah. Just it was a disappointment to me I can tell you that she did die because we were quite happy still living together.
BW: And do you remember much about your life in post-war?
RS: No. Have I much down there? I don't remember much about it.
BW: Well, you worked in various industries and working in well various companies I should say and departments. Working for local gas companies.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And you moved up to Burnley.
RS: I don’t remember. I don't remember those, all those details. I don’t remember them at all.
BW: See if that brings back any memories.
RS: Gas industry at the time [unclear] the town’s having gas works put in by, as a private company or various departments of local councils. 1951 the industry was nationalised and these undertakings, apart from the biggest towns like Manchester and Liverpool were formed into small groups. This gave the support, the opportunity to create their special departments specialising in particular activity. One of these was sale of gas to [pause] the sale of gas [pause] I’ve lost it. Sale of gas is to. [unclear] Yes. I remember now. Yeah. Back. Back to selling. Selling. Working at the gas works and selling gas. Selling gas to industry. Yeah. All part of the job.
BW: So you, you've post-war married and you raised a family.
RS: Yeah.
BW: Three. Three children.
RS: Yeah. Robert, John, Jeremy and David. Four of them.
BW: Four. Four boys.
RS: Aye.
BW: And you said yourself you were from a family of four. Four boys as well.
RS: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: And then —
RS: Oh, well I’ve got it all written down there.
BW: You've, you’ve stayed.
RS: I’m glad I did that now.
BW: You've stayed in the north west.
RS: Yeah.
BW: And then eventually you moved to Garstang which is where we are now, in 1982 and [pause] from there on it says, as you, as you've noted here you've had a comfortable life and a varied life. So at this stage now we're here talking about your war service. And have you, have you heard much about the efforts to commemorate veterans of Bomber Command?
RS: No. No. I’d not heard.
BW: Did you know there's a Memorial in Hyde Park?
RS: No.
BW: Okay.
RS: No.
BW: Well, the, the Centre that is going to be the, the sort of repository for the interview.
RS: Yeah.
BW: For your story is based in Lincoln.
RS: Oh.
BW: And do you have any particular thoughts about the commemoration of veterans like yourself or —
RS: No.
BW: Bomber crew. Are you glad it's happening?
RS: No. There were a lot of us. There were a lot of us. No. I don’t remember.
BW: Are you glad it’s happening?
RS: Eh?
BW: Are you glad it’s happening?
RS: Oh, it's all right. It’s all past. All gone now. Nothing I resent at all really. Not a bad life at the time considering. We were useful. Doing a good job. Yeah. Quite happy about it. Yeah.
BW: But it's a good thing that veterans are being remembered for their service in Bomber Command do you think?
RS: Sorry?
BW: You think it's a good thing that veterans are being remembered for their service in Bomber Command.
RS: I don’t know.
BW: Because you have been overlooked.
RS: I don’t know if it matters that much really. I don't know whether we're being remembered or not.
BW: Well, you are. The, the stories and the experiences that they've had are being remembered.
RS: Are they? Oh. Oh, I can imagine that happening. Yeah. Somebody happening. Writing. Writing a story about it. Why not? But I didn't have anything like that to do. I didn’t do any. That's what I wrote. What’s on there now. That’s all my writing that I did. Nothing else.
BW: So, I don't think there's anything else left to, to cover. You've answered all the questions.
RS: Well, I couldn’t. I don’t think there’s anything more.
BW: Yeah.
RS: I can’t think of anything else.
BW: Okay.
RS: I packed up. Packed up with flying and went back to work at a gas works. Yeah.
BW: Yeah. And just sort of got on with life.
RS: Yeah. What else could I do? I know at one time I was covering an area. Rainhill. Visiting them every week. Once a week. Visiting their customers. That was, that was a matter of routine. Part of the job. I wouldn’t say once a week. I used to go every day taking milk out. I went in to delivering milk. Yeah.
BW: That was when you were much younger.
RS: Oh yes.
BW: And that was before you joined up.
RS: Yeah. And pulling a hand cart to do it until eventually they provided me with a pony and trap. That was a good time.
BW: So at least it made it a bit easier for you.
RS: Oh yes. Made life a lot happier.
BW: Well, just remains for me to say thank you very much for your time, Bob. And thank you very much for —
RS: Oh, it’s alight.
BW: Allowing us to record the interview with you.
RS: I’m sorry if I don't recall. I can't recall everything that happened. You know. To tell you. But I don’t. I don’t. I just don’t recall everything.
BW: That's all right. We have the material written down as well which will back up the —
RS: Yeah.
BW: Stories you've told us.
RS: Yeah. Well, I suppose that —
BW: On the recording.
RS: Yeah. I suppose that, I don't know why I did that but I’m glad I did. Yeah.
BW: That's been good to hear from you. So, thank you very much.
RS: That’s alright.
BW: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bob Sharrock
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Wright
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASharrockR180212, PSharrockR1802
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Pending OH summary
Format
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01:13:01 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Durham (County)
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Sharrock was the son of a miner. He worked as a milkman delivering milk via a hand cart until he was given the privilege of a pony and trap. Bob then went to work as a lab technician for a gas company before he volunteered for the RAF. He trained as a flight engineer and joined a Canadian crew based with 428 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George. After one operation Bob and the crew were walking away from the aircraft when he saw a piece of shrapnel in the aircraft which he drew out with great interest.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-03
1944-08
1945
1664 HCU
428 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
RAF Dishforth
RAF Middleton St George
RAF St Athan
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/300/32122/MMcDonaldDA410364-151013-02.1.pdf
6199184d703609ba0ef66a21865ce63f
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
McDonald, Donald
Donald Alexander McDonald
Donald A McDonald
Donald McDonald
D A McDonald
D McDonald
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. One oral history interview with Donald Alexander McDonald (1920 - 2021, 410364 Royal Australian Air Force) as well as two letters, a concert programme and notes on his interview. He flew operations as a pilot with 466 and 578 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald McDonald and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McDonald, D
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive Interviews – Adam Purcell Interview Notes: 410364 Don McDonald, 578 and 466 Sqn Halifax pilot 1944-45 Koo Wee Rup, where Don’s family had their dairy farm, is a regional Victorian town approximately 65km south-east of Melbourne city. Wilson Hall is the ceremonial hall of Melbourne University. The original Hall, in which Don sat his Public Service exams, was destroyed by fire in 1952. See an article about the fire at http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/18256075. Mount Martha, the site of Don’s Army training camp, is a small suburb of Melbourne, on Port Philip Bay, some 60km south-east of the city. It is about 50km west of Koo Wee Rup. Broadmeadows, from whence came the WWI-era tents in which Don and his fellow recruits stayed, is a northern suburb of Melbourne and has hosted an Army camp since the early days of WWI. 1 Initial Training School was at Somers, also not far from Koo Wee Rup, on the shores of Western Port. 7 Elementary Flying Training School was at Western Junction, near Launceston in northern Tasmania. The airfield remains active as Launceston Airport. 1 Service Flying Training School was at Point Cook, 25km south-west of Melbourne. It was Australia’s first Air Force base and it remains the oldest continually-operating military airfield in the world. Though no flying units are now based there it hosts the RAAF Museum (see http://www.airforce.gov.au/raafmuseum/index.htm). The Showgrounds are located at Flemington, an inner-western suburb of Melbourne. They are adjacent to Flemington Racecourse, the home of the Melbourne Cup horse race, which Don mentions towards the end of the interview. Camp Myles Standish was a US Army staging camp near Taunton in Massachusetts. Most Australian airmen who travelled across the US on their way to war would have been among about a million soldiers, sailors and airmen who went through the camp. The railway lines that Don mentions following while training from Point Cook went to Ballarat and Seymour. Don’s first gunner was named Chas Mears. His mid-upper gunner was Johnny Cowell. Don completed HCU at Rufforth. 578 Squadron was at Burn. AFL, or Australian Football League, also known as ‘Aussie Rules’, is a football game popular in the southern states of Australia. It is played on an oval ground and is characterised by long kicks, spectacular ‘marks’ (catches) and four upright goal posts. Rugby in this case refers to rugby league, the opposing code which is popular in New South Wales and Queensland. Don’s first grocery stores were at Fawkner, a northern suburb of Melbourne, and Hampton, which is on Port Philip Bay some 15km south-east of the city. The ‘Birdcage’ is a particularly exclusive marquee at the Melbourne Cup horse racing carnival. The actual population of Ballarat is about 96,000, and of Colac (another regional town) about 11,500. Scans: Don was unable to find his logbook at the time of the interview; he thinks a grandchild has it. If he finds it he will let me know for scanning. The only photographs that Don has of his wartime service are framed on his wall; they are under glass and so cannot be scanned. However there is a crew photograph available through the Australian War Memorial; see https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P03759.001. Air Vice Marshal Henry Neilson Wrigley was the Air Officer commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters in London from 1942 until he retired in June 1946. It was in this capacity that he signed the letter sent to Don on the award of his DFC in November 1944. The Programme series of scans relates to a particular leave that Don and a mate enjoyed in London in March 1944. Unfortunately, he only remembered to tell me the story when we were scanning the documents so it was not recorded, but a description follows, which I wrote up from my postinterview notes shortly after arriving home: "The thing to do when you went to London", Don said, "was to organise accommodation as soon as you arrived in the city", because of high demand. Unfortunately, on this occasion Don and his mate found themselves in a pub for some beers, which became another pub for more beers, and another, and another. When they were booted out at about 11pm - closing time - from the final pub (pubs had staggered hours in London during wartime), Don asked his mate where he was staying. He replied, dunno, what about you? Don hadn't organised anything either. The Boomerang Club was not an option at that hour, either were the other services clubs in the city, but the Strand Palace could perhaps take them, they thought. (One of the more exclusive hotels in London, the Strand Palace would well and truly have exceeded the budget abilities of the average Flight Sergeant, as both were at the time). So they went there, to be confronted by a large queue of American GIs in front of the booking desk. Here was one occasion where the distinctly blue Australian uniform came in handy. The concierge came up to them, past the Yanks, and enquired quietly whether they had a reservation. They replied, no, we don't. He nodded. "Come with me." The concierge led them to the desk, and asked the receptionist in a loud voice, "Which is Mr McDonald's room?", holding out his hand for a key, which he then gave to Don and his mate. "If those Americans had known that we didn't have a reservation either and we'd jumped the queue like that....." he said to me with a shudder. In any case, in for a penny, in for a pound, they thought. The following day they were talking at breakfast to a woman who asked if they had anything planned for the afternoon. They replied no, thinking about how little funds they had left following their extravagant accommodation. She said that she would be pleased to provide them with tickets for a show. In Royal Albert Hall. In the Royal Box. And there would be special people in the audience. Given strict instructions not to speak to royalty, should any be present, unless first spoken to, Don and his mate went to Royal Albert Hall for what turned out to be "A Grand Concert as a Tribute to Sir Henry J. Wood", and sat in the second row of the Royal Box. Shortly before the performance began there was a great cheer from the crowd (Don's mate leant over and said, "Do you reckon they're cheering for us, Mac?"), and into the Royal Box swept the Queen and the two Princesses, Margaret and Elizabeth (who of course is now the current Queen). The royal party sat in the row of seats directly in front of Don and his mate and they did indeed have a short conversation with them. This being a particularly memorable leave, Don decided a souvenir would be required from the hotel. They debated about pinching a towel (replacing it with their ratty, grey Air Force-issue towels) but decided it wouldn't last very long, so something more permanent was more appropriate. They settled on a small crystal glass. Somehow it survived the next year or so of travelling around in Don's kitbag and came home with him. As Don was telling this story he went to a cabinet and returned with the crystal glass. It is in Don’s hand in one of the photographs I took following our interview.
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Title
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Interview Notes: 410364 Don McDonald, 578 and 466 Sqn Halifax pilot 1944-45
Description
An account of the resource
Notes on locations for Don McDonald's home, training in Australia. Notes people mentioned and scanned documents relating to a leave that Don enjoyed in London and includes a story of the leave written up by the interviewer from his notes which was missed in the interview.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Victoria--Melbourne
Tasmania--Launceston
United States
Massachusetts--Taunton
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Victoria--Port Phillip Bay Region
Victoria
Massachusetts
Tasmania
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Contributor
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David Bloomfield
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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MMcDonaldDA410364-151013-02
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Personal research
Format
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Two typewritten sheets
466 Squadron
578 Squadron
aircrew
Halifax
pilot
RAF Burn
RAF Rufforth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1339/22174/SValentineJRM1251404v10129.2.jpg
5532eab2463243772888b0a929e148c3
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Title
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Valentine, John. Ursula Valentine's newspaper cutting scrapbook
Description
An account of the resource
131 items contained in a scrapbook. Mainly newspaper cuttings of events from May 1942 to 1945.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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GALLANTRY IN CAPTIVITY
AWARDS TO AIRMEN
MANY LIVES SAVED IN GERMANY
Citations issued yesterday for awards to members of the Royal Air Force and others for outstanding services while prisoners of war in Germany disclose some notable instances of how lives were saved by the initiative of individuals in camps or on the march between camps, and how in other cases morale was maintained under very exacting conditions. The awards were announced in the London Gazette on December 28.
Among the appointments as O.B.E. (Military Division) is Group Captain Lawrence E. Wray, R.C.A.F., of Ottawa, who was taken prisoner after being shot down in March, 1944. He succeeded in slowing down the pace of prisoners on the march from Sagan to Bremen and then to Lubeck after the German collapse, and saved them from being left to the mercy of the German population. He also risked being given up to the Gestapo or the S.S. by the commandant. At Bremen and Lubeck he improved the accommodation of fellow prisoners, in spite of the danger of reprisals from the Germans.
A similar award goes to Wing Commander (now Acting Group Captain) Harry Melville Arbuthnot Day, R.A.F., whose award of the D.S.O. was also announced the same day. One citation says that, taken prisoner in October, 1939, he was senior British officer at a camp near Frankfurt-am-Main, from which he organized the escape of 18 men, including himself. After his recapture he organized daring attempts at escape from successive camps, and was regarded by the Germans as dangerous. He was removed to a camp in Poland and later to Stalag Luft III, from which he helped to organize the escape of 80 men in March, 1944, through a tunnel. Fifty of the recaptured men were murdered by the Germans, and Day was removed to a camp in Berlin. On recapture after another escape he was chained to the floor of the condemned cell of a concentration camp for several weeks.
CONDITIONS IMPROVED
The citation in connexion with the award of the Distinguished Service Order to Acting Group Captain Day refers to his various attempts to escape after being captured and recaptured.
Another who obtained the O.B.E. (Military Division), Squadron Leader L. W. Vaughan Jennens, R.A.F., acted as adjutant to the senior British officer at Stalag Luft III, being practically its manager. Apart from what he did directly to improve the lot of the inmates, he handled the Germans with such tact that he was able to modify severe and inhuman orders and obtain many concessions.
Flight Lieutenant Raymond B. Hesselyn, R.N.Z.A.F., while personnel officer at Stalag Luft I, Barth, contributed to the well-being of British and American prisoners during periods of starvation and depression. He was also able to hand permanent records, including confidential reports, on 1,400 air crew to the Air Ministry on release. He was appointed M.B.E. (Military Division).
Flight Lieutenant Kenneth H. Pelly Murphy, R.A.F., received a similar award, took charge of the office administration of various camps, handling correspondence with the Red Cross, the protecting Power, Y.M.C.A., and next-of-kin, as well as communications with the detaining Power.
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Gallantry in Captivity
Description
An account of the resource
Article headlines: gallantry in captivity, awards to airmen, many lives saved in Germany. OBEs for Group Captain Laurence F Wray RCAF shot down March 1944 for work done on evacuation of Stalag Luft 3. Wing Commander (acting Group Captain) Henry Melville Arbuthnot Day RAF alos awarded DSO who was taken prisoner in October 1939. He was senior British Officer at a camp near Frankfurt-am-Main from which he organised an escape of 18 men. Mentions great escape from Stalag Luft 3. Also mentions awards of MBEs for Flight Lieutenant Raymond B Hesselyn RNZAF and Flight Lieutenant Kenneth H Pelly Murphy RAF.
Format
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One newspaper cutting
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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SValentineJRM1251404v10129
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 Canadian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Poland
Germany
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-10
1944-03
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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Anne-Marie Watson
Distinguished Service Order
escaping
evading
prisoner of war
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3