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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1011/BBriggsDWNealeWv1.1.pdf
517c696d7b7ef0bf110c35395391be88
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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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Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
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2017-03-27
Identifier
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Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[underlined]Tribute to a Pathfinder Captain [/underlined]
Squadron Leader William G. Neale DSO DFC Croix de Guerre
1912-2001
It was April 1944, and I had just completed the Flight Engineer training course at R.A.F. St Athan S. Wales. Shortly after arriving at R.A.F. Lindholme near Doncaster to commence training on the Halifax bomber, about twenty or so of us new Flt Engineers attended a “crewing up parade”. The crews were lined up in sixes awaiting the additional member to make a full crew of seven. The pilot in each crew broke away and approached our group. I was asked for by name and stepped forward to meet Flying Officer Bill Neal. He know from my training records that I had some limited flying experience through accompanying pilots on air tests following engine changes etc. Bill explained that his crew had all completed one tour of ops and they had been selected to go to a Pathfinder Squadron directly after four engine bomber conversion. He explained what it all meant and what the duties of a Pathfinder crew would be. Bill asked me if I would like to join his crew and I accepted without hesitation. And so it was that fate decided that I should sit alongside this outstanding pilot for the next twelve months!! All the crew were commissioned officers but Bill promised that he would do his utmost [?] to get me commissioned after completing a tour of ops. That evening I received my “initiation” into the crew at one of the local “watering holes”!! I was not allowed to buy any beer!!
As our training on Halifaxes proceeded I quickly realized my extremely good fortune in becoming part of this very experienced bomber crew. In fact on our first night navigation exercise, an engine suffered a burst coolant header tank, quickly overheated and had to be to[sic] shut down and the propeller feathered. Bill calmly and skilfully carried out his first night landing on three engines! Of course he must have done numerous single engine landings as a flying instructor on Wellingtons.
[underlined]William G. Neal (Bill to all the crew) First impressions [/underlined]
I was approaching my twentieth birthday and Bill was almost twelve years my senior. His mature friendly nature and jovial personality transmitted a feeling of well being in all who came into contact with him. I personally regarded Bill as my mentor and felt that he was the one who would get us safely through the war.
His leadership qualities were of the highest calibre, namely: great courage, example, coolness under fire, tenacity, professionalism, and the ability to maintain high morale in his crew. Above all, Bill was a superb pilot!! We were all encouraged to stay fit and healthy and our skipper set a good example by playing squash regularly!
[underlined] Operations and Training [/underlined]
[page break]
Having completed training on the Halifax, the next stage was our introduction to the magnificent Lancaster. This was accomplished at the Lancaster Finishing School RAF Hemswell nr. Lincoln. It was only a short familiarisation course, both day and night flying, and Bill was immediately “at home” with this superb aircraft! So now we were all set to join The Pathfinder Force and proceeded to the PFF Navigation Training Unit at RAF Warboys nr. St. Ives Cambs. (only five miles from RAF Upwood). It was a very short course lasting only four days. We flew a training sortie each day consisting of navigation and practice bombing. During this course I was taught how to use the bombsight, how to give corrections to our pilot, and after practice in a synthetic trainer, dropped smoke/flash bombs on a nearby bombing range. The reason for the flight engineer having to become the visual bomb aimer in a Pathfinder crew, was due to the normal bomb aimer or observer being fully pre-occupied on his radar (H2s). He would probably have to mark the target indicators (Ti’s) if the “Master Bomber” called for them.
On the 25th May 1944 we arrived at Royal Air Force Upwood to join No. 156 (PFF) Squadron.
[underlined] Our First Crew on PFF [/underlined]
[underlined] Flying Officer W.G. (Bill) Neal [/underlined]PILOT and CAPTAIN (one tour of ops on Wellingtons and recent flying instructor at RAF Harwell, Oxon)
Sergeant D.W. (Don) Briggs FLIGHT ENGINEER (ex NCO aero engine fitter)
Pilot Officer Alan Lewis NAVIGATOR (one previous tour of ops)
Flying Officer George Hodges 2nd NAVIGATOR and H2S RADAR OPERATOR (one previous tour of ops on Wellingtons)
Flying Officer John Carrad WIRELESS OPERATOR (one previous tour of ops on Wellingtons)
Flying Officer “Jock” McViele [?] MID UPPER GUNNER (one previous tour of ops)
Flying Officer “Paddy” Kirk REAR GUNNER (one previous tour of ops)
The settling in period for the crew before commencing operations, was about two weeks of intensive training flights. These involved mostly radar navigation, practice bombing, fighter evasion which gave Bill some “corkscrewing” practice (we had a Spitfire making simulated fighter attacks from astern). Needless to say the gunners had their guns safe!! They were able to get live firing practice later on a sleeve being towed by special aircraft – even I had a go after being shown how to operate the guns in the front turret!!
During our training on the Halifax at Lindholme, Bill had very kindly given me an introductory flying lesson (I had never handled an aircraft in flight before!) After taking my place in the pilot’s seat, he showed me how to maintain the correct nose altitude for level flight and how to use the roll control to level the wings also make gentle turns. Once we were established on the Squadron we had a training commitment in navigation and bombing to fulfil. This was necessary in order to “hone” our skills and maintain the very high standards demanded of PATHFINDER crews. During most of these flights Bill and I would change places and under his close supervision, I would take control of the big Lancaster – what a fantastic feeling! By
[page break]
giving me plenty of handling practice, Bill, being a very responsible captain was ensuring that someone was capable of flying the aircraft in emergency. Thus I can take pride in saying that my first flying lessons were given by the excellent Bill Neal!! It’s worth noting that no Lancaster on the squadron was equipped with dual controls, which is why it was necessary for the pilot to vacate his seat to allow me to fly the aircraft.
We were now declared “fully operational” and on 11th July 1944 Bill called us together and said “we’re on the Battle Order for tonight chaps”! We lost no time in getting our flying kit on, then carry out a thorough check of our aircraft that we would be flying on the raid and by a short air test. The aircraft would then be prepared for the operational sortie by our ground crew (they were a dedicated band of men and took great pride in their own Lancaster). The fuel load was usually maximum. Then last of all would come the bomb load on special trolleys quite often towed by a W.A.A.F. The bombing up team would then winch the bombs/flares/Target Indicators into the bomb bay.
After a few hours rest in the afternoon it was time to attend a mass briefing. The target for our Op No. 1 was to be the marshalling yard at TOURS in Southern France. With all the flight planning completed we sat down to a good pre flight meal then made our way to the locker room. The air gunners had to wear plenty of warm clothing, as the outside air temperature at twenty thousand feet could be -10oC[?] and very little heat from the aircraft system reached the turrets. Both gunners were issued with electrically heated thermal suits and gauntlets. The rest of the crew wore thick rollneck pullovers under the battledress jacket and of course everyone wore fleece lined suede flying boots. Each crew member had his own parachute harness and chest[?] type parachutes were issued separately. We then boarded coaches and were dropped off at our own aircraft. The ground crew were already at the aircraft and the Form 700 (servicing record) was presented to Bill for signature. After the obligatory external inspection including an inspection of the bomb load and removal of safety pins, each crew member took up his position in the aircraft. It was my job to start all the engines when our skipper gave the order, and we had a precise time to start taxying. To see twenty or so Lancasters in a stream round the perimeter track was a thrilling sight!! There was always a crowd of station personnel by the side of the runway to see us off (lots of W.A.A.F.’s!!) It was vital that each bomber took off precisely on its allocated time. When it was our turn, Bill entered the runway lining up the heavily loaded Lancaster as close to the end as he could. At the end of the navigator’s countdown, Bill used to say “OK chaps as the earwig said – EARWIGO”!! as he advanced the throttles to full power accelerating down the runway for a perfect take off. Ask my ex Lancaster crew member and he will tell you what a wonderful sound those four Merlins made at full power!! I suspect the “earwig” saying was not only routine but superstition also, but it was part of every operational take off for our crew.
Once we had set course and were climbing to operational height the “butterflies” disappeared as we all had plenty to do. The flight engineer’s log had to be completed every half hour, recording all engine gauge readings and that fuel usage was according to plan. It was vital not to show any light in the cockpit. Bill’s flight instruments were dimly lit by u/v lights directed on to the luminous dials, and I had to use a torch with a very small hole in the blacked out glass when filling in my log.
[page break]
Both navigators worked under black out curtains. We had a very strict microphone discipline in a bomber crew. If a mic. Was left ON after saying something there was a hissing noise caused by oxygen flowing into the mask[?]. It was essential to keep the intercom quiet in case the gunners reported a night fighter and called “corkscrew (port or starboard) GO”. Our skipper Bill was a strong chap and could certainly throw a Lancaster around!! On my very first op with the crew I had my “baptism” in the form of two fighter attacks. Paddy our rear gunner saw the fighter before he could get in close and during the violent corkscrewing the four brownings in the rear turret made a noisy “clatter”. This was exciting stuff for the new crew member!!! In both attacks the fighter’s shots went wide and he broke away.
On this sortie and several more night ops to follow we were part of the “illuminating force”. This meant that we were one of the first to arrive at the target and would drop a stick of very bright parachute flares to enable the Master Bomber to visually identify the aiming point. He would be either a Lancaster or a Mosquito at a low altitude and would then drop cascading target indicators (mixed reds and greens). Further pathfinder aircraft were required to “back up” the marking by dropping more TI’s. Later in our tour we took on this role. Although anti aircraft fire (flak) on our first series of French targets was not intense, German targets were very heavily defended. Our first German target was Hamburg (op no. 13!!) and as we prepared for our bombing run the barrage of flak looked terrifying. Just as I was having doubts whether we could get through it, Bill said “don’t worry it always looks worse than it really is and the puffs of flak you see are the ones that can’t do any harm”. I felt slightly better!! The flak guns were radar predicted and the Germans had developed accurate height finding equipment. To make their job more difficult we used to fly a “weaving” course initially until the actual bombing run when the aircraft had to be held steady apart from small left and right corrections from bomb aimer to pilot. This is when we were most vulnerable to predicted flak and being "coned" by searchlights. Even after bomb release we still had to maintain heading until over the target and the photograph taken. This was a great relief to all the crew as it meant that Bill would usually dive for a few hundred feet then climb again and so on, until well clear of the target area. Our route away from the target was always planted to keep us clear of heavily defended areas, however, the threat from night fighters was ever present. Some ME110 fighters were fitted with upward firing canon. The pilot would fly formation below the bomber (in a blind spot to the gunners) and fire upwards with devastating results. In our Lancasters at the bomb aimer’s position there was a rearward facing perspex scoop through which we used to drop bundles of “window” (each containing millions of thin strips of silver foil to fog the enemy radar screens). I used to spend as much time as possible with my head down looking through this perspex in case a fighter was underneath.
One of the most sickening and demoralising sights was to witness a bomber aircraft being shot down. The bomber would be spinning down in a mass of flames and when it impacted (possibly with a full bomb load) there would be a massive explosion and fireball. Our navigator would make a note of the time and position, then we tried to put it out of our minds. Throughout our operational tours this experience was to be repeated many many times. We felt great sadness at the loss of our comrades, but thankful that we were spared.
It was a relief to be back over friendly territory on the way home and once we were
[page break]
crossing the North Sea the gunners could relax slightly. The aerodrome lights of Upwood were a most welcome sight and the controller had his work cut out fitting all the returning Lancasters into the circuit. Bill invariably brought our machine in for a well judged landing, tired though he must have been! Our ground crew were there on the dispersal to greet us climbing out of our trusty Lancaster and were always keen to know which target we had bombed. WAAFs with mugs of hot coffee laced with rum and the Padre having a chat as he handed out American cigarettes!! Then followed a debriefing by the intelligence officer and other specialists. Many times I remember walking back to the Mess for breakfast as dawn was breaking!
Some ops were very long flights (see record of operations following) and one might well ask “how did you stay awake and fully alert the whole time”? Well we had the option of taking “wakey wakey” pills as we used to call them. They were actually Benzodrine tablets (a stimulant) and most of us took them.
The remainder of our operation followed the general pattern previously described, however, we flew many daylight ops particularly in support of our ground forces on the Normandy Battle Front. We also attacked flying bomb sites in the Pas de Calais area using a special method. Six Lancasters flew close formation on a Mosquito equipped with “Oboe” (an extremely accurate blind bombing device). At the same split second the bomb left the Mosquito every Lancaster released its full load of bombs. Thus the V1(buzz bomb) site was totally obliterated possibly saving the lives of many Londoners. Ops 2, 3 and 4 were carried out on successive nights but were all fairly short trips to targets in France. On 14th October 1944 we flew a daylight raid on Duisburg in the morning, and with hardly any rest, attacked the same target that night! The target was an armaments factory in the Rhur and was heavily defended.
After completing my first tour (40 ops) having already had my commissioning interviews, sure enough exactly as Bill had promised, my commission came through. I was now able to join Bill and the rest of the crew in the Officers Mess.
At this Bill had completed[underlined] two tours [/underlined] of ops and decided to keep going as did Johnie Carrod, George Hodges, and of course myself (I wanted to complete two tours also). However, Alan Lewis (nav), Paddy Kirk and Jock McVitie (the two gunners) decided to “call it a day”. Thus our crew became:-
Flight Lieutenant (later Sqn. Ldr.) Bill Neal DFC Captain
Pilot Officer Don Briggs Flight Engineer
Flight Lieutenant George Hodges DFC H2S Radar Operator
Sergeant …..? Archer RCAF Navigator
Flight Lieutenant John Carrod DFC Wireless Operator
Flight Sergeant (later Warrant Officer) …..? Patterson (Mid Upper Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Eric Chamberlain Rear Gunner
And so we pressed on! From then on every op except one was a German target. We flew some very long trips (two of them were over [underlined] (eight hours)[underlined] Our longest flight was to Stettin
[page break]
On the Baltic coast – almost to Russia – eight and a half hours! That was stretching a Lancaster endurance to its limits I seem to remember.
We bombed Chemnitz and Dessau in Eastern Germany and of course on 13th Feb.1945, we were sent to Dresden. The firestorm was an awesome sight.
On the 24th March 1945 I flew my last operational sortie with Bill – it was a daylight raid on a Rhur target!
No words can do justice to the piloting skill, leadership, and fearless tenacity, coupled with the ability to maintain high morale, of our Captain, Comrade in Battle, and good friend, William G. Neal – Bill to all of us in his Lancaster bomber crew.
It was an honour to be part of his team, and I shall be eternally thankful that he got me through the most dangerous era of my life. Sadly, Bill Neal died on the 22nd November 2001. I shall miss him enormously.
[underlined] RECORD OF OPERATIONS [/underlined]
OPS 1 11th June 1944 Lanc III “J” (NE120) TOURS (M/Yards) 5hrs 55min.
OPS 2 15th June “ Lanc III “B” LENS 2hrs 20min.
OPS 3 16th June “ Lanc III “A” RENESCURE 2hrs 05min.
OPS 4 17th June “ Lanc III “H” MONTDIDIER 3hrs 30min.
OPS 5 24th June “ Lanc III “K” MIDDEL STRAETE 2hrs 15min.
OPS 6 27th June “ Lanc III “J” OISEMONT 2hrs 30 min.
OPS 7 2nd July “ Lanc III “J” OISEMONT 2hrs 50min.
OPS 8 7th July “ Lanc III “J” VAIRES (M/Yards nr PARIS) 4hrs 25min.
OPS 9 10th July “ Lanc III “J” NUCOURT 3hrs 00
OPS 10 12th July “ Lanc III “J” TOURS 5hrs 05min.
OPS 11 14th July “ Lanc III “J” PHILIBERT 3hrs 05
OPS 12 18th July “ Lanc III “J” CAGNY (Battle Front)
Wg.Cdr.Bingham-Hall Sqn. 2hrs. 50
OPS 13 28th July “ Lanc III “F” HAMBURG 4hrs 55
OPS 14 30th July “ Lanc III “K” BATTLE FRONT (Low level) 3hrd 05
OPS 15 3rd Aug. “ Lanc III “J” BOIS De CASSAN 3HRS 35
OPS 16 5th Aug. “ Lanc III “F” FORET De NIEPPE 2hrs 05
OPS 17 7th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” BATTLE FRONT A/P 5 2hrs 45
OPS 18 9th Aug. “ Lanc III “F” FORT D’ENGLOS 2hrs 20
OPS 19 12th Aug. “ Lanc III “D” RUSSELSHEIM (nr FRANKFURT) 4hrs 20
OPS 20 15th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” EINDHOVEN Airfield (Holland) 2 hrs 55
OPS 21 16th Aug. “ Lanc III “H” KIEL 5hrs 25
OPS 22 18th Aug. “ Lanc III “E” CONNANTRE (M/Yards) 5hrs 20
OPS 23 25th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” RUSSELSHEIM 7hrs 20
OPS 24 29th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” STETTIN (Our longest flight) 8hrs 30
OPS 25 31st Aug. “ Lanc III “D” LUMBRES 2hrs 35
OPS 26 15th Sept. “ Lanc III “J” KIEL 5hrs 05
[page break]
OPS 27 16th Sept. “ Lanc III “J” MOERDUK Bridges (Holland) 2hrs 55
OPS 28 20th Sept. “ Lanc III “J” CALAIS Area A/P 6B 2hrs 10
OPS 29 23rd Sept. “ Lanc III “J” NEUSS (DUSSELDORF) 3hrs 30
OPS 30 25th Sept. “ Lanc III ”A” CALAIS Area A/P IC 2hr 55
OPS 31 26th Sept. “ Lanc III ”A” CAP GRIS NEZ (CALAIS) 2hrs 30
OPS 32 27th Sept. “ Lanc III “A” CALAIS A/P 11 1hr 50
(Our shortest Operational Sortie!)
OPS 33 5th Oct. “ Lanc III “K” SAARBRUCKEN 5hrs 00
OPS 34 7th Oct. “ Lanc III “J” KLEVE (Flak damage to port wing) 3hrs 20
OPS 35 14th Oct. “ Lanc III “J” DUISBURG (RHUR) 3hrs 30
OPS 36 14th Oct. “ Lanc III “A” DUISBURG 4hrs 10
(Twice in one day!!!)
OPS 37 18th Nov. “ Lanc III “J” MUNSTER (Plt. Off. Don!!) 3hrs 50
OPS 38 28th Nov. “ Lanc III “J” ESSEN (RHUR) 4hrs 30
OPS 39 30th Nov. “ Lanc III “B” DUISBURG (RHUR) 4hrs 25
OPS 40 5th Dec. “ Lanc III “J” SOEST M/Yards (End of my
First tour of ops!) 5hrs 40
OPS 41 6th Dec. “ Lanc III “J” OSNABRUCK 5hrs 15
OPS 42 29th Dec. “ Lanc III “J” COBLENZ 4hrs 15
OPS 43 2nd January 1945 Lanc III “J” NURNBURG 7hrs 40
OPS 44 4th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” ROYAN (Nr. Bordeaux) 5hrs 05
OPS 45 5th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” HANOVER 4hrs
OPS 46 14th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” LEUNA (Morsburg) Oil Plant
(Diverted Tangmere – fog at Upwood) 8hrs 05
OPS 47 16th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” ZEITZ (Oil Plant Nr. Leipzig) 6hrs 30
OPS 48 28th Jan. “ Lanc III “0” STUTTGART
(Flew with Flt. Lt. Williams) 6hrs 00
OPS 49 7th Feb. “ Lanc III “J” GOCH (Bombed from 4500ft) 4hrs 40
OPS 50 8th Feb. “ Lanc III “B” POLLITZ (STETTIN) 8hrs 05
OPS 51 13th Feb. “ Lanc III “J” [underlined] DRESDEN [/underlined] 7hrs 45
OPS 52 1st March “ Lanc III “J” MANNHIEM 5hrs 05
OPS 53 5th March “ Lanc III “J” CHEMNITZ 7hrs 40
OPS 54 7th March “ Lanc III “J” DESSAU 7hrs 50
OPS 55 8th March “ Lanc III “J” HAMBURG 5hrs 15
OPS 56 12th March “ Lanc III “J” DORTMUND 4hrs 25
OPS 57 15TH March “ Lanc III “J” MISBURG Oil Refinery 6hrs 20
(Nr. Hanover)
OPS 58 16th March “ Lanc III “J” NURNBURG (3 fighter attacks) 6hrs 50
OPS 59 19th March “ Lanc III “J” HANAU Nr. Frankfurt 5hrs 45
OPS 60 20th March “ Lanc III “H” HEMMINGSTADT (Nr. Heide
30 miles South of Danish border) 4hrs 35
OPS 61 22nd March “ Lanc III “J” HILDESHIEM (Nr. Hanover) 4hrs 25
OPS 62 24TH March “ Lanc III “J” HARPENERWEG (RHUR) 4hrs 25
[page break]
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined]
Operations printed in RED were flown at night. Those printed in GREEN were daylight operations.
[underlined] Forty one [/underlined] operations were flown in Lancaster “J - Johnnie” (that would be “Juliet” in present day international phonetic alphabet).
The most concentrated months were August 1944 (eleven sorties), and March 1945 (eleven sorties)
Author: Flight Lieutenant Donald Ward Briggs, DFC RAF (Retd.)
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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Tribute to a Pathfinder captain
Description
An account of the resource
Tribute to Squadron Leader William G Neal Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross, Croix de Guerre, 1912-2001. Describes how Don Briggs met and was crewed with Bill Neal’s crew who having completed one tour had been selected for a second on Pathfinders. Describes training as well as Bill Neal’s piloting and leadership qualities. Notes that Bill Neal gave Don Briggs the opportunity to learn to fly. Describes first operation on 156 Squadron Pathfinders to Tours in France in great detail including being engaged by night fighters. Describes various Pathfinder techniques and attacking V-1 bomb sites formation on Oboe-equipped Mosquito. Describes operations over Germany with reference to ant-aircraft fire and night fighters. Explains that some of the crew including Neal and Briggs volunteered for a further tour completing a total of 62 operations. Ends with a list of all 62 operations.
Creator
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Donald Briggs
Format
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Eight typewritten pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
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
Identifier
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BBriggsDWNealeWv1
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
France--Tours
Germany
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1944-06
1944-07
1944-07-18
1944-07-30
1944-08
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-15
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
156 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
bombing up
crewing up
debriefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
fear
flight engineer
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
Me 110
military service conditions
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Pathfinders
perimeter track
pilot
promotion
RAF Hemswell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
searchlight
superstition
tactical support for Normandy troops
target indicator
target photograph
training
V-1
V-weapon
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/107/1042/EGrayHMGray[Wi]440628.pdf
e75077450668c64b98e07427fea214ba
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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Gray, Herbert
H M Gray
Bertie Gray
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. The collection relates to the career of Sergeant Herbert M Gray (1593562 Royal Air Force), It contains his log book, three photographs, a handwritten account of his first flight, six letters he wrote to his wife between 28 June 1944 and 6 August 1944, and his medal ribbons. Herbert Gray was a flight engineer with 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds.
The collection was donated by his daughter Ann M Gregory and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Gray, HM
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
(4.)
No. 12
[inserted] 7 [/inserted]
Sergeants Mess,
RAF Elsham Wolds,
28.6.44
So Win wants to know what it feels like to go on a bombing raid. No doubt she will have seen the scenes on the News films of the raid on La Havre. [sic] Well I took part in that raid which was my first “day-light” although it was almost dusk by the time we were over the target area. That would give her a pretty fair idea of what the target area looks like when the bombs are bursting across it and also of what the flack looks like as it is pumped up into the sky.
However, as we usually operate in the hours of darkness perhaps I had better try to give a picture of what it feels like under those conditions.
- Continued on p.5
[page break]
5.
[inserted] 7 [/inserted]
After a trip or two one soon ceases to experience any special emotion at being told, perhaps in the morning, that one is on “ops” that coming night. Except perhaps a feeling of relief to think that we shall soon have completed another trip which will be one nearer our 30 for our tour.
Briefing usually provokes a feeling of excitement, relief or apprehension according to the target and our route out and back. Even this feeling is of brief duration and one is soon too busy with the many pre-flight matters to have a thought for what lies ahead.
From take off to shortly before we arrive at the target area I am very busy indeed at my various tasks so again there is no time for idle thoughts. This is a great blessing and helps a lot.
However about 10 minutes before we are due at the target area my job is to do nothing but stand beside the pilot and use my eyes to see anything and everything which is to be seen on my side of the kite. For we must be on the look out that we do not collide with any of the many friendly bombers we know are surrounding us; that there is not one immediately above to drop its load of bombs on us, nor one below for the same reason; that there are no enemy fighters in the offing; to locate searchlights and flack bursts in the sky.
In front of us we can see literally
[page break]
6.
hundreds of searchlights probing the sky with their slender fingers. Our target, we know, lies right in the middle of these and it seems impossible that we could fly through without being picked up. We see that already a few Lancs. have been picked up and are now in the centre of a collosal [sic] cone of slowly moving searchlights. This is bad for them but good for us as it means that fewer searchlights are looking for us. In the distance we see the flack coming up and bursting looking like so many pretty fire works but it is bursting right on our line of flight. Then we realise that flack is bursting all around us but it now looks more like a puff of white smoke when it bursts (in daylight the smoke looks jet black!).
One thinks of those near and dear ones at home and says a prayer for them. For oneself one only prays for courage and that “God’s will be done”. [sic]
I think at these times I am afraid not of death, but of not being dead if we are hit. I rehearse in my mind what I must do if any of the engines, fuel tanks, etc. are hit and pray that I may make no mistakes. I measure with my mind just how long it will take me to fit my parachute and leave the plane if the skipper ever had to give the order – and I reckon I could do it in 3 to 4 seconds. But afraid I am as I think we all are to a greater or lesser degree.
After what seems like years we hear the skipper asking the bomb aimer if he
[page break]
7.
[inserted] 7 [/inserted]
wants the bomb doors opening. Although we can now plainly see the target illuminated in the light of the first bombs to fall upon it the bomb-aimer quietly replies, “Not yet Skip”. More years go by and then the bomb doors are opened and eventually we hear the bomb-aimer say “Bombs going ….”. What an age it seems after that before we hear him say, “Bombs gone. Bomb-doors shut”. During this while we have felt the kite shudder, almost as if some huge hand was banging up underneath the kite, as our rain of death leaves the gaping maw of the bomb bay and goes cascading down.
We are still among the searchlights and the flack somehow feel amazed that we have passed through so much of it and been neither hit nor picked up in those revealing beams of light. Our fear changes, I think, at this point to a kind of anxiety lest the good fortune which has attended us so far through the worst of the carnage should now forsake us.
The ever alert eyes of our gunners discern the shadowy shape of an enemy fighter and a sharp order sends the plane diving, climbing and twisting away into the night. Perhaps because the fighter never managed to get into a
[page break]
8.
position to open fire before loosing sight of us accounts for the fact that we have not felt afraid at least not like we were over the target.
Once the enemy coast has been left well behind we all, I think, heave a big sigh of relief though we remain as vigilant as ever for there is always the danger of that lurking fighter which may strike at any time even when we are at last circling our home base.
It is strange perhaps that one of the most loathed sensations on an “op” is one to which attached very little if any, real danger. That is getting into the slip-stream of a kite in front (= very rough air created by passage of aircraft). This has to be experienced to be believed – it can be awful, even “George” the automatic pilot, cannot cope with it.
Something else which has to be experienced to be believed is the unbelievable sweetness and warmth of that cup of coffee from our flask after crossing our coast – home.
That is the picture as far as any poor pen can draw it.
Love to you all. May God bless and keep you. Darling, yours always and absolutely,
[underlined] Bertie [/underlined]
P.S. Thanks again for your letter
Dublin Core
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Title
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Letter to his wife from Herbert Gray.
No. 12
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with suggestion that a recent news film of daylight operation to Le Havre, which he was on, gives a good idea of what bombing is like. However as most of his operations were at night he goes on to describe these. Describes emotions and preparations for a typical operation. Provides a detailed description of activities, fears, emotions and activities. Includes looking out for other aircraft on run up to target, describes searchlights and anti-aircraft fire, the wait for bomb release, engagement by night fighters and crew response. Describes most loathed sensation as being caught in another aircraft’s slipstream and delights of welcome cup of coffee when crossing English coast.
Creator
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Bertie Gray
Date
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1944-06-28
Format
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Five page handwritten letter
Language
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eng
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Text
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Identifier
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EGrayHMGray[Wi]440628
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France--Le Havre
France
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
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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Andy Hamilton
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
faith
fear
Lancaster
military ethos
military service conditions
RAF Elsham Wolds
searchlight
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1556/PBanksP15010097.2.jpg
c6125b0635bb9d42a19e0872d101f5f6
Dublin Core
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Title
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Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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. 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.
Format
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One photograph album
Identifier
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PBanksP1501
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Title
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D Day C-47 and gliders
Description
An account of the resource
At the top a ground to air photograph of five pairs of C-47s flying from bottom right to top left.
Below a ground to air photograph showing a stream of C-47s flying from right to left towing gliders. In the bottom right the roof of a building. Caption 'D Day Dakotas/Gliders'.
Format
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Two b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Language
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eng
Identifier
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PBanksP15010097
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
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1944-06
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.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Type
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Photograph
C-47
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/159/2504/AParkinsHW150612.2.mp3
a7b074df4b419b69687ccb1c168e6939
Dublin Core
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Title
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Parkins, Harry
H W Parkins
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. Two oral history interviews with Harry Parkins (891679 Royal Air Force), his logbook, identity card and one photograph. Harry Parkins was a flight engineer with 630 Squadron and 576 Squadron and flew 30 night time and 17 daylight operations from RAF Fiskerton and RAF East Kirkby.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Parkins and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-06-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DE: Harry, you were going to tell me the story of being shot at.
HP: Yes it was on the 21st of the 6th ‘44, we were on operations to Wessling, and we had twelve thousand pounds worth on bombs, we succeeded in doing that but on the way back I spotted what I thought was a plane coming towards us, I shouted to the gunners ‘cause [sic] they hadn’t seen it, and as it got nearer it started firing tracer bullets which was very frightening, and the gunners spotted it and shot at it and luckily they downed it, so we were able to get back home safely but I went down to see where the tracer bullet had gone in the aircraft to see if there was any serious damage, I couldn’t see any but when we landed the ground crew actually cried because there was seventeen holes in the plane and it didn’t fly again, a shame that was, and that took us four hours twenty minutes that trip.
DE: Where were you standing when you saw this aircraft attacking you?
HP: I was just standing by the seat that’s next to the pilot, where there’s a little dome, and standing in that dome you can see all the way round, and I always liked to look all the way round when I wasn’t checking the engines because, it was your job really to spot anything, and some of the frightening aspects of it is if the Perspex wasn’t cleaned very well, in the night time, incidentally that was a night time flight, in the night time if you saw a little speck of dirt that hadn’t been cleaned it could be a fighter coming after you, so we always wanted the ground crew to make sure the Perspex was always as clean as possible.
DE: So what did an incoming eighty-eight look like then?
HP: [slight laugh] it’s hard to remember because with the tracer bullets coming at you, you practically didn’t see the plane, all you saw was these lights coming at you, which was very frightening, it’s bad enough being shot at but to see, actually see it coming at you, it was worse than ever.
DE: Did the pilot take any evasive action?
HP: Yes, he did a slight corkscrew but not too much because the gunners had got the plane, and it went down, so he really didn’t have to do a corkscrew, but that’s a frightening thing when you do a corkscrew, because at one time coming back from an operation, I forget where that was, we were caught in searchlights, and that again is another frightening thing, and it’s, it’s like being on a stage completely naked and everyone’s looking at you, and well the gunner shouted to do a corkscrew and it went really mad, it was a really violent corkscrew, you thought the wings were gonna [sic] come off, but we managed to get out of the searchlight and carry on home, again we were lucky.
DE: And when you landed, you say the ground crew were really upset, was it that obvious then that the plane had been hit?
HP: Yeah, you could see all the holes in the side, yeah, but we didn’t know until after briefing how many holes there was, seventeen all told [sic], which is quite a lot, [pause] that was our twentieth operation that one.
DE: So, you mentioned at certain points when the searchlights were on you or if you were being shot at you felt frightened, how did you feel before and during operations normally?
HP: I didn’t feel too bad because, I think half the time being a young age it was like excitement more than anything else, you didn’t really have a lot of fear at all, at least I didn’t, and I don’t think the rest of the crew did, except maybe the rear gunner because that time when we had a mid-air collision, I think that really frightened him.
DE: But he was OK?
HP: He carried on until the end yeah, and when we finished the tour of ops, they went back to their various countries, which was Australia and New Zealand.
DE: You had another story about some low flying?
HP: Oh yes, my skipper like to do low flying, and, we were low flying what we called air to sea firing where the gunners fired off their guns to make sure everything was OK and you checked various things in the plane and coming back, he decided to do a bit of low flying along Skegness and in actual fact when I looked out from my little blister, I could see the pier above us [laughs], and he still carried on and as we passed further along near to the pier there was two men in a boat, who must have thought we were coming into crash because they jumped out the boat [laughs] and we passed them and coming up to Butlins camp which at that time had been taken over by the navy, and the navy was having a parade on their parade ground and he went so low that the parade all scarpered and ducked down and we all laughed at that and carried on back to East Kirkby, but a couple of days later we were called to the group captains office and he said, ‘first of all you needn’t deny this because we’ve got people who witnessed your aircraft number from the naval station’ and he said the naval officer in charge contacted him because he knew it was from East Kirkby and said that ‘tell your crew that next time if they do that, it won’t be air to sea firing, it’ll be ground to air firing’ and he just said ‘dismissed’, I think he thought it was more of a joke as well [pause], anything else?
DE: Well anything else you can tell me?
HP: I don’t know if I told you about when Pilot Officer Jackson and I went, three, twice with him, did I tell you that?
DE: Yes you did.
HP: I’m just trying to think of the other thing.
DE: Yes you said that three was your lucky number.
HP: Yes, well I lived in 13, Churchill Walk in England, in London I should say and we had a bomb dropped on the next street and it shattered all the windows of our street, right the way along except number thirteen, never touched the windows at all, and with no explanation for that at all.
DE: Would you say you are quite a superstitious person then?
HP: In the way of three and thirteen, yes.
DE: What about any lucky charms did you have anything?
HP: No, never had lucky charms but quite a few air crew used to have lucky charms, and my opinion is that often the lucky charms cause them to do something wrong and end up being either shot down or crashed, because when you think about it, if a member of the crew had a lucky charm and he’d gone and left it before he was flying, instead of his mind being on what he should be doing, his mind was on, ‘what did I do with that lucky charm?’ and during that period something could happen, but that was only my opinion.
DE: So you think it’s more professional just to keep your mind focused on the job?
HP: Oh yes, definitely.
DE: Did you know if anybody in your crew had anything like that?
HP: No, none of them, none at all, the only thing we considered a lucky charm was our whistle and we all had a whistle it was always pinned to your coat.
DE: So the other thing I’ve read about is similar superstitions that if you associated with a certain woman she was unlucky or anything like that, do you have any stories about things like that?
HP: No, the only story I had was that one of the air crew, I don’t know who he was, I think he was a pilot, he’d got going with one of the girls in the village and after a while, whether he got fed up with her or not, she found out that he’d been seeing someone else when he said he was off flying and she happened to be in, the, it was a WAF and she happened to be in where they had the parachutes and as a revenge apparently she cut the strings of the parachute and of course nothing happened for a while but eventually they were shot up and the crew bailed out but his parachute didn’t open properly and that was the end of him, there was an enquiry about that but it was more or less hushed up because it would’ve scared other members of the crew. Whether that was a true story I don’t know but that’s the story that went round.
DE: And you heard that on, during your time on operations?
HP: Yes.
DE: Did you have any associations with any WAF’s?
HP: No, only when I was training I had a association with a land army girl who lived in Nottingham, and, I think it’s more or less after, no towards the end of the war, I was stationed at Stirgate and we got leave and I thought ‘oh I’d go into Nottingham and see if I could find this land army girl’ and as it happened, whilst I was in Nottingham I met up with some Americans and they got chatting to me and they said they had a club, would I like go into the club and having a few drinks, well a few drinks ended up to a lot of drinks and then I found out where this land army girl lived and I knocked on the door and she came out and give me a cuddle and said ‘oh lets go for a walk’, and at Nottingham there’s the Lincoln castle where you go up a sort of a hill, and we were walking up there and we got to the top, we were going to sit down and have a chat and I was dying for a leak [slight laugh] and I said ‘I’m ever so sorry, I’ve got to go and find a toilet’ and I actually run down all the hill to find somewhere, I found somewhere, when I went back up she’d gone, [slight laugh] that was the end of that ‘cause [sic] she didn’t like people drinking, and that’s about the only experience I had.
DE: Did you have a lot to do with Americans then?
HP: Not really, but we did have an American who swapped a pilots, with, he came to East Kirkby as a pilot on Lancaster’s and an English pilot went onto theirs, to go onto super fortresses , just an exchange and it appeared the American was a bit of an unruly type so that’s why they were keen to get rid of him go to the RAF, but if ever we went out together because we always get chatting together, he would go into Boston with us and instead of wearing either his American outfit or his British outfit he used to go with part aircrew American on top and part RAF at the bottom and he was always being picked up by MP’s, but being American he always got away with it, and there was one incident where, it was when a lot of prisoners made an escape and the Germans found out where they were coming up and I don’t know if you ever read about it but the Germans shot, I think it was about thirty or forty of the escapees, so at that time the group captain said that if anybody wanted to draw a gun, fifteen rounds of ammunition, he’s not saying you should do that but if you felt you wanted to you could do, so I think nearly half the air force drew guns and fifteen rounds of ammunition, and this American he’d got his gun and fifteen rounds of ammunition, and outside his nissen hut, there was a tree where a blackbird used to come every day twittering away and it upset him he didn’t like this blackbird so he went outside and fired at it but he never hit it at all until he run out of ammunition , and I can remember also, where you went for ablutions, it was in a place outside where your nissen hut was, and they used to issue you with a tin bowl, and I was walking across with this tin bowl and all of a sudden a bullet hit this tin bowl [laughing], I dropped the tin bowl and rushed into the ablution, never found out who fired it, but there was so much ridiculous firing going on round the airdrome at East Kirkby that the group captain got to know about this and he said ‘right, that is stupid of all these people’, so he wanted all the guns handed, handed in and all the ammunition handed in, well, all the guns were handed in OK but I think there was only ten rounds of ammunition, all the rest had been spent. Similar things like, in my crew a New Zealander, he didn’t like flies and we used to often play darts a lot and he saw this fly going across the dart board so out come the gun firing, [laughing] firing at the fly, so as I say there was all daft things like that going on, that’s why the group said, group captain said ‘right they’ve all got to come back in again’, he didn’t trust any of them.
DE: So, people in your crew took them, did you take one?
HP: Oh yeah, we all took one I think, as I say, I think everybody who was allowed to took one, I never fired mine, I don’t think my crew did except this New Zealander, he did at the dart board [laughs] a crazy lot.
DE: I’ve read in other people’s stories that the medical officers sometimes gave tablets to help you get through night operations, did that ever happen with you?
HP: Never heard of it, never, although once when I got a sty on my eye it was considered to be unlucky if you couldn’t go off on your routine operations one after the other all the way through, and I got such a bad sty on my eye, I thought ‘well they won’t let me fly’, so I said to the crew ‘I’m going down to sick quarters’ to see if they can do anything, and sick quarters was quite a way off the airdrome and it had a seat in there which was just concrete to sit on while you was waiting to be seen by the doctor, well when I got there there was nobody else there but the doctor wasn’t there, and while I was sat there, the dentist came out and he said ‘it must be freezing cold over there, son’ he said ‘come in, sit on the dentist chair and we’ll have a look at your teeth’ [laughs] so he had a look at me teeth and before I knew it he’d took one out and [laughs] I got blood all over me shirt and I said ‘oh I only came in for me eye’ he said ‘well it was much warmer in here wasn’t it?’, [laughs] and I said ‘yes’ and his WAF helper, she said ‘oh here’s the doctor now, so you can go in next door and see the doctor’, and he looked at me and said ‘good God, what’s all this blood all over you?’ ‘I said ‘well the dentist decided to keep me in the warm and took a tooth out’ and I’m sure, it was that one there, and I’m sure there was nothing wrong with it, and he looked at me eye and he said ‘I could lance it’ and he played around with the sty for several minutes and he said ‘if you go back and rest before you get your briefing’ he said, ‘I think you’ll be OK’ and that was it, I carried on on ops.
DE: I would’ve thought you’d need more time off for having a tooth out?
HP: Yeah [laughs]. We certainly had some funny things happening during our time in the RAF.
DE: You briefly mentioned the ablutions then, what were the living accommodations and the ablutions like there?
HP: Well it was only a nissen hut with so many beds all the way down which weren’t all that comfortable but you had plenty of blankets that you could put underneath or over the top of the mattress so it weren’t too bad and the ablutions was, well you had to take your own bowl, you didn’t get hot water, just turned the tap on and that was it, so it was very sparse, but you got on with it, you didn’t complain, if you complained nothing would happen about it [slight laugh], and another thing happened, they used to be card mad and if you weren’t on any day light trips or anything like that, you used to sit there playing pontoon or shoot, shoot pontoon, I don’t know if you knew that, it was where you had a dealer and he’d go round to everybody to see how much they’d put it the deal in the front, either to match his or over match it then as they dealt the cards round to each person you said ‘shoot’, either put a bit more money in or you left it as it was and you either lost or you won and you took something out or put something in and when it got to my turn, I had an ace and I thought its worth shooting the lot , so I shot the lot, I got a queen and the damn dealer got a king so his took preference over mine so I lost the lot and another fella next to me, weren’t member of my crew, he had an Indian motorbike and he’d done the similar thing and lost it all so he still wanted to go again so dealer said ‘what have you got?’ and he said ‘well, I’ve got no money left but I’ll put my motor bike in’ [laughs] and he put the motorbike in and he lost, so round it went and when it came to my turn again and I said ‘I’ve got no money neither but I’ll shoot the motorbike and I’ll have to pay if I lose, at a later date’, anyways I won so I won this motorbike and I had no clues what so ever how to drive a motorbike, and the fella who had originally lost it, he said ‘you lucky devil’ he said ‘I’ll show you what to do’ and we got outside the nissen hut ‘cause the card game had finished and he said ‘right, you do this, do that, and away you go’, so I did that and did that and I went straight through the ablution, straight through [laughs], straight through the covers that were on the outside and just stopped so I said ‘no I don’t want this anymore’ [laughing], I had a few bruises but the motorbike was OK, except where there was a big hole in the side of the ablution, so the next time we played I put the motorbike in purely to lose it, and I never went on a motorbike again.
DE: Probably quite right. So did you play cards with other crews?
HP: Yeah there was all sorts that used to mix in with playing cards yeah, yeah there was one time when we were due leave but the train wasn’t due till, I forget probably about half past ten or eleven and we were always up before seven, you go for your breakfast, come back and waiting to go in, get in to Boston station and you’d play cards, and I played cards and lost again, lost all me money, I went on leave purely with your leave application where you didn’t have to pay anything and when I got to London, I relied on my father to pay for the fayre to get back home, and I said what I had been doing, playing cards and he said ‘your best bet is to leave cards alone unless you’ve got a good memory for where cards turn up’, so I never played cards again [slight laugh].
DE: So just quickly going back to the nissen hut, who did you share with?
HP: Just your own crew, maybe, possibly another crew that were in a nissen hut nearby, so it weren’t too bad, bit cold in winter though, yeah [pause], but I had a cut throat razor, as where we used to live in London, we always used to go to the top of the road ‘cause there was a Jewish barber there and he was always asking about me, when I come home on leave I always used to go there to have a haircut and have a chat with him and he said, ‘you’ll soon be needing to shave, won’t you?’, I said ‘well I got a little bit of stubble coming’, he said ‘I’ve got something for you, I’ve saved this for you’ and it was a German crop razor one of the best there could be and he said, ‘there you are, that’s for you’ and eventually I had to use this, and people used to come and watch me shaving thinking that if I got the twitch from flying I’d cut myself [slight laugh] but I never did and then we went off somewhere and we came back and somehow the call up[?] seemed to go astray, went wrong and instead of landing at east Kirkby we landed at another field, airfield nearby, can’t remember what it was, it might have been Strubby or some name like that, and when we landed we had briefing and they said ‘oh you are not far from East Kirkby so you may as well stay the night, which we did, then next morning refuelled and fly back to East Kirkby, when I went into the nissen hut there was nothing of mine there, it had all gone, and I had a wallet where one of the young ladies I knew in London had given me a ten pound note and I’d always kept that in this wallet for emergencies and that had gone, ‘cause you weren’t allowed to take anything on ops with you, nothing to identify you, and what had happened, if any crews were shot down or didn’t come back, rather than send any of the stuff that the person had kept, they used to have what they called a committee of adjustments, and that was where the stuff was put in to be auctioned off and everything was auctioned and I lost all my stuff, and other members of the crew had lost their radio or maybe a bike, it was all gone, so I never ever got my razor back.
DE: Oh dear and this was because you were somewhere else for one night?
HP: Yeah, they thought we had been shot down.
DE: So for the sake of one phone call, you lost all your kit.
HP: Yeah. That was one of those things, but hardly anybody had ever heard of it, committee of adjustments, I’ve never heard of anybody who knew about it, none of the parents or lovers knew about it either, it just all sort of vanished.
DE: And over efficient as well it seems.
HP: Yeah, very efficient [laughs]
DE: You mentioned when you were talking about your razor, about the dangers of shaving if you got the twitch, could you explain a little bit about the twitch?
HP: Yeah, well that was where some air crew who had got so scared, that they were too scared to admit that they were frightened and they used to have a sort of twitch which gave them away, you know when they were walking along they would go like that somehow, do a funny little twitch with a hand or the head and we we [sic] had one fella who had got it so bad he was walking along as though he was carrying a ladder and if anybody was near him they’d shout at them ‘get out the way, can’t you see the ladder?’ and he’d got nothing, again [laughing] this is what we called the twitch.
DE: Did these people carry on flying then?
HP: Some of them did and some of them didn’t, they ended up in hospital you know having consultations and things like that, see if they could get them back to normal.
DE: Did you know anyone personally?
HP: No. I say on an airdrome or a base you’d mainly know your own crew really thoroughly but other crews you didn’t really mix a lot at all, so didn’t know many of them at all, ‘cause many a time I spoke or people have asked me about being in East Kirkby and they say, ‘do you know Jack Thompson?’, I said ‘never heard of him’, ‘oh well he was there, he was at East Kirkby’, as I say you just didn’t know these people, unless they were someone famous.
DE: So you wouldn’t talk to each other in briefing or anything like that then?
HP: Not really no, ‘cause your crew was your crew altogether and further down was their crew, all listening to what was going on.
DE: I see, what about the ground personnel and the ground crew that looked after your aircraft?
HP: They were smashing, really good blokes, yeah.
DE: Did you have more to do with them then?
HP: Not really, only when we took off and come back again, so you didn’t really mix with them in the mess because most of them were, I forgot what, LAC’s, they weren’t sergeants or anything like that, so they were in a different category.
DE: I just wondered if you chatted to them about anything out on the dispersals?
HP: You did occasionally but not very often, not unless like when we came back and we had seventeen holes and they were upset about it.
DE: Did you always fly the same aircraft then if you could?
HP: No you had several different aircrafts but in just looking at that, we flew an X, X X X X, the same Lancaster all the time there, then, after that X X, Q V, all different letters to the different Lancaster’s.
DE: I’ve read somewhere that the ground crew said that the aircraft belonged to them and the air crew only borrowed it.
HP: Yes [laughs] I think that’s true as well, because they really were good blokes, nothing wrong with them at all, they really looked after your aircraft, [pauses] in fact they should have got more praise than they ever did, ground crews.
DE: Did you have any views about what you were doing? I know it’s been a matter of debate since the war a lot.
HP: Not really, but I always thought we were doing the right thing as being a Londoner and being in the Blitz, seeing what had been happening in London and you felt you were doing the right thing to do the same thing back to them.
DE: Yes you mentioned last time we spoke how you were on your way to work and the factory wasn’t there anymore.
Hp: Yeah, so you know you had that feeling we were doing the proper thing.
DE: I can’t remember if I asked you much about your recruitment and your training?
HP: Well I think I mentioned that, two lads at the outer city trip (?-name of company) transport company where we were thinking we might get called up, we were having our lunch and we were debating should we volunteer and we decided we ought to so we got what we wanted and we went straight out after lunch, straight down to the recruiting office and both volunteered for the RAF and that was because I thought it was safer in the air than on the ground at the time.
DE: Yes you said that you didn’t want to join the navy because you couldn’t swim very well.
HP: No only across the canal because there was a big canal near us in London and we often used to go and swim across the canal, and we also used to get an old bike wheel, break all the spokes out and thread a sack round, put some string on and drop it down, pull it up and we’d got loads of sticklebacks and it reminded me of that, seeing I don’t know if you watch it, Countryfile, it was showing you about a stickleback there that was blowing its nest waiting for the little ones to come out and they called it the star of the show and it reminded me of that because we used to sell these sticklebacks then to other kids, because everybody used to like a fish in a jar, made a little bit of money doing that. [laughs]
DE: But you were expected into the RAF and then you went away?
HP: Yes we, we went first of all to the flats were film stars used to be, the RAF had accommodated those and I thought it was marvellous because the bathroom was cut glass all the way around with like fish swimming round and I thought ‘boy this is the life to be in the RAF’ but that was only temporary while we were doing the training, and also on the square we had a fella called Alva Liddel, he used to be an announcer for the news and he always used to say ‘this is the news and Alva Liddel speaking it’ and he happened to be in, I don’t know whether he volunteered or not or was called up, but he was on the square and in the papers it said ‘this is Alva Liddel on the square, bashing it’, so that was interesting and we were opposite London zoo and we had our food in the zoo, and people used to be wondering around looking at us having food in the zoo which seemed strange to them, and there used to be a place, I forget the name of the place but we used to march from the flats where the square was, down across the stop lights on Marylebone road to a swimming baths, where we used to have training for, if you came down how to turn the, not the airborne lifeboat, it was like a big circle, I can’t remember what they call that now, but often if you dropped it for you to go in to, it would turn up the wrong way so the bottom of it was on the top and there was like a suction, so you had to be able to go over the top of it, hold on just where the bottle was for blowing it up, grab hold of that and pull yourself up like that and go right the way under and re-put it right, [DE: turn the dingy the right way round] yeah dingy that was it I couldn’t remember what they were called them, yeah and I wasn’t pretty good at that even though I couldn’t swim very far, but they used to make you march in this place as well, because they put boards across and if it was raining you could go in there and do your marching up and down on these boards, when it was swimming they used to take all the boards up and you did the swimming exercise, and there was one where this sergeant he called out, I don’t know if I mentioned this before, he called out that all the crews that were there had to put on their flying suit and he said ‘I want all the swimmers this end and all the non-swimmers that end’, so I thought to myself ‘I don’t know what he’s going to do so I’m going to go to the non-swimmers’ so I was down the non-swimmers which was the least deep part of it and all the swimmers were up by the diving board, then he said ‘right I don’t want anybody to move but all the non-swimmers come up by the diving board’, all the swimmers went down to the non-deep side and the idea was you had to climb up to the top diving board and jump off with your flying suit on then swim to the side if you could, and I was that scared of having to go up that ladder I kept getting behind and behind and behind, and I was the last one and everybody was booing me and he came up to me and he said ‘I can understand you being scared but just go up to the top, I’ll come with you and just look over and you’ll be OK’, he said ‘then you can come back down’ so I believed him and I went up with him, got to the top, and he said ‘you can let go of the bars either side’, so I let go and he just pushed me and down I went and I went right down under, well I didn’t come up because where the zips on my flying suit didn’t work they just filled up with water, held me down, so there was panic on to fish me out, get me back and pump me chest to get me spilling all the water out and after a while I was OK, but I wouldn’t dive after that [slight laugh], and that was a frightening experience, and I always hoped that I would never have to jump out of an aircraft into the sea or even have to turn the dingy over, but luckily we never had to, but that was a frightening experience before I even got to flying.
DE: So what other things did they have you doing for your training to be an engineer?
HP: Oh before you was, became an engineer you had to do like army training, going through tunnels and climbing over things and that was done at Bridlington, I think I mentioned that, [DE: briefly yes], well that was where we were marching along and I looked over the side and I thought that looks like my Uncle Ernie, and I didn’t know he was in the army, he’d been called up, and I just went marching over to him, because the sergeant halted the crew, came over to me and shouted, shouted a few abusive words at me and I said ‘well that’s my Uncle Ernie’, he said ‘I don’t care if it’s the f’ing queen’ he said ‘you don’t walk out of my marching section’, so I got ten days working in the cook house cleaning dirty tins, yeah, and he got chatting to me uncle to see if it was true, he was my uncle and they got quite friendly and he used to arrange football matches between the RAF and the army, ‘cause the army didn’t get on very well with the RAF but that broke the ice down.
DE: Why didn’t the army and the RAF get on?
HP: Well we were called the ‘Brylcreem boys’ [laughs], supposed to be the aloof.
HP: Did I mention that on, when they were expecting the invasion from the Germans they put us on duty either end of Bridlington with our rifle, so many rounds of ammunition and you had to march up a little way and back just to see if there was any invaders coming and shoot them, and this particular time it was a moonlight night with the clouds suddenly going over, and I looked up at one of the hotels and I could see what I thought was somebody flashing to the enemy, so I thought ‘well I’ve got to go and investigate as I’ve seen it’, and I got my rifle ready, I went scrambling up the stairs, right to the top, and as I went along the top corridor I saw another fella coming at me with the rifle and it frightened the life out of me, I dropped my torch, dropped my rifle and ran like mad and when I got to the bottom I thought ‘that was odd, nobody shot at me and nobody come running after me’ and I couldn’t work it out so I thought I better go back, pick me gun up, rifle, and when I got up there I realised I’d saw myself in a mirror [laughs] at the end of the corridor and there was anybody there and the light that I thought was somebody signalling was as a cloud went over the moon it was flickering on the window and the window was sort of flashing, I never told anybody about that [slight laugh] so that was another funny story.
DE: Were you at Bridlington very long then?
HP: Not long, no.
DE: Where did you go after that?
HP: After Bridlington, it was to do with going down to Saint Athens where you learnt everything from the book and from me looking at the engines to find out how they all worked and that took a couple of months, so you really knew everything about the Stirling bomber, and then you eventually went flying with different people in a Stirling and that’s where I said you were dead scared seeing as you’ve never flown before and you were meeting your crew for the first time in the bar, and that’s when this Aussie, rear gunner come up to me and said ‘you sound a bit like us, mate’ I said ‘why where you from?’ because I didn’t know where he was from, he said ‘Australia, where are you from?’ I said ‘Hackney’ he said ‘where’s Hackney?’, I said ‘in London’ he said ‘that sounds good, Hackney Harry’, ‘cause I’d told him my name and that’s when he said come and meet the crew, and I think I went through that.
DE: Yeah you did, you mentioned you got put on a charge and had to work in a kitchen?
HP: Yeah that was through meeting me uncle.
DE: What did they have you doing in there?
HP: Well all the greasy tins when they fried anything or done anything, they couldn’t wash them straight away, so you had to scrub away with the brush to get all the grease off and you had to do that at breakfast time, dinner time and evening meal time, which weren’t very good [slight laugh].
DE: Was it a fitting punishment then do you think?
HP: Yeah, I didn’t think so at the time, but there in the hotel where we used to go into, there was a stairway like that coming up with a landing like that and the toilet was right in the middle, and there was no locks or anything on it, did I tell you about that? [DE: no] well there used to be a scotch fella, who always had a great big knife, always down the side of his belt and I was on the toilet and this scotch fella came out, bashed the door open and said ‘out’ [emphasis], like that and it so infuriated me, I head butted him, he’s much bigger than me, great big bloke, and he went over the banisters, landed on the floor, I, I honestly thought I’d killed him and the sergeant come over and he was still laid there, he’d been knocked out actually, ended up in sick quarters, and all the rest of the air crew that used to be training there they were really scared of this scotch men and I became his best friend because nobody had ever stood up to him and it really upset him and he looked after me from then on, [slight laugh] but it was a frightening experience.
DE: Did you keep in touch with him?
HP: No, no once we split up, went off to you know the squadron where you met your crew and started flying with them, and as I said before it was with Stirling’s to start with and then after a little while they decided Lancaster’s were coming in, so you ended up at East Kirkby on Lancaster’s and I think I told you what happened when I said that I needed more training, they put me on ops.
DE: Yeah. That’s smashing, I think we’ll call that a day unless you can think of any other amusing anecdotes? I’ve ticked all the questions I had for you.
HP: Yeah, well when I was at the end of my first tour training with, I think I said that the pilot trained a pilot and the engineer trained an engineer, and I was with a, a pilot and we’d be on a cross country or something and it was dark when we were coming back so they used to let you go round the circuit before you came in, and this particular time someone fired up a red flare which meant there was danger you couldn’t land, and the pilot carried on landing and I said to him ‘we can’t land, there’s something wrong’, I think somebody had crashed before us, so he said ‘oh, we better go round again’, so we went round again, he was a squadron leader and he’d been on a lot of ops, and as we come round again, another red flare went up and he said ‘oh good we’re ok now’, I said ‘no it’s a red flare, what’s up with you, are you blind or something?’ [laughs] and round we went again and we were called up on the intercom to keep flying round until a green flare was fired, so we did this until I spotted a green flare coming up and I said ‘it’s ok now, there’s a green flare’, so he said ‘ok, we’ll go into land’ and when we’d landed and taxied round I said to him ‘I know you are a higher rank than me but I’m wondering if you’re bloody colour blind’ and he said ‘sssh, I am’ [whispers] and he said ‘I’ve never admitted it to anyone’, he says ‘so please, please don’t report me’, I didn’t know what to do really, because he was training he wasn’t on ops anymore so I just forgot about it, and I thought well if he’d been on ops, he’s done his share so let the poor bloke carry on, but that was frightening as well ‘cause if I hadn’t had said something he would have gone in and probably have crashed into the other plane crash.
DE: Which operation training unit was this you were at then?
HP: Can’t remember where that was. It might have been at Stirgate, fifty squadron ,Stirgate, it was there and that’s where we went on to picking up the passengers in Italy.
DE: Yes, you told me about that.
HP: Oh and another time we had to go to Brussels, this was after the war, to pick up twenty four ex-prisoners of war and the first time went there, everything went through OK, we had a couple of days off and then we had to go again and as we were coming into land, my pilot was looking either side because there’d been a lot of aircraft that had crashed there, and they were just bulldozed over the side and he was looking at, ‘oh look at that, that’s an American so and so, oh look at that’, and there was a great big gulley where somebody had crashed there and they’d moved the plane out the way and we went into that and burst a tire and an American bulldozer come out, up to us, I’d got, well we’d all got out the plane and he said ‘ok, everybody out the plane, I’m bulldozing you over to the side ‘cause other planes have got to come in’, I said ‘no you daren’t, you’re not gonna [sic] bulldoze my plane’, I said ‘we’ll wait until we get a new tyre’ he said ‘no I’m gonna bull doze it’, so all the crew stood in front of him so he couldn’t do it so in the end he gave up and somebody else came out and towed us over to the side where we had to wait for somebody to bring out another wheel for us, and that was at Brussels and we ended up at Melbrook, wherever that was and then we got the tyre all sorted out and then went on to our base, that was a daylight operation.
DE: Did you bring many prisoners of war back then?
HP: Yeah there was twenty four there, another twenty four the second time and then when we went to Italy there was six where we brought twenty back at a time so [adds up out loud] so that’d be about hundred and eighty blokes coming back.
DE: How does that make you feel that you did that?
HP: It made us feel good because they couldn’t get back other than by sea and going by plane it was a couple of hours so they were really grateful to us but really scared of flying, so we went without our parachutes to prove to them that it was safe to fly [slight laugh]
DE: What state were the POW’s in?
HP: Very poor state, very poor, some of, some of them were being sick but they couldn’t help it because they’d never ever flown before and some had bandages on them where they had broken their limbs, but it felt really good fetching them back.
DE: The other thing I’ve read about, about flights at the end of the war, where you had a sort of tour of Germany and had a look at the bombing, did you do any of those?
HP: No, no I didn’t hear about it though.
DE: I think people called them cook’s tours?
HP: No never heard of it, [pauses] the only time I heard of anybody going around, looking round again is Guy Gibson, I think I told you about that didn’t I? I had a mate, air crew flight engineer, used to on the same sort of ops as we did but I had done a lot more than him, we got very friendly and if we managed to get back we’d go into the pub and exchange stories, and this particular time he was right down in the mouth, he wouldn’t have a drink and I couldn’t get him to talk and I thought he’d got lack of moral fibre and was likely to disappear, so I kept talking to him and in the end he said ‘I’ve been sworn not to say anything ‘, so I said ‘well that’s a bit daft’ I said ‘because we could be not here, on our next op so what does it matter about telling me what you’re on about?’ so he said ‘alright then’ he said ‘you know we’re the last ones to get in the plane after our inspection?’ I said ‘yeah’ he said ‘I was just going up the ladder and this bloke come up to me, pushed me out the way and before I knew it was on the plane’, he said ‘I didn’t know what to do so I pulled the ladder up and went up to my position’, he said ‘and when I got there was this bloke sat in my seat and he just said ‘bugger off down the back’ and I was just about to shout at him when the pilot said’ ‘ssh, it’s Guy Gibson’ he was a squadron leader then, so I shut up and listened to rest went on and he said ‘all the way over when we went on the op he was criticising everybody, the gunners, the navigator wasn’t doing it right, the pilot wasn’t watching this and watching that’ and he said when they got to the target, they went round, dropped the bombs and the idea was you got away quick but Guy Gibson said ‘hang on, go round I want to have a look’ and he made the pilot go round about three times before they flew off back and all on the way back he still criticised them all and he said just as we were coming into land he said ‘I wanna [sic] speak to every member of the crew, I want you to swear an oath that you never saw me in this plane’ and he said ‘it frightened the lives out of all of us’ and that was why he was like he was but anyways he got over that and carried on flying, and I never liked Guy Gibson and when I once went to, I forget where it was, somewhere near Coningsby, which was the end of the runway where they’d got a museum there of what happened with bomber command and one of the fellas there happened to mention something about Guy Gibson and I said ‘I hated him, from what he did to one of my mates’ so he said ‘you’re not the first one to say that’ I said ‘why?’, he said ‘well there was a young pilot who was just about going to take off, walking up to his plane and Guy Gibson happened to be just at the side and he called this pilot over and he said ‘don’t you ever salute your superiors and the pilot said ‘I didn’t know you did that when you’re going off flying’ and he said ‘right, when you come back, you’ll be reduced in rank’, reduced him down to sergeant from a pilot officer, he said and that’s why he didn’t like Guy Gibson, but strange nobody liked him not on the squadron he was at and there was once when we come back from ops, we went into the pub and all of a sudden there was a shout and everybody saying ‘wahey’ and I said ‘is that the end of the war, have we finished?’ and somebody said ‘no, Guy Gibson’s caught the bucket’, in other words he’d gone down and that was where he’d gone off with some, I think it was mosquitos he was flying and on the way back instead of keeping with them, he spotted a train and he decided to go down and shoot this train up, and the story we heard was that one of the guards on the train had a rifle and he fired at Guy Gibson’s plane and a million to one chance he hit the fuel tank and it blew up and he went in, but that was all hushed up, they gave another story about why he was shot down.
De: What was the other story?
HP: I forget what it was but he was coming back and he was with the two other mosquitos and he was unlucky that got a shot that hit his plane and down he went, but we believed the first story, no he was never liked at all.
DE: Why was that do you think, was that just his attitude?
HP: His attitude to everybody, he was the king and he was the one who knew everything.
DE: Was there a lot of discipline or difference between people with officers and sergeants?
HP: There was some, I wouldn’t say a lot, but often when people were sergeants and they were made up to officers, that’s when you got a bit of flack, ‘cause I always remember after the war there was something happening and all crews were going to this place, I forget where it was, and I’d been issued with medals and I’d got the air crew Europe and star, because I had actually flown before my crew had so I come under that particular section and my pilot who’d got the DFC on behalf of crew co-operation, we never got anything so we were a bit bitter about that but I happened to spot my pilot and I went up to him to shake hands and say ‘how you doing?’ and the first thing he said to me, ‘how is it you got that?’ I said ‘what?’ he said ‘the air crew Europe and star? I’ve only got the air crew Europe’, I said ‘that’s because I flew before you’ and he weren’t very pleased and just walked off, never even spoke to me, so that sort of thing did happen.
DE: Was there a difference between people who were flying before the war and people who were volunteer reserve?
HP: Not really no, they were all doing the same thing.
DE: So how long did you stay in the RAF for?
HP: I think it was about seven or eight years, all told [sic]
DE: So what did you fly after the war?
HP: It was Lancaster’s and Lincoln’s, that was at Waddington, and did I tell you about the story of taking a photo of a, a Lincoln bomber? well when the Lincoln’s come onto the squadron, I was thinking about this and I thought to myself ‘it’d be marvellous , a Lincoln bomber flying over Lincoln Cathedral’, sounded good and I said this to my pilot and he said ‘yeah that sounds good’, he said ‘if you could get it organised ‘cause I’d had more experience than this new pilot, so I said to the photographer who used to unofficially do our photographs for us, I told him about this, he said ‘that would be marvellous, if you get me on the plane’, so I spoke to another pilot and we all agreed that we’d do this, we’d be in a plane with the photographer and another plane in the Lincoln would fly over Lincoln Cathedral but he happened to be late on take-off, the Lincoln pilot, and he came in a bit late, but because he was late he went flying too low and he went below the cathedral so anyways we got the photo of this, got back on the ground and I said ‘I’m going up to the photographer’s to see how he’s getting on’, so when I got there, he said ‘oh come in’ he said ‘a fabulous picture, Lincoln bomber flying below Lincoln Cathedral’ he said ‘it’s absolutely marvellous’ and he’d put the either negatives or something on a drum which used to go round to dry these photographs and just as he was doing this the group captain came in, inspected and he said ‘what are you two up to?’, ‘nothing, sir’ saluted him and out came this picture and he looked at it, he said ‘good God are you trying to get me demoted?’ he said ‘that’s illegal [emphasis], where is the negative?’ so the photographer was dead scared gave him the negative, he ripped it up and he ripped the photograph up and he said ‘you deserve to be on a charge, you two’ and he stormed off , and just as he stormed off the second picture came out and I grabbed hold of it and put it in my battle dress and the photographer said ‘you can’t do that!’, I said ‘I’ve done it, cheers’ and I kept this right the way till the end of the war and when I came out and I got friendly with a photographer, can’t remember his name now, of the Echo and he got to hear where I was working at Thorne electrical wholesalers and he phoned me up and said could he come in and see me so I said ‘what for?’, he said ‘I’d like to have a chat with you’ and in my office ‘cause I was a manager, I had a big picture up of the Lancaster and anybody who used to come in to see me said ‘that’s a super picture, why have you got that in an electrical wholesalers?’, because I said ‘I was in them’ and I used to get in with these people who used to come flogging you things for the electrical side, so he came in and he saw this picture, he said ‘that’s marvellous’, I said ‘I got a better one than that’ and he asked me questions like you have about me war record and he said ‘can you fetch that picture in to me?’ and I said ‘yeah I can fetch it in but I don’t want to let go’ so he said ‘OK’ he said ‘I’ll have a word with the editor and see if we can publish it’, so a couple of days later he rang me up at work and said I’ve got some sad news, he said the editor said it’s on RAF paper, it’s illegal photograph and he said it couldn’t be published until say twenty five years until that time had expired so he said ‘but I’m keeping it on file’, so I said ‘Ok then’ he said ‘I’ve got a copy of it and I’ll let you have that back’ and I got a copy in the bedroom I’ll let you have a look, and I suppose about twenty years afterwards he rang me up at work and he said ‘do you get the Lincoln Echo?’, I said ‘now and again’, he said ‘well buy it today’ so I did, front page was this picture, that marvellous picture and no end of people wanted to know how I took this and I told them and as I say I can show you the actual photograph, but this group captain, did I tell you about him who lived across the way? When I got a puncture outside his house? [DE: yes you told me but it’s not on the tape] Oh I was going one Sunday to get the Sunday paper and just as I got near this group captains house, I didn’t know he was a group captain, something went wrong with the car and I got out and I found I got a puncture and I jacked the car up, tried to get the wheel off but do you think I can undo those nuts, just couldn’t do it, and this young fella come strolling over and he said ‘I can help you there, I’m a younger fella than you’ so I said ‘oh thank you’ and he did everything, put the old one in the boot and put the new one in pumped it up, I said ‘oh thanks very much’ so he said ‘I hear you was in the war, in the RAF, is that right?’ I said ‘yes, I was flight engineer’, he said ‘did you do any ops? I said ‘yeah, I did thirty nine all told [sic] and had a mid-air collision at East Kirkby’ he said ‘good God and you’re still here’ [laughs] I said ‘yeah’, then he put out his hand and said ‘well done, I’m a squadron leader’ no he was a wing commander then, ‘I’m a wing commander’ so I said ‘well fancy that, that’s a new one ain’t [sic] it?, a wing commander changing the wheel of a warrant officer [slight laugh], it’s never been known’ and he laughed and he said ‘can I come across and see you?, where do you live?’ I said ‘just across from you’ so a few days later he came over and like you he sat there and he said ‘have you still got your log book?’, because you’re not supposed to have had it really but most people did and I said ‘yeah’, he said ‘can I have a look at it’ and he went through it and he said ‘I can’t believe you’re still here’ [laughs] and he said ‘there’s going to be a do at Petwood hotel’, I forget what it’s called but I can show you what it’s called up here [pause – background noise, moves to collect something] it’s called the memorial dinner, 3rd of July 2009 and there would be all top ranking officers there and these officers either had the girlfriends or their wives there and it was a fabulous dinner because lots of companies had donated money, they didn’t have Petwood hotel chefs they had the, what do they call those top chefs?, I’ve forgotten what they call them at the moment but they did the dinner, wish I could remember the names, you see them on television sometimes, very top chefs, somebody had arranged to have all the drinks so everything was free there and it was marvellous, and half way through, a fella got up and he was a famous painter, don’t know if you’ve ever seen a big elephant, I forget the name, what it was called but he was there and he said ‘gentlemen and ladies’ he said ‘I’ve asked the squadron leader if he would auction those three paintings that I’ve donated to the RAF because my heart is felt with the RAF for what they did during the war’, so the squadron leader got up and the first two paintings went for fifteen hundred pounds each, the last one went for two and a half thousand pounds, so it was smashing all donated to the RAF, and I thought I’ll have to go up and get his signature this fella and I went up and there was a couple of people in front of me and it was funny because one of the group captains wives was there with all her gold and chains on her, and she turned round to me and she said ‘oh’, she saw me medals and she said ‘you were in the RAF were you during the war?’ I said ’yes, that’s what these are for’ she said ‘what did you do?’ I said ‘I was a flight engineer on Lancaster’s and I did thirty nine ops’ she said ‘good God can I kiss you?’ [laughs] I said ‘if you wish’ [laughs], she kissed me and she said ‘thank you very much’ she said ‘if it wasn’t for people like you we wouldn’t be here having this do’ so I said ‘oh thank you’ and they gave us one of those, [DE: the mug] also a book of Lancaster’s and spitfires in it, it’s fabulous and then I suppose a couple of months after that, he rang up here and he said ‘would you like to come over?’, so I said ‘yes’ went to his door, he said ‘come in, I want to show you this’ and he showed me his hat and his lapels on his suit and he said ‘I’ve been promoted to group captain’ so I shook his hand and said ‘well done’ and he said ‘we’re having a do at’, he said ‘I’m at bomber command headquarters at the moment now’ he said ‘but I’ve come home for the weekend to show the wife me promotion’ he said ‘so when I go back I want to take you with me to bomber command headquarters and have a big dinner there’, did I tell you about that? So he said ‘have you still got your uniform?’ I said ‘you’re joking its seventy years ago now’, he said ‘well you need to have a dress suit’ so I said ‘well I haven’t even got that’ never even thought about it, so he said ‘well I’ll leave you to it, see if you can get one quick’ and he said by such and such a date, he said ‘I’ll be taking you down with me’, so at that moment my wife wanted to go to Matalans and my son said ‘I’ll come along with you I might see something I want’ ‘cause it’s a bit cheaper buying stuff there so we walked round and my wife brought a few skirts and things, and my son said to me ‘you wanted a dress suit didn’t you?’ he said ‘come and have a look at this’, and they had some dress suits that they were selling off cheaper so I worked out my size, tried a jacket on and it fitted so I said ‘I’ll buy this’ and instead of paying a couple of hundred pound I got one for about forty five quid so I thought that was really good and, I rang him up then, I said ‘I’ve got a dress suit now’ and I said ‘do I need to have me medals put on?’ he said ‘yes’ he said ‘if you bring it across, my wife will stitch them on for you’ so that was good, so did all that, she made some sandwiches and we went all the way down to High Wycombe, when I got there I’ve never seen so many high ranking officers, because I was only a warrant officer, I didn’t really know where to put myself so he said ‘I’m going to take you round’, he said ‘cause I got to do some work’ he said ‘but I’ll come back for you at seven o’clock, be dressed up with your medals on and we’re go and have a drink first with some of the officers, then we’ll go in for the dinner’ so I thought ‘lovely’, so picked me up at seven o’clock, I was put in an officer quarters so that was nice, went down to where they had the bar, had a few drinks and a lot of these top officers had never been on ops at all and they started asking me questions so that was good, and then he said ‘it’s time now to go in to our table’, and all along the top table, group captain was there, I was sat at the side of him and a nice WAF squadron leader at the side of me and we started off with this dinner and then he said ‘we’ve got to drink to the Queen’ and what is coming round is port and there was a great big jug like that of port so I went to grab hold of this big glass to pour mine out and he ‘aaah no you mustn’t touch it, it’s only touched by the squadron leader coming round, its part of the system that we have’ so they poured these glasses out and went all the way round and it was all silver service, you never see anything like it and then, a little while through, air vice marshal got up and he said ‘Gentlemen’, [clap clap] he said ‘I’d like to tell you there’s an interesting person with us tonight and I’d like to speak about him’ and I looked round and I thought maybe the Duke of Edinburgh were there but by the time I turned back he said ‘his name’s ex warrant officer Harry Parkins’ and he said ‘he did one of the longest bombing trips in the war from East Kirkby where they had to top up at the take off point, they went all the way down to Italy to fool the Germans, came all the way back up again to bomb Munich and on the way back his gunner a New Zealander’, no an Australian said ‘Harry we’re going to lose a day of our leave or maybe more if we land down south where we’d been told to go because we might not have enough fuel to get anywhere else’ so he said ‘can you work out the fuel, Harry?’, I said ‘yes’, there was no computers in those days, and I worked it out and I said ‘if there was a sunny morning we’d just about make it’ he said ‘so all the crew said ‘go for it, Harry’ so we did and we landed at East Kirkby on a nice sunny morning and all the engines chopped at the end of the runway’ and he said ‘gentlemen that took ten hours twenty five minutes, the longest that had ever been done in a Lancaster bomber and a hundred and sixty officers got up and gave me a two minute ovation, I didn’t know where to put myself or what to say but I got up and said ‘it wasn’t me gentlemen, it was the crew’, so we carried on with the dinner, and that was really was smashing and then he brought me all the way back home, stayed there about three nights, and one lunchtime, he said ‘I’ll tell you when to come in’, went in at a particular time and there was two other pilots sat with him, we were having your dinner and you could pick almost anything you wanted and it was a Friday so I said I’ll have fish and chips and they all had the same, they all did the same [laughs] and one of these pilots said to me ‘as a flight engineer did you ever do any flying yourself?’ I said ‘oh yes, we had training in a link trainer’ and up to a point I’d never flown a Lancaster but my pilot was a sergeant and then he was promoted to a pilot officer and he went out celebrating that night, and next night we were on flying, on ops and he was still under the weather so went through the briefing, never said much but felt a bit hazy like, he said ‘I’m going to take off Harry’ and I’m sat at the side of him and he said ‘you can do the rest’ I said ‘what do you mean?’, he said ‘ well you’ve had training on the link trainer’ he said I’m going back and having a sleep and you can carry on’, so I flew I think it was about two and a half hours to the bombing target and the bit that amused me most was when they were saying ‘left a bit, left a bit, right’ ‘till we got over the target, bombs away, turn round and on the way back and on the way back, I didn’t feel like doing the landing myself ‘cause I’d never done anything like that so I went back and woke him up and he came up and did the landing, so that was my time of having, flying the Lancaster myself, I didn’t do anymore that was the only time, but I felt quite proud about it and luckily we got back OK.
DE: Well that’s amazing, you mentioned the story of your ten hours twenty five minutes, is there any significance about it being a sunny day?
HP: Yeah because if it had been dark, you might have had to go round the circuit, to get your bearings for coming in, being a sunny day you could just go straight in, no need to go round the circuit, no other plane were likely to be flying there. I told you about the group captain coming in, yeah? So that was another good story.
DE: Smashing, I’m going to press stop there, that’s another hour and a half that, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Harry Parkins. Two
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AParkinsHW150612
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-12
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Emma Bonson
Sally Coulter
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:29:35 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
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
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Harry shares several memories of his time as a flight engineer in the Royal Air Force. He describes their initial accommodation in luxury London flats, and dinghy training at the local swimming pool. He recounts how in June 1944 they received 17 bullets in their aircraft on an operation to Wesseling but managed to return safely, also discussing lucky charms and superstition.
Anecdotes include a low flying incident near Skegness for which they were in trouble with the group captain, and the issue of guns and ammunition when some German prisoners escaped. They lost their possessions to the Committee of Adjustment when they were diverted to another airfield.
Harry received army-type training at RAF Bridlington and continued his flight engineering training on Stirlings at RAF St Athan. He was sent to RAF East Kirkby on Lancasters.
Harry collected prisoners of war from Italy and Brussels. He describes people’s recollections of Guy Gibson.
He stayed for seven or so years in the RAF, flying Lancasters and Lincolns at RAF Waddington. Harry relates the delayed publication of a photograph, with a Lincoln and Lincoln cathedral.
Harry outlines his encounter with a group captain who helped him to change his wheel, subsequently inviting him to dinners at the Petwood Hotel and Bomber Command headquarters. Harry received a two minute standing ovation for one of the longest bombing trips of the war.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Germany--Wesseling
England--Woodhall Spa
England--Lincoln
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
fear
flight engineer
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lincoln
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operation Exodus (1945)
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
RAF Bridlington
RAF East Kirkby
RAF St Athan
RAF Waddington
searchlight
Stirling
superstition
training
-
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LFirthJB1850441v10001
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
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/442/7891/PTwellsE15070102.1.jpg
562f20235d483b7d35f20eca008644b6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/442/7891/PTwellsE15070101.1.jpg
a07a594dfbfd69774e61cd30f6b4b21c
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
Twells, Ernie. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A scrapbook containing photographs and documents of Ernie Twells' wartime and post-war service including squadron reunions. The photographs and documents are contained in wallets in a scrapbook. The wallet page has been scanned and then the individual items rescanned. The scans have been grouped together.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Twells, E
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AIR2 9025 X/N 07353
[underlined] NON-IMMEDIATE AWARD - P/O E TWELLS [/underlined]
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
24.07.43 Hamburg 5.30
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
25.07.43 Essen 4.40
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
27.07.43 Hamburg 5.50
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
29.07.43 Hamburg 5.30
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
15.08.43 Milan 8.40
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
27.08.43 Nurnberg 8.05
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
31.08.43 Berlin 8.05
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
03.09.43 Berlin 8.45
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
06.09.43 Munich 8.45
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
03.10.43 Kassel 6.50
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
04.10.43 Frankfurt 6.35
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
08.10.43 Hanover 5.35
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
18.10.43 Hanover (Ret) 3.30
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
20.10.43 Leipzig 7.20
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
22.10.43 Kassel 6.10
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
03.11.43 Dusseldorf 4.40
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
10.11.43 Modane 7.50
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
22.11.43 Berlin 7.00
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
23.11.43 Berlin 6.55
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
26.11.43 Berlin 8.55
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
16.12.43 Berlin 7.50
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
20.12.43 Frankfurt 6.10
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
27.12.43 Berlin 7.15
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
01.01.44 Berlin 8.10
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
14.01.44 Brunswick 5.45
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
08.02.44 Limoges 8.10
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
12.02.44 Antheor 7.35
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
02.03.44 Albert 4.00
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
04.03.44 St. Etienne 6.40
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
10.03.44 St. Etienne
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
15.03.44 Metz 5.35
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
16.03.44 Clermont Ferrand 7.15
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
18.03.44 Bergerac 6.10
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
29.03.44 Lyons 7.20
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
05.04.44 Special 7.30
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
10.04.44 Special 4.50
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
18.04.44 Juvisy 5.35
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
22.04.44 Brunswick 5.55
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
24.04.44 Munich 9.50
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
05.06.44 Special 3.55
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
08.06.44 Saumur 6.10
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
14.06.44 Le Havre 4.10
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
15.06.44 Boulogne 2.20
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
19.06.44 Watten 2.55
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
20.06.44 Wizernes 2.00
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
22.06.44 Wizernes 3.00
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
24.06.44 Wizernes 3.25
[underlined] DATE TARGET TIME [/underlined]
25.06.44 Siracourt 3.15
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
Ernie Twells' Operations
Description
An account of the resource
A list of 48 operations undertaken by Ernie Twells. It details date, target and flight time.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
A typewritten sheet from a scrapbook.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Service material
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PTwellsE15070101, PTwellsE15070102
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
France
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
1944
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-19
1944-06-20
1944-06-22
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06
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
Steve Christian
617 Squadron
619 Squadron
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
bombing of the Boulogne E-boats (15/16 June 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
Bombing of the Saumur tunnel (8/9 June 1944)
bombing of the Siracourt V-weapon site (25 June 1944)
bombing of the Watten V-2 site (19 June 1944)
bombing of the Wizernes V-2 site (20, 22, 24 June 1944)
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Normandy deception operations (5/6 June 1944)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/81/7916/LGodfreyCR1281391v10053.2.jpg
3edf4be2076177211afaa081250faa7a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/81/7916/LGodfreyCR1281391v10054.2.jpg
27ba9935bee2bfc31e5a9a08dfd97dfd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/81/7916/LGodfreyCR1281391v10055.2.jpg
727071403e65aeecf9434a4ff6936e57
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
Godfrey, Charles Randall
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Description
An account of the resource
64 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Charles Randall Godfrey DFC (b. 1921, 146099, Royal Air Force) and consists of his logbook and operational notes, items of memorabilia, association memberships, personnel documentation, medals and photographs. He completed 37 operations with 37 Squadron in North Africa and the Mediterranean and 59 operations with 635 Squadron. He flew as a wireless operator in the crew of Squadron Leader Ian Willoughby Bazalgette VC.
The collection has has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Charles Godfrey and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
Godfrey, CR
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-18
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RAF Lossiemouth S/L Ian Willoughby Bazalgette
33 [indecipherable text] DFC
Flight Commander
Deputy RAM Palmer
Left [indecipherable text] April 1944
F/O Scot Goddard Nav F/O [indecipherable text] Hibberd Bomb Aimer
37 on [indecipherable text] Church F/O Godfrey
F/O Cameron DFM ex F/Sgt Middleton’s VC rear Gunner
Joined at PFF Navigation Training met by
Sgt George Turner then on Sqdn by F/Lt Colonel Hewnell mid upper
6/5/4 first op as nav
During May 5 and June 7 night ops
In July Daylight and night ops 12
ND950’ ‘M’ Mother
Last week in July
23 Kiel
24 Shaltgent
25 Shaltgent
Pinch [indecipherable text] and Molinbihe
28 Hamburg
4 August 1944 Should have gone on leave
F/L Henson missing – Oxford to York
One crew required Sg volunteered – got one
more in before leave
Daylight to [indecipherable text]
Took T for Tommy mislead of M mother
Crew conference at dispersal - decided
to go in at 6000 feet main force up
at 12000 feet.
[page break]
F/Lt Beocridge (DMB) shot down by
flack going into target
Nearing target hears Ack-Ack
Shell penetrated starboard wing both
engines spluttered to standstill
Bomb aimer wounded
[page break]
Godfrey last to leave aircraft
G Goddard put a foot on him and out
he went. Landed in tree.
I landed in cornfield – stripped
[indecipherable text] hid parachute under corn
[indecipherable text] Lay under hedge – rather shocked
Lancaster hit deck two fields ahead
exploded on landing down.
Village of Senartes Maire of village
helped us – in [indecipherable text] with us a few
minutes of landing. Lay in potato
bed all afternoon while Germans
searched for survivors – waited till
darkness into house for meal. Slept at
gendarmes house - [indecipherable text] … … moved by horse and
cart to Foron near Chappelle aux Pots
No English – laying sunbathing alongside
Railway line – Thunderbolts beat up train
SS troops moved back. Moved to
forest for 10 days – [indecipherable text] to lay on
food from 3 farms. Heavy rain
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
Charles Godfrey's operations notes
Description
An account of the resource
Lists of crew and positions with some extra notes. First operation as crew 6 May 1944. Night operations May and June. July targets included Kiel, Stuttgart, Hamburg. Mentions crews missing. Daylight operationd to Trossy St Maximin and provides some description of operation. Mentions aircraft shot down and own aircraft hit by anti aircraft fire. Describes jumping last and landing in tree and escaping. Also evasion activities including sunbathing alongside railway when it was attacked by a P-47 Thunderbolt.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three 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
LGodfreyCR1281391v10053, LGodfreyCR1281391v10054, LGodfreyCR1281391v10055
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Criel-sur-Mer
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Hamburg
France--Creil
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-05-06
1944-06
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-28
1944-08-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
C R Godfrey
bale out
bombing
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
evading
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-47
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2226/9073/Quaderno4.pdf
8f8e0d3a19a897f11ebf674b0ce5f77f
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
ISRPt. Pistoia air raid alarms logs
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Five air raid alarms logs record early warnings, alarms and bombings in Pistoia, with additional notes on various tows in the Pistoia province, as well as in other Italian regions. The first log covers three years, from June 1940 to August 1943, while the others encompass one year in total. The series ends in September 1944 when the front reached the town. In total, 244 early warnings and 989 alarms are recorded.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air alarms log 21 June 1944 to 03 July 1944
Quaderno di Allarmi dal 21-6- al 3-7-44
Description
An account of the resource
Covers a time frame of two weeks: alarms are reported nearly every day.
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
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
ita
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
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.
Italy
Italy--Pistoia
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
1944-07
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Italia. Regia Prefettura di Pistoia
bombing
civil defence
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9233/EGortonHGortonLCM440526.1.pdf
2723bdf4464f6ab2c17cc385e193ccd5
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
Brackley 191
[deleted] Royal Air Force,
Turweston,
Brackley,
Northants. [/deleted]
F/L. H. Gorton
Officers’ Mess,
R.A.F. Scampton,
Lincoln.
26/5/44
Dearest,
I cycled out to Cammeringham this afternoon, & said I wanted the Austin. The man was out, but I told his wife instead. Will you ask Grace to give me a covering note for the insurance, so that I can get it taxed. I want it to be valid from 1st June, if there’s time to arrange it, as there’s jut a chance that I may be able to get petrol for the 48 - I’ve heard two contradictory statements on the subject, & so have decided to put in an application and find out, provided that I can get the car ready for the road in time.
Not that it matters a great deal. If I did use the car to go & see you I shouldn’t have any spare [inserted] petrol [/inserted] for taking you out, so that I may just as well save the coupons for
[page break]
2
when I’m on leave, or when you’re up here.
For Grace’s information, [inserted] It’s a dark blue saloon. [/inserted] the car is an Austin 7, year 1934, & it[deleted]’[/deleted]s registration number is VY 3975. I hope that is all the gen she wants. If not, you’ll have to let me know what else is needed. I suggest that we insure if for you & me to drive, 3rd party risk only, & that we take it out for a year, as being more economical.
How’s the smoking going on? – or rather the not-smoking. I hope you realise that this self-denial business doesn’t really apply to you, & that I want you to smoke whenever you fancy a cigarette – don’t think that you’re compelled to do without just because I’ve stopped. I should imagine that smoking is the only amusement you can find at Newhouse, so just do what you fancy.
[page break]
3.
I’ve found abstinence from smoking to be more difficult here than I expected. It’s not that I’ve any craving for a cigarette, but merely that I see other people smoking, & they seem to enjoy it so much that I feel I want to share their pleasure.
Another more insidious temptation is the fact that I seem to have gone back to the old prejudices of my youth, without believing in them. Part of my adult development was to break away from the narrow prejudices of my parents, e.g. re alcohol, & adopt the philosophy that it was better to use these things in moderation than to avoid them completely or to let oneself become a slave to them. I still believe that & yet here I am, acting like a bigot.
Of course, as soon
[page break]
4
as I go over this ground I realise that the reasons which made me stop smoking & drinking are still valid & I’ve really no intention or desire to start smoking or drinking.
Pardon the above. I hope it hasn’t bored you too much, but I should be rather interested to know if your reactions are similar.
Now for your two letters. Your work on the bed-chairs sounds very effective to me, & it must have taken you a long time. What I’m pleased with, even more than the feather cushion, is the fastening of one cushion to the back of the chair, as it is most unpleasant if it works down.
We get lots of good food here – in fact I think I’m eating too much, - but there’s no cake to compare with yours. I wish I had some now. Another thing
[page break]
5
you’ve done has been to spoil for me everyone else’s bread and butter pudding. I can never touch it nowadays, as it is never a tenth as good as yours.
I imagine that you’d better come up here when you are ready, but I don’t know where I can suggest. I think I told you that it is pretty certain that I shall go to Wigsley on the 7th. If you had a 1/4" map of the district you would realise what a God-forsaken district it is, just like Ossington, except that it isn’t near a Great North Road that would proved quick transport. If you lived in one of the hamlets round about you really would be marooned, I should imagine, especially since most if the flying I [deleted] should [/deleted] shall do
[page break]
6
at the Con unit will be at night. After 3 weeks at Wigsley I shall go to Syerston, to the L.F.S., or Lancaster Finishing School, for a week & then go to a squadron. If you can make anything of that, it’s more than I can. Still, we shall be able to talk it over next week-end, I hope.
If you get a promising reply to your Chronicle advert, I should investigate it. It may prove better than the car I’ve found, & in that case we can always sell mine & use yours.
I forgot to mention that my cold cured itself after a day or two, & I am quite O.K. now.
You say you’ll not come to Lincoln for about a week. Since you wrote this letter on Wednesday, that means you think you’ll be
[page break]
7
ready to come up next Wednesday – the 31st. In that case we could spend the 48 in Lincoln. When I wrote on Wednesday I didn’t realise that you would be ready so soon.
If you want to come up on Thursday you had better phone me on [deleted] Sund [/deleted] Monday night – but I don’t know the phone number of this place, so you’d better send me a wire. Then I can try to find some hotel accommodation, which, as you can imagine, will be no easy task. Of course, if you’ve said you are coming to Lincoln or anywhere else in reply to my last letter I’ll act accordingly, & you don’t need to bother sending a wire unless, after receiving this letter, you want to do something different from what you’ve already said.
Isn’t all this confusing. What with the length of time involved
[page break]
8
in replying to letters & the innumerable things that we constantly have to decide, life becomes very complicated, doesn’t it?
Still, there’s one thing I want you always to keep in the front of your mind, darling. That is that I love you very much & long to be with you always. Life is lousy without you, & the sooner we can be together the better.
All my love, darling,
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 about arrangements for his 48 hour pass, buying a car, domestic details and possible postings to RAF Wigsley, and the Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston.
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
1944-05-26
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six 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
EGortonHGortonLCM440526
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
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.
1944-05
1944-06
aircrew
Lancaster Finishing School
military living conditions
RAF Ossington
RAF Scampton
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9242/EGortonHGortonLCM440601.1.pdf
37e0e1951e678e7dab562c8153460028
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
[Royal Air Force crest]
ROYAL AIR FORCE,
SCAMPTON,
LINCS.
‘PHONE: SCAMPTON 226.
1/6/44
Dearest,
I was very glad to get another letter from you today, event though it makes me feel you are putting yourself out too much.
I was very interested to see your story of the betting, but at the same time disappointed. Your letters are so much better than mine, that I thought the story would be, too, but as you say, you must have been feeling off form when you wrote it. I think, on the whole, that my version is better.
I have been talking
[page break]
2
it over with Derek (who fancies himself on these matters!), & we have evolved another ending, on which I should like your opinion: the bloke who places the bets has a fit of caution & doesn’t place the bet on the last day when they should have won. That’s a very rough resumé but I’d like to know what you think of it.
The funniest thing happened today. I was talking to one of the air gunners, named Beevor, when I discovered he came from Retford. I asked him if he knew the Ossington agent, & it turned out that our Mr. Beevor is his father! I suggested that he should ask his father
[page break]
3
to find us a house, preferably furnished, so he said he’d ask his father. Apparently the Vicarage is now occupied by the C.O. of the O.T.U. You never know, we may get something useful even out of old Beevor!
As for the insurance, I realised afterwards that probably Grace couldn’t issue the cover note herself.
Wigsley is about three miles to the east of the Trent, about a couple of miles farther north than Ossington. Perhaps the sketch map will make it clear.
[page break]
4
[drawing of a directional map]
I don’t know where you’ve got the idea that you can’t ring up this aerodrome. People are telephoning all through the day.
The two rings are a very useful boost to one’s ego. I think there is definitely a tendency for everyone to treat me with more respect – I don’t mean the other officers on the course, but Mess servants & camp N.C.O.s, & even the P.O. who is i/c the Link!
I’ve just finished
[page break]
5
another question paper on law, so am feeling pleased with myself. I don’t suppose I shall have any time at Con unit, so I may as well do some now.
I think I’ll re-write the story, send it to Jimmy to be typed, & then let you have it for final revision.
All my love, darling. I wish I were with you now.
Harold.
P.S. I met one of the pilots from 79 course this morning. He’s at Wigsley & says it’s very isolated and dispersed, 2 miles from the officers’ quarters to the aerodrome. There’s one bus
[page break]
6
a night to Lincoln, and the nearest village of any size is 4 miles away – Saxelby [sic]. He says we don’t get days off, but we may get some leave at the end of the course. Cheering, isn’t it, but these things rarely prove to be as bad as they’re painted.
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 the area around Lincoln and of finding a house.
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
1944-06-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six 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
EGortonHGortonLCM440601
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
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.
1944-06
aircrew
Operational Training Unit
RAF Ossington
RAF Scampton
RAF Wigsley
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9244/EGortonHGortonLCM440604.2.pdf
904e326096ac6ecdb959ed6bf2cbdc75
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
[Royal Air Force crest]
ROYAL AIR FORCE,
SCAMPTON,
LINCS.
‘PHONE: SCAMPTON 226.
4/6/44.
Dearest,
Your welcome letter arrived today (Sunday) strangely enough. As you can imagine, I was a bit peeved with the Norwich Union for not letting us have a cover note, although grateful to you for all the trouble you’ve taken.
As you suggested, I’ve decided to scrub the Norwich Union, mainly because I want the car on the road for Wednesday, [inserted] & [/inserted] I can’t manage it if I’ve got to write to Cardiff.
After dinner tonight I cycled out to Cammeringham to ask Swaby about the
[page break]
2
insurance. He said
(a) that he knew a man in Lincoln who would fix me up with a cover note for tomorrow afternoon
(b) that even if a certificate of roadworthiness were needed, there would be no trouble about it since when he bought the car he took it to a garage to have it overhauled (engine, dynamo, gear box, & back axle) & the man there would have no hesitation in signing a certificate.
Anyway, after they’d forced me to stay & have supper, I came away with the log book in my pocket. Swaby is to ring me up at lunch time
[page break]
3
tomorrow, & confirm that he has fixed things up with the insurance people. Then I shall cut lectures and go into Lincoln & tax the car. If possible, I shall catch the 4.8 [inserted] bus [/inserted] from Lincoln out to Cammeringham & drive the car back to camp tomorrow night.
This week-end has certainly been a car week-end. Three officers on the course went home on Friday night to bring their cars back.
F/O W – brought his 1937 Morris 8 back from Manchester without incident
[page break]
4
except that he tried to take a short cut & found himself faced with the alternatives of swimming the Trent or going back 10 miles.
F/o F – brought a Singer Le Mans sports car from London. He was O.K. except that he ran out of petrol at one stage & had to push the car 3 miles before he could buy some petrol.
P/o B – had just learned to drive & on the strength of that had bought a 1931 Rover 10 for £17..10..0. He was coming from London too, but got lost & spent the night at an aerodrome near Cambridge,
[page break]
5
since he too had run out of petrol. He arrived here at tea time today, & has to report to the C.O. tomorrow. He is so fed up with his car after one journey that he wants to sell it!
Actually, I think my car will bear comparison with any of those three.
Before I leave the subject of the Swabys I should say that Mrs. Swaby said we could spend a week-end at her home (they’ve got a spare room with a 3/4 size bed) any time we want – that’s if you don’t mind the presence
[page break]
6
of two young children in the house.
We go to Wigsley on Wednesday, for 36 days solid without a day off. The first 14 days we do lectures from 8.15 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., & then we start flying. At the end of the course, we get seven days leave.
While I was in Lincoln yesterday I saw a R.A.F. officer who looked familiar. He came across the street to speak to me & it turned out to be none other than Botting, now S/Ldr! He is stationed just outside Lincoln, but he has done very well, because he can only have been
[page break]
7
on Ops for a month at the outside. He asked me to go & have lunch with him tomorrow or Tuesday but I doubt if I’ll be able to manage it.
He asked most kindly after you, as did also Mr. Bruce, whose letter I got yesterday.
I’m enclosing the latest Bank statement, which agrees pretty well with what I said, I think.
It’s getting late now (11.40 p.m.) so I’ll stop.
All my love, darling,
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 car purchase and his colleagues and of his course at RAF Wigsley.
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
1944-06-04
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven 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
EGortonHGortonLCM440604
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
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.
1944-06
aircrew
military living conditions
RAF Scampton
RAF Wigsley
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9247/EGortonHGortonLCM440607-020001.1.jpg
8d4505ed19c524e93f031b65a767bd77
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9247/EGortonHGortonLCM440607-020002.1.jpg
f1901b8f5e24c1cf3d0bfba8e67aa135
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
F/Lt. H. Gorton,
Officers’ Mess,
R.A.F. Wigsley,
Nr. Newark,
Notts.
Wed. 10.30 p.m.
Dearest,
The journey here was quite uneventful, & the car behaved itself very well. This station is more dispersed than any I’ve seen, but fortunately I was able to get a bicycle. The living quarters are poor – 30 officers in one big room, but on the other hand, we are only fifty yards from the Mess.
I haven’t seen Blunsdon yet, but he is on the station, & has been living out in Lincoln all the time, coming in on a motorbike.
I thought it wouldn’t be very nice in Lincoln, & propose
[page break]
2
trying to find digs in Saxilby, a small town, (a little less than Brackley), about four miles away.
I cycled out there this evening but didn’t have much success. The best I found was a Mrs. Sharp, who has an army lieutenant & his wife & baby staying with her for a fortnight. They came in yesterday, so won’t be gone until the 20th, whereas I was thinking that perhaps you’d be ready to come by the end of next week at the latest.
I’ll let you know any further developments.
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 arrival at RAF Wigsley.
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
1944-06-07
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two 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
EGortonHGortonLCM440607-020001,
EGortonHGortonLCM440607-020002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
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.
1944-06
aircrew
military living conditions
RAF Wigsley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9251/EGortonHGortonLCM440610.2.pdf
21f0b74fe2a202cd01d14b5cd7beb655
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
OFFICERS’ MESS
ROYAL AIR FORCE
WIGSLEY
NEWARK
NOTTS
12/6/44.
Dearest,
You can’t tell how cheering it was to get the mail [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] this morning. I got three letters from you all at once, and as there seems to be a lot to answer, I’m beginning this after tea, and shall finish it when I come back from Wigsley this evening.
I’m not quite sure about whether we can make the story public without asking Mrs. Linnell’s permission. I don’t see why not, really, but I suppose it would be an act of courtesy to ask her. Anyway, we can wait for that until we get near the publishing stage.
It’s quite easy to spend £2 a night when you consider that
[page break]
2
he probably gets into a group of six or seven, who are drinking shorts, and one round costs him at least 10/-. He almost invariably came home by taxi, which cost between 3/- and 15/-, according to the number of passengers.
I’ve got some distilled water for the car battery today, but my next job is to take the front offside wheel off and get the M.T. section either to mend it or pump it up, as it has a slow puncture. I also have to get my new tyre put on the spare wheel, & perhaps shall be able to get the M.T. to do that for me. At the moment I’m not really in a happy position, as my spare wheel is u/s and one tyre has a slow puncture.
It wasn’t at all difficult
[page break]
3.
to fix up the car insurance; it only took me the time needed to fill in the form.
Wigsley village is smaller than Ossington, so it’s no wonder you can’t find it on your map. The aerodrome is about 4 miles due south of Saxilby.
I haven’t got a replacement for my fountain pen nib yet, although it is wearing out fairly rapidly. One of the snags of this place is that we don’t officially get any days off, so that it is very difficult to do any shopping from here.
I agree with you about the poor types – at least one, anyway – who take girls out when they’ve got wives & children.
[page break]
4
What particularly annoyed me in this case was that he said an impassioned goodbye on Wednesday, intending never to see her again, & then came in on the Saturday & started the whole thing a second time!
You certainly seem to have done a good deal of spring cleaning, don’t you? It must have been a lot of work, but it should be worth while [sic]. It’s good news about the nail file, as it appears impossible to get one nowadays. There’s no need to send it on, though. It will do when we meet.
I’m rather surprised to find you short of anthracite. I thought you’d never get through that amount & there seemed to be no difficulty about replacing it, did there?
No cracks please, about my short story writing! I think
[page break]
5
I know my weaknesses fairly well, & I certainly think you over-praise my effort by saying it is brilliantly funny in parts. I agree that Derek is “very youthful (or babyish),” but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate his literary criticism (what about Keats & Chatterton?)
I very much doubt whether we shall do our ops from France. The organisation of a bomber station is such a terrific business, & the shipping needed would be so great that I don’t think the powers that be would consider it worth while [sic], because a couple of hundred miles flying doesn’t mean much to a Lancaster.
6.
I’ll write & ask Alice if the shoes will be any good for Mary, & let you know accordingly. She should have returned to Wyke a week last Thursday, but was delayed because Jennifer caught the croup. I think the baby will be O.K. now, though.
I had no trouble in getting my 1/2 gallon petrol coupon for the journey here (apart from filling up several forms), & haven’t converted it into petrol yet. Apart from that, however, I am not yet entitled to any ration. When I start living out I shall be entitled to petrol for the journey to the aerodrome and back.
You are not looking forward to riding in our car as much as I am looking
[page break]
7
forward to taking you out in it. All the time I’ve known you I’ve had to take you on buses or had to make you walk, and it has gone very much against the grain, I can tell you. You can’t imagine what a thrill it will be to take you to the pictures or anywhere in a car.
I think that it would be better for you to come up on the 20th or 21st – that’s if I can organise those digs I mentioned. So far I’ve had singularly little luck, but I’ll ask tonight, and let you know the result at the end of this letter. I’ll also make some enquiries about laundry there, & if I have no luck, shall be regretfully compelled to ask
[page break]
8
you to do some for me.
As for the trains, I don’t know how they are, but I believe they are fairly respectable north of the Thames. I should imagine, however, that it might pay you to go via Birmingham unless you bring a lot of luggage with you. Lincoln is the nearest big town, but I should be able to meet you at either Newark or Lincoln, whichever is more convenient (That’s a change, isn’t it, for me to talk of meeting you with a car!). I think you’d better ask Mr. Lloyd at the junction about the state of the railways.
All my love, darling. It seems a long time to wait till next Tuesday or Wednesday, doesn’t it?
Harold.
[page break]
9.
Tuesday 7.30 a.m.
I was too tired last night – and fed up – to finish this letter. I had no luck at all in searching for digs. I think we’d better provisionally arrange for you to come on the 20th, & if it’s late before I find a place I’ll ring up & let you know.
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 car, colleagues and finding accommodation.
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
1944-06-12
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Nine 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
EGortonHGortonLCM440610
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Newark (Nottinghamshire)
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
aircrew
military living conditions
RAF Wigsley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9252/EGortonHGortonLCM440614.2.pdf
1fa066d26d60845ccc5ba8c05204b07d
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
OFFICERS’ MESS
ROYAL AIR FORCE
WIGSLEY
NEWARK
NOTTS
14/6/44.
Dearest,
At last I have been successful in my search. Quite by chance I called at a big farmhouse & by dint of being very polite etc., & using the famous charm, managed to get fixed up.
Our address will be
c/o Mrs. Gibson,
Manor Farm,
Spalford,
Nr. Newark.
Tele: Spalford 235
The only snag about it from my point of view is that it’s so near the aerodrome that I may not be able to qualify for petrol, but even if I can’t manage it I don’t think I shall be short, as there are ways and
[page break]
2.
which I had better not mention in a letter.
The house has seven bedrooms, & ours is about the size of your bay-windowed sitting room. We are to have the “small” sitting room, which is about the size of your room with the phone in it.
There are two bathrooms, one up & one down, & she suggested that you might use the downstairs bathroom for washing up, so that you wouldn’t have to wait for her to leave the sink as you did at Silverstone.
You will have to cook in her kitchen I’m afraid (paraffin stove & oven), but with luck there won’t be much clash, as Mr. Gibson has his breakfast much earlier than I shall.
[page break]
3.
The real snag about the place is that she won’t be able to take us until next Friday, June 23rd, so that it means it will be so much longer before I see you.
Another snag I forgot to mention is that she is charging 2 guineas a week, but she is providing all linen (except towels), crockery & cutlery. I thought it was a bit steep, but since it will only be for a few weeks – 3 or 4, until I am posted - & since I might quite easily go for another week without finding another place, I didn’t hesitate.
I’ll therefore try & meet you at Newark some time on the 23rd – I only wish it was tomorrow!
[page break]
4.
I wanted to write about other things of general interest, but there’s such a racket in this room that I cant [sic] concentrate.
I hope my washing has arrived safely, & that you didn’t object to it too much.
All my love, darling, I’m longing to see you.
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 arranging accommodation for his wife’s arrival at Spalford.
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
1944-06-14
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
EGortonHGortonLCM440614
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Newark (Nottinghamshire)
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
Contributor
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Tricia Marshall
Title
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Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
aircrew
home front
military living conditions
RAF Wigsley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9254/EGortonHGortonLCM440616.1.pdf
c488167bba097022b1b8daa79d982ec2
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
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Gorton, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
OFFICERS’ MESS
ROYAL AIR FORCE
WIGSLEY
NEWARK
NOTTS
16/6/44.
Dearest,
The billet is reasonably quiet at present (I wrote too soon, because at this moment I am being talked to by the only bloke in the room). Anyway, I’ll try & write you a decent letter this time.
I hope you approve of the digs I’ve obtained. I thought that whatever they proved to be like, it wouldn’t matter much, since we expect to be there only three weeks.
I’m getting Bill Hannon, my navigator, to help me with the car wheels tomorrow night. I’ve got to put the new tyre on the spare wheel, & try to mend the slow puncture in the front wheel. I shouldn’t feel so confident in his co-operation but for the fact
[page break]
2.
that he has just bought a 1928 Austin 7 for 50/-! Apparently its tyres are either non-existent or in a bad way, and as I was going to throw away the old tyre on the spare wheel (it’s down to the canvas) he want it for his Austin. When he has four tyres on it he’s going to get Freddie to tow it away, Freddie driving the 1932 Singer he bought for £10. It should be quite a trip.
Did I tell you that I’ve been allotted a Flight Engineer? He’s an ex-flight mechanic, aged 36, married, & comes from London. He seems a pretty sound type, the sort you could trust to pull the right knob in an emergency, so I am quite satisfied.
I had my first trip
[page break]
3.
in a Stirling on [deleted] Wedne [/deleted] Thursday, and thought it a very pleasant aircraft to fly. As a matter of fact, it’s very easy for the pilot as [inserted] practically [/inserted] all the manipulation of the controls – throttles, pitch levers, u/c & flap levers, - is done for him. All I’ve got to do is to open the throttles on take off, use the control column and rudder, & know what to tell my stooges to do – that’s the most difficult part, as we have been given 26 pages of drills to learn. Incidentally, it gave me a bit of a queer feeling to be flying up the river Trent again, & to recognise all the twists & turns I learned when I was at Ossington.
[page break]
[missing page]
5
when you come up here.
I know you don’t object to where I take [underlined] our [/underlined] car, but the point is that I grudge using petrol unless I’ve got you with me. It would be a waste of half a gallon, wouldn’t it, just to give Derek or someone else a ride.
I don’t know why Smith & Percy get A.F.C.s, unless it’s because all the S/Ldrs. have now got them & they [deleted] want [/deleted] have to start giving them to F/Lts. Anyway, Percy, I believe, has now been posted to Ops., according to Wyver’s information, along with every one of the instructors – Gilligin, Riches etc., who were there when I was. Quite a clean sweep, in fact!
[page break]
6.
The car starts up fairly well off the battery, although I usually give it a bit of encouragement with the handle first. It doesn’t start so well as yours, but it’s not too bad.
That list of trains to Newark sound O.K. to me, provided they are all running. Still, if you get to Birmingham by 12.30, you ought to reach Newark the same day, & I’ll meet you there.
I hope to see you a week tonight. That’s good, isn’t it?
All my love, darling,
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 flight in a Stirling.
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
1944-06-16
Format
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Five handwritten sheets
Identifier
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EGortonHGortonLCM440616
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Birmingham
England--Warwickshire
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
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Contributor
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Tricia Marshall
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Language
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eng
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
aircrew
flight engineer
navigator
pilot
RAF Ossington
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/660/9257/EGortonHGortonLCM440619.1.pdf
d460575f39d447e171c185ae085158c8
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
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Gorton, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
OFFICERS’ MESS
ROYAL AIR FORCE
WIGSLEY
NEWARK
NOTTS
Monday 19/6/44
Dearest,
I’m feeling a bit tired tonight, as I did 1 1/2 hrs flying – circuits and bumps – in the hot sun today. I was just taxying out to go solo, too, when my port wheel burst. It was fortunate that it didn’t happen on take off or landing, wasn’t it?
Thank you very much, darling, for the washing, & also for the two letters, which arrived this morning. When you mentioned sending a parcel of food, I thought for the moment that you had guessed that our food here is pretty lousy & were wanting to supplement it. Still, I soon guessed what it was all about, & of course I’ll take it to Spalford. I hope
[page break]
2
to get away early on Friday, take my kit & the parcel of food over to Spalford, & then go to meet you. I rang up the Station at Newark this evening but could get no reply. I’ll try again, but as I don’t think I’ll write again, you must assume that the trains are O.K. at this end unless I phone.
Of course it is possible that I shan’t be allowed to go in time to meet your train. In that case, your best plan would be to park your luggage at the station & go to the Savoy for some tea. If you can find a taxi & can go to Spalford without waiting, perhaps you had better telephone Mrs. Gibson, as I shall call there before I go on to Newark.
[page break]
3.
I discovered after dinner that I have to go to a court martial at Swinderby tomorrow as an officer under instruction. There are five of us going, & it ought to be very interesting.
I’m hoping to be able to go in the car, but five is rather a load for the Austin. One of the five has his Singer 9 here, but its tank is dry & the problem is how to get to the nearest garage with his car so as to be able to use our coupons.
We tried to solve this problem tonight by going to the Gibsons, ostensibly to let them know that we should be along on Friday evening. In reality, we were hoping to get petrol & eggs, but
[page break]
4
to our disgust there was no one in. So that’s six miles of petrol gone & nothing gained. What happens tomorrow remains to be seen.
I’m very interested in this interview you’ve got, although of course it’s a pity I shan’t see you for two days, I suppose. It sounds quite a pleasant job – a good part of the country, anyway, - & if you find you need a car, the Austin is here, ready to your hand. Still we’ll talk about that when you come.
All my love, darling,
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 flying, the weather, attendance at a court martial at RAF Swinderby and arrangement for meeting up at Newark station.
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
1944-06-19
Format
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Four handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EGortonHGortonLCM440619-0001
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
aircrew
military discipline
pilot
RAF Swinderby
RAF Wigsley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/699/9283/PBeardKC1701.2.jpg
be6bb63d3066c3ea13f44f9b05b78439
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/699/9283/ABeardKC170807.2.mp3
3c95bc1067de7aac5b387ae0f0692996
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
Beard, Ken
Ken C Beard
K C Beard
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history with Ken Beard (b. 1921, 1061851 Royal Air Force), his air gunners log book, and photographs of him, his wedding and his crew. He flew 31 operations as an air gunner on Halifax with 10 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ken Beard 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
2017-08-07
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
Beard, KC
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
KB: He’s very qualified.
SP: Yeah.
[recording paused]
SP: So, this is Susanne Pescott and I’m interviewing Ken Beard today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Ken’s home and it’s the 7th of August 2017. Thank you first of all agreeing to talk to me today, Ken. So, just like to chat through first of all what you did before the war.
KB: Yeah. I went to, I was one of the few who went to Grammar School.
SP: Right.
KB: When we was, got then to Retford Grammar School there were very few of us because you went in by it was a fair, a fair fee but we didn’t pay because I got a scholarship.
SP: Right.
KB: There were only a tiny few of us from Worksop.
SP: Right.
KB: Ever got there at all. And so that’s, I made a good start in life. Yeah. So that that did make a difference starting with a Grammar School beginning. You know the beginning. Very well. Yeah. So, that I was very privileged about that. I had to work hard though and whatever.
SP: So, after Grammar School. What did you do after Grammar School?
KB: Well, one of the things about what’s it now, you don’t get it now we were, we were the last course to do Latin. Yeah. We were. Yeah. I got interested with it because we, they had sort of things about what in, all the terms of people, soldiers and what not from that period and whatever like Rome and everything about so that was, that was always interesting. Yeah. I enjoyed that like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Did you go into a job after school or —
KB: Yeah. I, first of all, I was a privileged really because I’d passed all my examinations. I could have chosen pretty well lots of things but I I did advertise for a bit and I finished up which turned up very good, apprentice to a chemist shop. I started mixing medicine and everything else eventually. So that, that was quite a unique sort of thing to do. I enjoyed that. It was only because partly of my Grammar School background you know. Because, yeah it was obviously very, I learned a lot of things really. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed it there. Whatever. That was at Timothy, Timothy Taylor or, White and Taylor in Worksop. Yeah. A shop there. But then before when, when I went in to the war I lashed out a bit because I got a bit fed up and this was another unique job because I went to Shire. My dad was down the pit at Shireoaks Colliery and I got a job in the office. But I moved about a bit rather than the office. Whatever. I had a great freedom. I could wander anywhere in the pit yard. I got to know all the men. All the trades. Three times I went down the pit you know so they could, so I could have a look down. Down there. And so that’s I benefited very much by that really. It opened my eyes because I wanted, mind you when your dad had been a miner all his life I knew everything. I knew everything about the pit when I went down and yet when I got down to the bottom there it was all lit up and everything. Before you got further in to the place it was all quite big like that and that they used to send me down and bring me back up and so things like, all illegal I’m sure. I got to see people down the pit. They took me to the coal face where the hacking coal out. You probably don’t realise what it was like because coal grew up like that and then you broke through in to it. The men were broke you know to get it out and so that’s one of the things that I used to do. Very heavy going. Very heavy going really. What is more, little things about it in pits like it or not they got rats. They did. And often when, often I went down three times to see my dad. Not when I went down. I went down but dad wasn’t there then. I went down because I went down with the management and I always remember these right through odd ones were still running about here and there and when you talk about rats you’re not talking about little rats you’re talking about big rats. Yeah. And you got, you got to live like this. ‘Oh, I’ve seen the rat’s down there.’ ‘Oh, big deal. You’ll get on with the work but you see big rats.’ They were. They were frightening and my dad worked amongst them you see. And of course, for working on the, on the coal face the man was, my dad was getting the coal out and they virtually stripped off altogether it was so hot. Desperately hot I used to find it and sometimes I would. I immediately got a job in the pit yard and I got a bit of promotion because I got on to special duties. Recording all sorts of things about and having to move about through they all knew me on the pit top because I moved to pick up records and things. Yeah. It was a marvellous sight really. And then of course one of the real things was that I got, every month I got a ton of coal delivered to my house. Yeah. And that was great because we had three pits altogether and when I got started to get coal free I could, I could choose which pit I wanted to get the stuff from. And there was one particular one at Whitwell they had, they called it a hazel because it was shone It really shone. And that’s how I had that sort delivered. Delivered to home. Mind you the only trouble in those days they tipped it on the yard outside and off they went and I got a neighbour to do it. To put in to my door. I had a proper coal house. Yeah. I had to watch him though. I noted, he started, he only lived across the road, I caught him out once taking. I was intending giving him some but when he’d finished but I didn’t because he was, I found him taking this one. He only lived across the road but I caught him that day and I thought it’s bad isn’t it? You know, you trust people and you, sometimes I lose trust in people. I shouldn’t do as a Christian but I do because they exist don’t they? And I find them, I find them threatening.
[recording paused]
KB: Quite unique.
SP: So, Ken, what made you decide to join the RAF?
KB: Ah, I always wanted to join the RAF. Yeah. Always wanted to join the RAF so made no more about it. In fact, to do it my mum, my mum weren’t very pleased really because I went out one day. I went out to Sheffield and by a coincidence I used, in the Army we’re talking about. The Lord and I couldn’t believe about the [unclear] and the fact is that oh, I remember it well. I went to Sheffield. I don’t know why. I went to Sheffield and that’s I was, I was walking through the Sheffield and I saw the Recruiting Office so I went in and joined up. When I got back I was in trouble at home, I’ll tell you. I was. I just went up like that. ‘Where have you been?’ ‘I’ve been to —’ ‘What have you been to Sheffield for?’ ‘Well, I happened to going by the recruiting office. I went in.’ And it was as simple as that really. Well, it was to me. So, I made a start right at the bottom. Yeah. But because of my, rather strange but perhaps not slightly because I were one of the few who had been to Grammar School so I could get jobs. And I [unclear] I went to, have I already said I went in to a chemist shop as an apprentice. Yeah. And I was really getting up, working up because I started mixing. You know, when people brought what’s in I used to mix it and I had a, I had a supervisor though, whatever, obviously. But that’s how they made me work up there and eventually I would have gone through in that trade but then of course that’s, I’m trying to get towards the sort of when I joined up. It’s as simple as that. I was at Sheffield and no intent. Why I was at Sheffield. I never went to Sheffield. But I must have been there for something and that’s, that’s went at home, I just went. What, in Sheffield. Found the Recruiting Office. Somebody told me where to go and I signed up and went home. I didn’t dare tell my mam for two or three [laughs] two or three days and that’s, I started right at the bottom.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. So that, that the thing did get tedious after a while as I started. I say I did menial jobs in the RAF first of all and I quickly, very quickly I got my commission. Virtually straight because of my background at school. Retford. I got, I got my commission straight away and I commend and because of my background I never, in the Salvation Army we don’t, we don’t drink. Well, we can have water and tea but nothing else and that that’s never been a problem to me. Well, it was nice for me in the war. In fact, at times, I never had any trouble because usually now when I went to aerodromes there was always a Salvation Army Centre. Always for the men and that’s there. I used to go immediately. I was back in the Army again and that’s kept me going through life. But I never, I always remember, oh, I know. One, one nice thing about it was that often before take-off we’d all line, they were all waiting to take off. All kitted up ready to climb aboard and at the very first start I always remember right at the, when we first started we had an Irish pilot and they were talking awful filthy language and he was right on the ball. He was ignorant with them. He was. He really did fiercely with them. ‘Don’t,’ you know, he said, ‘If there’s ever cursing that there’s going to be some problem. You know Ken’s background and what he does and what he doesn’t do.’ And it worked out really so I didn’t have any more bother. You had to be like that sometimes, I think. If you wanted it you stuck your neck out and that’s what they did. There was never any scene about it but I never met it again. Yeah. That was nice.
SP: So what about your crew then? You’re talking about your crew there. What can, how did you crew up?
KB: Yeah. What happened, went first of all, you went to a Receiving Centre and strangely, now this was marvellous I thought like somebody had that sort of idea. You joined up Sheffield and went and then when we were called up to there sort of thing is that for the first day they just unleashed us. From everywhere they came. We all piled into this whatever. Little school I think it was for what and that’s all, that was how we met. And it was as simple as that because mind it’s surprising within a day how you can, you can work people out. I would never fly with him, you know. Language sometimes really. Yeah. So that you really chose. You went around and what it got rather amusing in a way because suddenly a pilot in front of you and, ‘Have you a rear gunner yet?’ And so it went on and I thought how lovely it was and very thoughtful I thought in a way because they could have done it in all sorts of ways couldn’t they? But that’s how we knew. And what it did occasionally somebody made a bad move or what. He was replaced. So, there were no bad feeling about it at all. So, you didn’t know what they had done or what they did and what they and gradually we got to be a family because we were going to be killed the next morning, you know. It was as simple as that. And that was a real family. To me I’ve always been ever so keen about looking through words and things to see what they mean and that he got a new, I set off at the bottom of this family thing and I built up a family. In my mind mostly but it worked there and so we were a family. You died, well in our case we could truthfully say we would die for each other and we did. I mean sometimes you use that loosely don’t you? I’m going to die. Big deal. But no. That was it. And it made a difference. You were fighting for each other as well as whatever. I enjoyed every minute and of course because of my, I know what I never applied to become an officer but one day I got a, a word in my billet. I’d got to go and see the top man and there he was. He was offering me a commission. It was so nice really and he knew about my background. Whatever. And that’s as quickly I became an officer that way. Yeah. So, you got very well-spoken people. You were doing the job. What’s that? But it did influence me that. The fact that. Mind you my Grammar School background. There weren’t many of us you know at that time went to Grammar School and that all came through. All my records and whatever. Yeah. So that’s how I got my commission and quickly worked up.
SP: What difference did it make getting your commission with the crew because [pause] did it make a difference?
KB: Well, with the crew.
SP: Yeah.
KB: There weren’t many of us with a commission, you know. They flew. They were all the tradesman what and that we flew as a gun and never was there any discrepancy or fighting because we’d got this, that and the other. You fought together. You did. And when people you can’t tell people whatever especially bad raids you know and we went seven times to Berlin and we that really got a hammering there because they soon found you coming in. Whatever. You were flying about twenty thousand feet. At no time at all the first searchlights. I’m in Germany by now. The first searchlight comes on and then the big ones. Oh, we were at thirty thousand feet and they suddenly shot out of the sky. This vast vast vast light and it was it. One of those. They really got you. You know, you couldn’t and in fact often to get out of it the pilot we were carrying bombs sometimes. We’d a full bomb load and just, the pilot just stuck the nose down and went down you know, and things like that. So we survived all these things. Yeah. Yeah. I never I never bothered. Most of us did. We were a good crew. No doubt about it. Yeah. And we bombed Berlin seven times. That was some record. It really was because it was hectic there. Oh dear. Long before you reached the target you could see anti-aircraft or the searchlights came and then these heavy guns could fire up to thirty thousand feet from the ground and you can imagine what shells were like and that. And you flew through it sometimes and you were just lucky. We did once get one hit our tailplane but it didn’t make much of a hole so that we got away with it but, but that’s how it was. I enjoyed every second. I shouldn’t say that but I did really.
SP: So obviously you talked about there was quite a lot of trips to Berlin but you also were involved in D-Day you said. So can you remember —
KB: Oh yes, that —
SP: Can you remember that from start to finish?
KB: I can. I can remember.
SP: From the first day.
KB: Every minute of it.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Every minute of it because we knew it was coming up anytime.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And how we came we were on an ordinary flight over the Channel and suddenly we realised, we’d read about it coming but we didn’t hear much more than anybody else and we, we flew over and you couldn’t see any water for ships. I’m not going to talk about ships I’m talking about us going to them to fight with well you know vast ships. Vast warships and whatever else about them scattered. You could hardly see any water in between. So we flew over them and we knew obviously that was the day. Yeah. Aye it was a marvellous experience really. I relive it at times. Never worries me really. No, it didn’t really. Good skipper. Good pilot. Makes a difference. Whatever yeah.
SP: So, can you remember what your trip was day on that day? On D-Day morning?
KB: Yeah, because we took off at I think half past, no. Half past two in the morning when we took off and that’s of course we saw, couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw the armada going out from this country. You know. Couldn’t believe it. We hadn’t been told it was. It was rather strange that because we’d been to a special whatever before we went and they never mentioned it. I think it was a device really to keep us away from whatever. Getting worked up beforehand. But so then I saw this. Oh, couldn’t see any, one harbour we were going by. Couldn’t see any water because it were full of warships. Ours. Yeah. Marvellous sight. Marvellous sight really to see and what and you knew about the third day of that there’d be millions of men dead. Dead. You know it were, you had to turn. In fact, there was one of the main things we used as a, sort of thing in Bomber Command it helps if you’re thick. I mean it didn’t sound comical but it wasn’t comical at all and, because it was true. You had, you had to be. You couldn’t worry. I mean, I climbed in my little turret and aside from being attacked no time at all and German fighters made to remove me if they could in the first place. Yeah. Mind you that it didn’t happen very often like that but of course we ran into German fighters all over the place. But a good luck amongst it I’m sure but a good pilot that made the difference yeah. Because he never hesitated. With a bomb, with us full of bombs just stick the nose down and I disappeared up in the air there still with all the bombs inside. Whatever. Yeah. You learned to live with it. I used to say it was like learning to live with marriage isn’t it, really. You soon recover sometimes. Oh, dear me. I’ve lived. I love life. The lord sent me a life and he’s kept me alive this long and whatever and so I liked it. I don’t like being here. I can’t say that but at the same time I live by the rules and I get on well with everybody here and whatever so that that’s it. And my dad not only was the band master of the Salvation Army band and I played under him. Mind you I were treated like everybody else because he was my dad and he wrote Salvation Army music. Yeah. So we played his music and my dad, I played in the band and my dad was bandmaster. I treated, he treated me like everybody else, you know. So there was no, there was no about that. Yeah. In fact, when I look back I’ve had a marvellous life really when I come to think about it. A lot of it I’ve made myself because my mother couldn’t [laughs] that day I always remember going to Sheffield for the day for no reason and passed that Recruiting Office. I thought I’ll pop in. Pop in there which I popped in. I I daren’t tell her for about two or three days. I didn’t know how to say it. But anyway she, she was a good support then. Yeah. Oh, dear me. Oh dear. ‘Where have you been today?’ ‘I’ve been joining up.’ Oh, big deal. But I’ve loved life always. Whatever. What a state. I always met, during the war with Bomber Command I met quite a nice lot of young ladies. WAAFs. Looked after me and we went out together. Nothing else to it at that. We got to know a bit about each other. Yeah. And so that was it. Made life a lot better. Especially when they, when they on the cookhouse they mostly they did all the cooking and everything and we got to know the oh pull their legs and all the time whatever. Everybody was happy I think. Never think about going later, later in the day and get shot down. I didn’t. I think some people did you know. I think they were terrified from the start but no. in fact, I went, once went and the Germans fighters were about, a lot of them that night. They did. And they wandered sometimes to pick you up. But I never, never saw one on top of me. You know. We never saw them so close as that. Whatever. Otherwise, we should have. We had a mid-upper gunner you know as well as me in the back. So that was my experience of the war.
SP: So, you went twice on D-Day you said. So, your first trip in the morning.
KB: Half past two in the morning.
SP: At half two in the morning. And then you, do do you know where you were? Obviously, you saw the armada of ships then. Do you know the final destination was on that day?
KB: No. First of all it was difficult but from where they first went. When I first went they were like a fog over them by and large. And then we saw them in their glory they were leaving you know working towards light and we actually saw them leaving. These great convoys. Yeah. Big ships and I used to, I used to get worried about I know a lot of them were going to be killed. Thousands and thousands and thousands. I thought about their mothers and their children whatever. It got to me some times but I still flew. The Salvation Army, we’re sensitive. It’s part of our religion really. Yeah. Yeah. But having said that and it was nice when I went for my final award for that. That’s the top one there. That’s quite, not a lot of us got that.
SP: So you’re talking about the Legion d’Honneur which is the special medal that you’re showing me there. Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what it is. Yeah.
SP: Yeah. So where did you get awarded that?
KB: Well, it was quite unique. Well, not unique but enough because to get, to get that I forget where it was. The French president. The French president presented me with that. So, it was in Britain or whatever. I can’t, I couldn’t if I thought enough I’d know where I went. I can’t quite remember where I went.
SP: So you’ve got Retford Town Hall.
KB: Aye.
SP: You got awarded it.
KB: That’s right yeah. Aye that’s it.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. I remember. Fancy I didn’t remember that. Yeah. That was quite, quite a ceremony really because it went, it went very well. Why? The president, French president he was very unique to what was happening and whatever because there was a lot of people there. And I always remember how well he handled it somehow because he came and had a little chat with you. In French of course. No. He was friendly but that’s he just did it so nicely. Not, because there was a lot there and so they, he did it so well. I I went, we had to go up and we had to bow before him. He bowed to us back and then that’s it. He presented me with that. ‘I’ll pin it on for you.’ Yeah.
SP: And it's fantastic.
KB: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Awarded a medal. Yeah. So that was obviously for your services to support France during the war. And you were saying the D-Day raid and then on the second night was St Lȏ.
KB: Yeah. That’s right.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. That’s right. That’s where I was. Yeah. So, yeah, I never feared. I’m a God-fearing man and never, no. I didn’t. And with the, so nicely the WAAFs were very kind to us really because once I do remember this we took it, we were due to take off and we usually, you went early before you climbed in to your aircraft. You used to lie on the grass and what not and that’s, on that this particular night out of the blue we should be taking off at a certain time and suddenly we had to go early and so the girls they were amazing. We were actually taxiing out and suddenly racing from inside from the cookhouse was the girls. They’d made some, slapped some together and threw them firstly in to the turret. It was lovely of them really when you think about it. So, you were chewing your sandwiches as you were taking off. They were lovely people. Lovely girls. Yeah.
SP: That was at Melbourne Airfield. So, what can you remember about your airbase at Melbourne?
KB: I [pause] it was pretty orthodox. You, you lived to fly and that’s what your job was. Often of course you could get home and whatever a lot in between so that I can’t think any more than we did anything like. Oh, I always got to the nearest Salvation Army if it was on a Sunday. Always. And so that kept me in touch with what, what was happening. And then its rather strange but I’ve told you already that it was my crew, how sensitive they became. Because at first they were cursing and swearing most of the time. Not most of the time but they were bad. And I only had a word with the skipper and it were like magic. They were, mind you they were a new crew. Yeah. Yeah. The way they treated me and looked after me. Yeah. Dear me. I never regret. I shouldn’t say I loved it but I did really. To be a hero. Whatever. So that’s how it went through and of course to do all those. How many? Thirty one times. The, I got something ridiculous and survived. Yeah. And often of course we didn’t see any fighters. We just went to drop bombs and that was it. And of course, the thing about, well you don’t know about bombing but the fact is how it worked they put, the navigator was to get you, get completely get you there, you’ve got to be. And so the pilot had to fly straight and level and everything else to drop his bombs. And so that’s how it got you. You had to be very careful there because the Germans knew that that we were steady and they sometimes [unclear] really but that’s, that’s the pilot. That’s how we dropped our bombs. Yeah. Came away. A lot of men died. Thousands of men died I’m afraid but that’s warfare isn’t it? I never regret. People say, used to say to me about we’re peace loving in the Salvation Army. All over the world the Army is now. And the fact is that but we I felt we had a job to do. Why should I let other people you know, losing their lives or what for the same, for the same thing? And I got very settled about that. Yeah. And we got to be a very good crew. Well, we were a senior crew eventually because we had a squadron leader as pilot. Yeah. He was.
SP: Can you remember the names of your crew? Who was your, who was your pilot?
KB: Yes. Kennedy. Dick Kennedy was the pilot. Yeah. He came from Ireland by the way. Irish free state, I think. Whatever. And so that was, Dick. Dick Kennedy. Yeah. And we had a navigator. He was even more unique because he’d come into this country. I don’t know I don’t know how he came in to and he was a marvellous navigator. Unbelievable. To get you an, to get you within an inch of somewhere and that. He’d got a German background. Somewhere in the family it was a Germans bit. Whatever. I never found out much about it but we knew that. He’d say. He told me at times about it. Yeah. Yeah. So he had a sympathy with the Germans really I suppose in a way. Yeah. But that’s it. It was quite unique I think really. Yeah. A very fine navigator.
SP: Do you remember what he was called?
KB: That was Dick Rath. Dick Rath. Yeah. And the pilot was Kennedy. Yeah. He was a good navigator. In fact, he used to cut corners off sometimes because you got one set up for the journey from the office or whatever they did. And that’s they largely followed but he did quite a few times alter it a little bit really. He knew what he was doing. He was taking you, we knew for some areas that there were vast amounts of German anti-aircraft fire and he didn’t want to fly through it which we didn’t. He got round it. Hardly lost any time. So that was a bit of a, I think that was a bit of a benefit we had really to have Dick look after us. Never portrayed his partly German [unclear] We didn’t want to hear about it.
SP: Yeah. And your mid-upper gunner. Who was, where was he from?
KB: I were rear gunner.
SP: Your mid-upper gunner.
KB: I was rear gunner.
SP: You were rear gunner but your mid-upper gunner. Who was he?
KB: In the middle.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. That’s right.
SP: Do you know where he was from? Can you remember?
KB: Let me see now. Dick. It’s difficult really. I got them mixed up a bit. No.
SP: No. No worries.
KB: I can’t really. Oh, the one, I always remember this because he came from Manchester and he was always, he swore a lot and blah blah. And after the war, straight away after I’m going, I’m going to Manchester about something and I’ll pop in. But oh, I regret going. He was dirty and ugh. Lord above. I thought, fancy him flying with us. It was that bad really. And in a way I was sorry. Fortunately, there was nobody in. So when I saw it I knew what it must have been like. It must have been such a sight. The house and whatnot so that’s it. Still, he did his job. He did his job and that was it. In fact, when when I come to think about it being a Salvation Army officer and moving about everywhere that I was, my eye was open to how some of them lived. You know what I mean. I came from Salvation Army. Immaculate. Everybody came out the Army and we don’t, we abhor bad language of any sort. That sort of thing we live by and so sometimes I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’d never been in the slums before. I mean, they were in Manchester. I’m not being unkind but it was that bad at times really. Well, you know about places like Manchester and I felt sorry for them. Some of them. I did. I come back from, in the first place I didn’t have much. My dad was a miner but I got to Grammar School. The first one in my family. I traded on it. I did well in examinations. Yeah. So overall I think I’ve had a very rewarding life. I can’t ask for more that and in the Army, we talked in the Army we had a, in the Army we had this expression. Getting people saved. Now, rogues and vagabonds, anything that came in to the Army’s sphere eventually ever so many became top salvationists they were nothing and we made something of them. In fact, we we had a sort of system. It was a confession thing really and some of them were oh so down and filthy and I used to go and pray with them and as I say in no time at all we got them in to the Army some times. Got them washed and bought them new clothes. In fact, I got them into uniform and some of them learned to play and got them in the band. My dad was bandmaster for thirty years and I took over immediately when he retired. I was bandmaster for seventeen years. Had a good band at that time. Enjoyed. Took the band out a lot and that so I got that reward a little bit. Yeah. Couldn’t have done better. I’ve had a life that’s been marvellous really. I make what it is now, I think. I think I how I was saying I’m blessed about I’m blessed in here. But where could else could I have I have gone like this? You know it’s true. I’ve been such [unclear] really over the years being a probation officer I loved that but for the first time ever when I must be fair about he retired. I took over from him when he retired. And he’d got old and whatever and when I came and took over I couldn’t believe my ears, my eyes or anything how badly he’d, how badly he’d been. They’d got away with murder.
SP: So, this was your job after the war.
KB: Yeah.
SP: You went to be a probation officer.
KB: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And they, yes I did a bit of training and I trained some of these people. They were getting away with murder. It were awful really in a way. They reckoned to be in charge or whatever. They didn’t last long when I took over. But I really, I got people, parents from Manton a lot of them I got them into court straightaway because I wasn’t prepared to mess about with them and they soon fell into line and I, because of my Salvation Army background I always felt I did well in Manton for all sort of reasons. They were all working people and they say what they mean [laughs] and I had to get used to a sort of collection of languages. I soon absorbed them. They had. I’ve got a million. I wish I could sit all day. I went to one house and I had a chap before me who was retired and he didn’t do anything they got away with murder. Hardly any of them went to school at Manton. And then I took it on I went for about a week. I thought there’s only one way here. Get them to court. Get their parents to court which I did. For a long time courts were opening for me. For my clients to go in and that, that worked really because I never stopped going to their homes, you know and I always dressed well when I went. And when [laughs] some, some of the houses I went to were not just filthy and I used to plonk down in a mucky settee with the springs coming through. I never bothered a scrap because I’d got a Salvation Army background and people are people aren’t they? Whatever. And so I loved, loved doing that job but they knew very well not to mess about with me. The parents. They knew better and that worked out. Yeah. Of course, it worked, I did it on a bike and then we got cars after then and made it easier for me. And there was, one [laughs] I’m not quoting names in Manton but they were notorious and I had one family. They were rough and ready and I got to liking them. They just needed a bit of help. Whatever. I could arrange for food to go and clothing for the kids. I was a big man for that immediately. Poor little things because I see the parents had no money. Except when I learned that they boozed as well so they didn’t get any more money. But that’s how I dealt with them and I got respected in Manton when some people weren’t because they knew what sort of person I was really. And one house that I did used to like to go because where as soon as I got to the gate usually the man, he was a miner and I seemed to click for that shift he was on that week and he were virtually naked when he came. Big man. Big man. He real, he were real tough. And that’s strange about that man. I thought, now how am I going to deal with them best. The best way for them? And so, what I did I suddenly thought I can manoeuvre this man because he used to come shouting and bawling at me. And when he came to the gate I think I know. I know can sort him out and oh I know he came [unclear] up and I pretended to faint on the, on the gate. And he said, oh it were amazing. ‘What’s, what’s wrong with him?’ He said, ‘Owt, owt wrong with thee mister?’ I says ‘Well, to tell you [laughs] to tell you the truth I’m not, I’m, I’m really not so very bright this morning. And it worked like that. Took they took me. I got going to that house afterwards and it were nasty. I got them money. I could get money for anybody from the education. They were marvellous the education command, whatever, you know. I could get money for any, for them. All of them. In fact, there is, in Worksop in the centre of the town the whatevers they were what was the firm? A firm called [unclear] or something like that. Now, they were very cooperative because what I would do I went to them. Told them I was going to the boss man and went in and take the mother of these lads and measured. Measured. She’d tarted herself up a bit and the like and went and she got quite a [unclear] she got, she broke out of her bad background and into a new one really because she saw me. I got to know [unclear] and I just went in. He said, ‘Are you alright Ken?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, who are you sending in?’ I said, ‘I’m sending this family in and I want them equipping.’ And that they were, just did that. I went and joined them when got. They were delighted really. The women couldn’t believe their eyes and with these kids. Mind you I’m afraid to say that often they didn’t last long these lads. No. No. they were [laughs] Yeah. I love life. I love life. I really do. And I, I’ve done so many things really. I’ve got relatives in Australia. I went twice to Australia. Flew there. I loved that. I got talking to the pilot one day while we were actually airborne and I sneaked behind him and had a little chat with him. He didn’t turn a hair. He was flying along to Australia and that was his job. And I did, I got, I met, I went for people they’d got something I want you know and they makes a difference. I’m not a paragon of virtue or anything like that but I’m a Salvation Army man and I had that background always where ever I went. Well, of course during the war I went to a lot of places and I would get, first thing I found where the Salvation Army was and I was fortunate because I was, went to some cities and the Army was big. Big band. Everything about them and I played I usually would be able to play with them for a while and that’s, that’s how I got through the war.
SP: Where was the one near to Melbourne where you were based? Where was that one? The Salvation Army.
KB: At Melbourne? I can’t quite remember.
SP: York was your big —
KB: York.
SP: Town that was near you.
KB: York. Yeah, things like. I did go to York, yeah. Seems like I did go to York. Somewhere else around that part of the war. It’s beyond me.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Mostly it was with the band and things like that and I enjoyed it.
SP: I was just wondering how you got there? How did you? You know, if you were on based on Melbourne and went to the Salvation Army on a Sunday. Did you have transport? Did you —
KB: Well, often from most aerodromes they had a Liberty body. Not a Liberty body. Oh dear. That’s given the [laughs] No. I don’t know about Liberty bodices [laughs] It’s just a phrase I use. Oh dear. Give over, Ken. You ought to be shot. They used to say. ‘Time he were shot really.’ I made a lot of good friends and my crew would have been far worse if immediately, immediately the skipper picked it up. He never allowed bad language yet he used plenty himself and he was Irish but he didn’t and it worked and they got to be much more sober. Whatever. Some of them drank heavily when they were not flying of course. When they were not flying. Yeah. But very little drunkenness I found began.
SP: So, they had a Liberty bus was it that went into York?
KB: Sorry?
SP: They had a little bus that went into York.
KB: Yes. Liberty. A Liberty bus. Yeah.
SP: So, you went on the bus into York sometimes did you? What was —
KB: There was one available every day from the aerodrome.
SP: Yeah. So, did you ever go in?
KB: Nearly all the time because I could get to the city and I could get to the Army and I could get, I even went to the pictures and things like that. Filled our lives really without any problem. So that, that, that’s worked out well really when I come to think but most places my first thought when I got to a new ‘drome was to get to find the Salvation Army, which I did and they were lovely people. They used to take me home quite often. They took me to sleep at home. Yeah. it was, the Army’s like that really and that’s how it worked out that during the war very much really for me the Army was a sanctuary really. Yeah. At Brid. At Brid, yeah.
SP: So, Brid was Bridlington where you did your air gunnery training. Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Parts of it.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah, because the thing that whatever, you know a turret? Well, for the training ground I was, am I taking up your time love? The training ground was all laid out and thinking of my turret what it consisted of was a mock one that worked on lines what’s at side and that’s so he did so long in there. Now, the beauty of that place was that there was an RAF man. He was proper scruffy. Never, never put you on the spot because he was, he ran the place, a cookery thing so he had this big fire outside where he made fires for us and what. And he charged though. He charged and, and we paid gladly. But he never had uniform on and he had a big furnace thing he had to look after. He said it was like hell. That’s how he envisaged hell and that he was, he were a good lad though because he produced beautiful food. He really did. It was so nice. And we paid and in fairness he did use RAF stuff but he didn’t charge us and he, he spent it again within the set up because he never had uniform on. Proper scruffy and we loved him. We loved him. Yeah. When he, when he came the first time I went to his first meal. By gum. It didn’t cost him much. I mean, we could have done RAF food but he didn’t do that. He did it for us privately really. So that was nice. So, whatever. Dear me. Oh, the things I’ve seen. Nobody’s been better blessed than me. If I died tomorrow but the doctor says I’m not doing. No. I’ve got full health. It’s amazing isn’t it really? Immaculate blood pressure.
SP: Yeah. And how old are you now?
KB: Eight hundred thousand [laughs] Have a guess.
SP: Ninety.
KB: Ninety five.
SP: Ninety five. Wow.
KB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But age is a comparative thing. It’s what you make it. And of course, I broke away in some ways. In the Salvation Army we don’t drink. We don’t go to public houses but at the same time I, one or two people met me from one pub and said, ‘Why don’t you bring us —’ They knew something about Army, Salvation Army papers you know. He said, ‘Why don’t you come in the pub, Ken.’ I saw the boss man. Now, he said, ‘No, you come in Ken.’ And it got to be a big one. About five hundred people in and they waited for me to come to take my papers and they, and they paid. They paid generously and I never deplored it. I thought this is what, let me think there are so many things of these I could tell about the pubs actually. My brother. No, my son worked for a big firm and he could dispose at his own leisure, whatever he could dispose of. They only had a car for a year and they could, he disposed of them in any sort of way and I always remember him saying, ‘Hey ‘up dad,’ he said, ‘You’ll have to pop in.’ I said, ‘What for?’ He said, ‘Do you know that we’ve got that new —’ Oh what car was it? Oh, it was superb. I forget what it was. It’ll come later. And he said about these. What’s the name? He could dispose of them however he wants. He said, ‘Would you like one?’ And I said, ‘Well, if it’s —’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘It’s all above board,’ he said, ‘I could sell them to anybody.’ And it was a Princess. A Princess. Did you ever see the Princess cars? Oh, they were marvellous. Immaculate. Beautiful. And he got it. He could charge what he wanted really in some ways but I paid properly and everything and it was a Princess. You’ve probably seen pictures of them many a time and they were superb. Absolutely superb. I used to lie back in it and oh you could do ninety mile an hour before you moved and in that way I liked, because I liked speeding and that’s how I used to go in this Princess because my, my son worked for the place and he disposed of them whichever way they wanted to. And he always made sure I got this. He had, I’ve got, ‘Hey Ken —’ Oh, Ken, I’m dad, I’m Ken though. ‘I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve got some cars coming ready. You pop around if you like.’ And I did and that’s how I saw I saw it for the first time. This Princess. You’ve probably seen them. They were superb really. And so I got my Princess. He charged a reasonable price. He could charge what he liked but I paid like everybody else. And to drive them they were heaven. Oh, dear me. You could stop, oh you had, I don’t know what that side of the street was. I don’t know what you did by that. Perhaps I never got around to that but they were so beautiful to drive. Yes, they were. When I see. Am I rattling on? I went to this pub. I got, because I was a Salvationist I always had full uniform. Never drank or whatever. No trouble for me and the other men got to know it well. Straight away they knew me. My background. And when I got that Princess I wish you could have seen it. It were beautiful. To drive it oh it was luxury. And so when I went to, do you know I used to, Salvation Army officers we used to visit pubs to take Salvation Army papers. And the men liked something to, because some of them were comics that the kids, that they could take home for the kids and so, I went to that. And so this particular, when I got this new Princess I went to this pub and I knew about this pub because this bloke would shoot his mouth off. So, I’ll show him. So I parked it some way away from the pub. And oh, I know. Another man picked up on that from inside the pub and he said, I could tell you his very words. Educated British man said, ‘Hey up, skipper.’ He called me skipper. ‘Hey up skipper.’ That’s, that was the introduction. Stood up in the middle of the, eight hundred people in those pubs and he stood up in the mid of this, ‘I’ll tell thee something,’ these were his words, ‘I’ll tell thee something skip.’ ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘I’ve seen thee.’ And this was this was in front of everyone. Eight hundred people in that pub. ‘I’ll tell, tell thee something skipper,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen thee. I’ve seen thee.’ He said, he said what, what did he say like this? That I’d parked it away. ‘I’ve seen thee.’ He said, ‘I’ve seen thee taking that blinking great —’ oh he called it a blinking great car or something like, abusive, abusive sometimes [laughs] ‘I’ve seen thee with the what sort of [unclear] car.’ He said, ‘Parking at the back there,’ he said. And he used a bit of swear words to complement. And they never worried me about swear words. You know, I’ve never sworn in my life but having said that I got used to it. I got on well with everybody in pubs. As an Army officer I went fully kitted with my Army uniform and I was, I went to, I went to one, it was in a village outside and it was a top class place that place was. And I was so busy that I had to get there at 11 o’clock and I thought they, because I’d been to others that it would be odd. No, it was very refined. All of it exactly refined. Beautiful people I talked to and that. They get so game and I didn’t, wasn’t prepared for it but I’m coming up towards Christmas and whatever. They were always good to me and I couldn’t believe that the last one before Christmas they’d set me up something very special for me. And I went in and it was marvellous really. They’d laid it all out. Oh, I knew what they’d done mine you I’d a job to get it home. I never knew this but they had this penny thing. You know if you got a copper they hadn’t had, it was mobile and great big what’s the name so they had to carry it out to my car and then I had to set off. When I got home later that week, it was nearly all coppers my hands were red, you know. Oh dear. But I loved them in that pub. They were very caring. In fact, my last visit to them the landlord had prepared a meal for me in his own home. Yeah. I did. It shows you if you did things right people responded don’t they? And they love the Army. Most people. Yeah. So that’s how it is.
SP: Just looking as well, you were showing me photos you met your wife during that.
KB: Oh, I met my wife.
SP: You met her during the war, didn’t you?
KB: I don’t know whether I’ll reveal all but I will reveal all. I normally don’t. Bit too louder mostly. No. Now, this is, now talk about this I mean I’d love you to record this because it’s superb really. What [pause] I know when I first got there at, I think Saturday night when we used to go somewhere but I’m thinking of the first time. Oh, I know how I met her that she took me too her house, whatever. Oh, by the way she worked in a big factory and she were not very big and when to move on I used to meet her. I used to take her every morning to work and mostly pick her up at night. She was so, she had a [laughs] she had a pair of overalls about ten sizes too big. I said, ‘Don’t you dare come any more.’ I used to meet her out. Yeah. I used to meet her out from work and take her home. But I said, ‘If ever you come, if I come to pick —’ Oh she had a bike so I had to push her. I went to her home straight. They accepted me in to the family. Marvellous. Straight away in to the family. So when I saw her with this bike and these overalls and I said, ‘If ever you come again like that I’ll forget. I shan’t be coming anymore.’ But she were lovely, lovely, lovely person. Well, you’ve seen my photograph. She was like that really, and beauty queen thing one year. Yeah. You can imagine what sort of person and what she was chased by a lot of airmen but I always stood my ground. What happened then? Oh, I know. She went to help in the [unclear] or something at that time and she, voluntarily and so she went there and I used to pick her up afterwards to take her home. Yeah. And, but you know I went Salvation Army and that sent, I went to homes everywhere in the country. Always. And if I was staying overnight in the church accommodation they just took it that, these didn’t even ask me if I was staying. Marvellous that you know because it means you’ve got unique, it’s unique absolutely in that way. Yeah. And with being, Brid a seaside and so one thing I did when I got to Brid I always remember, oh I know, she went to chapel and I’d seen her come out of chapel and so when I went to the Army I thought one night, one night I’m going to catch her when she comes out. And one day it was all over. It was. Just like that. Actually, just like that. She were a lovely person really. Very lovely. Well, you’ve seen her picture.
SP: So, you met her in Bridlington.
KB: At Brid. Yeah.
SP: Right. Where you did your training. Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Yeah, that’s the —
SP: And when did you get married? Was that during the war did you say?
KB: Well, did you want to hear my story about getting married? What happened was that I got to know the family. I went to everybody’s family. They always took me to bed. Or they’ve always got a bedroom spare. Can’t people believe it? It’s telling a story again. My family says so. No, I’m not. Honest. And so that was Brid. I loved Brid partly because I should have, I went for training. Part of it was to train but first of all when I got there the course hadn’t started so I had the first six weeks before it opened virtually living at their house and I used to go and meet her. She worked in this factory and I went to meet her each time. Mind you I had to walk her home because she had a bike and I hadn’t got a bike. I did later on and so I walked, she walked with me home or whatever and she always had [laughs] she always had overalls twenty sizes too big. She had. I says, ‘You’re [unclear].’ That’s me going off you so. She was lovely. She, I used to say how pretty she was. Always winning what’s the name or whatever but, and her parents were very gracious in those days you know. Somebody comes like me, goes to somebody’s house and they ask questions and they find you a bedroom. You know, it was, that’s wartime. One lovely thing about wartime I found it had got a lot going for it. Mind you, millions were being killed I know that and whatever but that was typical one. Mind you it was a big difference because she was chapel. And so I was Salvation Army and so initially that our times were different but I picked her up or whatever or when she’d been to chapel. Then gradually she fell in love with the Army and then eventually got into uniform and you know made the pattern nice for me. She got she loved the Army. As a lot of people do with the band and this choir and things that are going on and all sorts of things going, going on in the Army. Still do. So that was how, how we, I think [pause] I know we, but we had a lot of lovely walks. Lovely from the start. There was no question of anything about it or whatever and that’s, and her parents. In fact a lovely thing with am I holding you up because I went to her house all the time then and stayed and because do you know what, do you know what I stayed and not in a bed, I had a half bed because they in their big front room had a perfect one you could get during the war you know, steel things in the house. Yeah. And so I had my little bed in this steel because of air raids.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And so that I was, I was like that. So that’s how I added in to the family. People were like that in those days and that’s how I get used to that but I loved that girl. And well, she brought up a lovely family, you know.
SP: So how many children do you have?
KB: Five hundred [laughs] Do you mean around a morning or the ones that are real. You mean the ones that I met in a war? There used to be a line of them that.
SP: Your own family. Yeah. You and your wife. I know you had a huge family, didn’t you with all your friends.
KB: Well, you think yeah but think in a way she were lovely, knew how to handle children. The family. My lads, they really did and I had no problem about that. She was so thoughtful about anything and that’s how it came into the family and then well I’ve nearly got, don’t get worried about time. Is that yes I know what I want to tell you. That oh this came out. I was posted to the south of England out of the blue and I’d got to move within three days and we both cried ourselves to death. And then do, well do something sensible so she got my lifestyle right now. So do you know how we went? It was down south somewhere. We both jumped on the train. Both. And went. And do you know it was a little village we went to and when we, when we got there we were knocking on people’s doors. Too beautiful and no trouble at all. I could have had half of those houses to say, they loved it because it was a village setting. They were beauty. I could have had as many as we wanted and we had a lovely home. Yeah. Oh, and it was on a farm. That was beautiful because they I had a little dog at that time and my Jack Russell we took around with me and he loved that farm because the farmer was ever so good because he was a bit temperamental whatever. So, the farmer says, ‘Leave him with me, Ken. As long as you’re here leave him with me.’ So, he could go around the farm and he got real nifty. A little Jack Russell terrier yeah. I saw when the farmer he’d got him under his arm. ‘Leave him with me, Ken. He’ll be alright.’ So, I met these. So many people I met really in that. I mean for that I was on the farm and so he loved the farm because he let him run anywhere.
SP: Do you know where that was? What town or village. Where were you going down to, was that —
KB: Going down south aye. I’m going south again so I won’t be worried I went to some.
SP: Do know which RAF base you were going to? Is that where you were going down? Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Initially yeah. Yeah. That was it yeah that I went. Yeah. But when he got Jack under his arm at first and then he let him loose and off he went chasing the sheep and whatnot. Nearly getting shot. And a lovely dog. Lovely. I can’t tell you the story because I [pause] He died in my arms eventually. My family say I’m too soft but I’m not. Poor little thing I’d got it in my arms. I like to think that there’s a lot of God in me to know what to do in those sort of things and then of course only occasionally I’d got somebody in prison waiting to appear in court and I used to visit them. I went to prison. To Lincoln I went to twice to see two men that were coming up. I didn’t need to do that but I felt I got to know them a little bit and they were in the cell. I stayed in the cell with them nattering and what not. In fact, usually because of my influence as a probation officer I got the staff to bring him a cup of tea along with mine. Oh lord, I love life you know, love. And doctors, I’m going to live forever and that would be unique wouldn’t it? Life’s what you make it. I’ve got a marvellous family. Look how well they’ve all done really. I mean aye because I forgot to tell you, you perhaps know anyway that Jim went to Grammar School. The first one in my family. Then, then I went after that to Grammar School at Retford. So, we were a bit unique at that time. And it was, it was largely fee paying you know but I got the County paid everything for me.
SP: Yeah.
KB: So that made it handy. Yeah. I did. I had to get used to, you know cap and gown and everything and all the rest of it so I was a bit scruffy but the lads never bother do they? Lads don’t bother what you are. Yeah. I made some good friends. Quite rich some of them.
SP: So, lots of friends at school. Did you keep friends with your crew after the war at all?
KB: For a while.
SP: Yeah.
KB: For a while. Yeah. And then it became monotonous in a way because you’ve nothing else to talk about. You were going your own way and whatever so by and large not a lot I agree because you could say it wasn’t working out. You were going out to do your best for a while but it fizzled out peaceably. Quite peaceably. Yeah. And I tell you the navigator was part German. It was interesting really with the war on in this country. Marvellous. Marvellous navigator. Unbelievable. And sometimes coming back he’d take shortcuts to make it less for us. We had to do that but he’d say, ‘We’ll nip around the back —’ of such and such a city. I’d say, ‘All right, Dick. Carry on. You’re in charge.’ Did, how we broke the rules. Well, I don’t suppose it were rules really.
SP: Just looking at your logbook you were talking about you did a trip to Paris as well. So, I know you did Berlin seven times didn’t you but you actually you went to Paris on one of the trips as well.
KB: Yeah. I did.
SP: So yeah.
KB: I did go to Paris.
SP: Yeah.
KB: And I always because I did actually go to the presidential place. I got some lead for somebody who was in the palace and to get some conversation or what. So that, that made a difference really.
SP: Yeah. One of your flights here you’ve got a night operations at Paris.
KB: Yeah.
SP: And then you’ve got night operation at Essen.
KB: Yeah.
SP: As well there.
KB: We got shot at, you know. Shot at.
SP: So, were you ever under fire? I know you were under flak and that but were you ever shot at by fighters?
KB: Well, yeah but, yeah. No. Very rarely ever, you ever met a German fighter. But long range once. Never even saw him. Didn’t approach us anyway. When he saw what we were he didn’t approach. So, yeah that were no problem there. Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Because Essen, was quite, quite a main area wasn’t it? I think you were there —
KB: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: A couple of times.
KB: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t bother. Just climb in my turret. Well, we went for a briefing. Whatever.
SP: What happened at the briefing? What sort of thing happened when you went to the briefings?
KB: That was the important thing. First of all it was kept secret until the very last moment and when it suddenly appeared in the mess where it was. And that’s when we, when we started to go for briefings and things. Of course, the navigator, it was a big job for the navigator because he’s, he’s going to take us and bring us back and so that was quite demanding for him really. But for everything else we went, as gunners we went to this, our own little thing or whatever because sometimes we had new guns or all that sort of thing. Yeah. And I had a, I was very lucky a ground staff who lived for looking after my aeroplane and polishing windows all the time. All sorts of thing. I think it kept him from doing anything else perhaps he didn’t like. It was the ground staff. Yeah. And then of course they had DI inspection before take-off. Oh, I know, and we had carers who looked after us all the time. You know, every bit. What they came around and so I often go and used to join them while they were doing things what they did. Whatever they did. Except that once we got a new aircraft and they got me because I was little. You could get in to the belly of it but it’s only a little hole to get in. About that. Yeah. And they conned me of course obviously. I didn’t fly like that but that was when we was on the ground. Yeah. Some great fun really especially they knew we’d be shot down that night. In fact, once we landed away out of necessity. We were running out of fuel and some aerodrome, I don’t know where it was and we just we just landed and to get some petrol of all things. And that’s how we, we just flew out again afterwards or whatever so it’s not recorded anywhere. But that’s how we got fuel to get back. We wouldn’t have got back because we were quite running out of fuel eventually you know it’s a long way. A long way to Germany. Four engines especially. We had one, once we had an, one engine wasn’t very good and occasionally it misbehaved itself. When you’ve got four though you have to alter the trim when you’ve got only so many working. Yeah.
SP: What was the impact of that when there was one engine not working properly?
KB: Well, usually they could. They, we were inside, of course. We had a mechanic. Whatever. But he couldn’t do for anything outside but he often did things from inside sort of things connected with the aeroplane. Oh yeah, because they, we had, what was it now? I forget. But he, he had a monitor. The, the petrol tanks. Of course, they were spread about the aeroplane and his job was keeping a careful eye on because he had to redirect it from one that was going empty because he had to be careful because it altered the trim of the aircraft. Whatever. But yes, they got, they were fitters. They were very good.
SP: You got some photographs of you with your ground crew. Did you, did you get to know your ground crew quite well?
KB: Oh, very well. You were living with them.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. I mean you didn’t all go. The ones on the ground. Oh yes. They, they got very very attached to us.
SP: Can you remember any of them? Any of the names of any —
KB: Not really.
SP: Yeah.
KB: I expect they were with us a long time I know that.
SP: Yeah.
KB: But I can’t remember as much as that.
SP: Do you remember where your dispersal unit was at Melbourne?
KB: Sorry?
SP: Do you remember where your dispersal unit was at Melbourne where you had to go to to your plane? On the —
KB: Yeah. Yeah. For operations we trained a lot beforehand.
SP: Yeah.
KB: From different aerodromes.
SP: Yeah.
KB: Yeah. Quite a few different aerodromes when I did my flying business.
SP: And did you have to travel quite a long way to your plane before operations or were you quite close to the briefing area?
KB: Well, we were basically, basically on top of it.
SP: Right.
KB: Yeah. Because you were living there.
SP: Yeah. Some people say their dispersal unit where the plane was kept was quite a long way away and they had to cycle to it.
KB: A long way away.
SP: Or get on a little truck.
KB: A long way away.
SP: Yeah.
KB: I had to go around, right the way around the aerodrome.
SP: Right.
KB: And everywhere to get to it but we were lucky at that we were parked very near to the runway.
[recording paused]
SP: So, Ken I just want to thank you on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre for your time today and your stories. So, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ken Beard
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Susanne Pescott
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
2017-08-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ABeardKC170807, PBeardKC1701
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:20:10 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Ken Beard served as a rear gunner during the Second World War. He has been a member of The Salvation Army all his life and his faith played a huge role in helping him through the horrors of war. Awarded a scholarship at Retford Grammar School, he left it with the benefit of a first class education. He had several jobs before enrolling in the Royal Air Force. He was visiting Sheffield and upon seeing the recruitment office, walked in and enlisted. It took him several days to pluck up the courage to inform his mother what he had done. After enrolling, he was soon selected for a commission. Air gunnery training at RAF Bridlington followed, before being posted to RAF Melbourne where he served the majority of his Air Force career as a rear gunner on Halifax aircraft. He flew 31 operations, including seven to Berlin. He describes approaching Berlin at 30,000ft and being lit up by searchlights. He recalls only once being hit with anti-aircraft fire, when they received slight damage. At no time was his aircraft attacked directly by Luftwaffe fighters. On D-Day, Ken and his crew set off on an operation at 02:30 and were surprised to see the English Channel covered in a vast armada of vessels of all sizes. Nothing had been mentioned to them at the briefing before take-off. On his return to civilian life, Ken became a probation officer in the Worksop area. In November 2015, Ken attended a ceremony at Retford Town Hall where he was one of three recipients of Legion D’ Honneur.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Sheffield
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
10 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
faith
Halifax
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Bridlington
RAF Melbourne
recruitment
searchlight
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/957/9604/SMathersRW55201v10004.2.jpg
0341cc72ad62c3d82bab58b28c640c43
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
Mathers, Ronald. Album
Description
An account of the resource
45 page scrapbook of Squadron life and The Goodwill Tour to the United States by 35 Squadron in 1946. It includes photographs, newspaper cuttings, and programmes. The tour visited stations on both the East and West coasts of the United States and the airmen were entertained with visits to Hollywood.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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SMathersRW55201v1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-17
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
No 63 Course 3 FIS Lulsgate Bottom
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is a group of 49 airmen arranged in 4 rows. Behind is a building. It is captioned 'No 63 course 3 F.I.S. Lulsgate Bottom 14th June-12th July 1944' and underneath 'With some reluctance we became instructors (names on the back)'.
Below is a cartoon of a Lancaster 'JO-Y' and annotated 'to treat everyone the same I shall now proceed to sketch out a Christmas card picture whether you like it or not.
So a Merry Christmas Sis and loads of best wishes and a very Happy New Year. Cheers for now See you soon Your loving Brother Ron'
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ron Mathers
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-07-12
Format
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One b/w photograph and one Christmas card on album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Artwork
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SMathersRW55201v10004
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Somerset
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
1944-07
aircrew
arts and crafts
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/84/9887/PCluettAV1507.2.jpg
d54813087c207dbe82b4687acf0b7436
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/84/9887/PCluettAV1508.2.jpg
b598666edf8251bf823cf57b06825c1f
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
Cluett, Albert Victor
Albert Victor Cluett
A V Cluett
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
68 items. The collection concerns Leading Aircraftman Albert Victor Cluett (1209046, Royal Air Force). After training in 1941/42 as an armourer, he was posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Swinderby and then RAF Skellingthorpe. The collections consists his official Royal Air Force documents, armourer training notebooks, photographs of colleagues, aircraft and locations as well as propaganda items, books in German and Dutch and items of memorabilia.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Albert Victor Cluett's daughter Pat Brown and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Cluett, AV
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Lancaster on dispersal
Description
An account of the resource
Rear quarter view of Lancaster 'VN-P' parked on hard-standing with three rows of bombs in the foreground. On the reverse '50 Sqd Skellingthorpe, about D Day, Yanky [sic] 1000 lb bomb GP, English 500 ", AVC, ND991, 50 Sqd - Flt Refuelling - BDU - 22 MU -'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One colour photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCluettAV1507, PCluettAV1508
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
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.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
50 Squadron
bombing up
dispersal
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Skellingthorpe
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/871/10039/EHobbsFJStorerB4409XX-0001.1.jpg
7eb808e0b31e831c152c66308f4b9230
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/871/10039/EHobbsFJStorerB4409XX-0003.1.jpg
5625ad3607890e7e3c20efbf9736d4d0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/871/10039/EHobbsFJStorerB4409XX-0002.1.jpg
0f508219ae2960dc717ae754f8faee2c
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
Hobbs, Frank
Frank James Hobbs
F J Hobbs
Description
An account of the resource
69 items. The collection concerns 1262633 Flight Sergeant Frank James Hobbs a wireless operator with 630 Squadron, RAF East Kirkby, who was killed while on operations in a Lancaster on 16 March 1944. The collection contains his log book, official and family correspondence, official and personal documents, photographs of aircrew, family and his grave and some items of memorabilia. It also includes correspondence from a French gentleman who was witness to his aircraft crash and who returns recovered personal items belonging to Frank Hobbs. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Barbara Storer and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Frank Hobbs is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/110858/">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
2016-06-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Hobbs, FJ
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] 1944 – 1 [/inserted]
TUESDAY
32, SOUTHCROFT Rd
TOOTING.
S.W.17.
DEAR BARBARA
I WAS EVER SO PLEASED TO RECEIVE YOU LETTER ON ARRIVING HOME FROM WORK TO-NIGHT. SO GLAD TO HEAR THAT YOU AND PAT ARE GOING OUT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AND BEING A GOOD GIRL TO AUNTIE CON.
I BET YOU WERE PLEASED WHEN YOU FOUND THAT STONE WITH THE HOLE IN IT – I THINK YOU HAD BETTER KEEP IT FOR LUCK.
[page break]
I AM QUITE WELL DARLING AND LOOKING AFTER MYSELF. IT’S A GOOD JOB THAT YOU HAVE BEEN AWAY THOUGH AS WE HAVE HAD QUITE A LOT OF WARNINGS.
I HAVEN’T HAD ANY GOOD NEWS FROM DADDY UP TILL NOW DEAR BUT I KEEP ON HOPING AND FEEL SURE WE WILL SOON HEAR NOW.
I AN [sic] JUST GOING TO HELP AUNTIE MARY MAKE OUT BED IN THE SHELTER SO MUST SAY CHEERIO DEAR. GIVE AUNTIE CON, UNCLE RUSTY, PAT AND ANGELA MY LOVE AND KEEP ON BEING GOOD DARLING.
LOTS OF LOVE. FROM MUMMY
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
[page break]
[underlined] From [/underlined]
Burnham-on-Crouch
(June/Sept) 1944 – Sent away when VI’s started
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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Letter from Mrs Hobbs to her daughter
Description
An account of the resource
Letter addressed to daughter Barbara stating that she was pleased to receive letter and hopes Barbara is being a good girl for her auntie. Writes that she is well but they have has a lot of warnings and she is glad her daughter is away. She has heard no news from daddy but keeps on hoping, She concludes stating she is off to make bed in the shelter. Note 'From Burnham-on-Crouch (June/Sept) 1944 - sent away when V1s started'
Creator
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K Hobbs
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Format
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Two page handwritten letter and note
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EHobbsKMStorerB4409XX
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Essex
England--Burnham-on-Crouch
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
1944-07
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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Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/720/10115/ABoutcherFL180318.1.mp3
9866a8ad413bd001e48cd883e9995050
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
Boutcher, Frank Lawrence
F L Boutcher
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Frank Boutcher (b. 1921, 1438838 Royal Air Force). He served as a member of Air Sea Rescue.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Boutcher, FL
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DB: My name is Denise Boneham and I’m talking to Frank Lawrence Boutcher. The date is the 18th of the 3rd ’18. 16.15 hours. In Hadley. Frank, would you like to tell me a little about your life with the RAF in World War Two?
FB: Did you want me to start before the war and go on from there? Yes. Well, when I left school I got work at the Southend Borough Council as a clerk, a very junior clerk and I worked there until the war.
[pause]
I decided I would like to join the Navy and I went along to the Labour Exchange to sign up and they told me where I would have to go and that just at that stage they would wait until I was a little bit older. So, I went back to work and it wasn’t until I was nineteen that I actually joined up and the circumstances were that I decided to go for what was called a Government Training Course where they would train me to be a fitter. And I went to Watford on this Government Training Course and I spent about six months there training to be a fitter. And together with some of the other lads who were in the same place as me we all decided to go, where was it we went to, Pam? In London? Where was it we went to, Pam? To sign up.
PB: Oh, how far have you got?
FB: So, we went to Mill Hill and there was the Naval [cough] Excuse me. Naval recruiting place was upstairs and RAF downstairs so we all trooped up the stairs and we were told by the Navy that basically all they wanted was able seamen for twenty five years which surprised us because there was a war on. So we decided we didn’t want that. We came downstairs and there was an RAF sergeant waiting for us who knew exactly why we were coming down and he signed us up for the RAF. After a short while we received our orders where to go and I went to Cardington and I was there for one day [pause] and went from there to Blackpool. And at Blackpool they signed me up properly together with a lot of others and I think we went to the Winter Gardens and we had an inspection from a female doctor. There were just thousands of us in the Winter Gardens there all lined up and she was going along with this stick and just going like that. And of course, we all passed [laughs] and very shortly afterwards I was transferred to Morecambe. And at Morecambe I went through a five week training course on the sea front marching backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards and doing all those other things that you do on that sort of course. When we finished that we then went around to five different garages in Morecambe in each of which was a different engine, a different type of RAF engine and we were instructed on these engines and what to do to do the fitting of them and so on. And at the end of that five week [pause] I’m sorry, the five week course was the marching and fitness course. I can’t remember how long this particular course was but [coughs] excuse me, but at the end of it we had to, you know, pass a test and that was the end of my time at Morecambe. And when we passed out I was transferred to a training squadron at Gretna Green or just, just close to Gretna Green. Longtown. Just over the border into Scotland and I was there for a short while, not more than a week or two when I was transferred again to the far north of Scotland to Castletown, overlooking Castletown Bay and the water between there and the Orkneys. And this was a fighter squadron with Spitfires and one or two Hurricanes as well. The pilots were nearly all Dutch. There was one black man and as far as I can remember all the rest were Dutch. And I was given a particular Spitfire to service. Obviously, at first there under the instructions of a more senior flight mechanic. Unfortunately, the plane that I serviced went out over Scapa Flow and was lost to enemy action. We never really knew quite how that happened but we were just told that it had gone down and the Dutch pilot was lost. After a period of time there, up there in Castletown the whole squadron was transferred down to Norfolk and we were at an aerodrome called Ludham near Norwich. This was one of the wartime airfields and we spent some time there. I think mainly the, the Dutch pilots were training mostly because I don’t think they saw very much action there. Subsequently, we were transferred. The whole squadron was transferred to Hornchurch and we came down to Hornchurch which was in a terrible mess. It had been bombed so many times by the Germans that it was really almost unusable and we spent most of our time filling bomb craters on the runways there. But we were only there for a week or two and we were then transferred. I can’t remember the name of the satellite but it was a satellite aerodrome on the Sussex coast and our sort of mother aerodrome was Tangmere. I think we were there for some months and I remember them coming along one day and taking out all the machine guns from the wings of the Spitfires and putting in guns and the subsequent job for our squadron was to go over and shoot up enemy convoys in Northern France. And this is what they did. But unfortunately, on this particular occasion on their way back from France over the Channel they were attacked by Messerschmitts and very few of them returned because with these particular guns they were no match for the Germans. So it was decided by the powers that be that the whole squadron would be taken out of the action and we were transferred to just north of Liverpool. And it was there that we were paraded in front of the then royalty of Holland. What his name, Pam?
PB: Prince Bernhard.
FB: Prince Bernhard, who was Queen Wilhelmina’s husband and I well remember him coming round up and down the rows of airmen and, and you know the pilots obviously as well. And that was the end of my time with the Dutch squadron so, I was transferred from there [pause] to Blackpool and I was put on a fitter 2Es course. Fitter 2E which was, if I passed out would be a step up from being a flight mechanic to a fitter. I don’t know if this still occurs. Anyway, I spent some months there being transferred from Blackpool where our lodgings were to, and I can’t remember the name of the aerodrome close by where we got all our instructions and so on. And following that I was transferred to Bomber Command. This took me to Chedburgh in Suffolk which was an aerodrome I think about eight to ten miles west of Bury St Edmunds and I believe it is still there actually, and the planes that I was working on were Short Stirlings. Four-engined great big beasts. Very slow and really not terribly effective in the war but very useful there for training pilots who would go round every night doing circuits and bumps under the lights. So, although everywhere else was blacked out when they were coming around the lights would be put on and they would land on the runways or where ever [laughs] And we would then service them and they would go off up again and do a further number of these circuits and bumps. And so I was there [pause] I think we’re now talking about 1944. June 1944. And whilst I was there I saw an advertisement I suppose you would call it up on the notice board in the NAAFI saying that they required fitters to work on air sea rescue boats. And so I applied for that because I was rather fed up with being mostly in the hangars on the top of a Stirling working on them. And I went, I can’t remember the name of the place but it was on the west coast of Scotland and I do remember that, oh no I’m sorry. Forgive me. Just before this came to fruition I was transferred to a bomber airfield on [pause] what’s the name of that Moor, Pam?
PB: No. No. Sorry, you’ve lost me.
FB: One near York. It’s the name of quite a famous Middle Ages war between, I don’t know, the north and the south or the Protestants and the Catholics or something. But anyway, I was transferred to this aerodrome and I was there working on something I’d never worked on before and I had very little knowledge of and that was Halifaxes. And whereas in, in the past I’d worked exclusively on Rolls Royce inline engines I was now on Halifaxes which were radial engines so I didn’t really know too much about them. But I wasn’t there all that long because after I’d been there a short while one of my jobs was to go up, climb up the inside of the Halifax and push the nozzle for the petrol to go in to start the engines while the pilot and the crew up above were pressing all their different buttons for that. So, we were under their instructions. They would say, you had to press and they would try and turn the engines and [pause] and the whole lot caught fire. So I was stuck up there and I remembered what we’d been told in the very early days of being in the RAF that the quickest way to put out a fire if it wasn’t too bad was to hit it with your hat. So I took off my forage cap and beat at the flames until such time as they were able to get the extinguisher and put the fire out. In the meantime, all the crew had got out and the flight sergeant came up as I came down out of the thing and said, ‘Good lad. You’ve done a good job. I shall be writing to the Air Ministry—’ whoever, and he said, ‘You should be mentioned in dispatches.’ I didn’t really know what that meant [laughs] but it sounded alright. But within a couple of days I was transferred again to the west coast of Scotland on to the Air Sea Rescue Training Centre. It’s quite close to Stranraer. And so we were instructed there on what to do and and how to look after these engines and amongst other things we would go out and run courses around outside in the Irish Sea off the west coast off Ayr. And after a period of time, when we passed all our tests we were transferred to an operational station and the one that I was posted to was Gorleston in Norfolk. And so I took a long train journey all along the North Norfolk coast and arrived finally in Yarmouth where amongst others I was met and taken to a, a lodgings. And almost immediately before we had time to get rid of our clothes and sort ourselves out, they said, ‘Oh, there’s, we think there’s Germans landing on the Norfolk coast.’ And so they whipped us downstairs and on to a truck and they took us up the North Norfolk coast and we, I can’t remember the name of the place but it’s somewhere near where the sea is taking all the houses away off the cliffs at the moment. It’s in that area and we were there most of the night. Eventually the sergeant came back and said, well, ‘It turned out that they were Norwegians and they were escaping from Norway [laughs] So you can all go home.’ And they took us back and we had a sleep and then we prepared for our work in Gorleston. And as we spent a little time in Yarmouth but I can’t remember what for. And then we went to Gorleston which is just down the road from Yarmouth and went on to the boats. And the first boat that I went on I met somebody who we called Knocker. He was the sort of senior fitter and we got on very well. We were very friendly. I say this in view of what’s going to come up a little later on. Anyway, by this time, oh yeah, we [pause] yeah. No. So we, so we went out from Gorleston on what was called a square search. In other words we would go to a place just off the Dutch coast together with a lot of other boats and we would then take our place and wait for the bombers to come back. And if of course one of them came down because an awful lot of them were badly damaged we would be close at hand to be able to pick them up hopefully. We didn’t stay in that position. We used to go from one position to another on a square and take up a position at each. And so for some while this is what we did. The war was coming to an end and eventually I was transferred from, from that boat to Calshot in the Southampton Sound and there I was put on a boat for the Far East because they had a number of these what they called long range MTBs. Motor torpedo boats from the Navy which they’d altered somewhat in order to accommodate us and what we needed to do. Anyway, I was put in the second squadron and the first squadron took off from Calshot to go to the Far East and they got as far as the Eastern Mediterranean, but before we went the war ended. The Japanese, I’m talking about the Japanese war now. That ended and so they decided instead that we could do something else which was to cover the American Air Forces efforts to get their wounded back to the States. And so to do that we took off from Calshot along the Channel and up the North Sea until we got to Aberdeen. And when we got to Aberdeen unfortunately one of the engines went and we spent about three weeks there fitting an old engine out and waiting for another one to come. Putting that in. There were two of us boats and the other one went on from Aberdeen. We followed it a week or so later and up to the Caledonian Canal at Inverness and down through from there from the east side of Scotland to the west side of Scotland all the way down through the Caledonian Canal until we reached Oban. We spent a day there and then we went out through the islands to the Isle of Islay and this became our station. And our job basically was to cover the Eastern Atlantic so that if one of these American aircraft, which were mostly Liberators and very dependable actually but if they did come down we would be there or somewhere near to pick them up. But on, but fortunately we never had to do that and finally, six months after the war ended they decided we could go back to base. And so we went down from the Western Isles of Scotland, down through Londonderry and we came out and round to Larne near Belfast. Then across to Douglas, Isle of Man. Then North Wales. Then South Wales. And then around Land’s End to Torquay. No. To Newlyn. Newlyn to Torquay. Torquay, finally back to Calshot and Calshot is where I ended my days. Not very well [laughs] because they really didn’t have anything for us to do and I remember the sergeant said to me, among others, ‘Get on that boat.’ And we, we were shunted along the line of various odd boats that for some reason the RAF had got and I was dumped on one of these. And I remember in the middle of the, my time there during that day looking up and seeing the Queen Mary coming back up the Calshot water, absolutely enormous against this little, little boat that I was in. And that’s about it really. I was, I was finished at Calshot and came back home and I went back to my more prosaic life at the council at Southend. Well, now the council had said that anybody employed there who had gone off to the war could come back and they would find them a job of some means. And so I was transferred almost immediately to the Building Inspector’s Office of the Borough Engineers Department and there I trained to become and did become a building inspector at the time that Southend was being built up very rapidly. Now, why did I say that? Not rapidly. Housing was on licence and I think we were licensed by the government to build twenty five houses in the area which for towns that size was nothing. But there was a lot of work and this was really all building repairs of bomb damaged houses so we were pretty busy and I learned quite a lot there. And eventually, and finally after a lot of training I went and [pause] to the Institution of Municipal Engineers and passed their exams and I became a licensed building inspector. And I was then given an area of Southend on which to check all building work that went on. And this was alright for quite some while but finally I decided that I’d rather do the building myself and so I became, I decided to become a builder. During my time at the Building Inspector’s Office I met Pam. I think she was, yes she was already working there. She had come back from the Wrens and she’d got back there just before me and we met and married. And that was our life after that wasn’t it?
PB: Tea?
FB: Tea. Well, I must say that I was fairly bored when I was on the bombers. I was really mostly in the hangars at Chedburgh repairing or doing servicing on engines which meant you were way up in the air because they were massive things. So you’d climb up there and work on them. On the Spitfires it was much more exciting of course because firstly they were easier to work on. Most, most of our servicing of the, they were Rolls Royce Merlin engines. They were really good engines and I really enjoyed working on them and of course you did it mostly standing up on the ground really because it was just about the right, about the right height. I did like it on the boats. I enjoyed that. I think after the first time of being seasick I enjoyed it after that but of course they were fast and light boats and they used to zip along and go up over a wave and then crash down and so you know it was quite a, quite a quite a lot of movement really. And we were back down in the engine room at the back so, I should say stern really. By coincidence the chap who I worked with down there, his name was Nock. I didn’t know his first name. We all called him Knocker. I lost touch with him after I’d left and so I decided that I’d like to find him and try and get in touch with him again and I did try but he said that he didn’t really want to be associated again. He, he would rather forget about the war and everything that it meant and so I lost touch with him. And I suppose about a year ago or something like that I was contacted by his son. Now, his son quite the opposite. He wanted really quite a good contact. And so what I’m going to be able to show you shortly is nearly all what he has sent. Well, all of it is what he sent me really. Pictures that, you know are back from the war. So I’ve got a record now, of all the stuff here is from those wartime days. But his father’s dead. Been dead a few years now. I don’t think he was much older than me really but I’m getting on a bit myself. I’m ninety six now so [laughs] I guess he’d probably be a hundred perhaps. I don’t know. But it’s been very interesting actually to have seen so much of what, you know, his father had obviously taken home with him. And so, although I’ve never seen the man it’s possible that I will do. He lives up in Lincolnshire so he’s a fair way away but I may see him someday. But I did put him off earlier on when he said about coming to see me because I’ve not really been very well this last year and I didn’t really feel like, you know going in to all that with him.
[recording paused]
Down to in to the village of Chedburgh sometimes in the evening and watch a film and on this particular occasion we were all sat there and they said, ‘There’s been a crash and it’s close by so we’re turning you all out.’ And we all went outside and there was one of these RAF planes. I don’t know which one it was but it was probably one of the Stirlings that had gone round and crashed close by. Unfortunately, not very nice. We weren’t able to get anybody out. It went up in flames. The other thing to tell you about was the fact that I was able to get home from Chedburgh. And in order to do that we had bikes so that we could get around the circuit more easily and we were allowed, when we had a leave to which I did get from there occasional weekend leave and we would get on our bikes and cycle from Chedburgh down to Sudbury. And the main road of Sudbury you probably know it goes through the town and then it goes up a steep hill and in to Essex. We used to wait more or less at the bottom of that hill and then hope to get picked up and most of the lorries or vans that went by would be on their way to London and I was particularly interested in getting to Brentwood where my parent’s home was and so that’s what I used to do occasionally. I think, oh this was when I was working on the Halifaxes. I didn’t really have any knowledge of Halifax engines and I was only transferred there for a few days before I was retransferred on to the air sea rescue section. But during the period that I was there the thing I had to do was to climb up inside the undercarriage of the Halifax, up on the wheel and up in to the underside and push the [pause] what do you call it? [pause] Oh, dear. I can’t think of it. [pause] Anyway, it was you pushed this and this squirted the petrol up into the engine so that the pilot could start it by pressing the button for the ignition up in the cockpit. So, he would press and he would shout down to me, well through the intercom I suppose that he was ready and I would then do that. And so I was doing this and doing this and doing it and I kept on doing it and really and truly the whole of the undercarriage area became filled with petrol fumes and somewhere must have been an open wire or something because it all went up in flames. And it can’t have been all of it I suppose because I remember they said that if if you had a fire like that you could deal with it with your hat. So, I took off my cap and sort of stabbed at the flames with that. And I think this must have held it off enough for the ground crew down below to get fire extinguishers working and and put it out. And when I came down the flight sergeant said, ‘You’ve done a good job, lad.’ Or something like that [laughs] ‘And I shall be reporting this to commanding officer and you’ll hear more about this. In fact, you’ll probably get mentioned in dispatches.’ But I never heard any more because I was transferred a day or two after that to the air sea rescue training place in Scotland and that was the end of that.
[recording paused]
Well, it’s quite funny really. We weren’t allowed. The commanding officer of Chedburgh decided to stop airmen swimming in the big reservoir there that was used for water for the base. But the Wrens, Wrens, the WAAFs were allowed to continue swimming so it became a sort of females only allowed and he stopped all of us. And so, when it came to payday we used to be paid out on the airfield on the, on the circuit and when we were all stood there on parade your name was called. The first one didn’t move so they went to the second one. He didn’t move either. And this, nobody had said we are not going to do this but it just happened and a result of that was that this was of course strictly against the orders of the CO and he got [pause] I wish I could remember his name but he was a famous fighter pilot. You can’t remember his name, Pam?
PB: Not offhand.
FB: No. And he had obviously gone up a few ranks and he had become the commanding officer of our [pause] the drome that ran several other dromes and he came down and of course he was a very nice chap and he knew exactly what the trouble was and he put it right straight away. And I mean everybody wanted to do what he wanted anyway because he’d got such a name and so it all worked out in the end. That’s it, I think.
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 Frank Lawrence Boutcher
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Denise Boneham
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABoutcherFL180318
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:48:02 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Boutcher worked as a junior clerk for Southend Borough Council before the war. He wanted to join the Royal Navy but they only required able seamen on a long commission, so he joined the RAF instead to train as an engine fitter. After passing out he was posted to a training squadron at Longtown, after which he was transferred to RAF Castletown to work on Spitfires. He recalls one aeroplane that he serviced was lost to enemy action and its pilot was lost. He passed his Fitter 2E course and was posted to RAF Chedburgh in Bomber Command to work on Stirlings. Whilst working on Halifaxes at another aerodrome an engine caught fire and he beat the flames with his hat, until he put the fire out with an extinguisher. He was posted to the Air Sea Rescue Training Centre eventually going to Calshot in Hampshire to work on rescue boats where they would be positioned to be able to offer immediate assistance to struggling aircraft returning to the UK.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Suffolk
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
air sea rescue
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
RAF Calshot
RAF Chedburgh
Spitfire
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/10640/OHolmesGH187788-161021-010001.2.jpg
de1851a7fca07931e3f22c1cc2618288
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/10640/OHolmesGH187788-161021-010002.2.jpg
47a8678f838904a72ddb22fa43784237
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
Holmes, George
George Henry Holmes
G H Holmes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Holmes, GH
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer George Holmes (b. 1922, 1579658, 187788 Royal Air Force) his log book, records of operation, newspaper cuttings and photographs of personnel. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 9, 50 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-21
2017-01-14
Rights
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[underlined] SORTIE RECORD SHEET [/underlined]
Number 187788 Rank P/O Name HOLMES Aircrew Category WOP/AIR.
PRESENT GROUP NUMBER 5 SQUADRON 83 POSTED IN w.e.f. 2.4.44
[underlined] PREVIOUS RECORD [/underlined]
[underlined] TOUR No. [/underlined] 1. [underlined] IN GROUP NUMBER [/underlined] 5 [underlined] UNIT OR SQUADRON NUMBER [/underlined] 50
SORTIES COMPLETED [underlined] TYPE OF AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
2nd Pilot 1st Pilot Other categories than Pilot LANC III
[underlined] Date commenced : [/underlined] 3.6.44
[underlined] Date finished : [/underlined]
[underlined] TOUR No. [/underlined] [underlined] IN GROUP NUMBER [/underlined] [underlined] UNIT OR SQUADRON NUMBER [/underlined]
SORTIES COMPLETED [underlined] TYPE OF AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
2nd Pilot 1st Pilot Other categories than Pilot
[underlined] Date commenced : [/underlined]
[underlined] Date finished : [/underlined]
[page break]
(*14892-13366) Wt. 18766-Q1152 20M 6/44 T.S. 700
(*15456-13366) Wt. 35557-Q2668 60M 10/44 T.S. 700 [underlined] CURRENT RECORD [/underlined]
TOUR No. IN SQUADRON No.
DATE 1 TYPE OF AIRCRAFT 2 AIRCRAFT LETTER 3 SORTIE No. 4 TARGET 5 6 REMARKS, including reasons for :- (i) Failure to complete sortie; (ii) Ceasing to operate in, or leaving, current squadron (e.g. missing, posted, killed, etc.) 7
(1) 3.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 1 (5) FERME D’URVILLE (6) C (7) 9 SQDN
(1) 5.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 2 (5) ST PIERRE DUMONT (6) C (7) 9 SQDN
(1) 6.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 3 (5) ARGENTAN (6) C (7) 9 SQDN
(1) 8.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 4 (5) RENNES (6) C (7) 9 SQDN
(1) 10.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 5 (5) ORLEANS (6) C (7) 9 SQDN
(1) 21.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 6 (5) GELSENKIRCHEN (6) C (7) 9 SQDN
(1) 23.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 7 (5) LIMOGES (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 29.6.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 8 (5) BEAUVOIR (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 23.7.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 9 (5) KIEL (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 24.7.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 10 (5) STUTTGART (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 30.7.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 11 (5) CAHAGNES (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 1.8.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 12 (5) MONT CANDON (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 2.8.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 13 (5) BOIS DE CASSON (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 5.8.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 14 (5) ST LEU D’ESSERENT (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
(1) 14.8.44 (2) LANC III (3) - (4) 15 (5) BREST (6) C (7) 50 Sqdn
POSTED FROM THIS SQUADRON ON (Date) TO
If the sheet is completed in respect of a pilot, insert a star in column (4) against sorties as second pilot.
In column (6) insert C if sortie was completed.
NC if sortie was not completed.
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
George Holmes sortie record sheet 9 and 50 Squadrons
Description
An account of the resource
A Sortie Record Sheet dated from 3 June 1944 to 14 August 1944. Relating to Pilot Officer George Holmes’ service as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner with 9 and 50 Squadrons. The sheet records 15 operations, seven with 9 Squadron, and the other eight with 50 Squadron. All of the operations are recorded as being on Lancaster Mk 3s.
Format
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Two page form document filled in
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHolmesGH187788-161021-01
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
1944-07
1944-08
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-07-30
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France--Argentan
France--Brest
France--Caumont-L'Eventé
France--Creil
France--Isigny-sur-Mer
France--Le Mont-Saint-Michel
France--Limoges
France--Rennes
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Stuttgart
France--Orléans
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
50 Squadron
9 Squadron
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
tactical support for Normandy troops
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/735/10735/ACayhillE180208.2.mp3
fae5c508c5967105b298ae8a271038de
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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Cayhill, Edward
E Cayhill
Edward Cahill
E Cahill
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Edward Cayhill (1921 -2021, 157619 Royal Air Force) He worked as a civilian Meteorological officer at RAF Scampton before joining the RAF and flying as an observer on Meteorological flights with 519 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Cayhill, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Edward Cayhill. The interview is taking place at Mr Cayhill’s home in North Wales on the 8th of February 2018.
EC: Correct.
JM: Mr Cayhill, Edward, please would you tell us a little bit about your family background first of all?
EC: I was born in Scotland in, near Motherwell. Motherwell, on the 11th of August 1921. A big family. A family of eight of us and I was the eldest son. Therefore, in Scotland the idea was that the eldest son would be encouraged financially and otherwise to further his education and so I was, my father said, ‘We’re going to try and get you in to university.’ So I worked hard at my studies and [pause] in 1938 my father died in Scotland. A big family. 1938. So my, and I applied for a place at Glasgow University and I was accepted for a place. However, it all came to fruition that there was no way in my family set up that I could continue with university. The war was imminent. We had advisors, advisories, advisors coming around the schools suggesting jobs for future careers and so on and I went up to the Civil Service place in Edinburgh and had a, take up there and I was accepted as a technical assistant grade three in the Meteorological Office. Now, as the days went by things were heating up. The war was about to start. I [pause] stop here. Can it be stopped?
JM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
EC: I was sent to the Royal Air Force Abbotsinch as an observer.
JM: Yeah.
EC: A weather observer, and worked there for a couple of years. And this is, I’ve got, I was very keen on getting airborne so I was flying with any chance I could get. And that went on for a couple of years. For instance I went up to Scone Airport, Perth as an observer teaching newly entrants and aircrew lectures. And then I spent about probably three years doing various jobs around Scotland and then from that stage on I [pause] my next move was to Aldergrove in Northern Ireland, and in Northern Ireland I trained [pause] Oh, I’m sorry about this.
[recording paused]
EC: 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove in July [unclear]. Now, that was when I’d left the Meteorological Office in Scampton where I was. Posted there. I was still a civilian and my job was to brief the crews who at that stage, 1674, at that stage Guy Gibson who was the CO of the Dambusting squadron they had been recently, on my arrival they had just recently done the bouncing bomb. So I was a civilian still then and, but the Squadron, 617 Squadron continued similar training. That is about the bouncing bomb, and that meant low level. When I say low level I mean low level. So, I would come in each day and brief the crews. And now, the bouncing bomb having done, Guy Gibson was still there and the squadron which included Flight Lieutenant Allsebrook continued doing similar training when the training area was [pause] we would take off from Scampton and we would fly low level. When I say low level, low level up across Yorkshire into Scotland and then on the road to the Isles. That’s by Tummel and Loch Rannoch, out there and I had cadged a trip and my position was the one that the pilot was Allsebrook, Flight Lieutenant Allsebrook, but he said, ‘Well, my mid-upper gunner won’t be coming so you can have the mid-upper seat.’ So I, low level all the way up there and it was really low level and we came through the valleys with the idea of a drop then. However, down at very low level over Scotland there was a God almighty bang and wind came through the aircraft all over the place and silence for a while and full bore climbing and we were on our way back home. And then eventually, this is your, ‘This is your captain speaking. I want you to [pause] what happened back there, we hit a rabbit. We hit a rabbit. And what did we hit? I want all the crew to answer this,’ [laughs] So everyone sitting up there, ‘You hit a rabbit.’ ‘That’s right.’ So, on the way back, now the idea of this rabbit business was, what he had said, we were not on intercom with them, he had said to the bomb aimer who was down there and was covered in blood and feathers and a bird strike, it was a bird strike and so the skipper said to the bomb aimer, ‘Take up all those big feathers and get rid of them. And all that gory mushy messy stuff put in our sandwich bag.’ In those days it was brown paper bags. ‘Put them in there and who knows. That could well be a rabbit.’ And so anyway [laughs] now every squadron I believe, bomber squadron had a line. They called them line books, and the line book was tall stories usually, and this story went into the, I’m sure this is still in the book [laughs] And so I cadged as many trips as I could while I was there. And then I was transferred on to other things and I went on to the flying side of it.
JM: That’s lovely. Could I just ask you a little bit to go back a little bit in that sense? You were saying that you were doing the meteorological briefing for the crews.
EC: Correct.
JM: Where did you get the information, the technical information from? Was it from the station or did it go through a network?
EC: A network. It all came in on the printer. Various sources.
JM: Right.
EC: We had, well information was short but we got a lot of stuff on the teleprinter.
JM: And did you have to make your own synoptic charts up, or did you simply have the job of relaying what somebody else had done somewhere else?
EC: No. We would automatically draw the charts up.
JM: You would.
EC: Yes. That was something I was also trained in.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes. So you were strong in maths and science at university level to do that work.
EC: Not, not really. No. Most of the basic stuff came through on the printer.
JM: Right.
EC: You plotted the charts.
JM: Right. Right.
EC: You analysed the charts, you know and —
JM: Yes. I mean the information that you were being given. The pressure, winds, whatever. Where was that coming from because you need information from all over the place but you didn’t have it from Europe? You only had it from the Atlantic.
EC: Well, from Bracknell.
JM: From Bracknell.
EC: From Bracknell. It was Meteorological Office Headquarters.
JM: At Bracknell. Still is. Or was.
EC: What information they had.
JM: Yeah.
EC: And who, the out stations had received it.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Used it to their best advantage.
JM: Yes. Yes. That’s very interesting. So you do, you do your, you make up the weather forecast based on the information that you were given.
EC: Correct.
JM: And then you go in to the briefing room to brief the crews before the sortie.
EC: That’s right.
JM: Did you, were you there for the whole of the briefing or simply for your bit of it?
EC: Oh no, we stayed on there and the others did their bit. Bomb aimer and —
JM: Yes. Yeah.
EC: The CO and all the rest of it.
JM: What was the atmosphere like if they were going out on a bombing sortie? Do you remember the atmosphere in the, in the briefing room?
EC: They were very [pause] they didn’t make any, there was no fuss. It was a job to be done. That was my understanding of it. We all did our bit. The wireless operator. The bomb aimer would say his bit. Each expert as it were to be known would say his bit and then the CO would then say, ‘Well, ok boys. That’s it now. Off we go.’ Da, da, da, da, you know.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And when they came back after the sortie it was quite likely that the weather forecast over the target wasn’t very accurate.
EC: Well, quite right.
JM: How did you react to that?
EC: Well, it was you debriefed and you’d, there was a lot of jocularity, you know, ‘I’m back Jocky,’ [laughs] you know, but we took that as part, part of the job.
JM: Right. Right. So we have you there at Scampton in the summer of 1943 after the dams raid. Gibson —
EC: Immediately after. Yes.
JM: Yeah. Gibson was still around. Did you speak to him? Did you meet him at all?
EC: Yes, well I briefed him.
JM: You did.
EC: He’d be at the briefing. He was always at the briefing.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: He’d kind of retire, you know but he was there.
JM: Yes. Did you form any impressions of, of Wing Commander Gibson? He has had so much publicity, I wondered if having met him if you had a view of him.
EC: He was a cool, cool, cool, cool customer.
JM: Was he?
EC: He didn’t seem to get excited about anything. ‘Oh yes. Is that so?’ You know.
JM: Just like that, yes.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yes. When he, when he left the squadron he was replaced by Squadron Leader George Holden who had come down from 4 Group. I wonder if you remember Holden at all?
EC: No. That doesn’t ring a bell.
JM: No. No. Are there any of the other 617 crews that you do remember as characters, or did you have much to do with them?
EC: Not really. Well, I was a civilian, you know. I lived out and travelled in.
JM: Right.
EC: To do my briefings.
JM: Yes.
EC: Plot my charts and do my job and envying them. I wanted to be a flyer. Be a flyer, as well.
JM: You did.
EC: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: So —
JM: But so there’s none of them that stand out.
EC: There’s no. I —
JM: As people you particularly knew, knew well.
EC: No. My memory doesn’t recall.
JM: No. Do you remember if they actually talked about the dams raid in the summer after the raid had taken place? Did they talk about it at all? What they had done. The crews.
EC: Well, each one had a debrief. You were debriefed. They were debriefed.
JM: Yes. I meant more informally. Did they chat about it? Was it something that they knew what they’d done informally? You can’t remember.
EC: I can’t remember. No. Sorry.
JM: No. That’s ok. No. Ok. Were you there in September of 1943? Had you, were you still on the station then?
[pause]
EC: I’ve got my flight with Allsebrook was in May ’43. I’ve got that. And then I’ve got the 18th [pause] Well, I don’t know where, the 18th ’43 [unclear] Flight Lieutenant Sanders and then September ’43 the Ventura, [unclear]
[pause]
EC: So, all I’ve got here is that on the 5th 1943.
JM: 5th of —
EC: 5th of, that was when the [pause] sorry, sorry May ’43. Fifth. It was the fifth month.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t know about the date. That was the Lancaster with Allsebrook.
JM: Yes.
EC: Ok.
JM: Yes.
EC: And that was described here as low level training. Scampton, Fort William, Stranraer, back. That’s the one I‘ve just talked to you about.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes.
EC: Now, in August I would be, would not have been in that area.
JM: Right.
EC: Would not have. In August. September [pause] I was posted up to Northern Ireland.
JM: Right.
EC: And then in, here’s something specific. Posted to Number 2 Observer’s AFU Millom. Ah. This was for the training to become an air met observer.
JM: Yeah. Millom is —
EC: That’s a jump.
JM: Millom is in Cumbria, isn’t it?
EC: Yes. In Cumbria.
JM: Yes.
EC: And it was on that one that we did the nav course. Air gunning — there was a gunnery range over on the Isle of Man. And we did a navigation course which we did in the, flying on Ansons.
JM: Yes. Can I just —
EC: And just come back.
JM: Can I just take you back a little while there. I’m interested to find out what it was that persuaded you to join the RAF. You were already making a major contribution to the war effort as a, as a meteorological officer. Why did you join up?
EC: Because I wanted to go on flying. I particularly, I was surrounded by these in uniform and flying. I wanted to fly. And the only way I was going to get into flying, they’d started the Meteorological Reconnaissance Flights and the training was, the initial one was Millom. We went up to Millom and, well I would go, that’s when I went back, went into uniform at that change. But the base was Millom and we were trained in navigation, air gunnery, quite a few of the essential things.
JM: Yes.
EC: Training then from Millom.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t know if that’s any help to you.
JM: It is. Do you remember very much about the training that you were given in terms of navigation and observations? Do you remember that at all?
EC: Yes. We had lectures on the navigation.
JM: Yes.
EC: And we had when we were airborne in the Anson we were given tasks like fly from here to [pause] it was almost invariably you would fly over ‘til you saw the, the tower at Liverpool and you would then go up to Scotland. Down to Stranraer.
JM: Yeah.
EC: In to the Stranraer area.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: And there would be a qualified navigator with you, you know to [unclear]
JM: Yes.
EC: And so on. But it’s becoming vague now. It’s very complicated. Not vague but complicated.
JM: So how long was the training that you went through at that stage?
EC: [pause] the whole thing probably lasted about six weeks.
JM: Really? Yes.
EC: That was to four to six weeks.
JM: Yes.
EC: I would think.
JM: Yes.
EC: It was a kind of crash course.
JM: Right.
EC: A crash course.
JM: And where were you sent after that, please?
EC: There is something here [pause] I’ve got my glasses [pause] Posted to Number 2 Observers AFU, Millom in June 1944. That’s, that’s a fact. Training flights were in Ansons for air experience and map reading. Second navigator to first navigator and the area’s bounded by Bardsey Island, Inishtrahull, Isla, Millom and down to Birmingham. And then I was posted to 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove. Ok.
JM: Northern Ireland.
EC: In July 1944.
JM: Right.
EC: So, I was then in to flying.
JM: So you —
EC: I told you I was probably not much help.
JM: It’s wonderful. It’s very valuable. So you were at the Heavy Conversion Unit.
EC: Yes.
JM: And were you training to fly Halifaxes or Lancasters?
EC: We were then in Halifaxes.
JM: Halifaxes. Right.
EC: Not Lancasters.
JM: No. No. So where did you, where were you posted after you’d finished at the Heavy Conversion Unit?
EC: I think I was posted to 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove in 1944. Training. These were the training flights. Halifax air observer flights in the base area. Stornoway. Rockall. Climbs to eighteen thousand feet. And then I was, in September ‘44 I was posted to 519 Squadron at Skitten. So I’d done all my training.
JM: Yes.
EC: And then they had opened up these weather flights.
JM: Right.
EC: Weather reconnaissance.
JM: Right.
EC: And I got on to the weather reconnaissance. And that was, that’s my life since that date. September ’44. I’ve been mostly on weather reconnaissance. I’ve got, this is all small stuff which is you don’t mind me just opening that.
JM: No. Please.
EC: There’s my log book which I kept up to date just to [pause] back to [pause] The research flight, Farnborough, that’s it. [unclear] What we did at the Met Research Flight, Farnborough, I flew, we flew Halifaxes and Mosquitoes.
JM: Right.
EC: On a bit of research.
JM: Yes.
EC: Flying as high as we could go.
JM: So the high altitude meteorological research.
EC: Yes.
JM: Yes.
EC: Met research. It was called Met Research Flight, Farnborough.
JM: Right.
EC: So I was on that. What we had was, we had Halifaxes and Mosquitoes. Two pilots, one engineer. The pilots took alternate Mosquito. I was, every Mosquito flight I would be on that and we would fly as high as we could until we stalled. You know, you’d think [unclear] so and like and there were two pilots [Thomason] Thorne. Thorne. [Thomason]. These are all the 1st 2nd 5th 9th 12th 15th 20th at Farnborough. So on and so on and then it was all authenticated by the, signed by the officer commanding M RAF. So this was all authenticated and then still at Farnborough in January 1950.
JM: So you were staying, stayed on in the RAF after the war was over.
EC: No. I was flying as a civilian then.
JM: You were back as a civilian.
EC: Back as a civilian.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: And I used to, like with [Thomason] and Thorne I used to fly with them on the Met research flights in uniform. But then I was demobbed.
JM: Yes. I see. Tell me about flying in the Mosquito.
EC: Beautiful. Beautiful. My position, it was naturally a two seater. Pilot on the left, met observer on the right with my judgement on all the weather and then when we came down from, we’d go as high as possible. You can see by the heights. I always put the heights in. The Halifaxes went up to ten thousand feet. The Mosquito to forty thousand feet. A fifteen thousand foot descent. There’s mostly, like in February 1950 I had, on the 2nd I was airborne on a Mosquito. On the 7th I was airborne in a Mosquito. On the 8th, on the 13th on the 14th 15th 16th 21st 21st 22nd. Climbed to, well climbed to forty thousand feet or as high as you could go. Thirty eight thousand five hundred. And then when we came down to fifteen thousand feet my job was then finished and the pilot, I knew him, we were great pals, pilots. He said, ‘Do you know, I’ve always thought this, the Mosquito could do a loop.’ So at fifteen thousand I had finished with the meteorological stuff so I just strapped myself down and said, ‘Ok.’ So he said, he put the nose down, [unclear] feet and he flew it back and came from out there and stalled out.
JM: Oh, it stalled at the top did it? Yes.
EC: But oh, but that I told you I was not —
JM: No. It’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. I’m interested, when you were making the observations on these weather research flights were you making them with symbols in a notebook of [pause] What was it that you were actually recording?
EC: We had the, a special form actually.
JM: Right.
EC: A meteorological form.
JM: Right.
EC: For each position.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t think I’ve got one. But anyway yeah there were special forms.
JM: And were you, were you looking at instruments that were giving you recordings of outside air temperature or whatever it happened to be?
EC: Both. Instruments and weather and visual.
JM: Right. Instruments and visual observations.
EC: And visual.
JM: Were being made by you.
EC: Stratocumulus, cirrus.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: Above us or below us.
JM: Yes. Yes. Operating at that height, forty thousand feet. That was quite exceptional in those days.
EC: Oh, yes. Well, the highest —
JM: Did you have any special kit or special training for operating at that altitude?
EC: No.
JM: No.
EC: No. No special training.
JM: No special —
EC: No special pressure suits.
JM: Nothing like that at all.
EC: No. No.
JM: So just normal RAF flying equipment.
EC: That’s right. Come out in the morning, go to the parachute section, draw your parachute out, and the truck would be there to take you out. Then you would go to the met office and have a briefing and then off you go.
JM: Off you go. Was it cold at that height?
EC: Well, you had heating in there.
JM: You had eating in the aircraft.
EC: Oh yeah. Yeah.
JM: Good.
EC: Oh, very cold. Very cold.
JM: Yes.
EC: Just trying to get something that might help you [pause] No. I’d just be repeating myself. So, what I did, I was in the met office. A civilian until the Scampton episode. And from then on I was going in to uniform.
JM: Yes.
EC: And they had started these meteorological reconnaissance flights.
JM: Yes.
EC: And I got in to them.
JM: Right. So you operated in Halifaxes and Mosquitoes in a meteorological —
EC: In a meteorological. What happened there was, when did the Mosquitoes come in? [pause] Well, of course the war ended. Where does that put us?
JM: ‘45.
EC: ’45, the war ended. So, what did I do then? Oh, the war ended and I thought, ah this is going to confuse still further but this is my memory. Ok. The war ended and I thought, oh no. I want to emigrate to America. Get away from all this. Get over to America. So I thought where’s the money? You’ve got no money. So I attended a Civil Service Commission and anyway, I got in to the Met Office as a technical assistant grade 2, I think it was. Whatever it was. And they said, ‘Now, what we want you to do now is they’re [pause] they’re going to, we have discovered we have a jet stream in the northern latitudes but there has been some suspicion on some very high flying aircraft that there’s one in the Middle East somewhere.’ That was it. ‘So what we’re doing we’re sending you out there,’ And there was, the war ended boom boom and there were pilots by the hundred. No jobs. Aircraft by the hundred. No purpose. So they said. ‘What we’ll do is we’ll send you out to Habbaniya in Iraq and we’ll send [pause] — the RAF have promised a squadron of —’ [pause] that was it, ‘Of Mosquitoes for this investigation.’
JM: Right.
EC: For the Middle East.
JM: Right.
EC: Jet. And you’ll be the kind of organiser and so on.
JM: Yes.
EC: So I said, ‘Ok, that’s fine.’ Maybe I’ll save some money while I’m out there. So, I went out there and, you know I was told to report to a Squadron Leader Shellard who was the officer in charge of RAF Habbaniya which is on the Euphrates about fifty miles from Bagdad. And so I got off the aircraft, went into the flight lieutenant. He said, ‘Oh, you’re, you’re Cayhill, are you?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ve got good news for you and bad news for you.’ He said, ‘First of all your flight won’t, you’re flying won’t come to anything because the Mosquitoes that came out, there was no hangar space for them so they were moored on the airfield on the bund. Open air.’ June July temperatures. The aircraft wood warped.
JM: Warped. Yes.
EC: And they were declared unfit for flying.
JM: Oh.
EC: So, I was [pause] but so Shellard said, ‘Well, look we’ve got problems here. We’ve got a war going on in the Far East and the French are getting kicked right, left and centre and they are flying the evacuees, injured back home and they’re coming up through one of my wee stations down in Shaibah.’ The north end of the Persian Gulf, and so, ‘There’s no forecaster down there. There’s just the assistant and passing stuff. It would be better if we had a forecaster down there so you’re going down to — ’ That’s when I, that’s before I went out on this job I had sent all my gear including my logbook out to, and it was as the ship came around to come up to Basra it ran aground in the Persian Gulf.
JM: And that’s when —
EC: Five hundred, so the papers said, five hundred armed natives rushed on board and pilfered all they could except things like bulldozers and things like that.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: And so I went down to Shaibah and then I had to spend my time there. And anyway, sorry we’re diversing and we don’t —
JM: We are but that’s fine. Again, if I may I’d like to take you a little bit back because you were telling us about operating the Halifax on the weather reconnaissance flight.
EC: Oh course.
JM: Could you tell us a little bit more about how that would, how often you’d go up? Where you’d go to? How did that actually work please?
EC: We had fixed routes which you would select on, the meteorologist would select on the day and then the routine would be, you’d got the full crew, the met observer, depending what kind of aircraft. I started off on Hudsons. Twin engine. Now, the twin engine we don’t, that was from Wick. When I was at Wick. But before that it was the Halifaxes. Now, in the Halifaxes there were fixed routes which were there in black and white.
JM: Yes.
EC: So you would fly out and do low level for part of the way. Every fifty nautical miles you would make a weather report. You would climb, clamber through bomb bays and whatever up to the wireless operator and he would send that message back to base.
JM: Right.
EC: And then after so many miles out you would do a climb to five hundred millibars. That’s about eighteen thousand feet. Now, we were very primitive in those days. The idea was you would climb to maybe, it was in millibars but call it two thousand feet and you would then circle there to allow the temperatures to regularise. Steady up. And then you would take the temperatures, the dry bulb, and wet bulb, and put that in. Always in code for that part of the war you know and so on. So you had to then encrypt it and then you climb another roughly eighteen hundred feet, level off, allow the temperatures to level off, take the readings, code them up, go up to the wireless operator to send them out, and then up to five hundred odd. Now you do two climbs to five hundred millibars, eighteen thousand feet and then you’re coming back home doing a kind of triangular somewhat penetration. A long way out. A long way back.
JM: That’s very interesting and there’s a couple of things that you’ve said that I want to clarify for the, for the recording. You were climbing to heights in millibars where there would be a certain known pressure.
EC: That’s right.
JM: So you weren’t climbing in feet. You were climbing to a pressure level.
EC: You had the altimeter beside you as well.
JM: Yes. Yes. That’s good. The second thing is that the information was sent back as you were recording it via the wireless operator in code so that if the Germans were listening they wouldn’t be given —
EC: That’s right.
JM: A free weather forecast.
EC: That’s right there was a decode book. You know it was book. Decode book.
JM: Yes.
EC: Number so and so, page so and so line so and so.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes. Were your, were your crews, the pilots and the other members of the crew were they perhaps men who had done a tour of duty on bombing operations or had then been specially selected for that sort of work?
EC: They weren’t specially selected. No.
JM: No.
EC: No. They all had so many flying hours in, on different jobs.
JM: Yes. Yes. So they might have been men resting between tours of duty.
EC: Could be. Yes.
JM: For them that would have been a fairly easy task I imagine.
EC: No problems for them. Yeah.
JM: No. Was there any risk of you being intercepted by long range enemy fighters?
EC: There was always that risk on, on all these flights were given names. Code names. The one I started talking about, the one over the Atlantic that was Business.
JM: Right.
EC: The one over the North Sea starting was Rhombus. The one that went straight north out into the Arctic —
JM: Yeah.
EC: Was Recipe. The one down from Cornwall was Epicure. Epicure. They all had. The one, the one from Gibraltar. I didn’t do the Gibraltar one. The one at Gibraltar was, what was the one down there? Just missing for the moment.
JM: Yeah. That’s fascinating. So we had these separate routes identified by code names.
EC: That’s right.
JM: Taking weather aircraft north, south, east and west and you could, you could be ordered to fly on any of those depending on your duties.
EC: That was done at briefing.
JM: That was done at briefing.
EC: Yeah. The weather forecast. They’d see the weather forecast. They’d see that was a pretty blank area now. We need some information. Do that route.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: On the, on the Recipe which was taking off from Wick originally and then we moved to a wee place further north, would you believe it? To Skitten. Took us far north because at that time you had the Germans at the Dutch coast err the —
JM: Norwegian.
EC: The Norwegian coast, and they would come out and of course you had the convoys coming from Liverpool. The sea convoys from Liverpool going all the way around there to Murmansk to feed the Russians.
JM: Yes.
EC: And they were open targets. The Jerries used to come out there and —
JM: Yes. Yes, yes. You mentioned the Jetstream earlier on. I think I’m right in saying that’s a narrow band of high velocity air.
EC: That’s correct.
JM: When did you first get to hear about the presence of the Jetstream?
EC: Well, it was, you mean the second one? The one down in —
JM: No. The concept of the Jetstream. The fact that it existed over, over north west Europe.
EC: I wouldn’t like to say then, I did give you a date I think. I would suggest that like airlines flying to America and so on the, it was very rarely. They wouldn’t, at one time they wouldn’t allow a two engine aircraft to fly direct to America like I did, a long time at London airport briefing crews there, and they, and they’d come in and what are the winds? Ah. Then we’ll do the polar route depending on the winds and whatever winds we had then they’d probably, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly when they said jet, that’s a Jetstream.
JM: Yeah. The reason I ask, Edward is that I had it in my mind that it was the United States Army Air Force with their very high flying B17s and B24s leaving the contrails. I had it in my mind that it was they who first of all identified the Jetstream, and I wondered if that was you believed to be the case.
EC: I would believe that is the case.
JM: Yes.
EC: I’m not sure but I would believe. They always had the higher flying aircraft over their own country.
JM: Yes.
EC: And certainly the Jetstreams over there.
JM: Yes. It must have been fascinating to be a part of the science of meteorology at a time when with computers, balloons, rockets so much more information was coming through and you saw this. Perhaps after the war was over.
EC: Oh yes. Did. Did. We, clearly the details which are probably not too relevant, but my position I would say with flying with what we were flying but we had to be started using B17s eventually.
JM: You did. B17s as well.
EC: Oh aye. Towards the end of the war.
JM: Yes.
EC: We had Hudsons which [laughs]
JM: Yes.
EC: Twin engine things got no distance at all and then we got B, the B17.
JM: Yeah.
EC: That was fabulous. Up to thirty thousand feet. But what would I say was special about it? Well, they changed our job totally from being just getting north of the Orkney Islands or the Shetlands with a Hudson to a much longer range. We used to go way, way up there. But I remember my, as a Met observer my position would be in the nose of the Fortress. I would do my weather and then I had to take, and then I put it in to code and then crawl, push on a trap door to get up there, through there, through the wireless cabin and give him my message and he would then transmit. It was all in code, you know. And then, however in the meantime there was aircraft [laughs] Jerries were coming out across our path looking for ships to torpedo.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: And the [pause] it’s like suddenly there would be an aircraft showing up and he’d say, ‘Ok. What’s the colour of the day?’ Now, the colour of the day might be two, two red cartridges and a green or something, or whatever and that was, so that was then my job. So everything black as pitch, you know most of the time in the winter time, ‘What’s the colour of the day?’ Get your torch out. We could have been shot down before you could work out the colour of the day. I’m rambling on. The old memory’s beginning to —
JM: Well, we’re having a lovely conversation. I hope I’m not tiring you too much.
EC: No. But —
JM: It’s fascinating.
EC: But I’m sorry not to be so specific.
JM: No. No. So, after you’d served as a civilian in the, in the Middle East.
EC: Yes.
JM: What did you do with the rest of your working life? Did you stay in meteorology?
EC: Yes, I, when I came back from those two years in the, and I told you I was going to go.
JM: Yes.
EC: I had been writing to the American Consulate and you needed in those days a sponsor to get, to emigrate to America. And so I, one of my friend’s uncle was a solicitor over in Detroit. Lafayette Buildings. Memories, it’s weird isn’t it? Lafayette Buildings, Detroit. And I thought, ok so I saved up a fair bit of money. I had been corresponding with the Americans and the last one read my letter. I got a letter from them, from their Consulate in Baghdad. So when I got home to Scotland there was no letter. I thought, you know what? So I thought, well I said, I know I’ll emigrate to Canada and then go across from Canada. So I booked a flight over on TC or something, and landed at Montreal and then came down to Winnipeg was it? No. It wasn’t. Anyway, at the junction where you go across they said, ‘Sorry, you can’t come through. You’ve got to have a working permit that you’re working in Canada.’ ‘I’ve got to have a job in Canada?’ ‘Yes.’ So I took a job emptying a grain ship, you know. And then out of a job. The second job was more popular on an assembly line in the car industry making body parts and so on. So once I had that I went across and I thought ok here I am in Detroit. I’m in Detroit but I’ve got to go back there and I went to the Lafayette Buildings where he was and I said, ‘I’d like to speak to [pause] anyway there it goes again. ‘Oh, he died three weeks ago.’
JM: Oh dear. Oh dear.
EC: He died three weeks ago.’ So I thought that’s it. So I thought, ok. I’ll go back in to the Met Office in the UK and just to make the best of it. See what they can offer me. So I booked from New York. Sailed from New York. It was mostly boats in those days. So I got on a bus around there and somewhere enroute the bus driver, we stopped for refreshments, he said, ‘Mr Cayhill?’ I said, ‘That’s me.’ He said, ‘Oh, there’s a message here from the place you booked your ticket.’ So it was to say that there’s a strike in New York and the ship has been diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Oh no. So I pretended I couldn’t hear and hung up. So I went on to New York and stormed on to it [laughs] I stormed into their offices. ‘Don’t panic. Don’t panic. We’re laying on a special train from New York for us and you’ll go all the way around up to Nova Scotia here.’ So [unclear]
JM: Marvellous. Marvellous. I’d like —
EC: You’ve got nothing out of me.
JM: I’ve got a lot of out of you, but I would like to take you back if I, if I may to the, that time, the summer of 1943 when you were a civilian working at RAF Scampton with the 617 Squadron. In the period of time after the dams raid.
EC: Yes.
JM: What, what do you remember about Scampton in those days? Do you remember the base? Do you remember where you had your office?
EC: Yes. I do. Yes. A very small office there. Briefings, we always went to the briefing centre for all the briefing.
JM: Yes.
EC: Operations. I presume it was operations for, the next briefing is from so and so and so and so to so and so. So you prepared all the documentation you could.
JM: Yes.
EC: And you went over and you gave your spiel.
JM: And some of the briefings that you gave to 617 Squadron were part of the operations that they took part in in the summer of 1943.
EC: Yes.
JM: Do you remember any of those operations at all?
EC: No. The only ones were associated once the low level training part subsided and that was with Allsebrook.
JM: Yes.
EC: That was the last time that I flew with them.
JM: Yes.
EC: Or probably the last time I briefed any of them.
JM: Was it? Yes.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Right. Because I was keen to find out something about the atmosphere on RAF Scampton in those weeks after the dams raid. They had trained so hard. They had achieved so much. To find out what it was like to be there in the aftermath of that. That’s —
EC: That’s right. In actual fact Gibson himself, I think it was a fact was shot down by one of the RAF, a Lancaster.
JM: That’s, that’s one of the stories. It is. Yes.
EC: Oh, it’s a story.
JM: Yes. Yes. I tend to not to agree with that but it is one of the stories that we have heard. But that was two years later wasn’t it?
EC: Yeah.
JM: That was, one year later 1944.
EC: You don’t believe that.
JM: I tend to go with the view that it was an accident as a result of his relative unfamiliarity with the Mosquito.
EC: That’s right.
JM: And the fact that they didn’t transfer the fuel as they should have done.
EC: And they ran out fuel.
JM: And they ran out of fuel. I have been to —
EC: I accept that.
JM: I’ve been to the crash site in, in Holland and his grave, and Squadron Leader Warwick was the navigator who was killed with him. I’ve been to that. I have looked into it but it’s quite right that recently a rear gunner came out and he said that he had shot it down. A two engine aircraft.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Not knowing what it was.
EC: Yeah.
JM: So, we’ll never know. We’ll never know. But that was 1944. In the summer of 1943, you know you were there and 617 Squadron was operating against targets in Italy and elsewhere. I wondered if you’d remember that but perhaps you’d moved on at that stage.
EC: No. I can’t. No.
JM: No.
EC: Sorry.
JM: No, that’s ok. That’s fine. I have to ask. Shall we have a rest there for the moment?
EC: Ok.
JM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
EC: Have you had, the squadron was based in Darwin with daily flights. They made long period daily flights until the bomb itself went off.
JM: What year was that roughly?
EC: The year was exactly [pause] Darwin. Darwin. This was the period [pause]
JM: So, for the, for the record Edward is telling us about the time when he was operating in Australia, in the Pacific Ocean in support of nuclear weapons testing on the Caicos Islands and you were doing weather reconnaissance to ensure that the winds did not bring radiation on to the mainland of Australia.
EC: I think [pause] Yeah. That was 18th of February 1956. Shackleton, 818. Wing commander flying. That was our crewmen. I was air met observer. Ballykelly via Bordeaux. The Carcassonne Gap to Idris. This was on, out —
JM: Right.
EC: And then again Idris to Habbaniya and then [pause] No. I’ll start again and then Habbaniya. Shaibah. Sharjah. Do you know all these?
JM: Yes. I do. Yes.
EC: Sharjah, and then Mauripur. And then on to Mauripur. Mauripur to Negombo. Negombo via Subang to Changi, Singapore island. And then Changi to Darwin. Darwin, Pearce Field, Perth down to Perth, this is setting it all up.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Pearce back to Darwin and then I set up tracks which we were flying so we were flying but the —
JM: So this was 19 —
EC: Conditions were, those ones there were twelve and a half hours.
JM: This was 1956. You just gave us that date. 1956.
EC: 1956, yeah.
JM: And this was in support of the nuclear testing.
EC: That’s right.
JM: That was taking place at that time.
EC: That’s right. That was the atomic bomb.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Test that.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Still at Darwin and that was [pause] so the summary of flying hours as an air met observer on 269 Squadron for the period 5th of Jan ‘56 to the 16th of May, da di di da, on Shackletons. The two hundred and eighty five hours and then there was still a Shack and then because I was the top man, you know [unclear] with the wing commander we went down to different, to Alice Springs and Alice Springs back to Darwin, you know. And then we did our trips in the [pause] we were flying regularly 5th 8th the 11th, 14th of June, 17th of June, Shackleton to [pages turning] still in Australia. Darwin. Then transit Darwin to Essendon. Laverton, Richmond, Sydney, Richmond, Darwin, Darwin, then go Darwin to Changi. Changi to Negombo which was Ceylon. Negombo, Sharjah. Sharjah. Habbaniya. Habbaniya. Idris. And Idris back to Ballykelly. That was all in, the last of those flights was the 10th of July 1956. And then we have a transit to the Christmas Island for the whole set up. That was in, the 19th of January 1957. Flight Lieutenant Kerr. Air obs, acting air observer, St Eval to Lurgans. That’s going out the long way around. Lurgans to Kenley Field. Kenley Field to Charleston. That’s South Carolina. Charleston to Moisant. Moisant to Biggs Airfield in El Paso. Biggs to Travis Air Force base up in California and then a big long one across the Pacific to Travis which is California to Hickam Air Force base Honolulu. And then Hickam down to Christmas Island and so on and so on.
JM: And of course Christmas island was the H-bomb tests, wasn’t it?
EC: That’s right.
JM: I have a —
EC: Well, I’ve done, I’ve seen and experienced three personally and I’m very closely associated for the rest of them. I set up the Met set up for that. On the day of the decision — have you been to Christmas island?
JM: No. I haven’t.
EC: It’s a very large coral island, about the middle of the Pacific full of little waterways and so on and there was an airfield. They made, the army made an airfield. Rolled coral in the north end of it there and then the ships would, could come into the fjord, the waterways. And on the day of the, if I say the first bomb they would say, they would wake us all up about three o’clock in the morning, those who weren’t flying. I would have all the time twelve hour meteorological flights going on. I had a team of six. One flight sergeant and five sergeants and myself who used to fly twelve hour flights. Reconnaissance all around. Anyway, my job was, I would go aboard as the weatherman to the target and then the [pause] I would report when I’m on the target back to headquarters, it’s satisfactory or its not satisfactory for a drop and then in my aircraft which would stay on site the weatherman, we had all the cameramen. Ok. With their cameras. And then the target was four hundred miles south of Christmas Island. A little island called [pause] anyway a tiny little island which was mostly unoccupied and we’d use that to bomb. A Valiant would come on top at forty five plus thousand feet. He would come across and if it was decided it was on, drop from that height. And then the Navy had a ship over to the east of the target and they were monitoring everything, the bomb all the way down and they would call, ‘Forty five seconds. Forty seconds. Close eyes everybody.’ [laughs] And then, my position in the nose there would be a bright flash. You’ve got no goggles on, gloves on, curtains pulled past the, around all that, would, would be again a funny light through all the sounds, and then, ‘Ok. Eyes open everybody. Forty five seconds,’ and then would be the countdown. And then the first thing would be apart from the light, was an attack. The aircraft really shook [pause] and then it stopped, and then there was another smaller one. And in the meantime then the cameras were turning and photographing it all.
JM: And that shock was the shockwave hitting the aircraft.
EC: That was the first one which was direct to the aircraft was the shockwave from up there, and the second one was a reflection off the sea.
JM: Right.
EC: And that was a minor one. Now, the British are fantastic, I think. Now, the, from then on I’d say it was all being controlled by the Navy over there who were at sea. The aircraft, Canberra aircraft were sent off and they timed it beautifully, and they were timed to go through at different levels into the stack, you know and they were called Sniffer, their call sign. Sniffer One. Sniffer Two. Sniffer Three. Go through the cloud at different levels taking samples. Back to Christmas island. There was an RAF York on the ground there and all those samples were on there. The route, the usual route was up to Honolulu, or to San Francisco and they were in Aldermaston the following morning at 9 o’clock. Incredible.
JM: Were you ever concerned after that about the health issues of operating there? A number of servicemen —
EC: Oh, I was told about it. They said, you know. I had no [pause] we became so good at dropping this bomb.
JM: Yeah.
EC: All our accommodation on Christmas Island was tented.
JM: Yeah.
EC: There was only one kind of wooden hut and that was the CO, but because we knew exactly what was happening we used our own island, the southern tip of our island as a delayed drop from our own island and we were all at the top end of our island, you know. And really fantastic.
JM: And how long were you there for in total?
EC: Oh, exactly I’ll tell you [laughs] [pages turning] [pause] Christmas Island. Transit Christmas Island, down this area.
[pause]
EC: I was there all of the 19th [pause] These are the days I flew — 19, 20, 21st reconnaissance flights [pause – pages turning] I did, I finished with it [pause] for the period of 10th of January ‘57 to the 28th February ‘57 I did a hundred and twelve hours ten, ten minutes of flying time. And then it went on and on and on [pause — pages turning] The last entry in my book [pause — pages turning] I went back to training. Air met observer from then. So you can then, my grand total of flying was two thousand six hundred and four hours. Mostly meteorologically associated.
JM: Yeah. That’s a wonderful record.
EC: But again, I haven’t —
JM: Yeah. Just to complete the story when you came back I gather you spent your career as a meteorologist with, with airports. Is that correct? Were you doing weather forecasting? Did you say earlier you were doing weather forecasting?
EC: Yeah.
JM: For airlines. It doesn’t matter, Edward. It doesn’t matter.
EC: No.
JM: We can leave it there. Edward, thank you so much for allowing me to go back with you into your story and you are a unique individual and your stories are very valuable. Thank you very much.
EC: I know I haven’t answered you, what you, specific points you wanted me to raise with you.
JM: Well, you have answered as best as you can and that’s all I can ask for.
EC: Ok.
JM: On behalf of the IBCC thank you very much indeed.
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 Edward Cayhill
Creator
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Julian Maslin
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
2018-02-08
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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ACayhillE180208
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:03:35 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Christmas Island
Great Britain
Iraq
England--Cumbria
England--Lincolnshire
England--Hampshire
Northern Territory--Darwin
Scotland--Stranraer
Northern Territory
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-06
1944-09
1950
1956-02-18
1956-07-10
1957-01-19
Description
An account of the resource
Edward Cayhill was the eldest of eight children and with his father’s encouragement was hoping to go to university. His father died in 1938 which meant that the university dream was cancelled and Edward went to work as a Civil Servant in the Meteorological Office. He began his work as a Met observer with the RAF at RAF Abbotsinch before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. Edward desperately wanted to join the RAF as aircrew which he finally did. He joined the RAF and was attached to the Meteorological Reconnaissance Flights at RAF Farnborough where he flew on Halifaxes and Mosquitoes. When he was demobbed he continued to fly with the Met Research Flight as a civilian. He eventually joined 269 Squadron and took part in the Met research flights in relation to the nuclear testing in the Pacific.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
1674 HCU
617 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
briefing
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
meteorological officer
Mosquito
observer
RAF Farnborough
RAF Millom
RAF Scampton
training
-
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
Clayton, Joyce Victoria
J V Clayton
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Joyce Clayton (b. 1919, 460998 Royal Air Force). She served in the Women's Auxilliary Air Force and worked in the equipment department.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clayton, JV
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 Joyce Victoria Clayton
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Helen Durham
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-08
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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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AClaytonJV170208
Description
An account of the resource
Joyce Clayton was born in Lincoln and served with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force: she was first assigned to barrage balloons, then she became an equipment officer at a number of stations. While based at Sutton on Hull she witnessed the bombing of Hull. She describes being bombed, life inside a shelter, D-Day and Victory in Europe day. She remembers the special spirit and how even concerts would continue despite the bombing. She was finally posted to RAF Hednesford to wind down towards her demob.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Format
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00:37:01 audio recording
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
Contributor
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Adalberto Di Corato
Julie Williams
Language
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eng
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
Temporal Coverage
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1945-05-08
1944-06
bombing
ground personnel
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Manby
shelter
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1021/11392/AMartinFJK180309.1.mp3
a7c8b2de21c5a8f6d71d637fd2e397d1
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Title
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Martin, Frederick Joseph Keith
F J K Martin
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview Warrant Officer Keith Martin (b.1921, 1580351 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 626 and 300 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-09
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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Martin, FJK
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DH: Right. Ok. Right. Let’s start off with a serious thing to start off with. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Dawn Hughes. The Interviewee is Mr Keith Martin and you like to be known as Keith, don’t you? Yeah. The interview is taking place at Mr Martin’s home in Wem, Shropshire on the 9th of March 2018, and thank you Keith for agreeing to talk to me today. So, the first thing I wanted to ask was thinking about the lead up to joining the RAF how did it come about that you joined the RAF?
FM: Right.
DH: And what influenced you?
FM: I can go back to living and working in Shrewsbury. I was working for quite a big countrywide firm of agricultural machinery merchants with a branch in Shrewsbury. Hence that’s where I was working. My calling up papers came quite quickly. I was eighteen and my boss said to me, ‘You won’t need to go,’ he said, ‘Because you are on a Reserved Occupation.’ Well, I was very immature. Honestly. No, I was very immature and so that suited me. And it happened again a year later when I was nineteen. But when I was approaching twenty and I knew it would happen again I was reaching the stage where you felt guilty really if you were comfortably sitting at home, when even your own friends were going off and so I said to my father, ‘I’m going to volunteer.’ He said, ‘Volunteer for the, for the Royal Army Pay Corps,’ he said, ‘Because they get you, you’re excellent at figures,’ he said, ‘To get you well behind a desk.’ And, I, I thought about that and decided no. I liked the RAF uniform. It’s quite true. I don’t want to go in to the Army in case I land up with a bayonet. And I can’t stand the thought of the water but I can’t swim anyway. And so I went and volunteered for the Air Force which I was accepted straight away, and on the 20th of April 1942 I arrived at Padgate which is North Lancashire for my indoctrination. That’s the right word. I was there for five days only during which time there was a group of about thirty. This squadron leader addressed us and he said, ‘Would any of you like to take an aircrew medical?’ And so, well a damned good idea having a medical so I put my hand up didn’t I? And of course I passed the medical, which mainly funnily enough was, and several other failed through vision. Vision. What I didn’t know, I was innocent at the time, that I had already volunteered for aircrew and about four days, be about the 24th of the month, April I was interviewed by the same squadron leader and he said, ‘Martin, your legs are too short for us to train you to be a pilot.’ And he said, ‘Your educational standard is too poor for us to educate you to, to train you as a navigator.’ I accepted that, because I only went to the Catholic, Catholic ordinary school. So, he said, ‘We’ll train you as a wireless op air gunner.’ ‘Alright, sir.’ The following day I was posted to Blackpool, and I found that Blackpool was the school that taught you two things. One was, the important thing was how to learn the Morse Code and how to handle sending and receiving, and the other thing that was important to them but not to us was how to learn how to march up and down Blackpool streets. Behave ourselves because we were not in billets we were out to houses. Took us in, you know. So they took me. Was it how many? The school for wireless operators was I think three months. May. June. July. That’s right. And I left Blackpool having passed out at the required eighteen words a minute on the 4th of August. Went home for a, once you got a break you know. And then nine days later I received a posting to a place called Yatesbury in Wiltshire, which was the flying part of the learning to be a wireless operator. Doing it in the air. So, in effect that was the first, my first meeting with an aircraft. So, from August to November I was training as a wireless operator air, from which you got your sergeant’s stripes if you passed out. And I passed out, and got my sergeant’s stripes and was then sent for a short, what I call waiting to be properly dispersed. A small, well yeah it was a waiting station and that of all places was Ternhill. And I was at Ternhill for [pause] three weeks from the middle of November to the middle of December, and then I was posted to Calverley in Nantwich. Near Nantwich. And that really was further progress, and I have an idea of what we were flying then. Memory you know. Very good but —
[pause]
FM: I think. ’43. No. That’s right. Calverley as I was saying was again just further progress on generally learning how to fly in the air, you know. Nothing particular. And then I was sent to Aircrew Recruitment Centre in London, and I didn’t really know why but it, it did, how can I put it? It was, in fact to tell me or to tell the person that they had been selected for A — wireless operator, and B — air gunner. And I’d been selected for wireless operator. And then, so then I was sent to 18 ITW, Initial Training Wing, Brignorth for just a month. Initial Training Wing speaks for itself. And from there, from that very station I got married.
[pause]
FM: Then I was posted of all places to a place called West Freugh in Scotland which was Advanced Flying Unit, which you have to be in an aircraft flying over the sea, and you had to go through certain rules and regulations to do what you had to do. Having passed out there in May 1943 [pause] No. No. Sorry, no. No. That’s before, having passed out in August 1943. That’s right, when I finished at Yatesbury, and then to West Freugh. I passed out there in October ’43. Sorry. I was only there about six weeks and I was posted to Hixon, Stafford, which is an Operational Training Unit and we were, I was introduced to Wellingtons, Wimpies. I was also within the first week [pause] I was introduced if I can describe it as the crew. The crewing up procedure need, needs talking about because it’s something that outsiders wouldn’t know. How do you get crewed up? Who does it? The answer is the pilot chooses his own crew. The end of the week that you’re there being introduced as I said to Wellingtons, you’re told to report to the, what was the big room that was used generally for dances and things, and there was thirty wireless operators, thirty navigators, thirty engineers, thirty rear gunners, and thirty pilots. Now, that was a crew of a Wellington. Did not include a mid-upper gunner because a Wellington does not have a mid-upper gunner turret. So the skipper chose his own crew, and I was there in the room and this, seemed to be elderly gentleman he turned out to be six years older than me [laughs] came along to me and he said, ‘You’re Sergeant Martin.’ ‘Yes.’ He was only a sergeant, so I didn’t have to say sir. ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You’re from Shropshire.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘So am I, would you like to fly with me?’ I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And that in effect, I say to this day saved my life because he was a superb pilot, and he got the crew together and instead of us being half a dozen individuals we became a crew. Right. So we then flew Wellingtons as a crew in training from a place called Seighford, which was a depot of Hixon’s’ and we were, I was there from November ’43 to January ’44. I think it was possibly at that time that we flew our first not exactly operation but our first trip over a foreign country [pages turning] Yeah. It was on the 30th of the December during that period that we were sent to do a leaflet raid over Belgium. This was one of the Royal Air Force’s ideas that every crew should taste flying over the sea and flying over what was still dangerous territory, and so that we got back and we hadn’t lost our nerve and we didn’t report anything silly. You know what I mean, and so that was the important thing and that was in a Wellington on the 30th of December. Having [pause] passed that, we then immediately got transferred to a four engine Conversion Unit. Immediately after that. We were not going to fly in Wellingtons in operations. We were going to fly in the new four engine bombers that were coming on line. And the first thing we did when we got there was pick up a mid-upper gunner. The mid-upper gunners had been trained ready, but had been sent straight to Conversion Units as they’re called because it was there that the, the skipper would pick one up and so that’s where we got hold of Jock. And now we were a crew of seven which you need. And so we did Conversion Unit at Sandtoft, and during that time had a crash. We crashed a Halifax [pages turning] We crashed a Halifax on the 6th of April 1944. We had a 5 o’clock take off. Evening take-off. It was only what we called circuits and bumps learning, for the skipper to learn how to take off and land and he had an engine failure on take-off. And because we hadn’t really got any height the skipper, the skipper decided to crash land. The decision he made we just accepted it, and in the subsequent report which I’ve got a copy of it says, “No pilot error. No disciplinary action to be taken.” But we were a bit, we were sent straight to the medical to be checked over, and we were a bit cheeky so in their wisdom they sent us straight up again. Well, in a few hours, 9.15 that night we went up again but this time we were also accompanied by a senior pilot as well as our own to see that there was nothing wrong, and that went on all right. And the amazing thing is we saw that Halifax the other, the next day or the following day and it was, it was a ruin. We’d hit a tree in a forest or in a field, and it had torn the wing off. But how we all got out alive I don’t know but we did. The aircraft was a write off. So, we —
DH: Can I ask what plane that was—
FM: That was a Halifax.
DH: A Halifax, yeah.
FM: An old Halifax. They only sent the old ones to training places. So we had a couple of little trips before we, whilst we were there when we had to go to learn what they called ditching practice and this was up in Lincolnshire. Just a day out. You had to go. They had a big pool with a half a Lancaster in the middle and you were taken out but you had to get the dinghy out and on and get yourself home. You see what I mean.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Right. We were posted from Sandtoft to Hemswell for the month of April to transfer from Halifaxes to Lancasters. A small transfer. Just the difference for the pilot really and on the 1st of May 1944 we were posted to Wickenby.
DH: So can I ask with your job as a wireless operator what was different going from the Halifax in to the Lancaster for you? Was there any difference?
FM: Nothing on those two. Different coming from the Wellington because it was a different radio. But no my job was basically the same. Very little radio, and mainly standing in the astrodome as an extra set of eyes but I’ll come to that when it comes to operational flying. Right. On the 10th of May, on the 11th of May we were on just Lancasters locally. Further training. But on the 19th of May we had our first operation but to the marshalling yards at Orleans. Orleans south of Paris. Total time there and back five hours and fifteen minutes. Right. We then had to prepare for the next one by an air test. The next operation which was on the 24th of May which was the marshalling yards at Aachen right on the border. Five hours and five minutes. Now, I don’t want to go through these individually. I shall want to just pick out those that matter. We went to Aachen again. We went to marshalling yards. These marshalling yards were so important because it was coming up to D-Day. We didn’t know that. But the Germans were, their marshalling yards were bombed ruthlessly. The next one is a marshalling yard as well.
DH: Can you explain what a marshalling yard is please?
FM: Well [laughs] I thought you’d know that.
DH: No. No.
FM: A railway. Well, they’ve got a big railway. When you marshall all your equipment it’s a marshalling yard.
DH: Right.
FM: You know. It’s the same in this country. We got in to early June and we were on such things as heavy gun batteries on the coast. Railway junction again, and marshalling yards again. You can see the picture. We’re averaging the 5th of June, 7th of June, 10th of June, 12th of June. We were averaging one almost every other day and then [pause] that’s right. I’d passed it over without thinking how I got the Legion of Honour because on the 5th of June and the 6th of June was D-Day and in those twenty four hours we did two operations which was a thing unknown. To do two in twenty four hours. One was to the north of the coast, and one was to the south. And I’m talking about the German coastal batteries and we bombed them north and south. The south one we did first. You’ve heard a lot lately of these emigrant towns called, one was called Sangatte. Well, that’s where we, that was a bombing because Sangatte then was a big German coastal battery. So we did Sangatte and within a matter of no time at all we were off again, and this time we did the bottom ones near [pause] near, well I can’t think what the big town is on the corner. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. It was one of the southern ones, and doing those two on D-Day was the reason for the French had fixed that anybody operating on D-Day would get this medal. So, came to the last trip that I did was on the 12th of June. Again, marshalling yards and then I was transferred to the Polish squadron with a week’s leave in between. Got back. Got to the Polish squadron 17th of June. We, they didn’t waste any time. We air tested on the 17th of June morning and went on operations in the evening on the 17th of June. So we then go to several operations with 300 Squadron in June. I’ve got 24th, 25th, 29th and 30th. On the 30th, the last one was a daylight. Marshalling yards in the daylight God knows why. I can’t think of why but in fact the next one, the 12th of July, by now I must have gone on leave then. You had a leave generally every so many months because I have a blank space between the 30th of June and the 12th of July. On the 12th of July we started operations. Now were on longer distance ones. This one is nine hours and eight months. This one which I just wanted to describe is the most dangerous one we did. It was to a marshalling yard in the south of France, almost on the Swiss border at a place called Revigny, and when we got there it was ten tenths cloud. You were flying at about ten thousand feet in beautiful sunshine with a blanket of cloud right over the target. Couldn’t see anything. The Master Bomber, I don’t know whether you understand Master Bombers, the person who is there controlling. The master bomber said, ‘I can’t mark the target.’ And he recommends go home. You know, abandon. Abandon the exercise. And I can remember my skipper saying, only to us, ‘Look lads. We didn’t fly all this way to take our bombs home.’ He said, ‘I’m going to try to go through the clouds and see what happens.’ So then came the most scary time of slowly, slowly descending through cloud, and could see nothing. The navigator had taken the distance. No. Yeah. No, the direction that we were travelling so that we could reverse and go back and kept on going through this cloud to Revigny. Anyway, we came out into sunshine. Or night. It wasn’t sunshine. It was moonlight really. At four thousand feet. The skipper said, ‘Right lads. Now, we can reverse along so that we go back the way we come until we find these marshalling yards.’ And so the bomb aimer was the important one because he was lying in his turret in the bottom and he could see, and he right up, ‘Coming up marshalling yards.’ Right. So skipper said, ‘Right. Prepare for bombing run.’ And we had a very quick bombing run. Not the usual four minutes because he wanted to get the bombs away whilst we were over the marshalling yards, and so we bombed. We luckily we had time to close the bomb doors when a four engined plane which we could only describe as a four engine plane, couldn’t say it was a Lancaster or a Halifax came right underneath the clouds straight down underneath us, all four engines ablaze. An absolute, you know, a roman candle and either it exploded or it crash landed and exploded but it blew us up on our backsides. And I can remember skipper who never swore saying, ‘Oh Christ.’ And we seemed to be all over the place, and he was desperately trying to correct. Anyway, at two thousand feet he corrected, and we were back on an even keel so he said, ‘Lads, I’m going to stick these throttles right through, and we’re going to get home quickly.’ Now, when we got home we had to report to the intelligence. Why? Two things. A — the skipper had disobeyed an order to abandon to go home. B — he pressed on and bombed the target. A — he was going to be court martialled. B — he was going to get a medal. He got the medal. So he got the DFC, quite rightly. Then we carried on several quite long trips. Stuttgart. We went twice to Stuttgart and that wasn’t very nice.
DH: Can you explain why it wasn’t very nice? What mainly —
FM: Because you’re going to go through the Ruhr first of all. You’re on the chance of night fighters for such a long distance before you even get to the target because it’s an eight hour trip. Four hours each way. Do you see what I mean? You’re under, you’re in a, their well armed area, and to do it twice in oh hell, twice in four days. Yes. 24th and 28th. I can remember one little thing. On the way home on the second trip I said to the, through the, ‘Skipper, permission to speak.’ You weren’t allowed to talk, you know. ‘Permission to speak.’ ‘Yes, wireless operator.’ ‘Will you all wish me a happy birthday? It’s my birthday today.’ Because it was now, we took off on the 28th of July and on the way home it was the 29th of July.
DH: And did they?
FM: We did that night. Then there were several trips, and then came the period at the end of August. We had already now done [pause] we’d now done twenty six. And the skipper, and now the bomb aimer had also been made a [pause] a what do you call it? You know, we were still sergeants and he, yeah. You know what I mean. Anyway, the skipper called us together and he said, ‘I’ve had,’ because he said, ‘I’m a senior crew,’ he said, ‘I’ve got the ears of Bill Misselbrook — ’ our squadron commander that at the end of August the wing is being disbanded because the Poles have now got sufficient trained people to take over the wing completely. Now — ’ he said, ‘We’ve got four trips to do.’ And he said, ‘I would like to think that we could get them done without us being posted again to some other squadron, you know and have to start all over again.’ So, he said, ‘I’ve got to get your agreement that if you agree I’ll see Bill Misselbrook and say, ‘We volunteer for every trip that’s going.’ And he said, he must have agreed and from the 25th of August to the 31st of August we did four operations, and one of those was the biggest we’d ever done and it was at, it was up to a place in the Baltic called Stettin. Or it was called Stettin then and there was a Nazi naval base there and somehow Stalin had asked for us to bomb it. I don’t know how. You can get these funny things that go on. So we did Stettin as our twenty ninth trip and again on the way home he said, break the rules, he said, ‘I’m not going to stooge back under the rules of the speed that you can do safeguarding the engines,’ he said. ‘They can only shoot me.’ So it was boof, and we came home and the funny words, we landed and I can remember the words coming over the, over from the ground radio lady. She said, ‘U-Uncle. U-Uncle have you completed your mission?’ Because we were fifteen minutes before time getting home. Whereas the others took fifteen minutes longer obeying we’d, anyway that was another story. And then we did a daylight raid on the 31st of August and at the end of that I have a note signed by the station commander, and the squadron commander, “You’re tour is completed.” And so that in affect ends the chapter of my time doing bombing raids. Can you —
DH: Do you want to pause?
FM: Well, do you want any further more?
DH: I’ve got some questions if that’s ok.
FM: Because I mean going on, you can go on forever. I’ve got —
DH: Yeah, no, I’ve got some questions if that’s ok.
FM: Otherwise, I can go on so long with —
DH: No. That’s fine. On an op what would your job entail because it took you five hours, eight hours? So what would you do during your time?
FM: Your main job that you are trained to do for the, for the crew is that you take a message in code from Bomber Command Headquarters at oh, they’re active then. Not the headquarters now. They’re active headquarters every fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes they send out a message. It may be status quo. It may be they’d got a change of wind direction, change of wind speed, a change of anything, but every fifteen minutes the wireless operator takes a message and passes it on to the navigator.
DH: Right.
FM: In between, each skipper may want to use him in a different way but most want to use him as a lookout, standing up under the astrodome and helping to spy night fighters.
DH: Right.
FM: And the bit, the important thing he does on a bombing run, when you can imagine there’s a mass of aircraft coming through to bomb on the same you suddenly see one appearing above you and immediately you tell the skipper. Because what you don’t want to do is be bombed by one above. So you’re first of all a wireless operator and second of all you’re a lookout.
DH: So you kept busy.
FM: Yes.
DH: You mentioned before we started the interview, you talked about the Polish squadron. You talked about the make up of the Commonwealth crew.
FM: Yes.
DH: Can you explain that please?
FM: No, when a Commonwealth was pure luck and they had to use the name Commonwealth because they didn’t want to insult like for instance our navigator was a Canadian. My friend that I had there who’d trained could still be alive. The last time I heard of him he was in a wheelchair but his navigator was the most unusual thing. He was a Yank. But he was a Yank who had wanted to get into the war, and so he volunteered from America to join the Canadian Air Force, and from the Canadian Air Force he got, so there’s another one. So if you said it’s an English crew, or a British crew you could be offending, so it was called a Commonwealth.
DH: Right near the start of the interview you talked about your training and everything and you were saying that you got married.
FM: Yeah.
DH: Before we started the interview you said briefly about your feelings about getting married and did you do the right thing at the right age and that. Can you, can you talk about that again please?
FM: That came after though, dear. I don’t know whether it’s worth talking about. I mean, I didn’t [pause] how, how can you say that in effect during your period of the war until, until the later time that when she was allowed to come and live close to because I was no longer on operations but in those early days every leave was like a honeymoon. You got, you know you and to be honest with you we, we reached demob without ever realising what married life was, and then by then we got a baby on the way, very difficult to put it in to words. I just felt that she was too young. She never complained, but at eighteen.
DH: Yeah.
FM: But as I said marriage went on for sixty one years and we got a letter from the Queen here so that couldn’t have been too bad.
DH: Oh no.
FM: It was only in my own mind that. Yeah. Yes.
DH: Right at the start you were saying that you got the call up papers but you were in a Reserved Occupation.
FM: That’s right.
DH: So were you allowed to ignore those call up papers if you were in a Reserved Occupation?
FM: Oh yeah. Only, only as a volunteer.
DH: Right.
FM: Only, and if you were accepted you could have been a volunteer in a far more important Reserved Occupation for some reason and be turned down. You could have been in a, some kind of laboratory somewhere and what have you. But the rule was you, if you, if you, you had to volunteer and you had to be accepted.
DH: Right.
FM: And my Reserved Occupation was really only agricultural machinery. I know it was helping to keep the farmers going but it wasn’t of grade one importance.
DH: You said at the, near the start again that you went for your initial training. You said you went for training and the indoctrination. What did you mean by indoctrination?
FM: I think I can explain that. A big word for a little thing.
DH: Yeah.
FM: 16th of June 1943 [pause] That’s right. I hadn’t started. I hadn’t got to the [pause] Yeah. The first introduction to an aeroplane we [pause] now, can you edit this if you —
DH: Yes. Yes. It can be edited.
FM: The important thing was to try and make you sick on the basis that once you’d been sick you were never likely to be sick again. But if you persisted in being sick you would get discharged from aircrew because you couldn’t be sick.
DH: Right.
FM: You just couldn’t be. Now, that was the indoctrination that I, and it, on the 16th of June ’43, I went twice in one hour on a Dominie with seven, six others and we marched to the aircraft and as we marched they gave us each a bucket. Now, that was before we got to the aircraft they gave us a bucket. When we got inside they had purposely not cleaned it up and I think half of them were sick before we got off the ground. But then he was an experienced pilot and he could hedgehop. You were only up and hour but believe me we were all terribly sick. Is that sufficient indoctrination?
DH: Yeah.
FM: If you see what I mean.
DH: Yeah. Yeah.
FM: If you followed on, and I had four but the first two were only experience. The second two I had to do two message taking. That was my initial contact with the wireless.
DH: So I take it you stopped being sick.
FM: I stopped being, I was only sick once. It’s a terrible feeling and you walk out, stagger out of this aircraft and they say, they march you out, two march. ‘You now go and clean your bucket in the toilets.’ It’s not a nice story, but that was the indoctrination. It had, they could not have people who were going to be sick passed as aircrew. It could not be allowed, and so they had that method to making you sick and giving you four chances really.
DH: Yeah.
FM: I can only, I can’t honestly tell you if they all failed. All four. All I know is I was only sick once [pause] The crew, or most of them.
DH: Which one are you?
FM: None, I took it, I took the photograph as it happened. I didn’t know at the time, you know.
DH: Yeah.
FM: That I was going to take a photograph of the others. The skipper of course is in the middle. The one who looks a little bit elderly.
DH: All so young.
FM: Yes, all so young.
DH: So young. Can you tell me when you were actually on an op did you get a chance to get scared? Were you so busy that you couldn’t get scared?
FM: You were scared all the while. But you were a part of a crew and you got your courage from them, and they in turn got their courage from you. You were a crew. To say you weren’t scared would be a lie. Many’s the time I hung tight to the [pause] especially on, when you get a bad take off and you don’t get off the ground at all due to weather conditions but that’s another story. You can’t. You can’t. Some get all the stories you need to get your memory, you know. But scared, yes. We were scared. We were scared. Especially when you were flying over the Ruhr and the ack ack was almost bouncing off the bottom of your aircraft. You could hear the crackle of it. Yes. Yes. Anything else?
DH: I don’t think so.
FM: I think I’ve been pretty thorough.
DH: You have. You have.
FM: I, as I said I had two further RAF lives after that but I don’t want to go into them all.
DH: No. No. After, so after VJ Day how, how did, what affect did the war have on you do you think?
FM: None at all.
DH: No.
FM: We were still going on targets. The fact that they were targets of a different lot, because the one lot was being prepared for VE day and the second lot afterwards. No. The only thing, you know, how can I put it? When we finished we didn’t know that we weren’t going to be called up for a second tour and would have done if it hadn’t been for the Americans dropping the atom bomb. If that hadn’t have happened after six months or more of it we would have been called back again.
DH: So, after you finished your tour how did the RAF occupy you?
FM: Well, that’s another life. I could go on then about a whole year flying down near here, and then a third tour. A third life when I managed to get appointed to the Test Pilot’s School and that’s where I finished.
DH: Are you able to tell me about the Test Pilot’s School?
FM: Yes. It’s very interesting. We’ll forget the next bit. That was a year literally at South Cerney just outside Gloucester where I was flying with advanced, advanced trainee pilots when they sent, and it was a two engined aircraft, an Oxford when they sent them out to do night trips. They were not allowed to go without a wireless operator because the wireless operator could get them home by getting directions. So that was literally a year. And then there was a message on the notice board, “Volunteers wanted for the Number 4 Empire Test Pilot’s School,” which was being transferred from Farnborough to [pause] I can’t think of the name now. Anyway, I’ve got it in here. It begins with a C. Yeah, that appears, Neville Duke. I flew with him once. Empire Test Pilot’s School. What am I trying to tell you?
DH: You transferred from Farnborough to —
FM: Right. No. They were transferred. I was still at the Advanced Flying Unit until the end of October ’45.
DH: Right.
FM: So, I’d been there a little over a year and they wanted volunteers. Wireless operators who would go to just a quick training school to teach them how to help a pilot flying on his own on a four engine aircraft. You’ll appreciate that if being able to handle all the throttles, being able to close down one or more engines, jobs like that we were taught and then we were sent off to this school. And when we got there, there was nothing there and the station commander called. He said, ‘Your warrant officer has just come through Martin so you’re going to be in charge.’ So, he said, ‘You set up this unit. There will be five others,’ he said, ‘We tried to get youngsters who haven’t had the — ’ he called it luck, ‘The luck to have a bombing life because they came in too late.’ So he said, ‘They’re raw youngsters most of them but,’ he said, ‘There is one senior man as well as you.’ And so we set up this. They gave us an office. Oh anyway, we set it up and eventually it was got going but it was months. A long, I don’t, I can’t remember why but anyway it was January’46 before we actually flew when they were ready as well. And we flew from this Empire Test Pilots School. From Cranfield. Couldn’t remember it. Cranfield, which is north of, north of Bedford. Anyway, we started flying there in January ’46 and we did very little flying because they didn’t, they weren’t always flying four engines. They only needed you when they were. But, you know you did some interesting small jobs with them. And then came my moment of, there came a time in May ’46 when I think we’d had a couple of these six taken ill with something, flu or something and suddenly we, we had to do a lot more because I got a book here when I’d flew four times on the 6th of May, five times on the 7th May, twice on the 8th of May, five times on the 9th of May. I don’t want to go on but you can see I was doing a lot then and during that time, you’ve never heard of Duke have you?
DH: No.
FM: Neville Duke.
DH: No. I haven’t.
FM: Well, he became, later on he became a test pilot and he became holder of the speed record and I, and I just flew with him once for forty five minutes. N. Fifty minutes. So that’s my fifty minutes of fame, and carried on there still flying and the last trip I did before I was demobbed, 8th of July ’46. Without this I couldn’t remember all those things.
DH: No.
FM: That was the best and the luckiest posting I ever had. Suddenly going from training pilots in night cross countries often being more scared than I ever was bombing, and suddenly getting pilots good enough to be test pilots, you know. It was an entirely different experience. And the fact that I’d became a warrant officer which helped a lot. Financially it helped a great deal.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Right. Any more questions?
DH: So after, after you were demobbed what were you going to do?
FM: Well, I was lucky you see. One of the reasons that I could safely volunteer was the company, and I’ve got a letter from the boss, what would I call him? Anyway, he was the boss, guaranteeing any member of the staff anywhere in all of the branches around the, that volunteered for the Services, whichever Service and came back were guaranteed a job. And I’ve got the letter from Hubert Burgess himself and he thanked me very much for my service, services, and understood my feeling of, of volunteering. And so when I got back I went down to the branch in Shrewsbury, had an appointment with a man named Richards who I worked for. He’d, he’d been too old, you know to go in. Anyway, he’d be too important to have to go in the Services and he said, ‘Yeah. When do you want to start?’ And I said, ‘Well, can you give me a week? I’ve got to find, I’ve got to find lodgings for the wife and, and my daughter.’ And so I think I started work, I think I started work on the 1st of September.
DH: Wow, that’s, that’s quite good, isn’t it? That’s very good.
FM: It was good.
DH: For them to say that.
FM: Because, because this man Richards and I had a very long working relationship and he, he pushed me up until I was eventually, you know in a very good job. So that’s really the story of how lucky we were that we came back. I mean, I can remember one very good high rating head office boy who went, and he went in the Air Force and he came back and he went back to a job and it happened. He kept his promise. Your job was there, and that was a marvellous thing, you know. You didn’t have to worry about your week’s wages did you?
DH: No. That’s quite something.
FM: Another thing he did. This is, this is only for your information because you had to recognise what money was worth. He instructed the wages people to put ten shillings a week in an envelope in the safe in my name.
DH: What? During the war?
FM: All the way, whole time I was through.
DH: No.
FM: For the whole of the time I was through he paid me ten shillings a week for fighting for me country.
DH: Wow.
FM: Believe me when we came out that money set up the furniture for our first place. Now, how many bosses would do that?
DH: Not many.
FM: But that’s actually absolutely true. They say, ‘Oh, ten shillings a week,’ but ten shillings a week then.
DH: Was a lot.
FM: Was a different kettle of fish. And anyway, he didn’t need to give me anything, did he? Guaranteeing me a job was sufficient without paying me ten shillings a week for five years.
DH: Wow, that’s quite —
FM: So you do get good bosses. You do get good bosses. Yes.
DH: Well, can I say thank you. You’ve been absolutely fascinating to listen to.
FM: No. I, I didn’t want to overdo it as I said. There’s the three lives. The second one I told you about flying trainee pilots around the skies over Gloucestershire were not a happy experience and then the Test Pilot’s School which was quite marvellous. Quite marvellous. Although to get in [laughs] this is not for you, I’m just talking to you, you get in, and this test pilot he says, ‘Well, Martin —’ or, yes. Well, yes. Sometimes they know your Christian name but you know there was, you weren’t together long enough. He’d say, ‘Well, I’m doing single engine flying today.’ So he said, ‘You know how to feather.’ That was what I was taught of course. I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Be careful to feather in the order that I tell you because —’ he said, ‘I’ll have to adjust the balance of the aircraft.’ So you get quite happily tootling along and he says, ‘Feather outboard.’ So you press the button for stop the outboard and the engine dies and it’s just running in in the wind and he’s adjusting. And a little later he says, ‘Feather inboard.’ So you press the inboard button and that so he says, ‘We are now flying on two engines.’ That’s alright. And then he said, ‘Feather inboard,’ or whatever. The one he prefers. He may say that he prefers to feather inboard, or feather outboard of the other two and you do it and suddenly you’re flying or trying to fly a four engine bomber on one engine. It has its own moments. It has its moments. Oh yes. But you trusted them you see. They were skilled, and they had to be able to fly this bomber on one engine without losing height. Just keep it and they would, they passed. Anyway, enough about that.
DH: Which aircraft were they?
FM: Lancasters.
DH: They were Lancasters.
FM: Yes. And the latest model too. The latest Rolls twenty two engines I think. They had all the best to train on they did. Yeah. Anyway, thank you for coming. I don’t want to bore you to tears.
DH: You’re not boring me whatsoever.
FM: I mean, I was one of the lucky ones to have lived through it and to some extent to still have an active memory. I do need this because the dates sometimes run into one.
DH: It would be very difficult to remember all those dates.
FM: Oh yeah. Yes.
DH: Very difficult, one last question.
FM: Yeah.
DH: Have you got any you know, lighter moments. Any funny things that you can remember from your time on operations?
FM: You know, it’s hard to remember a funny thing. I think the funniest thing was not what happened on the day but what happened on the day had a remarkable [pause] how can I put it? Resurgence of life many years later. And I’ll tell you this, I can’t remember which daylight raid it was but the Polish squadron, Polish aircraft my pilot had got friendly with their pilot was in, landed in the next bay, and they were getting out and we were getting out and they had, one of the ground crew was a bit snap happy taking pictures and he came along and we grinned at him and he took the picture and that was it. Never thought anything about it. Now, this is one daylight raid towards the end of the, with my life at Faldingworth with the Poles. Now, how many years later? I would be [pause] Phyl had died so it was one of their anniversaries at Faldingworth and I got an invitation and I had a friend, a golfing friend who was very keen on anything to do with, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you. I’d love to.’ He said, ‘I’ll take you willingly.’ I said, ‘Ok.’’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about driving,’ he said. I was still able to drive. I hadn’t reached this stage but it must have been ’87 ’97. Fifteen. It must have been fifteen years ago. An anniversary they had and that we went up and we went first thing and we went in to the village hall which was also now laid out with old photographs and everything to do with the Poles. And the Polish people, or the remnants were there and a lot of them had got tales to tell. And I was walking along here, this lady had got a book and she spoke English. She said, ‘Have a look at my records.’ She said, ‘Do you happen to know my father? He was a Polish pilot in this.’ And I said to her, ‘Apologies,’ I said, ‘We were only there three months. We never got really to know our own lot properly let alone — ’ ‘Oh, I understand.’ She said, ‘Have a look at my pictures.’ And she turned over a page and there was the photograph there that he’d taken what would be the best part of, if he’d taken it in ’44 and this would be in, in ’84. The best part of forty years later. And I squealed. I said, ‘You won’t believe it,’ I said. ‘That’s me.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, reading it. This was the pilot who was a friend. And this ground crew had taken, and it had got to her and she got it and there it was. A photograph of myself and oh, I remember the bomb aimer was there and the rear gunner. Unfortunately, the skipper hadn’t got out of the aircraft because we were only disembarking, you know.
DH: Yeah.
FM: But I can remember squealing. Then I called my friend, ‘Brian. Brian come and have a look at this.’ So he came along and I said, ‘Look at that.’ ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. I said would you believe that you could come to a place and see yourself forty years ago. And that was in effect, you could call that the most happy and unexpected —
DH: Yeah.
FM: Thing to happen. To find that you, your photograph had been taken and been kept in this, her father’s album.
DH: Yeah.
FM: And had got to her. Anyway, yes so that was I think that was a jolly tale. You know what I mean. It was a happy one.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Not a miserable one. A happy one.
DH: Well, thank you so much for talking to me, Keith.
FM: I could tell you one which is dead funny. Unbelievable but still it happened. You wouldn’t know, couldn’t know but during the war only bottled beer was available. There may have been draft beer in small quantities round about Burton on Trent and places like that but I mean normally bottled was the only beer. And the day we finished operations was a daylight raid so like it wasn’t like coming back in the middle of the night and so we all, we were all going to go down to Market Rasen which was only three and a half miles away. The skipper had arranged transport. He’s the boss now. He’s well thought of on the squadron and he arranged transport so we can drink as much as we like. So we go in to this hotel in Market Rasen. I wish I could remember its name but it’s there. We go in to the bar. It’s quite early. Not in to the bar. Went in, oh no we went in to the smoke room. Didn’t mix. We wanted a big room of our own and there’s seven of us sat around this table and the, and the navigator, Frank who came to see me from Canada who, thirty five years later, but he said, ‘The first round’s on me.’ We didn’t argue about a round. But he walked up to the bar and we could hear him. This young girl came and he said, he said, ‘I want fifty six pint bottles of beer please.’ She said [pause], ‘I’m not joking,’ he said, ‘I want fifty six pint bottles of beer.’ And they were all brought around our table. Eight of us, seven of us, supposed to drink eight each. The skipper could drink one. The navigator could manage twelve. I may have managed my eight at a push, but I think that particular order was the biggest individual order for beer I’ve ever heard placed.
DH: Yeah.
FM: Yeah. That was Frank. He was going to buy the first round so he did but there was never a second [laughs] Yes.
DH: Could you tell me the names of the people on that crew?
FM: I can. Very well. Pilot George Davies from Oswestry. Navigator Frank Yate from North Hamilton in, in Ontario. Bomb aimer Freddie [Pittey] from Newbury, trainee, a trainee teacher and went back to become a school teacher. Jock Gilchrist. Jock, obviously mid-upper gunner, Scottish from Ayr. The one, the one we found difficulty keeping in touch with and I don’t know why maybe he got married and moved around was the engineer. I’ll think of his name in a minute. And then the rear gunner was the oldest. Harry [Fay], a cockney from East, East Ham. Harry was the first to die. He had a heart attack and one by one they all dropped off leaving me, yeah. I even kept in touch with the wives. With the widows. The two widows that I mainly, because it was rather amazing when you think of I went to the wedding of the bomb aimer and I went to his silver [pause] Oh, let me think. If he was married in ’46, and I went to his golden wedding, that’s right. That’s right. He was married in ’46. Ninety. Yeah, that’s right. And Phyl was alive of course and at his golden wedding of course we were guests of honour fifty years later. That was one amazing thing. The skipper of course married a New Zealand nurse who then wanted to go home and he didn’t have no interest in his father’s business which was a business that I was in. And when he’d gone and I was living in Oswestry and his mum and dad were still alive in Oswestry, I used to visit them didn’t I? And his dad who used to run this big agricultural, owned it, that George wasn’t interested in because he was a Batchelor of Science in his own right on metallurgy. Anyway, that’s another story. Anyway, his father said to me, ‘Get in touch with your boss and tell him that when I’m ready to retire I want you to buy the business.’ Now, geographically it was perfect. We’d already moved from Oswestry when we bought out a company in Welshpool so one more step to new town was perfect. And it happened. He called me, ‘Come and see me. I want to retire,’ he said, I want to safeguard my staff,’ he said. ‘You get hold of your boss.’ Well I did and of course my boss, the big boss then contacted my boss Ben Richards who’d been with me all the lifetime and we went down and we looked and eventually we bought it. And because of that I was made what you’d call area supervisor, having already taken over Welshpool as well from Oswestry, and the funny thing to think that from that day when George Davis says, ‘You’re from Shropshire.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I’m a Salopian too. Would you fly with me?’ Comes years later his dad. It’s, you know —
DH: It’s amazing, isn’t it?
FM: It is. You can’t really believe these things happen. Yes. Yes. I’m glad I’ve got a pretty active memory because sometimes I can enjoy going back on a given period. I don’t have to go back on the lot. I can remember doing something that I never thought you’d do in the wartime. Have you heard of mayday?
DH: Of?
FM: Mayday. The word mayday.
DH: I know what the word mayday means. Yeah.
FM: What does it mean?
DH: It’s a call for help.
FM: Right. It’s also something you don’t use unless you’re in —
DH: Trouble.
FM: In trouble. And so I called mayday and I had to explain when we got down why, and this was with these trainee pilots. We were out one night in January and we were in a horrendous snowstorm. He quite rightly had lost his way. I could understand that. We got down to, over a big town at about four thousand feet or was it, sorry four hundred feet, and we could recognise it was Cheltenham. I also knew that we were, had a safe flying height over the Cotswolds of fourteen hundred feet, and we were flying at four hundred feet. So I tapped him on the shoulder and I [pause] ‘Oh yes,’ he said. We climbed up, and then we were lost, you know. We were close to home and yet lost so I called, ‘Mayday. Mayday.’ The answer, ‘Your requirements?’ And I just said, ‘Searchlights.’ And within no time the beams came up. We could see them and we came home. Got home. I got away with them. My reasons for mayday. They accepted it. I don’t know whether he got away with having lost, you know. I don’t know. I can’t remember, but I do remember that. Possibly being the most scary night of the, you don’t call mayday once in a lifetime. Yeah. And then have to say, go in front of the intelligence and tell them why you called mayday. A thing unknown. Mayday. Yes. Yes. A bad thunderstorm in an old fashioned aircraft is pretty terrible you know. I mean you can’t see anything. Not like these modern things where you’re, yes, enough of me. You’ll never get home ‘til tomorrow. You get me on my memories and I’ve got so many. So many.
DH: Well —
FM: I don’t know.
DH: If you wanted to chat another time and give me memories that would be wonderful.
FM: [unclear] Right. My legs get, slowly but surely they’re deteriorating. You’ve seen that medal haven’t you? That’s the —
DH: Let’s have a look.
FM: That’s the Legion d’Honneur.
DH: Oh yes. That’s beautiful isn’t it?
FM: It is.
DH: Beautiful.
FM: Put that there.
DH: Yes.
FM: It’s just something. I don’t know if I’ve got it. It won’t take a second to look. I’ll finish my coffee. So many documents that I’ve got which [pause] Different crew members but I don’t want to show you bits and pieces. I thought I’d got a [pause] There’s the skipper. What you can see of him. Only his head.
DH: Oh, inside the plane.
FM: No. I can’t see there’s anything particular. It’s hard to remember [laughs] I told you we were in civvy billets in Blackpool.
DH: Yes [pause] Ah, which one are you?
FM: Right in the middle, at the back.
DH: Oh right. Oh yes, nuisance.
FM: I’ll get it. I’ll get it.
DH: All right, love. I did get a little one of the two gunners. The rear and the mid-upper together.
FM: Yeah.
DH: I’ve got other photographs somewhere dear but I don’t know where they are.
FM: Ok. What I’ll do is, if we finish —
DH: Yes.
FM: If I finish of the interview now.
DH: Yeah.
FM: And then I’ll explain a few things. Ok. So, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Frederick Joseph Keith Martin
Creator
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Dawn Hughes
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-03-09
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMartinFJK180309
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:41:51 audio recording
Language
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eng
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
Description
An account of the resource
Keith Martin was working for an agricultural machinery merchants in Shrewsbury when the war started. This was classed as a reserved occupation but when he was nearly 20, he decided to volunteer for the Royal Air Force in April 1942 and was selected to be a wireless operator/air gunner. Initial training took place in Blackpool, followed by further training at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Ternhill, RAF Calveley. Promoted to sergeant he was then posted to 18 Initial Training Wing at RAF Bridgnorth to complete his wireless operator training. Flying training took place at RAF West Freugh and in October 1943 he was posted to an operational training unit at RAF Hixon flying Wellingtons. It was there that Keith was formed in to an aircrew. In December 1943 Keith’s crew flew their first operation, as part of their training, which was leaflet dropping over Belgium. January 1944 saw a posting to a heavy conversion unit at RAF Sandtoft to fly Halifaxes. In April their aircraft had an engine failure on take-off, resulting in a crash landing which wrote it off but injured no-one. He transferred to Lancasters at RAF Hemswell and was then posted to RAF Wickenby. From May he was in an operational squadron. Keith describes the many operations that he carried out, including an operation during which an aircraft below his exploded, and caused his aircraft to go out of control until the pilot recovered control at 2000 feet. In June 1944 he was posted to 300 Squadron. By August his crew had flown 26 operations. On completing his tour, Keith went on to spend a year at the advanced flying unit at RAF South Cerney before volunteering for the Empire Test Pilots’ School at RAF Cranfield. He was finally demobbed in 1946 returning to his pre-war employer, who had kept his job available.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cheshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lancashire
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Wiltshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
England--Blackpool
France--Paris
France--Sangatte
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-04-20
1943-05
1943-10
1943-12-30
1944-01
1944-04-06
1944-05-01
1944-06
1944-08-31
1946
1944-07
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
300 Squadron
626 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
crewing up
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
propaganda
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Calveley
RAF Cranfield
RAF Hemswell
RAF Hixon
RAF Sandtoft
RAF South Cerney
RAF Ternhill
RAF West Freugh
RAF Wickenby
RAF Yatesbury
take-off crash
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner