1
25
37
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1394/36124/LHerbertWJ1819925v1.2.pdf
3ecf7f17106531984e3de7255ced4a06
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
Herbert, W J
Herbert, William James
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-21
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
Herbert, WJ
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection concerns sergeant Williams James Herbert (1819925 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and certificate of service. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 50 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by [name] and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
William James Herbert’s flying log book for navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s
Description
An account of the resource
Flight Engineer’s flying log book for William Herbert, flight engineer, covering the period from 10 March 1944 to 23 August 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Swinderby (1654 CU), RAF Syerston (5 LFS), RAF Skellingthorpe (50 Squadron) and RAF Wigsley (1654 HCU) as an instructor. Aircraft flown in were Stirling and Lancaster. He flew a tour of 34 operations (11 day and 23 night) with 50 squadron. Targets were Orleans, Poitiers, Aunay-sur-Odon, Chatelleraut, Gelsenkirchen-Buer, Limoges, Prouville (Pas de Calais), Limoges, Vitry le Francois, Beauvois, St. Leu d’Esserent, Villeneuve St. George, Nevers, Caen, Stuttgart, Caragnes, Joigny, Siracourt, Bois de Cassan, Trossy, Secqueville, Givors, Russelheim, Brest, Bois de Lisle Adam, La Pallice, Darmstadt, Konigsberg, Bergencuse. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Oliver.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
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
1944-07-14
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-29
1944-08-31
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1945-06-23
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Châtellerault
France--Givors
France--Joigny
France--La Pallice
France--Limoges
France--Normandy
France--Orléans
France--Poitiers
France--Nevers
France--Vitry-le-François
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Stuttgart
Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
Russia (Federation)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Aunay-sur-Odon
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike French
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHerbertWJ1819925v1
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)
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1475/44270/MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030001.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1475/44270/MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030002.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1475/44270/MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030003.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1475/44270/MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030004.2.jpg
975457730c4eaead67cc7ae2f785d441
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
Siddle, William Elliot
W E Siddle
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-08
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
Siddle, WE
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection concerns Sergeant William Elliot Siddle (1038438 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and research. He flew operations as a pilot with 9, 83 and 97 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Chris Wilson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
WILLIAM ELLIOTT SIDDLE
1038438 FLT Sgt
Information below is from:
a) A book called Lancaster Valour, The Valour and the Truth by Clayton Moore published by Compaid Graphics 1995 in co-operation with Yorkshire Air Museum ISBN no 09517965 6 9
[Clayton Moore was a Canadian (and not to be confused with the actor who played the “Lone Ranger”) and he was the tail gunner in “Bill Siddles” Lancaster crew}
b) Flying certificate for Instrument Flying issued to Embryo Pilot William E. Siddle by the Army Air Forces Advanced Flying School, Moody Field, Georgia on the 28 Day of September, 1942
c) Flying certificate issued to W.E Siddle by the United States Army Forces Advanced Flying School Moody field Georgia U.S.A on the 9th Day of October, 1942
d) Obituary from the Cumberland and Westmoreland Herald 1970
e) Royal Air Force Service and Release Book for Flight Lieutenant 149619 W.E. Siddle.
f) book called Lincolnshire Airfields in the Second World War by Patrick Otter
[underlined] Information [/underlined]
William E. Siddle, otherwise known as “Bill” joined the RAF in or around 1942 aged 22 and was trained to fly by the United States Army at their Flying School at Moody Field, Georgia in September/October 1942
He was a Sergeant when he attended operational flying training at Upper Heyford and he formed his crew in June 1943.
Navigator- Dick Lodge
Flight Engineer- Reg Mosely
Mid Upper Gunner- Dick Jones
Wireless Operator- Clem Culley
Bomb Aimer- Ken Mills
Tail Gunner- Clayton Moore (Canadian)
21 July, 1943 The crew’s first posting was with 9 Squadron of 5 Group Bomber Command at Bardney Lincolnshire. Bardney Airfield was opened in April 1943. Squadron Code was WS
27 July, 1943 Hamburg Lancaster DV-198 (WS/U) This was the crew’s first operational flight Then
[page break]
28 July, 1943 Hamburg Lancaster ED-666 (WS/G)
2 August, 1943 Hamburg Lancaster ED-654 (WS/W)
9 August, 1943 Mannheim Lancaster DV-198 (WS/U)
27 August, 1943 Nurenburg Lancaster ED-975 (WS/Y)
30 August, 1943 Munchen Gladbach Lancaster ED-975 (WS/Y)
5 September, 1943 Mannheim Lancaster ED-975 (WS/Y)
6 September, 1943 Munich Lancaster ED-975 (WS/Y)
On this Munich trip the plane was badly hit by flak. Bill was given priority landing as they were losing fuel and they nearly made it back to Bardney but Bill had to put the plane down in a field in Minting as all engines failed. Everyone survived although Bill lost teeth from being flung through the windscreen; Mosely, Hill and Jones had back injuries; Lodge broke his arm getting off the downed plane. Moore was found still in his rear turret under a hedge and he suffered concussion. There is a picture of the crashed ED-975 in Moore’s book.
26 September, 1943 new crew with Jock Wilson, Mick Machin and Gerry Parker (American) replacing Mosely, Hill and Jones respectively took ED-499 (WS/X) on a night flying test. Bill found he could not land and took 9 attempts. Bill then kicked everyone else out expect the flight engineer and after checking the landing gear went straight back up and made a number of landings to get his nerve back. Bill only got a telling off.
22 October, 1943 Kassell Lancaster CV-340 (WS/Q)
2 November, 1943 Crew allocated “Spirit of Russia” Lancaster EE-136 (WS/R)
10 November, 1943 Modane Lancaster EE-136 (WS/R) short on fuel Bill landed in Cambridgeshire and the field forgot to tell Bardney and so all reported missing!
General shortages of crews and crew members stopped Bill and his crew flying together. Jones (who had returned to the crew after recovering from the Minting crash) flew 2 Dec as spare mid upper gunner with WS/C and did not return/shot down. Parker, the American was then made the permanent mid upper gunner. Lodge the Navigator returned to the crew 20 December, 1943.
23 December, 1943 Berlin EE-136
29 December, 1943 Berlin EE-136
5 January, 1944 Stettin EE-136
January, 1944 Braunschweig EE-136
Entire Crew applied to join the Pathfinders
Crew went to PFF Navigation Training Unit at RAF Station Upwood, Cambs
[page break]
3 February, 1944 Crew Posted to 83 Squadron based at Wyton, Cambridgeshire.
15 February, 1944 Berlin Lancaster JB-309 (OL/N)
20 February, 1944 Leipzig Lancaster ND-494 (OL/G) (plane badly hit by flak)
Crew allocated ND-464 (OL/S)
15 March, 1944 end of 2 week training
18 March, 1944 Frankfurt Lancaster ND-390 (OL/V)
24 March, 1944 Berlin Lancaster ND-400 (OL/Q) (72 bombers lost on that raid as met office’s projected wind speeds all wrong- Bill’s navigator Lodge realised something wrong and set new course to adjust to actual very high wind speeds but others did not)
26 March, 1944 Essen Lancaster ND-402 (OL/R)
Bill made Flying Officer and received a DFC at the age of 23
March 1944 83 Squadron transferred from Eight Group to Five
Group’s 97 Squadron- Groups Special Marker Force based in Coningsby, Lincolnshire
March/April 1944? La-Chapelle Paris Lancaster ND-400 (OL/Q)
26 April, 1944 Schweinfurt Lancaster ND-464 (OL/S)
28 April, 1944 St Medard en Jalles nr Bordeax
1 May, 1944 St Martin Du Touch (OL/S)
8 May, 1944 Lanveoc Lancaster ND-551 (OL/V) (German airfield in France)
11 May, 1944 Bourg-Leopold Belgium Lancaster ND-464 (OL/S)
1 June, 1944 Saumur Lancaster ND-464 (OL/S)
6 June, 1944 La Parnelle Lancaster ND-464 (OL/S)
Invasion of Europe- Bill volunteered for a second tour- crew did too.
7 June, 1944 Caen Lancaster ND-464 (OL/S)
10 June, 1944 Orleans Lancaster ND-933
Daylight Raid formation training
21 June, 1944 Wesselling, Cologne Lancaster ND-464 (OL/S)
Crew Changes- Gerry Parker (American) transferred and replaced by Paddy Blanche who after 1 trip transferred to 617 Squadron and replaced by Hine as mid upper gunner.
23 July, 1944 St Vitry le Francoise Lancaster
[page break]
Bill was awarded a bar to his DFC and promoted to Flight Lieutenant due to his actions during this raid as “by skilful and evasive tactics, Flight Lieutenant Siddle manoeuvred his aircraft and continued to make a steady run, although his aircraft was plainly visible in the light of flares around the target” (Obituary says June 1944)
No date Wizerne
23 July, 1944 Keil (from Wyton base) Lancaster ND-400 (OL/Q)
24 July, 1944 Stuttgart (from Wyton base) Lancaster ND-400 (OL/Q)
Crew changes- Hine and Culley (wireless op) left- Alan McDonald (Canadian) new wireless op but no mid upper gunner as shortage.
26 July, 1944 Givors Lancaster PB-230 (OL/V)
July/August 1944- crew shortages meant enforced inactivity
September 1944- crew allocated new plane PB-368 (new OL/S)
10 September, 1944 Munchen Gladbach Lancaster PB-368 (OL/S)
11 September, 1944 Darmstadt Lancaster PB-368 (OL/S)
12 September, 1944 Stuttgart Lancaster PB-368 (OL/S)
Crew Change- Bill Trotter joins as mid upper gunner
19 September, 1944 Stuttgart Lancaster PB-368 (OL/S)
23 September, 1944 Munster Lancaster PB-368 (OL/S)
27 September, 1944 Kaiserslaughtern Lancaster PB-368 (OL/S)
October was spent training in OL/S
This is the end of the information found in the tail gunners book (Clayton Moore). Clayton had done 45 runs and head injuries in the Minting crash were catching up on him with increasing headaches and sight problems. Clayton went back to Canada. At this time only 3 of the original crew remained. Siddle (pilot), Lodge (navigator) and Moore (tail gunner).
Bill Siddle remained on active service until the cessation of hostilities having completed more than 60 operational sorties.
His last day of service was 1 April, 1946.
He died in 1970 aged 48.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
William Elliot Siddle
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Siddle's time in the RAF pieced together by research. He was a pilot who flew the Lancaster with 9 and 83 Squadrons. He was commissioned in 1944, was awarded the DFC and Bar and completed more than 60 operations. He left the service in 1946 and died in 1970.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07-21
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-08-02
1943-08-09
1943-08-27
1943-08-30
1943-09-05
1943-09-06
1943-10-22
1943-11-02
1943-11-10
1943-12-23
1943-12-29
1943-12-29
1944-01-05
1944-02-03
1944-02-15
1944-02-20
1944-03-15
1944-03-18
1944-03-24
1944-03-26
1944-04-26
1944-04-28
1944-05-01
1944-05-08
1944-05-11
1944-06-01
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-10
1944-06-21
1944-07-23
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-09-10
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-19
1944-09-23
1944-09-27
1946-04-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Georgia--Moody Air Force Base
Great Britain
England--Oxfordshire
Germany
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Munich
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Berlin
England--Cambridgeshire
France
France--Modane
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Essen
France--Paris
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Wesseling
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Lanvéoc
France--Saumur
France--Orléans
France--Caen
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Givors
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Belgium
Poland
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
United States Army Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four typewritten pages
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030001, MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030002, MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030003, MSiddleWE1038438-151208-030004
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.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
William Cragg
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Bardney
RAF Coningsby
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upwood
RAF Wyton
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1108/31105/MSaintTJ1452007-180212-01.1.pdf
b29166bb88a459f1e1acc8d8b77c3a0f
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
Saint, Margaret
T J Saint
M Saint
Meg Saint
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Margaret Saint (b. 1922) as well as her husband Trevor's flying logbook and his diary/memoir. He flew as an air gunner with 514 Squadron in 1944.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Margaret Saint 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
2018-02-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Saint, TJ-M
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
May 1941 5/6 T J S & Kev Palmer joined the RAF at READING Went separately to CARDINGTON FOR swearing in, attestation & tests
Sept 2 41 TRAIN TO PENARTH - COLLECTED UNIFORMS.
4 TRAIN TO BOURNEMOUTH BILLITED [sic] PRIVATE HOUSES Several weeks training - Sq bashing & having an enjoyable time TRAINS TO WENDOVER & RAF HALTON 2 WEEKS FATIGUES STARTING ARMOURER (GUNS) course.
Jan 1942 After course finished posted to HENLOW Kev Palmer to SWINDERBBURY [sic] WORKING ON GUNS & GUN TURRETS WORKING ON HURRICANES FROM CANADA
Spring 42 VOLUNTEERED FOR AIRCREW MEDICAL & TESTS at CARDINGTON
AUTUMN 42 POSTED TO LORDS CRICKET [inserted] GROUND [/inserted] - STAY IN VICEROY CT FOR A FEW WEEKS (THE TIME IN LONDON WAS FREE OF AIR RAIDS - 4 WEEKS LATER 2 RAIDS WITH [underlined] 100 LOST [/underlined]
NOV - DEC 42 POSTED TO ITW SCARBOROUGH YORKS 3-4 MONTHS COURSE. PASSED TO TRAIN AIR BOMBER
MARCH 43 POSTED TO HEATON PARK MANCHESTER TO PREPARE TO TRAIN IN CANADA. UNEXPECTEDLY POSTED TO CAMP AT LUDLOW. UNDER CANVASS & LABOUR DUTIES
JULY-AUG 43 VOLUNTEERED FOR TRANING [sic] AS AIR GUNNER
4 TRAINING AT MORPETH WING LITTLE HORWOOD CREWED UP TRAING [sic] STRADISHALL
FEB 44 514 SQUADRON
[page break]
514 Squadron RAF WATERBEACH
3 LFS 3 LANCASTER [deleted] FLYING [/deleted] [inserted] FINISHING [/inserted] SCHOOL HAVING FLOWN IN STIRLING AT 1657 CU (CONVERSION UNIT) STRADISHALL (SUFFOLK) LAST FLIGHT AT 3 LFS [deleted] 28 JAN 1944. [/deleted] 18 FEB 1944 FELTWELL PROBABLY HAVING 7 DAYS LEAVE
CREW GOING TO 514 SQDN WATERBEACH CAMBS
FLYING LANC [underlined] MARK I’s [/underlined] AT 3 LFS NOW FLYING [underlined] MARK II’s [/underlined] at WATERBEACH NEEDING CONVERSION COURSE to TRAIN IN MARK II’s RADIAL ENGINES TRAINIG [sic] FROM MARCH 4th TO 22nd MARCH
18 MARCH 1944 1st OP TO [underlined] FRANKFURT [/underlined] (22 TOTAL LOSS) NO LOSSES 514
22 MARCH 2nd OP TO [underlined] FRANKFURT [/underlined] (34 TOTAL LOSS) 2 LOST FROM 514 SQ F/L NICHOL 4 POW 2 EVS 1+ [symbol for dead) F/S UNDERWOOD 2 POW 5+ (The 2nd operation gave our crew a rough view of what lay ahead for us. The Captain Wishart had full [2 indecipherable words] as a 2nd jockey flying with experienced crew. We saw many aircraft on fire and falling. The target was lit by flares & searchlights
[page break]
The normal procedure with Bomber operations was to start with a [underlined] met [/underlined] [indecipherable word] wind speed Then the bomber aimer used drifts to give a air speed & send it back to HQ by wireless operators. The result at HQ was queried & sent back a different result because the wind speed too high. As a result most a/c went off course an [sic] bombed wrong places
[page break]
[underlined] 24th March [/underlined] We were briefed for [underlined] BERLIN [/underlined] There had been a big campaign to destroy Berlin over a number of raids in late 1943 & in the New Year. This was to be the last of the major raids. (TOTAL LOSS 73) 514 LOST F/O LAING 6 Crew lost 1 POW Routing over the BALTIC sea in order to approach from the North. Very powerful searchlights of blue light (as modern car headlights) caught several planes and within minutes we were one of next victims. The skipper heavily corkscrewed us to get clear of the lights - but had [underlined] *runaway props [/underlined] (*The propellers were variable pitch but went to fine pitch which stopped biting the air. The props on the other side pulled us round in a spiral) which put us into a diving corkscrew which we fell some 8 thousand feet. At the same time a high pitched sound - hellise [sic] HELLISH sound.- Due to the great skill of Wishart the props were fixed and saved us from certain death. Had to jettison our bombs & head 500 miles back to UK at some 8ooo feet dangerously low and vunerable [sic] I spotted a 2 engined aircraft & fired a burst of tracer.
The main force running into trouble with incarate [sic] INACCURATE wind speeds. Many bombed at wrong places *See end of [indecipherable word]
[page break]
The general idea was the Nurenburg, [sic] [insert] RAID [/inserted] would have got us away from the RUHR area. Crews thought it would be straight fowd [sic] Night fighters were waiting for us and also the wind speed was very high. Navigators were misled
Wishart and crew flew 2000ft higher than the main force. We were still very “GREEN” & inexperienced - but some how we avoided the real trouble.
On the way back we had to fly through a cold front - with bad icing we landed at Waterbeach with very little fuel.
The announcement on the BBC twelve o’clock news caused considerable worry. I telephoned as soon as possible & at least our family were relieved
[page break]
MAR 26 [underlined] ESSEN [/underlined] (TOTAL LOSS 9) 514 NO LOSSES
Mar 30 [underlined] NURENBURG [sic] [/underlined]
The heaviest CASUALTIES OF THE WAR [underlined] 96 LOST [/underlined] A WHOLE BOOK WRITTEN ON THIS SUBJECT 514 LOSSES P/O CROMBIE 5 Lost 2 POW - W/O McGowan FORCE LANDED 2 BALED OUT NO INJURIES - F/O HOOD 6 POW 1 LOST + - F/S GREGORY 6 LOST + 1 POW - F/O HUGHES 6 LOST + 1 POW
Rear Gunner & I were in the same room as GREGORY & CREW They called us (Brassey & I) the horizontal air force always lying on our beds A FIRST REAL SADNESS OVER their loss
Service police took all their kit away (normal practice)
11 April 11 [underlined] AACHEN [/underlined] (AIX LA CHAREL) [sic] (TOTAL 9 LOSS) F/O THACKRAY 6 LOST 1 POW
26 April [underlined] ESSEN [/underlined] (TOTAL 7 LOSS) No Loss 514
[page break]
27 April [underlined] FRIERICKHAVON [sic] [/underlined] No Loss 514 (TOTAL 18 LOSS)
We were expecting to fly on to an (probably CORSICA) island in the med. after bombing we were ordered back to U.K. Rather disappointing. FREDRICHHAVEN [sic] was on LAKE CONSTANCE Switzerland was on the other side.
MAY 1st [underlined] CHAMBLY [/underlined] (TOTAL) 5 LOSS) F/Lt CURTIS ALL LOST
MAY 7 [underlined] NANTES [/underlined] (TOTAL 1 LOSS) NO LOSS 514
May 9 [underlined] CAP GRIS NEL [sic] (NO LOSS
Cap Gris Nel [sic] was a short trip just across channel to attack large guns
MAY 19 LE MANS (TOTAL 3 LOSS) F/S SHEARING 4 LOST 1 INJ 1 BALED OUT F/L GRAY HIT BY FLAK CRASH LANDED GRAVELEY ALL SAFE
MASTER BOMBER & HIS DEPUTY COLLIDED THE MASTER BOMBER DIRECTED to main force over [inserted] the [/inserted] AIR on many OCCASSIONS [sic] SOMETIMES THEY USED VERY RIPE LANGUAGE
The Master bombers were very VUNERABLE [sic] & could be picked by night FIGHTERS
[page break]
21 MAY [underlined] DUISBURG [/underlined] (Total 29 lost) [underlined] SGT GIBSON ALL LOST UNABLE TO LAND WITH BOMB LOAD CRASHED IN SEA. P/O WINDSOR ALL LOST. F/S MEDLAND DFM 3 LOST+ 2 EVADED 1 POW.
A few crew members escaped made their way back to UK
22 May [underlined] DORTMUND [/underlined] No Losses 514
SEVERE ICING - CAUSED SEVERAL AIRCRAFT UNABLE TO CLIMB. (including us)
The Wing Commander & crew had an 8000lb bomb which could not be dropped only at a certain height. Most of the crew had to bail out before the bomb could be dropped in the N. Sea. 1 Aircrew died. (Total (29 LOST)
[page break]
27 May AACHEN (Total 12 lost) F/L TAYLOR All Lost
[underlined] ANGERS [/underlined]
28 May A low level flight below 100’ all the way to the Bay of Biscay. Passed over Marlow (probably Whit Sunday 1944 (Total 1 LOST)
A beautiful afternoon hopping over the land to keep at low level to avoid RADAR. We were given lemons instead of oranges. A lot of our flying was very enjoyable - we were not always waiting for trouble
31 May TRAPPES (Total 4 LOST) No 514 losses
10 June DREUX (Total 18 Lost)
A number of raids were to bomb railway yards & sites for firing flying bombs (We were thus unknown of the buzzbombs)
11 June NANTES (Total 4 Lost No 514 loses
14 June LE HARVE (Total 1 Lost) No 514 losses
[page break]
15 June [underlined] VALENCIENNES [/underlined] Total 5 Lost F/S PROWLES 5 LOST 1 EVA
21 June DAMOLEGER [sic] (daylight) (No Losses)
Our Squadron had to practice daylight flying (not as the Americans in formation but untidy groups. Talk about dangerous flying! We flew on gagles [sic] as some geese do!
23 June I’HEY (5 Lost) No Loss 514
30 June VILLERS BOCAGE
Daylight raid HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL on 2nd & 9th Panzer divisions Field Marshall Montgomery asked for the raid (Total 2 Lost) F/O WOODS 7 LOST FO HANESSON 5 LOST 2 INJ
The aircraft from 3 Group (us) were flying at a certain height and accurate time. The other group were due to fly higher and a little later. We were late & they were early. I noticed sticks of bombs coming down (in daylight). One of our LANCS was hit by a bomb. We saw one of the crew ran across at Waterbeach (obviously caught napping) and just got on board - the one hit by a bomb
July 2 BEAUVIS No LOSSES No LOSS 514
[page break]
[underlined] VAIRES [/underlined]
7 July (FLYING BOMB SITES) Pepered by flak. Lots of holes in a/c 1 piece thru’ navigators table [underlined] No Losses [/underlined]
10 July [underlined] NUCOURT [/underlined] Daylight attack flying bomb sites [underlined] No Losses [/underlined]
12 July [underlined] VAIRES flying bomb sites
23 July [underlined] KIEL [/underlined] 4 LOSSES
25 July [underlined] STUTTGART [/underlined] 21 LOSSES F/O MIDDLETON ALL LOST
The last operation. It had a large variety of experiences. The Mark1 LANCS could [inserted] not [/inserted] so had [deleted] dropped [/deleted] to drop a couple of bombs to get height. The air temp was [deleted] height [/deleted] HIGH. Saw many combats flames & tracer fire. On way back saw a number V1s en route to London. Lower & faster than us. the skipper was [indecipherable word] over [indecipherable word] cumulus for fun [boxed] TOTAL LOSSES ON THE SAME AS US - [underlined] 397 [/underlined] [/boxed]
[page break]
On the 26th July 1944 our crew Wishart and six airmen completed a tour of 29 operations. I think we went out at about 1130 AM back to the aircraft and thanked the ground crew. The NAAFI van had just arrived and custard tarts were on sale - custard tarts were a prominent land mark in my 22 years
To say the least this day I have never dreamed that I would survive to see the 29th op. During the tour 21 aircraft crashed & crews from 514 Squadron were either killed injured or made prisoner. Some of the targets were very long & dangerous a few of latter ones were shorter; but everyone was vunerable. [sic]
The skipper NORRIE WISHART once said you’d have to have 50% luck & 50% ability. I thought out crew were reasonable chaps and was very lucky to be one of them. The rear gunner Fairbrass was a slightly older man with wife and child in digs in Cambridge. He was pure Tottenham and had a North East London accent.
[page break]
We sometimes went out together to Cambridge & Bury St Edmunds when at our unit. Fish & chips and cinema. I don’t [inserted] think [/inserted] we drank too much beer but Brassie felt ill when we travelled in a RAF transport bumpy & hot on one occasion. Early in 1944 when we where on Stirlings going out to town was very cold. Having been issued with white silk gloves - ideal for air gunners - but not for eating chips. The result was silk became stiff like boards and didn’t [indecipherable word] it to [indecipherable word] freezing operations
The crew - Wishart (pilot) (Awarded THE D.F.C.) D GRAY (Navigator) [indecipherable name] (air bomber) Cartwright (flight engineer) TURNER (wireless operator) Fairbrass (rear gunner) T Saint (mid upper gunner)
I remember them as highly qualivied [sic] men. They all had to be good at their jobs. I cannot remember the navigator lost - which was one of the most vital aspexs [sic] of the aircrews. The flight engineer
[page break]
had to look after engines and keep tabs on the petrol consumption. The bomb aimer was in the plane to work with the pilot and drop his bombs accurately - which was the sum total of us doing the operation. Wireless Ops was there to listen in helping the navigators & guiding us by mapping the route by beacons.
The two gunners were not there to attack [deleted] aircraft [/deleted] [inserted] BANDITS but to watch endlessly for [deleted] combats [/deleted] [inserted] NIGHT FIGHTERS [/inserted] (tough planes) the gunners telling the pilot to bank port & starboard to try and look beneath the plane.
Just before New Year 1944 Fairbrass & I were sent on a weeks course on Newmarket race tracks, or near the tracks where an airdrome was on flat ground. Most of the flights were on Wellingtons & cooperating with a fighter (either a Hurricane or Martinet We were “attacked” by these fighters each having cine cameras. All the attacks were from above (diving down to attack us). Later on when we were operating over enemy territory - we were going to be attacked from below. the fighter had a gun upward fighering [sic] - trying to shoot our petrol tanks
[page break]
During the 5 months from Feb to July 1944 life on 514 SQUADRON was fancy free compared with previous RAF stations. Most of the discipline was in the aircraft and crew. Operations took place on various days & nights but otherwise there [deleted] was [/deleted] [inserted] were [/inserted] hold ups as on flying [deleted] during [/deleted] due to fog & full moon.
On an operation day work was very active. BESIDE bombing up & briefings & air tests filled up the days and ready for take off usually late evening.
On other days crews were “stood down” at 2 PM which allowed us to go to Cambridge & wherever.
On several occasions I got on to the Ely road outside the camp and hitch-hiked to Marlow. In spite of less traffic on the roads there were lorries & business cars ready to pick up service people. The best way was to go to Royston & A1 to HATFIELD & then Rickmansworth & Denham
[page break]
I usually got to Marlow by 5.30 contacted my parents & Meg. The next morning was slightly more ‘dicey’. 7.18 train to London - Algate [sic] (met) Leytonstone Epping Forest etc. Looking back I must have had a fair bit of nerve to be back before lunch and not be missed.
The war went on seven days a week but in order to have leave (which was needed to get away from flying) six days were made available every six weeks. The leave list for crews was going to be altered because of the losses. The more ops you survived the crews had to fill up the gaps. It was sad when you found you had to fill up the gaps because so many crews were missing and the more senior you were you had more leave.
On one of the leaves D Day took [inserted] June 6 1944 [/inserted] place (June 6th). All leave was cancelled except Navy & aircrew. Meg & I cycled to a pub above Pleasant Hill & watched gliders & tug planes - going South. Felt very guilty.
[page break]
At the end of our tour we had probably two weeks leave and in Summer weather had picnics by the river and heard gunfire from the continent.
We went to another camp for a few days and more leave & then Fairbrass & I were posted to a place called Brada near Inverness. We travelled on the Aberdonian express (only allowed to go at less than 60 miles an hour. It was quite a respite and a long way from the war.
The idea was to interview the air gunners (all ex operational) to find future jobs for us. During our tour of ops the invasion of France hopefully leading to the end of the war. In my case I had been an armourer and it was possible to make me revert back to [inserted] my [/inserted] trade. There were jobs for gunners to be target towers & armament instructors. This was what would be my [indecipherable word] 1st choice after further training.
[page break]
The time at Brada was helping hay making and Brassie & I visited Loch Ness. The Farmer invited me to Sunday tea - the largest meal I had since 1939.
Hanging over our heads was the possibility of going out East to fight the Japs - a dreadful thought. After Brada we seemed to have infedinite [sic] leave - with no station to go to.
When I had volunteered to be an air gunner - the Wing Commander said we could carry on later to train as Air Bomber after we’d completed our tour. They kept there [sic] wire and sent a telegram to offer training for Air Bomber. I declined as by this time I was a bit of a veteran & sargeants [sic] stripes and the telegram offering me an armament job at Belfast University. I declined this one and within a short time I was to be posted to WEST FREUGH - Stranraer on the Mull of Galway Just across the water from Ireland
[page break]
Another long rail journey to CARLISLE. Caught a train very early AM to travel on a single line through very rugged country. Just before Stranraer a huge port which had been built for the invasion - Cairn Ryan. Apparently one of the huge landing floats were built there and towed down to NORMANDY. West Freugh was a brick built station & reasonably comfortable. Most of the chaps were ex ops like myself. Aircrew came back from Canada and needed extra tuition. I was supposed to be an instructor but they expected me to go on an air armament course.
Just after Christmas 1944 I was sent on a course to Many (Lincs) Manby was quite near the North Sea and was billody [sic] cold. January ’45 had snow & ice. I had lots of classes and talks on training to lecture in the air on Wellington.
[page break]
Another Christmas in the war 1944 Next door to our hut (full of ex aircrew) were WAAFs & On the 25th it was too good a chance to make a visitation to our next door neighbours, Which we did. Most of there girls were in bed - it was very respectable in fact one chap became engaged to one of them
We heard later that a RAF Station in Ireland (IRELAND) where a similar thing happened - the C.O. came down heavily on some of the chaps.
On another occasion a party of WAAFs from the cookhouse - sitting reading on the bed - tipped me out on the floor - very good fun
[page break]
Meg & I [deleted] went [/deleted] [inserted] met [/inserted] in LONDON on a Saturday. Very cold damp & overcast ROCKETS were falling at intervals No good worrying about them as there was no warning unlike the bombing raids. The war in Europe was held up by severe ice & snow
At the end of the armament course I called in at Marlow for a couple of days & heard of the death of Gus Howard. Gus was Captain of a Lanc & having been on a diversary [sic] trip but was shot down as he came in to land.
I went back to West Freugh with a heavy heart
In early Spring 1945 I was then a teacher instrutor [sic] & lectures courses such as bomb aimer, one day I walked into a lecture where sitting in the front was Sgt [missing name] ex [indecipherable word] school - senior to me. A great pleasure & big joke.
Weather was beautiful in the Mull of Galloway & cycling was easy
[page break]
Suddenly the war in Europe was ending & aircrew were going to be an embarrassment. A lot of us were posted ‘en mass’ to PWLLHELI where was little to do and short of space. Thus people went home on weeks of leave.
On one of the leaves from Scotland Megs & I wanted to plan a holiday, but my mother wasn’t to approve so had to tell our parents we wanted to marry in July.
Owing to the uncertainty of the posters we might have had a problem, but it all worked out.
We were married of July 14 1945 at Brimsfield [sic] Church by the Rev de Lacie Wain. Everyone helped in the village for the reception & a car down to Gloucester Station. We arrived in Dunster & spent a week with a lady in digs. Coming back to Birdlip there was a telegram giving me another 7 days leave.
[page break]
I was back & forth [indecipherable word] to Wales until there was a posting to TERNHILL (another brick built camp.
I was by this time a Warrant Officer & was allocated a room for two in the mess. On the second day I was at Ternhill an airmen ( a W.O.) who had a big wangle going on. He spent the week between Ternhill & London taking back eggs etc from farms. He suggested I went with him and I asked the farmers wife if I could bring my wife down for a weekend. Megs made an instant friendship with the wife and stayed at Longford nearly a year.
Soon afterwards I was allowed to live ‘out of camp’ and having Meg with me in a bed sit in the old farm house. The farm at Longford was down a long lane a mile from the camp. Mr & Mrs Masters farms have outside loo with a two hole seat & tin bath and tap in the dairy.
[page break]
We had lovely big fires and had great comfort for newly weds. We had a double bed upstairs with chamber pot & wash stand. I had very little to do at the camp - an occasional lecture. Megs got a job at Jones Motors as a typist at Market Drayton.
I [deleted] was [/deleted] [inserted] went [/inserted] to 2 courses from Ternhill one to Sutton on Hill for aircraft recognition and another to Brize Norton for a lecture course. All things don’t last forever so a lot of aircrew and officers had to move to the nether end of Lincolnshire to HIBALSTOWE.[sic] There was little or nothing to do at this place. Most of us were planning how to get back to Market Drayton.
We went to Scunthorpe to a tawdry club but I was able to see the Steel Works after dark with flames & sparks from blast furnaces.
Some of the chap were sitting [indecipherable word] certifate [sic] exam. Many aircrew had lower demob numbers so demob was within site [sic]. I frequently went back to Longford by train & hitch hiking. One [indecipherable word] time ready for Easter 1946
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
Trevor Saint diary/memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Diary from joining the RAF in may 1941, through training as groundcrew and then volunteered for aircrew and eventually trained as air gunner and posting to 514 Squadron. Describes operations while on the squadron and notes details and losses. Provides occasional thoughts on operations and produces various anecdotes. Mentions completing tour of 29 operations on 26 July 1944 and includes his thought about his crews survival, lists crew names and writes about operations and activities after his tour was complete. Continues with account of Christmas 1944 and other activities in 1944-45. Mentions visiting London and rockets falling at intervals and about the death of an acquaintance. Concludes with activities towards the end of the war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
T Saint
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Sixteen page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MSaintTJ1452007-180212-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Berkshire
England--Bedfordshire
England--Reading
England--Dorset
England--Bournemouth
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
England--Manchester
England--Shropshire
England--Ludlow
England--Suffolk
England--Northumberland
England--Morpeth
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Dortmund
France
France--Angers
France--Paris
France--Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
France--Dreux
France--Nantes
France--Le Havre
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France--Valenciennes
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
France--Beauvais
France--Vaires-sur-Marne
France--Nucourt
Germany--Kiel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Hampshire
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-05
1941-09-02
1942-01
1942
1942-10
1942-11
1943-03
1943-07
1943-08
1944-02
1944-02-18
1944-03-18
1944-03-22
1944-03-24
1944-03-20
1944-04-11
1944-04-26
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-21
1944-05-26
1944-05-31
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-21
1944-06-25
1944-06-30
1944-07-02
1944-07-03
1944-07-10
1944-07-12
1944-07-23
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Robin Christian
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
514 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
ground crew
ground personnel
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 2
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Brackla
RAF Cardington
RAF Feltwell
RAF Halton
RAF Henlow
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swinderby
RAF Ternhill
RAF Waterbeach
RAF West Freugh
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-2
V-weapon
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1108/31101/LSaintTJ1452007v1.1.pdf
337ce15643b729c8e5d24ede11f0bfde
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
Saint, Margaret
T J Saint
M Saint
Meg Saint
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Margaret Saint (b. 1922) as well as her husband Trevor's flying logbook and his diary/memoir. He flew as an air gunner with 514 Squadron in 1944.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Margaret Saint 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
2018-02-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Saint, TJ-M
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/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LSaintTJ1452007v1
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for T J Saint, air gunner, covering the period from 22 August 1943 to 10 May 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Morpeth, RAF Wing, RAF Little Horwood, RAF Newmarket, RAF Stradishall, RAF Feltwell, RAF Waterbeach, RAF Manby and RAF West Freugh. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Stirling, and Lancaster. He flew a total of 29 operations with 514 squadron, 5 daylight and 24 night. Targets were Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen, Nuremberg, Aachen, Friedrichshafen, Chambly, Nantes, Cap Gris-Nez, Le Mans, Duisburg, Angers, Trappes, Dreux, Le Havre, Valenciennes, Domleger, L’Hey, Villers Bocage, Beauvoir, Vaires, Nucourt, Kiel and Stuttgart. His pilot on operations was Flight Sergeant Wishart.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Terry Hancock
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Tyne and Wear
France--Domléger-Longvillers
France--Angers
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
France--Dreux
France--Le Havre
France--Le Mans
France--Nantes
France--Nucourt
France--Paris Region
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Valenciennes
France--Vaires-sur-Marne
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
France--Yvelines
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
France--L'Haÿ-les-Roses
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Cap Gris Nez
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-29
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-21
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-30
1944-07-01
1944-07-02
1944-07-07
1944-07-08
1944-07-10
1944-07-12
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1945
Title
A name given to the resource
Trevor Saint air gunner's flying log book
1657 HCU
26 OTU
514 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 2
Lancaster Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Feltwell
RAF Little Horwood
RAF Manby
RAF Morpeth
RAF Newmarket
RAF Stradishall
RAF Waterbeach
RAF West Freugh
RAF Wing
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/194/27236/BAdamsHGAdamsHGv3.1.pdf
b629d8156eacb9d34cd9571706ae198a
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
Adams, Herbert
Herbert Adams
H Adams
Herbert G Adams
Description
An account of the resource
88 items. Collection concerns Herbert George Adams DFC, Legion d'Honour (b. 1924, 424509 Royal Australian Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 467 Squadron. Collection contains an oral history interview, photographs of people and places, several memoirs about his training and bombing operations, letters to his family, his flying logbook and notes on navigation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Herbert Adams and catalogued by Nigel Huckins and Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Adams, HG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
The War … Training.
Towards the end of 1941, the Air Training Corps was formed. Terry Cooke & I joined at once, and, due to my surname, my number was 10 001, the first in NSW. We trained at Ashfield in Whitehurst’s garage (the showroom floor was devoid of new cars by then), and Whitehurst himself was the Squadron Leader in charge – he was an ex-pilot from WWI. One of the benefits of joining the A.T.C. was that it gave you accelerated position on the waiting list for air-crew … then about 8 months. Air-crew enlistment was very popular, I guess partly due to the Battle of Britain publicity & the realization that air power would play a big part in the war. The Japs had shown at Pearl Harbour that planes could sink battleships (putting them out-of-date forever!)
Our training in the ATC consisted mainly of learning Morse Code, aircraft & ship recognition of both Allied and enemy planes & ships. Terry was already an accomplished plane modeller, & he added several to the growing collection hanging from the ceiling … we studied them, learnt their names & tried to recognise them at a distance and in subdued light.
We also did some P.E. The “old” tubby Squdron [sic] Leader surprised us early in the piece. He got us all to do as many push-ups as we could. No one got beyond 30, several couldn’t do 10. He then proceeded to do 50! He had a table-tennis set up & was quite adept, so we all got a go at that. In the city at that time the world doubles champions had an academy in Pitt St. He invited them to put on an exhibition for us, including a set of singles for some of us against one of them. Two of their ‘stunts’ stood out. Zabados [sic] (the older) would say, “it’s an easy game, see” while returning shots with his back to Keelan (who was good enough to put the ball onto his bat.) Zabados [sic] then turned, faced Keelan & returned several balls using the edge of the bat!
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I had a set against Keelan, and despite him “setting up” chances for my topspin forehand, he won 21-6.
We were promised uniforms in the spring of 1942. But, although we were then on the waiting list for call-up for aircrew, compulsory national military training had begun. In June, Terry was called up for the Army, & sent to North Sydney for Artillery training. As both our birthdays were in February, I enquired why I wasn’t called up too. We both realized that 6/- a day with everything found made us rich compared with public service wage of about £3 a week … paying board & fares.
I was surprized [sic] to learn they had me “in reserved occupation”! After a lot of phone calls and a consultation, that was scrubbed and I was called up for the Army on 3rd July & sent to Dubbo for basic infantry training .. 54th Company of 5th Infantry Training Brigade, army number 252661. We did the usual rifle, bayonet, machine-gun, anti-tank gun, mortars, grenades, & gas-drills, parade ground drill (not too much), P.E., routemarches ending in the “mad-mile” … obstacle course … a bit like we see at Kapooka on T.V. It was a solid month. Then our corporal invited any of us who could drive a truck to step forward … for a course at Moorebank for a month, likely to have us become a driver on infantry transport. All 30 of us stepped forward! After trying us out in 3 ton Fords, about 20 of us convinced them we could double-shuffle … (one chap never managed to change from low … just grind, grind, grind … so he didn’t go.), & we got on the course.
At Moorebank (next to the big Army camp at Liverpool) we spent most days on practical work, especially on Bren gun carriers, including some driving. The gear linkage was a mirror-reverse of normal gear H pattern …. a bit hard to learn. Gentle curves could be made with the steering wheel which put a bed in the tracks, but for sharper turns, we’d change down 2 gears, hit the accelerator & turn the wheel sharply, which [indecipherable word] one track
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The carriers were quite heavy (1/4” armour all round) & driven by a Ford V8 Mercury engine, so there was a lot of stalling learning to do sharp turns. Some of the heavier work was repairing broken tracks. We also did a lot of learning how to take-apart carburettors, petrol pumps, mend punctures, change wheels etc. Then, each night we had lectures on all sorts of things to do with transport, including how engines worked, clutches, diffs, steering, electrical etc. I managed to skip a few of these night sessions, but still studied the manual they provided. At the end of the month we had a written exam. A couple of lads hadn’t learnt to read & write very well, and I guess many of the them [sic] hadn’t excelled at school. Anyway, I came top of the class & was invited to do a 6-month course at Sydney Tech College & come out Warrant Officer instructor, age 18! Wartime promotion! I was tempted, since it was well known that the loss rate in Air Crew was high. However, I turned it down, went back to Dubbo for a few more weeks … mostly working on Bren gun carriers, until I got the call-up for air-crew .. on 12th Sept to Bradfield Park, No 2 I.T.S. (Initial Training School).
[black and white photograph of Herbert Adams in Australian Army uniform]
This is my only photo in Army uniform, taken at “Springfield” Mendooran, about the end of August ’42, probably on a short leave after completing the course at Moorebank, on the way back to Dubbo.
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At Bradfield Park we were 32 course (one a month since the [inserted] Empire [/inserted] Air Training Scheme began early in 1940 to provide aircrew for Britain … training done in Canada, New Zealand, South Africa & Australia.) Each course was divided into several “flights” graded according to our tested speeds at receiving Morse Code. I was one of 25 in 32D flight, … I think there were 7 flights. We all wore “goonskins” & berets.
Photo taken on 6/10/42
[black and white photograph of four rows of men wearing boiler suits and berets at the side of a hut]
Front Row: F. Morgan, J. Chigwidden, R. Roeder, C. Dowie.
Second Row: E. Cunningham, R. McCallister, R. Schneider, P. Rutherford, L. Davies, J. Boatswain, J. Thorne
Third Row: J. O’Brien, J. Weekes, K. Burns, A. Marshall, R. Loton, P. Skerman, B. Adams, D. Nicholls
Back Row: M. Coleman, D. Milliken, G. Lumsdaine, G. Benson, P. Brander, D. Placell, A. Dufty.
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The course at Bradfield Park lasted about 3 months. There was a lot more Morse Code training, aiming at 20 words/min for us all. There was a lot of introductory training about Theory of Flight, Meteorology, Guns & ammunition, bombs, elementary radio, principles of navigation & bomb aiming. We also got an indication of what further training would occur, & where, for the main categories:- pilots, observors [sic] (combined navigation, bomb-aiming & air gunnery), & WAG (wireless operator/gunner).
All got a dental overhaul. I think there were some ‘trainee’ dentists. I was supposed to get 6 fillings one day. After drilling until only a shell remained on one tooth; in trying to extract it, it broke off & so had to be a cut-job to get the root out. I had that happen 5 more times, about a week apart. No doubt my teeth were chalky. I got a new bigger plate.
Sometime during the course I got a mild case of mumps & was sent to the isolation hospital, Prince Henry, near Malabar.
When I got back I became part of 33 course, but then they decided that part of 33 course would be “rushed” to join 32 course … more places to fill at the various training venues. Those chosen had to be reasonably fast at Morse Code; I qualified & so rejoined 32 course.
We did a lot of P.E. One of our regular tasks was a run down to Fullers Bridge & back (uphill). The P.E. instructors gave us recruits a lot of “get a move on you soft ------- s”. It’s true most of the recruits were soft, straight from civvy street, many from desk jobs. But a couple of us had been toughened up by infantry training & told them not to be so tough. The upshot was a challenge who could get to the top first – us or the P.E. instructors. We won, I guess partly because they could have been at the NCOs canteen after work … we had to be tee-total.
There was a lot of emphasis on marching; we found out why … we we [sic] the main lot to march
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in Sydney in support of a War Loan Rally. We marched 12-abreast & on some corners collided with onlookers & barricades due to the tendancy [sic] of marchers to push outwards on corners.
The food at Bradfield Park was generally fairly good except for their scrambled egg … it was made from egg-powder & found to be so distasteful that garbage bins were overflowing outside the mess huts with discarded scrambled egg. Yet, later, in England we enjoyed scrambled egg made from egg powder. Better cooks maybe?
Towards the end of the course there was a co-ordination test … perhaps to indicate suitability for pilot training. (The bulk of us young fellows wanted to be pilots.) The test required use of a joystick & rudder pedals to cause a light spot to follow a projected light spot. When our course was briefed to do this I was at the dentist & so had to do it later on my own. I suspect I wasn’t given adequate briefing; but the main drawback was because, as a youngster, I had a flivver … you steered it with your feet just the opposite way that rudder pedals work on a plane; it had a handle worked to & fro joined to a crank to the back wheels, like the old railway fettlers ‘trikes’. Whatever the reason, I knew I’d performed badly on the test. So when it came to ask for Pilot, Observor [sic] or WAG, I said observor. [sic] the reply was …”don’t you want to be a pilot? Why observor?” [sic] So I said that I knew I’d done badly on the coordination test, but I’d done well in Maths & Science at High School so I thought I’d make a good navigator (the main task of the observor) [sic] .. What I didn’t say, if I asked for pilot & they’d said no, you can train as a W.A.G. They agreed for me to train as an Observor [sic] at Air Observors [sic] School (No 1 A.O.S.) at Cootamundra, starting on 10 Dec. ’42 after a few days leave.
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We arrived by train at Cootamundra in the morning. As I threw my kitbag on top of the truck-load of them, I fainted & woke up in the local hospital. A doctor wanted to operate at once for appenicitis [sic] but needed written parental permission as I was under 21. They’d phoned home but had no way to get written permission in time so he got me to sign it. I think I was dilerious [sic] for 2 or 3 days. Mum & May had arrived & stayed at a hotel for a few more days. I was treated (lucky for me) with penicillin, which was relatively new in hospitals then. A large needle was taped to a buttock & graduated doses squirted in … so many CC’s, wait a few hours, more CCs, wait, etc. … it took 24 hours to complete. I had a rubber tube in my side which oozed out grey pus. After 2 weeks I thought I might go home. But I was kept there for 4 weeks. Then sent home still with an open hole in the centre of the scar which had to be dressed & covered … no swimming. Just as I was leaving they said “You’ll have to go and have your appendix out in about 3 months time … all we’ve done has been to teat your infection .. sort of gangrene.” I had 2 weeks sick leave at Mendooran, & did wade in the dam a few times while Beryl & Meggs swam & dived.
[black and white photograph of Herbert Adams in uniform]
This photo was probably taken during that leave in January ’43 at Springfield.
The white strip on our berets signified “aircrew trainee.”
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When I returned to Cootamundra, I was put on “Light Duties”, in the Navigation Instruments section where they stored, issued, repaired & received maps, dividers, parallel ruler, & C.S.C.’s (courses speed calculators). One person could easily handle it so I did almost nothing. In our spare time I helped his little money-maker – making brooches etc from moulded plastic (he got that free) … all he bought were the safety pins embedded in the back.
I actually joined 35 Course for a while and attended some of the lessons, but didn’t fly with them. However I did get to attend their passing-out dinner at the Albion Hotel, .. the lads normally drank there or at the Globe, opposite, on Sat. afternoons. Some of them did literally pass-out due to too much beer.
On 30th March ’43, I entered Forest Hill RAAF hospital where a big-name RAAF surgeon from Melbourne took out my appendix, kept me there for 2 weeks then I got 2 weeks leave.
On 29th April I got back to Cootamundra and did a few weeks with 37 Course, actually doing my first plane flight ever with them on 11th May … being airsick twice in 3 hours. I attended their passing-out dinner too, and finally began the Observors [sic] course 38A.
In the classroom we did a lot of dry-swim exercises of plotting air-plots, fixes, wind-finding as well as learning more meterology, [sic] signalling, radio, ship & plane recognition, compasses & map projections, & photography. On any flight over 2 hours I got air sick, as did several others … the inside of the old Anson actually smelt like vomit, which didn’t help. I & a few others got some treatment at sick quarters for motion sickness which entailed sitting (strapped in) in a machine than [sic] combined swinging & rotating. It didn’t seem to help. The Ansons were not heavy planes, but one day we taxied to the far corner, it was only a grass ‘drome in those days), & got bogged as we turned to take off. The 3 trainee navs. & the W.O.P. got out & pushed & we got it out.
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Here’s a bit about the Anson from an old book we used to learn aircraft recognition.
[four drawings of an Anson aircraft]
[black and white photograph of an Anson]
AVRO ANSON
Valuable operations against U-boats stand to the credit of the Avro Anson, a coastal reconnaissance machine readily distinguished by its long windowed “greenhouse” cabin. It carries a crew of three, is driven by two 350 h.p. Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah IX air-cooled radial motors and armed with fixed machine-guns in nose and turret. The wooden wings have a span of 56 ft. 6 in.; the fuselage is metal, with fabric covering. The Avro Anson is also used extensively as a training machine. Top speed, 188 m.p.h.
We, later, also flew in Ansons at Parkes doing the Astro-navigation course, and at Llandwrog (North Wales) where we did “Advanced” (not very) Flying … really an introduction to navigating in Britain.
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At Cootamundra we flew 17 times for a total of 51 1/4 hrs, mostly day-time. Usually 3 trainee nav’s went on each flight, doing 1/3 of the actual navigation each. The other two practised map-reading, drift-taking, bearing taking (with hand-held compass). Our longest trip was to Parafield (S.A.) where we stayed the night. On the way over we flew above cloud nearly all the time, so no map-reading. The W.O.P. tried to get loop bearings on radio stations but these were often difficult to pick up & notoriously inaccurate. We got lucky – below the only break in the clouds appeared the town of Donald (surrounded by many miles of “nothing” for map reading). This gave us a chance to find the wind-velocity, readjust our course for Parafield & our ETA. We had a passing-out dinner, a weeks leave and a posting to Evans Head.
Below is the assessment for the A.C.S. course at Cootamundra … maybe a bit faint for copying from my log-book.
[table from log book between 27.5.43 and 19.9.43]
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On 20th Aug. ’42 we arrived by train at Casino, then RAAF transport lorry to Evans Head’s site of No 1 B.A.G.S. (Bombing & Gunnery School). We did a lot of classroom work on bombsights, bomb construction, and later on air-to-air & air-to-ground gunnery – the deflection problem, & operation of the Vickers Gas Operated machine gun. Our flying was done in Fairey Battle planes, some of which had survived the retreat from France (many didn’t, as they were no match for Me 109’s.). Although the Observor [sic] lay on the floor with his face just behind the radiator when bombing, getting hot glycol fumes, I was never airsick in them. Others were who hadn’t been sick in Ansons. For a typical bombing exercise we carried up to 8 practice bombs, dropped in separate runs on a patch of sand at the bombing range, where our error could be gauged & recorded. Before bombing, we’d use the drift recorder in 3 directions to find the wind to set on the bomb-sight. If our wind was wrong we’d get a bigger error than otherwise. My average error for 131 bombs was 123 yards although this included 45 from low level where the errors were smaller. I did only one night exercise with 3 bombs averaging 74 yards .. better than day-time. Total flying time for bomb-aiming was 60 1/2 hours for 19 flights.
For air-gunnery we would dip the .303 bullet heads in paint, load them into circular drum magazines and shoot at drogues towed by another Battle. Four different gunners, using different coloured paint, could fire at the same drouge [sic] before it was dropped & the number of hits recorded for each colour. The last of the 4 would often be shouted a mock dog-fight with the drouge [sic]-tower after he’d dropped the drouge. [sic] It usually included a loop the loop. The worst part of gunnery was cleaning the paint out of the magazines. I reckon my deafness may be due to the 1656 rounds fired with left forearm below the barrel, cheek alongside the breech-block of the gun mounted in the open rear cockpit on a spigot. My best result was 22 percent of 200 rounds worst 0 percent of 86 rounds (my first try) & overall average about 4 percent, I didn’t find it easy to allow the proper deflection.
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This is a bit about the Fairey Battle, from the same old aircraft recognition book.
[seven drawings and one black and white photograph of a Fairey Battle]
FAIREY BATTLE
This well-known medium bomber, which won an early reputation on the Western Front, has a distinctive feature in its long cockpit enclosure, terminating in the rear gunner’s position. A second machine-gun is situated in the starboard wing. Fuselage is slim and oval in section and the sharply tapering wings have a span of 54 feet. Power is provided by a 1,030 h.p. Rolls-Royce Merlin II or III engine giving a top speed of 257 m.p.h. and a range of 1,000 miles.
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We left Evans Head on 10th Oct, (no leave) and arrived at Parkes on the 11th, for a 1 month astro-nav. course. 1 A.N.S. (Air Nav. School). I think we were all promoted to L.A.C. after Cootamundra, getting (I think) an extra 6d a day. When we pass out at Parkes most of us will become Sergeants, some Officers and we’ll get our big O wing (O for observor [sic]), a sergeants pay goes up to 10/- a day.
Most of our days are spent in a classroom. We only did 6 flights (4 at night) totalling 20 hrs, in Ansons again. There was a lot to learn, including the names of the brightest stars in the Southern skies. The bubble sextants we used had a manual averageing [sic] mechanism. You turned the knob until the sun (or star) filled the bubble, pulled the trigger (back to zero) & did it again & again … I think 10 times, then read the average of your 10 sights … and in the air took the time at start and end, to the second (for most of us the first time we’d used a watch with a second hand). We began taking ground sights (so we knew where we were!) & ended up doing 92 of these on stars, the sun & a few on the moon. Our first “moving” sights were from the back of a truck on the smoothest, straightest part of the road Parkes to Forbes .. nice bitumen for those days. Every 4 sights took 2 pages of graph paper & calculations & for each one a position line drawn and error calculated. To keep the bubble centred & steady there needs to be [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] no acceleration or change of direction, so the back of lorry shots were rather inaccurate … and we had to calculate our position on the road to find our error. I still have 2 science graph books full of the working we did at Parkes as well as a Sight Log Book with all the details recorded, including those we did later in Wellingtons … all signed for & certified correct. During our 6 air flights I took 31 star shots, 7 sun, 3 moon and 1 planet, overall averaging about 5 miles error.
For air shots the plane needs to be kept straight & level with speed constant … later with autopilot in Wellingtons we got better accuracy.
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All those ground shots had to be done in our “spare” time, yet we were in the classroom all day 6 1/2 days a week except when flying. The peacetime course of 6 months had been compressed into 1 month. We had Saturday afternoon free & our instructor said he expected none of us to be sober by sundown. There was a written exam at the end of the month & I did well. I was made sergeant & we went straight to Bradfield Park again on 11th Nov. ’43 to await embarkation. I think we had a few days leave, then sailed on the SS Mt Vernon on 26th. It was an American troop ship with 600 of us RAAF & a lot of wounded/sick Yank soldiers who’d seen a hard time in the Pacific. We didn’t see much of them. We were all in one hold, 4-tier bunks, [deleted] all [/deleted] only narrow aisles between, portholes covered at night & no lights allowed as well. Luckily, we had a lad who played the saxophone well, so each night we’d have a few hours of songs before sleep-time.
The Pacific Ocean was fairly calm for about 10 days, we got our sea legs I think, because we then ran into 3 days of stormy weather (there were logs from the storms floating in San Francisco harbour when we arrived), but few of us were seasick. It was 10th Dec. ’43.
When we docked all our sea-kit bags were unloaded and the 60 of us observors, [sic] who’d been booked for Canada to do a Reconnaisence [sic] course there, were told they’d changed their plans for us, so we had to load our 60 kit bags onto a truck. Then they asked for volunteers to accompany the truck & load them onto the train there … promising that the volunteers would be into town ahead of the others. We’d heard of the “Top of the Mark” Hopkins hotel & agreed we’d all meet there. We volunteers were an hour later than the rest & when we got there they’d run out of all beer except Mexican, and it was worse apparently than American (which was sweet & fizzy). The real disappointment was missing the trip to Canada with the safe prospect of patrols in long-range Liberators over the Altantic, [sic] but instead destined for Bomber Command.
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[extract from a log book signed by Chief Instructor of the Air Observers Advanced Navigation Course]
[black and white photograph of two men and one woman. Herbert Adams is in uniform and the other man in a civilian suit]
October, ’43. Bert, Beryl & Meggs, just after completion of course at 1 B.A.G.S. Evans Head … on leave before going to 1 A.N.S. at Parkes.
In San Francisco we spent the night in a Transit Camp called Fort McDowell. The next day I bought a new watch with sweep second-hand, as we were told (before we sailed) that there was not enough issue watches in England for all Navigators. We didn’t have much time for sightseeing, saw the Golden Gate, Alcatraz & crossed the Oakland bridge to board the Southern Pacific train at Oakland on 11th Dec. It was a troop train, but with pullman cars like we’d seen in movies … aisle in the middle & little compartments to seat 4, but only 3 occupants, because at night a Negro porter pulled down an upper bunk for 1, & converted the lower seats & table to a double bed … he put on the sheets & blankets too. We all chipped in at New York & gave him a decent tip. There were steam pipes below the seats which worked well, except for the top bunk where I slept … on most mornings there were icicles hanging from the roof from my condensed breath.
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Our train rarely stopped for us to get off – it was often shunted on to a side track, to allow passenger &/or freight trains to pass.
[black and white photograph of a train]
This is one such diesel Steamliner express at Denver, about to leave for Chicago.
We were allowed off at Denver for 2 hours. I stopped at a chemist shop which also sold watches and asked if they could fix my new watch which had stopped after 1 day! The man fixed it in a few minutes with a dab of oil I think. He didn’t want any payment, but said he’d like an Australian kangaroo penny. I gave him the 4 I had. He thought that too generous! and came forth with a gift of a leather wallet … generous American.
As a group of us were walking back to the train a civilian noticed our little AUSTRALIA strips on our shoulders and said to us .. “Say, boys, I didnt [sic] know AUSTRIA was on our side in the war.” He was keen then to ask us all where in Australia we were from, a bit about our training & the boat trip.
Americans cooked our meals, which were then brought through the carriages by rotating teams of volunteers. For each meal we got a big stainless steel ”tray” of 5 compartments; if it was lunch we’d likely get a ladle of meat in one, a ladle of vegetables in each of 3 spaces, a ladle of sweets in the last & then a ladle of what we reckoned was plum jam spread over the whole lot! But it was nice food.
At Chicago we stopped for about an hour in a huge marshalling yard several tracks away from a platform. As there was snow on the ground most of us got out to have a snow-fight (I’d never seen snow). We soon got back in the train … it was -30o outside, & a chilly wind!
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On the train, as on the boat, we spent a lot of the daylight time playing cards, mostly pontoon for money but sometimes 500 for fun. Pontoon is a bit like Blackjack, but fairer to the non-banker players, and, I think allows a lot more judgement & maybe skill. On the train we put the limit bet up to 25C (from 2/-), which meant the maximum win possible after double & redouble, getting 5 under 21, which pays double, for $8 win … although that rarely happened.
At New York we went to a Transit Camp, Fort Slocum on 19th Dec. We had 2 days free in the city. I can’t remember much that I did besides going to the top of the Empire State building, going to an ice hockey match at Madison Square Garden, (I hadn’t realized what a rough game it was) sitting so high & far from the rink that I couldn’t see where the puck flew to when a shot missed the net, and having a leisurly [sic] drinking session – their beer seemed light & fizzy at Jack Dempsey’s Spagetti [sic] Bar. We tried the spagetti [sic] … I’d only ever had it from tins with tomato sauce, but there, it was just a big plateful of boiled spagetti [sic] with hard, dry, grated cheese in a shaker, no ketchup either.
From Fort Slocum we were taken to the harbour & loaded aboard the I’le de France on 22nd Dec. It wasn’t a very big troopship, but was stacked with American Army men going to U.K. ready for the invasion in June. Our lot was crammed into a cramped hold (?) below water-level, near the stern … the sides we [sic] quite sloped; the only access to the showers & toilets on the deck above us was up 2 vertical latters [sic] & through round waterproof doors (if closed) in the roof.
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And they had a plumbing problem with that bathroom, the toilets had overflowed onto the floor … we had to paddle through a couple of inches of watery muck to up more stairs to another bathroom. We were not happy, especially when they did a Boat Drill next day & it took our lot 2 hours to get up on deck.
Still we sailed on the morning of Xmas Eve, got as far as the Statue of Liberty, where the ship broke down – engine trouble, - and was towed back. Eventually, we were fed sandwiches about 9 p.m. The next morning they said we could wait on board for a meal (sometime) and get paid, or go off to the city without either, where there would, maybe, be American civilians willing to take us home for Xmas Dinner. We did that and a nice man Mr Richie took 3 of us to his home in Mt Vernon.
We got there about 1 pm, found the lounge room beautifully decorated for Xmas, a tree lit up, and drinks offered round. We were hungry & wondered when the dinner would begin. But the talking and sipping continued until about 7 pm when we sat down to a sumptuous meal, he carved the turkey, we had second helpings & they remarked that we had good appetites. He took us back to Fort Slocum & arranged to meet us at his factory on the 27th.
[black and white photograph of the front of a house]
Mr. Richies home in Mt Vernon, N.Y.
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His factory, among other things, made good quality hankerchiefs. [sic] He presented each of us with 1/2 dozen very nice ones, then took us to a businessmens’ [sic] club where we had a few drinks .. we weren’t allowed to buy … it was all paid by the member himself signing a chit … no cash appeared. He took us back to Fort Slocum for the night and we had 3 more days to wander about New York, spend what little money we had left; I think I went to a cinema or two, but can’t remember the films I saw.
On New Year’s Eve we were loaded aboard the Queen Elizabeth which had been converted to a troop ship earlier in the war … some of the cabins had been finished, other parts not … which allowed for even more bunks for troops. We got a double cabin with bathroom … each 6’ of wall had 3-tier bunks so 18 of us fitted in the cabin. We found that on the 3 (I think) open decks where there was a walkway about 10’ wide all round between the rail & cabins walls that they had 3-tier bunks, bolted to the cabin walls and U.S. Army men used them to sleep in 12 hour double shifts. I heard that they put over 20 000 troops aboard. We went to big dining rooms for a meal, twice a day. It took 4 hours for the first meal, a clean up, then 4 hours for the second meal. When it came to Boat Drill all the decks were crammed, all the big wide staircases & still many in corridors. Big fast ships like the Queens travelled alone relying on their speed for safety, cargo ships went in convoys at the speed of the slowest ship, escorted by the Navy & shephered [sic] by long-range aircrafts. A couple of days out we were told
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that they thought there was a U-boat pack waiting in Mid-Atlantic & so this ship was going to divert well North … up towards Iceland, at maximum speed. They told us to put on warm clothes as they would turn off the cabin heating to get more heat for the engines! One of the crew told us at Greenock, later, that they got to about 40 knots.
The Atlantic was fairly rough & all the rails seemed to be occupied by seasick Americans, but our 2 weeks on the Pacific apparently cured us. We spent most of the time playing cards – the pontoon games were now lowered to a 2C limit. Anyone who’d managed to retain a few dollars could get into crap games (dice) which the Americans played a lot of.
We actually sailed from New York on the morning of New Years Day, and arrived at Greenock, Scotland, near Glasgow, on 7th Jan. Several of the crew were Australians, and one of them took a few of us for a tour of parts of the ship not normally open to passengers. We climbed up inside the mast on narrow steps to, I guess, the crows-nest … it was so high as to be scary even though it only swayed a little, being anchored. He showed us a big gun near the bow … about 6” I think, and maybe 40’ above the water. He said that on a previous crossing ploughing through big waves that the previous gun had been torn from its mountings (bolts about 2” thick). We saw the kitchens & engines … it was great.
By nightfall we’d been loaded onto a train which arrived next morning at Brighton where the RAAF had taken over 2 of the big hotels on the waterfront the Grand & the Metropole, both about 8 floors high.
[page break]
We stayed at Brighton, No. 11 P.D.R.C, until 21st Jan. There were some lessons, a chance to begin learning the main stars ion the Northern Hemisphere – even on cloudy nights we could make use of a planisphere to learn the names & relative positions of those stars. I guess they consulted our records & maybe our log-books, but here they decided who would be navigator, who bomb-aimer, which pilots would go to Bomber Command & which to Fighter or other smaller planes. Sid Payne who’d trained at Cootamundra with me after earlier doing EFTS at Narromine and being “scrubbed” during SFTS at Uranqunity, became a bomb-aimer & I a navigator.
However, the first thing that happened after we got to Brighton was to be sent on leave for a few days. They had an arrangement called the Lady Ryder Scheme, where new arrivals could go to a private home as a guest for a week. My hostess was Mrs Adams, who had a nice house (modernised internally), called Huntercombe Farmhouse, Huntercombe Lane, Taplow, Buckinghamshire, not very far from Windsor. She made me feel at home but had to be absent almost the whole week – she gave the doorkey & said to help myself & recommended I visit Margaret Vyner, an Australian actress, who lived at Dorney Village, between Taplow & Windsor, & who was reputed to like having an Australian visitor. I did that & also met her husband Hugh Marlowe, a handsome English actor (he played The Saint in a film). They took me to the nearby Pub for a drink & yarn. While there, David Niven turned up in uniform (Army Captain) just back from North Africa on leave, with a case of brandy.
[page break]
I guess I was pretty much ignored as they’d been friends for years, & once they started on the brandy I took my leave. While staying at Mrs Adams’ place I visited Eton College and Windsor Castle.
[black and white photograph of Mrs Adams’ house]
Mrs Adams’ house, Huntercombe Farmhouse, Taplow, Bucks.
[black and white photograph of the pub, The Palmer Arms, with a bicycle leaning against the wall]
The Pub next door to where Margaret Vyner & Hugh Williams lived in Dorney Village, between Taplow & Windsor.
[black and white photograph of Eton College]
Eton College
[black and white photograph of the chapel at Eton College]
The Chapel
[page break]
During my first visit to London, Jan ’44.
[black and white photographs of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben]
Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben
[black and white photographs of the interior and exterior of St Paul’s Cathedral]
St Pauls Cathedral
[black and white photograph of Buckingham Palace]
Buckingham Palace
[page break]
[black and white photograph of Eton College]
Eton College
[black and white photograph of the chapel at Eton College]
The Chapel
[black and white photograph of Windsor Castle]
Windsor Castle
[black and white photograph of Windsor Castle]
From the Railway Station
[black and white photograph of Windsor Castle]
From the Soccer Fields
[page break]
On the short rail trip back to London from Taplow, David Niven was in the same compartment, with 6 other people. We merely said good-day; I think he had a hangover.
Back at Brighton, towards the end of our time there, a few of us navigators were interviewed by Group-Captain (later Air-Vice Marshall) Bennett, in charge of Pathfinders. He told us that when he first formed Pathfinders and asked the squadrons for proficient crews to volunteer, a lot of them got rid of crews who were troublemakers and their navigators not often their best. He offerred [sic] us the opportunity of skipping the other training we’d normally do, to go direct to Pathfinders where they’d train us their way; but of course, we’d have to do a second tour straight after the first tour. The end of the war seemed still a way off, and Pathfinders had to spend extra time at each target, so he got few takers, certainly not I.
I’ve saved a few postcards of Brighton, printed pre-war. In wartime they dismanlted [sic] a section of the 2 piers to prevent enemy landings.
[black and white picture postcard of East Cliff and Palace Pier, Brighton]
[page break]
[three black and white picture postcards of Brighton Pier, Brighton Beach and Preston Park, Brighton]
[page break]
While at Brighton we had a few hit & run air raids at night … it wasn’t far across to France. At first we went down to the basement, but stayed in our rooms for the others. Late on 21st Feb. we got on a train, which after a change or two and a truck ride we arrived at Llandwrog, North Wales, No 9 (O) A.F.U. on the 22nd. It was a war-time dispersed camp, several miles south on the coast from the narrow [inserted] Menai [/inserted] strait next to Angelsea, [sic] where Sid Payne was to do his Bomb-Aimers A.F.U. (Mona airfield)
The sleeping quarters were in Nissen huts below sea-level separated from the beach by a sea-wall. Therefore, there was no running water or sewerage. We had garbage tins between each hut to use as urinals at night … sometimes they ran over. There were hundreds of RAAF bicycles … you could take any you saw and leave it where you liked. To our east were the runways, then the hangars, the messes & toilets, showers & laundry facilities, about 1 1/2 mile ride.
We were to spend just over a month there; the flying in Ansons again. We found map-reading difficult; whereas in the Riverina there was lots of open spaces devoid of railway lines, towns etc, in the U.K. there seemed to be too many roads, rivers, towns … difficult to tell one from another, especially since there was mostly a lot of cloud about.
Our aerodrome was only a few miles from Mt Snowdon, the highest mountain south of Scotland. We were told that 13 Ansons had crashed on it during training flights (not all from Llandwrog). So beware. Our staff pilots, when returning to where the navigator said was (below the clouds) our ‘drome, they’d fly west for 10 minutes to descend over the Irish Sea, … just in case.
[page break]
On each flight, 2 trainee-navigators were on board, one to do the exercise and be assessed on it, the other to do practice map-reading, astro shots, drift reading etc. We did just under 36 hours of flying in 13 flights. In Australia, none of the Ansons had heating for the crew, but here it seemed after 5 flights, that they all did. Until the night of 5th March. We took off at 1910 & flew for almost 3 hours, & the plane was nice & warm, as usual, so we just wore our battle-dress uniform. After de-briefing, we were sent on another similar flight at 0250 (early morning), for 2 3/4 hr flying. But the plane wasn’t heated and it was about -30o at 4000! I was supposed to take sextant shots which required tracking a star, eye to the eyepiece for 2 minutes while the clockwork mechanism averaged a lot of readings (maybe 60). It was hopeless. The tears in my eyes began to freeze and I saw circular rainbows before the 2 min. elapsed. We just had to suffer the cold. The heating worked on our remaining 5 flights. My assessments ranged from 65 percent to 81 percent, with a mean of about 71 percent and a remark (written in log book): “average navigator, works hard and is keen.”
One funny thing happened there. Between the hangars & the mess was a wide expanse of bitumen. We saw two airmen on bicycles riding towards each other (not very quickly, luckily) … both tried turning away on the same side, then both back, until their front tyres met squarely head on catapulting both to fall on the tangled bikes.
We had a day off at weekends and visited Caernavon [sic] & Conway castles.
[page break]
[black and white photograph of Herbert Adams and another airman leaning against a hut]
With Col McLaughlin beside the instruction hut at Llandwrog.
[black and white photograph of Herbert Adams, smoking, standing in front of a Nissen hut]
Beside our Nissen hut, below sea-level at Llandwrog, N. Wales,
[black and white photograph of Herbert Adams standing at the bottom of steps at Caernarvon Castle]
At one of the entrances to Caernarvon Castle.
When Val & I revisited in 1994, Val took a photo of me in the same spot.
[page break]
[cutting with photograph detailing the Tail Drift Sight, Mk. IVA]
We seldom used the tail drift sight, preferring to use the bombsight fitted to the Ansons, (not all) but the Fairey Battle had one something like this (simpler). Once we got on to Wellingtons (& later) we had GEE and no longer bothered to find drifts.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The war - training
Description
An account of the resource
Writes that he joined newly formed Air Training Corps at end of 1941 as this would give an accelerated position on the waiting list for aircrew. Describes training and sports. Called up into army 3 July 1942 and describes training in basic infantry and as a driver. After exam, was offered course at technical college and position as warrant officer instructor but turned it down. Called up into Royal Australian Air Force 12 September 1942 and initial training at RAAF Bradfield Park and writes about training there. Describes coordination test as pilot which he believed he fails and opting for navigator training. Posted to Cootamundra he fell ill which delayed his course but when recovered goes on to describe his early navigator training on Anson. There followed in August 1932 bombing and air gunnery training school at RAAF Evans Head where he flew in Fairy Battle followed by astro-navigation course at Parkes NSW. He then goes on to describe his journey to the United Kingdom(departed 26 November 1943) via the United State (crossed by train) and then by ship from New York to Greenock. Covers activities in England in Brighton and other locations before training in North Wales on Anson which he describes in detail. Memoire also contains photographs of people, aircraft and places as well as a diagram of the tail drift sight MkIVA.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H G Adams
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Thirty page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BAdamsHGAdamsHGv3
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 Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
New South Wales--Ashfield
New South Wales--Liverpool
New South Wales--Lindfield
New South Wales--Evans Head
New South Wales--Parkes
United States
California--San Francisco
Illinois--Chicago
New York (State)--New York
Great Britain
Scotland--Greenock
England--Sussex
England--Brighton
England--Berkshire
England--Eton
England--Windsor (Windsor and Maidenhead)
California
Illinois
New York (State)
New South Wales
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-07-03
1942-08-20
1943-10-22
1943-12-22
1944-01-01
1943-10-26
1944-06-21
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
Battle
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Bombing and Gunnery School
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Nissen hut
Pathfinders
RAF Llandwrog
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1739/35204/PHawesS1705.2.jpg
51a1995f6bfc0f9f59049c6a0e639c70
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
Hawes, Stanley
S Hawes
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
2017-05-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hawes, S
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Stanley Hawes (1504897 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, diary and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 49 Squadron until he was killed in action 21/22 June 1944. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Heather Cowen and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Stanley Hawes is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/110240/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
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
Tablet Perpetuating the Memory of Stan Hawes
Description
An account of the resource
A tablet in memory of Stan. It was provided by his colleagues of the Castleford branch of the National Association of Local Government Officers.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Castleford Branch National Association of Local Government Officers
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-21
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Castleford
England--Yorkshire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHawesS1705
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
memorial
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1596/25340/LSaundersEJ924532v1.2.pdf
c78158eb8860fddc9d2b39689fa6731e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Saunders, Ernest John
E J Saunders
Sam Saunders
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
2020-02-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Saunders, EJ
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns Ernest John Saunders (924532 Royal Air Force) and consists of his log book, photographs and correspondence as well as two photograph albums of his service and family life. He flew operations as a navigator in North Africa in 1942 with 40 Squadron and with Bomber Command in 1943 - 1944 with 692 and 128 Squadron on Mosquito.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Penelope Thicket and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sam Saunders's flying log book
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Detailing his flying training and operations flown as navigator 16 January 1941 to 9 January 1946. He was stationed at RCAF Winnipeg (6 AOS), RCAF MacDonald (3 B&GS), RCAF Rivers (1 ANS), RAF Harwell (15 OTU), RAF Shallufa (38 and 40 Squadrons), RAF Upper Heyford (16 OTU), RAF Hendon (24 and 512 Squadrons), RAF Doncaster (271 Squadron), RAF Marham (1655 MTU), RAF Oakington (627 Squadron), RAF Graveley (692 Squadron), RAF Wyton (128 Squadron), RAF Crosby-on-Eden (109 TCU), RAF Almaza (216 Squadron).
Aircraft flown in were Anson, Battle, Wellington, Hudson, Tiger Moth, Dakota, Sparrow, Oxford, Proctor and Mosquito.
He flew 3 night operations with 38 Squadron, 42 with 40 Squadron, 8 with 627 Squadron, 45 with 692 squadron and 9 with 128 Squadron, a total of 107. His pilots on operations were Warrant Officer Brodie, Sergeant Le Brog, Squadron Leader Booth, Wing Commander Lockhart, Flight Lieutenant Grainger, Squadron Leader Saunderson, Wing Commander Birkin, Wing Commander Watts, Flying Officer Page, Pilot Officer Burnett, Flying Officer Richardson, Flying Officer Goodwin, Wing Commander Burrough, Flying Officer Boyer and Flight Lieutenant Gallanders.
Targets included Benghazi, mining, Tobruk, El Daba, Alamein, Ras el Manatis, Fuka, Cagliari, Tunis, Bizerte, Duisburg, Cologne, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Hannover, Dusseldorf, Koln, Osnabruk, Stuttgart, Friedrichshaven, Leverkusen, Cologne, Gelsenkirchen, Bremen, Homberg, Weisbaden, Saarbruchen, Wanne-Eichel, Castrop, Kiel, Kassel, Brunswick and Cochem.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Cara Walmsley
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Egypt
Great Britain
Italy
Libya
North Africa
Egypt--Alamayn
Egypt--Cairo
Egypt--Suez
Egypt--Tall al-Ḍabʻah
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cumbria
England--Doncaster
England--London
England--Norfolk
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Cochem
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wiesbaden
Italy--Cagliari
Libya--Tobruk
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Tunisia--Bizerte
Tunisia--Tunis
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Magdeburg
England--Oxfordshire
Libya--Banghāzī
Tunisia
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Yorkshire
Egypt--Fukah
Manitoba
Manitoba--Rivers
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1942-05-24
1942-05-25
1942-05-26
1942-05-27
1942-05-30
1942-06-05
1942-06-06
1942-06-08
1942-07-11
1942-07-12
1942-07-15
1942-07-16
1942-07-18
1942-07-19
1942-07-20
1942-07-21
1942-07-23
1942-07-24
1942-07-25
1942-07-26
1942-07-27
1942-07-29
1942-07-30
1942-08-01
1942-08-02
1942-08-04
1942-08-05
1942-08-18
1942-08-19
1942-08-22
1942-08-23
1942-08-26
1942-08-27
1942-08-28
1942-08-29
1942-08-31
1942-09-01
1942-09-06
1942-09-07
1942-09-13
1942-09-14
1942-09-18
1942-09-19
1942-09-20
1942-09-21
1942-09-24
1942-09-25
1942-10-09
1942-10-10
1942-10-12
1942-10-13
1942-10-18
1942-10-19
1942-10-20
1942-10-21
1942-10-23
1942-10-24
1942-10-25
1942-10-26
1942-10-27
1942-10-29
1942-10-30
1942-11-02
1942-11-03
1942-11-04
1942-11-05
1942-11-06
1942-11-07
1942-11-08
1942-11-09
1942-11-10
1942-11-11
1942-11-14
1942-11-15
1942-11-18
1942-11-19
1942-11-20
1942-11-21
1942-11-24
1942-11-25
1942-11-27
1942-11-28
1943-12-28
1944-01-02
1944-01-06
1944-01-14
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-01-29
1944-02-01
1944-02-07
1944-02-19
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-06
1944-03-11
1944-03-13
1944-03-14
1944-03-23
1944-04-04
1944-04-12
1944-04-13
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-26
1944-05-27
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-26
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-07-04
1944-07-08
1944-07-10
1944-07-11
1944-07-14
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-17
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-15
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-30
1944-08-31
1944-09-01
1944-09-02
1944-09-13
1944-09-14
1944-09-27
1944-10-01
1944-10-02
1944-10-19
1944-11-27
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-11
1945-01-01
1945-01-18
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LSaundersEJ924532v1
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
128 Squadron
15 OTU
16 OTU
216 Squadron
38 Squadron
40 Squadron
627 Squadron
692 Squadron
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
C-47
Hudson
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Proctor
RAF Graveley
RAF Harwell
RAF Hendon
RAF Marham
RAF Oakington
RAF Shallufa
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Wyton
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1504/28845/LRoutledgeRS1520060v1.1.pdf
8559a31d713c7207633ae17d47ff79b7
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
Routledge, R
Routledge, Bob
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
2016-04-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wainwright, M
Description
An account of the resource
One item. The collection concerns Sergeant R Routledge (1520060 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book. He flew a tour of operations as an air gunner with 44 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Janet Spencer and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
R S Routledge’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LRoutledgeRS1520060v1
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for R S Routledge, air gunner, covering the period from 18 July 1943 to 14 July 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Morpeth, RAF Ossington, RAF Bircotes, RAF Stradishall, RAF Syerston, RAF Dunholme Lodge, RAF Andreas and RAF Manby. Aircraft flown in were Botha, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. He flew a total of 34 operations with 44 Squadron, 7 Daylight and 27 Night. Targets were Nuremberg, Toulouse, Tours, Aachen, Paris, Mailly le Camp, Salbris, Bourg Leopold, Amiens, Kiel, Brunswick, Morsalines, Maisy, Wimereaux, Beauvoir, Wesserling, Pommereval, Marquise, Givors, Stuttgart, Normandy, Joigny, Siracourt, Trossy, L’Isle Adam, Bois de Cassan, Secquiville, Bordeaux and Brest. His pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Young, Flying officer Boswell and Flying Officer Davey. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
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.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Suffolk
England--Tyne and Wear
England--Yorkshire
France--Abbeville Region
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Brest
France--Cherbourg Region
France--Amiens
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
France--Caen Region
France--Givors
France--Joigny
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Mailly-le-Camp
France--Marquise
France--Normandy
France--Paris
France--Pommeréval
France--Toulouse
France--Tours
France--Vierzon
France--Wimereux
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wesseling
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man
France--Creil
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Morsalines
France--Salbris
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-05
1944-04-06
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-02
1944-06-03
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-05
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-02
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1657 HCU
44 Squadron
82 OTU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
bombing of Toulouse (5/6 April 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
Botha
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Andreas
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Manby
RAF Morpeth
RAF Ossington
RAF Stradishall
RAF Syerston
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1773/31291/PFOMetheringhamAF19040049.1.jpg
c13338abfd990f8a1560e2edd5eff8ae
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
RAF Metheringham collection
Description
An account of the resource
131 items. The collection is from the Royal Air Force Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre and contains photographs of aircraft, aircrew, other RAF personnel and places. Includes some target and reconnaissance photographs. Many items are concerned with 106 Squadron at RAF Metheringham and RAF Syerston.
The collection has been licensed to the IBCC Digital Archive by the RAF Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre 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
2019-01-31
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
FOMetheringhamAF
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is property of the Royal Air Force Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
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
Prisoner of war record
Description
An account of the resource
German prisoner of war document for Albert Edward Bracegirdle with personal details and b/w photograph. Submitted with description 'Photo of prisoner of war record of F/Sgt Albert Bracegirdle of Cheadle, Cheshire including photo of fingerprint. Bracegirdle had served as rear gunner with 106 Sqn but was shot down while serving with 44 (Rhodesian) Sqdn, 21/06/1944'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph of printed document
Language
A language of the resource
deu
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFOMetheringhamAF19040049
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Aachen
Great Britain
England--Cheshire
England--Cheadle (Staffordshire)
England--Staffordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
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 property of the Royal Air Force Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
106 Squadron
44 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
prisoner of war
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/865/20719/LHazeldenePV553414v1.2.pdf
e8a466fe44888b4d1d47b6caf85dda6c
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
Hazeldene, Peter
Peter Vere Hazeldene
P V Hazeldene
Description
An account of the resource
19 items. An oral history interview with Rachel and John Gill about their father, Peter Hazeldene DFC (b. 1922, 553414 Royal Air Force) and 16 other items including log book, memoirs, medals and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 106 and 57 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel and John Gill and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-07
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
Hazeldene, PV
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
Peter Hazeldene's 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.
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Hazeldene's air gunner’s flying log book covering the period from 28 August 1940 to 13 May 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as air gunner. He was stationed at RAF West Freugh (4 BGS), RAF Upper Heyford (16 OTU), RAF Finningley (106 Squadron), RAF Coningsby (106 Squadron), USAAF Polebrook (97 BG), RAF Husbands Bosworth (14 OTU), RAF Wigsley (1654 HCU), RAF Syerston (5 LFS), RAF East Kirkby (57 Squadron), RAF Syerston (5 LFS). Aircraft flown in were Battle, Anson, Hampden, Oxford, Lysander, Wellington, Fortress B-17E, Stirling and Lancaster. He flew a total of 34 operations with 106 Squadron, targets were Kiel, Brest (mining), Elbe (mining), North Sea (mining), Lorient, St Nazaire (mining), Koln, Hamburg, Bremen, Brest, Berlin, Mannheim, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Soeston, Vegesach and Essen. He flew 25 operations with 57 Squadron, targets were Brunswick, Clermont Ferrand, Tours, Mailly, Kiel, Annecy, Antwerp, St Valery, Kattegat (mining), Maisy, Caen, Etampes, Bearoin, Wesseling, Pommereral, Chalindrey, Paris, Nevers and Thurney. <span>His pilots on operations were </span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}">Sergeant Galloway</span>, Sergeant Topping, Sergeant Osbourne, Pilot Officer Wareing, <span>Flying Officer </span>Altmann, Pilot Officer Robson, Squadron Leader Grylls and Flight Lieutenant Spencer.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Log book, printed with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1940-11-27
1940-11-29
1940-12-04
1940-12-10
1940-12-22
1940-12-29
1941-01-03
1941-01-05
1941-01-09
1941-01-12
1941-02-04
1941-02-05
1941-03-03
1941-03-04
1941-03-12
1941-03-18
1941-03-20
1941-03-21
1941-04-04
1941-04-05
1941-04-07
1941-04-08
1941-04-17
1941-04-18
1941-04-20
1941-04-23
1941-04-24
1941-04-27
1941-04-28
1941-04-29
1941-04-30
1941-05-04
1941-05-05
1941-05-15
1941-05-16
1941-05-18
1941-05-19
1941-05-23
1941-05-24
1941-05-26
1941-05-27
1941-06-02
1941-06-03
1941-06-11
1941-06-12
1941-06-13
1941-06-14
1941-06-15
1941-06-16
1941-06-17
1941-06-18
1941-06-21
1941-06-22
1941-06-27
1941-06-28
1941-07-24
1941-08-08
1942-05-30
1942-05-31
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-29
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-05
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-14
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Belgium--Antwerp
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Annecy
France--Brest
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Chalindrey
France--Clermont-Ferrand
France--Etaples
France--Lorient
France--Mailly-le-Camp
France--Nevers
France--Paris
France--Tours
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Wesseling
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Belgium
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Europe--Elbe River
France--Saint-Nazaire
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHazeldenePV553414v1
106 Squadron
14 OTU
16 OTU
1654 HCU
57 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
B-17
Battle
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lysander
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Coningsby
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Finningley
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Polebrook
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF West Freugh
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1996/31838/EHoganPJHoganDH440621-0001.1.jpg
820a706f94d763d206632629546f8825
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1996/31838/EHoganPJHoganDH440621-0002.1.jpg
71a462fd46ab8b0ba3fd87b1f2657a1f
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
Hogan, P J
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hogan, PJ
Description
An account of the resource
Ninety-six items and a sub-collection with twenty two items..
The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Pat Hogan (436464 Royal Australian Air Force) and contains letters home to his family, his flying log book, accounts of his aircraft being shot down and him baling out, official documents, certificates and photographs.
He flew operations as a navigator with 466 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Elizabeth Anne Lusby and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
595663
TO:- MR D H HOGAN
67 CHAPEL ST
BENDIGO VICTORIA
AUSTRALIA
[date stamp 21.6.44]
Senders Name and Address A436464 Sgt. Hogan PJ RAAF AUSPO LONDON 21-6-44
Dear Dad,
It is now over a week or so since I heard from you at home. However I had an airgraph from Jim today and he says you’ve not heard from me for some time. It seems to be a pretty common complaint for a lot of the chaps seem to be getting cables etc. asking what is wrong. Probably it has been temporarily held up for some [indecipherable word] reason. I will warn you though, as I have little to write about and have very little time on my hands, not to be worried about me. However I think I can manage a page per week at least. I’m pretty fatigued, of late, due to plenty of flying and very irregular hours. Twice in 3 days recently I was up a full 24 hours straight and it takes it out of one. Maurice McNamara has been posted from here and wished, once more, to be remembered to you all.
Brian and I managed another day in one of the county towns last weekend and enjoyed it. As usual in Scotland, spuds form the greater part of our offal but we seem to get plenty to eat. I must get my photo taken one of these days. It isn’t the cash
[page break]
595662
that is worrying me for I have over £20 in the savings bank but most of the things they exhibit in their showcases are something wicked. Hence I’ll wait till I get to a big city. I’m rather amused at your being in envious of me flying over here during the summer months. It’s great stuck out in a remote part of West Scotland in the drizzling rain believe me. It took me some time to realise that the English have a rather distorted idea of beauty. For instance if anything is old it is therefore either beautiful or quaint [indecipherable word] however ancient and [indecipherable word] a [indecipherable word] might be it would be a sacrilege to replace it with something new. One of these days when I feel a little more [indecipherable word] I’ll express myself further. We have plenty of arguments here and the chaps are from all parts of the [indecipherable word] empire, however we have the majority. We usually side with the Kiwis in arguments with the Pongos who bite very nicely & get very heated.
Left it a too late for a bet on the Derby & just as well too . There is plenty of cricket on the station with Bill Brennan as leading light. Kindly give me an occasional idea of how my bank balance stands. Tell Marie I don’t need any knitted woolies [sic] for we can get them from the MCF However I wouldn’t mind an occasional care or parcel. I’ll wind up for the present Love to all at home. Pat
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Pat Hogan to his father
Description
An account of the resource
Catches up with recent mail problems. Says he is very busy with little free time. Says he is tired due to much flying and irregular hours. Writes of other activities in local area in Scotland and about how the English regard beauty and of arguments he has with compatriots.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
P J Hogan
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EHoganPJHoganDH440621
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Australia
Victoria--Bendigo
Victoria
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-21
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1816/32138/EOC204SqnRAFMonks[Mrs]440621-0001.jpg
c22c72d62756a0312e9c83e3259d9be1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1816/32138/EOC204SqnRAFMonks[Mrs]440621-0002.jpg
6baa539ab02dadd67ff6491aba98e1f6
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
Monks, Maurice Arnold
M A Monks
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-23
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
Monks, MA
Description
An account of the resource
39 items and a subcollection of eighty-one items. The collection concerns Flying Officer Maurice Arnold Monks (152996 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. Sub-collection contains photographs taken while he was training in Canada. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 166 Squadron and was killed 13 June 1944.<br /><br /> <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2023">Monks, Maurice Arnold. Photograph album</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Hilary Megget and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />
<p><span data-contrast="none">Additional information on Maurice Arnold Monks</span><span data-contrast="none"> is available via the</span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}"> <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/116453/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span></p>
<p><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}"> </span></p>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Lincoln Crest and A.T.C. Crest headed note paper]
AIR TRAINING CORPS
CITY OF LINCOLN SQUADRONS
Nos. 204 & 1237
Lindum Holme, Lindum Terrace, Lincoln
From O/C 204 Squadron
To Mrs A. Monks, 27 Dixon St., Lincoln
Date 21 June 1944
Ref. J.T.
Dear Mrs Monks,
We are very sorry to hear that your son has been reported missing and trust that before long you will have more satisfactory news.
The son of a friend of mine was reported missing and was not heard of for some time and he finally arrived home by devious routes and we all sincerely hope that will happen with Maurice.
[page break]
He was an excellent cadet and we expected that he would do well in the R.A.F. and he bore this out with his success during the training period and his subsequent promotions.
We sincerely sympathise with you during this period of anxiety and we hope that you will soon hear good news.
Yours sincerely,
[signature]
Flight Lieut.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Officer Commanding 204 Squadron Air Training Corps to Mrs Monks
Description
An account of the resource
Sorry to hear that her son had been reported missing and hopes that she will get news soon. Writes that he was an excellent cadet.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
OC 204 Squadron ATC
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EOC204SqnRAFMonks[Mrs]440621
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-21
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
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.
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1252/16990/SCheshireGL72021v10073.2.jpg
6fb780640e4261ac70fc7cc1070fd947
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
Cheshire, Leonard
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard
Baron Cheshire
Description
An account of the resource
374 items concerning Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, OM, DSO & Two Bars, DFC. Collection consists of photographs of people, vehicles, places, aircraft, weapons and targets; documents including, private and service letters, signals, telegrams, intelligence reports, crew lists and official documents. Cheshire served on 102 and 35 Squadrons and commanded 76 and 617 Squadrons. The collection includes details of 617 Squadron's precision bombing operations. Also included are two sub-collections: one containing 21 photographs of Tinian and Saipan, the other consisting of 37 audio tapes of speeches given by Cheshire after the war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by The Leonard Cheshire Archive 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 property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
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
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
617 Squadron,
Woodhall Spa,
Lincolnshire.
21st June 1944.
[underlined] Top Secret [/underlined]
Dear
With the present scale of operations it looks as though I have little chance of coming down to see you for a while. I feel, therefore, that I should return you the memorandum you so kindly lent me.
I am looking forward very much to my next visit.
With very best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
GLC
W/Cdr H.J. Wilson, A.F.C.,
A.D.S.P. (F),
R.A.E.
[underlined] Farnborough. [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Leonard Cheshire to Wing Commander H J Wilson
Description
An account of the resource
To Royal Aircraft Establishment stating that present scale of operation precludes visits for some time. Is returning memorandum that was lent.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-21
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SCheshireGL72021v10073
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--Hampshire
England--Farnborough (Hampshire)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-21
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Cheshire, Leonard. Correspondence
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
License
A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.
Royalty-free permission to publish
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One-page typewritten letter
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
617 Squadron
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
RAF Farnborough
RAF Woodhall Spa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1158/34264/MThorpJF1623333-160412-01.1.jpg
3cff49662d2e177e1a5f0429c25fb1ff
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1158/34264/MThorpJF1623333-160412-02.1.jpg
25068e5b76c5ed05c05bf11068db2dc3
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
Thorp, John Foster
J F Thorp
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer John Foster Thorp (1924 - 2018, 1623333 Royal Air Force), a list of his operations, a page from a log book and notes on 467 Squadron and Lancaster R5868. He flew completed a tour of operations as a rear gunner with 467 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thorp, JF
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Thorp's list of operations
Description
An account of the resource
Lists 34 operations between 28 May 1944 and 19 September 1944. 467 Squadron RAAF. On last sortie noted that Wing Commander Gibson VC was master bomber and was killed on return flight. In addition first operation was in Lancaster R5868 which is now in the RAF museum.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-03
1944-06-06
1944-06-08
1944-06-19
1944-06-21
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-27
1944-06-29
1944-07-04
1944-07-14
1944-07-15
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-08-09
1944-08-11
1944-08-14
1944-08-16
1944-08-23
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-31
1944-09-07
1944-09-10
1944-09-11
1944-09-17
1944-09-18
1944-09-19
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France
France--Cherbourg
France--Saumur
France--Argentan
France--Rennes
France--Watten
France--Pas-de-Calais
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
France--Limoges
France--Somme
France--Vitry-le-François
France--Beauvois
France--Oise
France--Paris
France--Nevers
France--Caen
Germany--Stuttgart
France--Poitiers
France--Givors
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France--Brest
Poland
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Darmstadt
France--L'Isle-Adam
Russia (Federation)
Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
France--Le Havre
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Bremerhaven
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten document
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MThorpJF1623333-160412-01, MThorpJF1623333-160412-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
467 Squadron
bombing
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
tactical support for Normandy troops
V-weapon
-
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
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
one booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
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/1526/29154/LTeaseJ[Ser -DoB]v1.pdf
94d967ee89bd516193d9252705e81bfb
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
Miles, Reg
Reginald J Miles
R J Miles
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
2016-07-26
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
Miles, RJ
Description
An account of the resource
102 items. The collection concerns Reg Miles (1923 - 2022) and contains his audio memoir, log book, photographs and documents. He flew 36 operations with 432 and 420 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by R Miles and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jim Tease’s pilots 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.
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for J Tease, covering the period from 13 June 1944 to 10 October 1944. Detailing his operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Tholthorpe. Aircraft flown was Halifax. He flew a total of 35 operations with 420 squadron, 14 night and 21 daylight. Targets were St Pol, St Martins, Bientques, Bamiers, Forest D’eawy, Thiverny, Nucourt, Caen, Ferme du Forestal, Ferfay, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Croix en Tournois, Foret Du Nieppe, Bois de Cassan, St Leu D’Esserent, Le Hague, Foret de Chantilly, Foret de Montritchard, Bons Tassilly, Brussels, Connantre, Marques-Mimoyecques, Le Havre, Castrop Reuxel, Osnabruck, Kiel, Boulogne, Calais, Bottrop, Sterkrade, Bergen, Dortmund and Bochum. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Pilot Officer Keegan.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photocopied 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
LTeaseJ[Ser#-DoB]v1
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.
Belgium
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Belgium--Brussels
England--Yorkshire
France--Béthune Region
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Creil Region
France--Falaise Region
France--Le Havre
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Marquise
France--Montrichard
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
France--Nieppe Forest
France--Nucourt
France--Paris Region
France--Saint-Omer Region (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise
France--Troyes Region
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Stuttgart
Netherlands--Hague
Norway--Bergen
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
France
France--Creil
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Chantilly Forest
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-21
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-12
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-17
1944-07-20
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-12
1944-08-14
1944-08-15
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-27
1944-09-10
1944-09-11
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-30
1944-10-04
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-10
1944-10-11
1944-07-18
420 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
pilot
RAF Tholthorpe
tactical support for Normandy troops
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/490/27465/LMillarJ1893458v10001.2.pdf
e352f9e02b4c620fe44613b7e6486819
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
Chinery, Donald
Donald Robert Chinery
D R Chinery
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Chinery, DR
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Donald Chinery (1921 - 2017, 1465877 Royal Air Force) his log book, and the log book of J Millar. Donald Chinery flew operations as an air gunner with 61 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Pam Winter and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
J Millar’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for J Millar, air gunner, covering the period from 29 July 1943 to 27 June 1944. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Pembrey, RAF Newmarket, RAF Stradishall, RAF Leicester East, RAF Coningsby and RAF Skellingthorpe. Aircraft flown in were Blenheim, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. Having initially joined 620 Squadron he flew a total of 35 night operations with 61 Squadron. Targets were Chateauroux, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen, Nuremberg, Tours, Aachen, Paris, Brunswick, Munich, Schweinfurt, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Mailly-Le-Camp, Eindhoven, Nantes, Saumur, Ferme D’Urville, Pierre du Mont, Argentan, Rennes, Orleans, Poitiers, Aunay, Watten, Gelsenkirchen, Limoges, Rouville and Vitry. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Auckland. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMillarJ1893458v10001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
France--Argentan
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Caen Region
France--Châteauroux
France--Limoges
France--Nantes
France--Orléans
France--Paris
France--Poitiers
France--Rennes
France--Saumur
France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes)
France--Toulouse
France--Tours
France--Troyes
France--Valognes Region
France--Vitry-sur-Seine
France--Watten
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Wales--Carmarthenshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Bolbec
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-03-10
1944-03-11
1944-03-16
1944-03-17
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-04-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-19
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1657 HCU
61 Squadron
620 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
bombing of the Watten V-2 site (19 June 1944)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Me 109
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Coningsby
RAF Leicester East
RAF Newmarket
RAF Pembrey
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stradishall
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/992/10623/PHammondBF1801.1.jpg
2e6cb57fd2c4da73cdef8d687d6529a7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/992/10623/AHammondBF180904.2.mp3
39855cccc9bd2e67d395dfc623e76a0e
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
Hammond, Bert
Bertram Hammond
B F Hammond
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Bert Hammond. He flew operations as an air gunner with 514 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
2018-09-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hammond, BF
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: I’ll just check this is working. So, this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Bert Hammond at his home on the 4th of September 2018. So, if I just put that there.
BH: Yeah.
DK: It works better if you just talk normally. If I’m looking down I’m just making sure it’s working.
BH: Yeah.
DK: But what, what I’ll just start off asking you was what, what were you doing just before the war? Can you remember what you were doing?
BH: Yeah. First of all I was a grocer’s assistant and then I decided to get some further education.
DK: Right.
BH: And luckily for me there was just a bit of luck. I was in ATC, 233 Squadron. Whatever you called it. And I went to the Technical College to see if I could get anything and unbeknown to me the teacher I saw was also an officer in the ATC Squadron which I didn’t know.
DK: Oh right.
BH: He also was in charge for the football team for the squad which I played for. So, he, he helped me a lot to get some further education and there was a period of time which I greatly, you know appreciated.
DK: So —
BH: That was up until I went and volunteered.
DK: So the fact you were in the ATC was flying something you were interested in then? And the RAF?
BH: Yeah, we got the occasional trip, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: We, we got one nearby squadron. Bostons. We got, I got a trip in one of those one Sunday.
DK: Yeah. Well what were you flying in? Can you remember?
BH: Sorry?
DK: What were you flying in?
BH: Then?
DK: Yeah.
BH: Bostons.
DK: Right.
BH: The American aircraft.
DK: Right. Oh, right.
BH: And I’ve, there’s only about three crew. Bomb aimer, navigator, pilot and a wireless operator/air gunner because they, they were probably flying in, was it 2 Group?
DK: Right. Yes. Yeah.
BH: They were Bomber Command but late aircraft.
DK: Yeah. So you flew in a Boston as part of the ATC then.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Ah.
BH: And we also, I forget the name of the aircraft, we went one night. We flew over the Broads, The Norfolk Broads.
DK: Right.
BH: In a [pause] I forget what they called it now. Twin engine. You could get about eight people in. It was. But that was that was also helpful you know to get you accustomed to flying.
DK: So was that the first time you flew then?
BH: Yeah, in the Boston.
DK: In the Boston.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Oh, right. So, how did you feel as you were taking off in it? Was it quite exciting?
BH: I was so unprepared. I didn’t, I didn’t know what to expect. But it’s, the best part was that they had left as you got in to the back because it was the wireless op in those and the air gunner was in the middle of the aircraft you see.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And they left all the detachment out so I can see all the ground underneath my feet [laughs] but it was, no it was a great experience.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Because you, before you go in to the RAF you’ve got a little idea what flying is about. It may be sparse but it was —
DK: So whereabouts, going a bit further whereabouts were you actually born then? Were you a Londoner?
BH: No, I was born in Norwich.
DK: Right.
BH: Brought up in Norwich.
DK: So, in Norwich itself then did you see much about the beginning of the war?
BH: Oh, yes.
DK: What did you see then? Can you —
BH: We got, we got bombed. I mean, but the incident which I never saw, but obviously there was no television in those days. There was a paper and also the wireless where the stray aircraft came over and machine gunned the girls coming out of Colman’s Mustard Factory.
DK: Oh dear.
BH: I mean, I’m not quite sure of the numbers but it was either seventeen or nineteen they killed, and I thought to myself then but they’re not munitions, they’re not war people. They’re [pause] and then of course they got further night raids. And I had a girlfriend at the time. You know, young we were [laughs] and her, they bombed Norwich, and I was, of course this is the early part of the war and she was, her cousin was seventeen and got killed.
DK: Oh, really.
BH: When they pulled her out she was black. Blast.
DK: She didn’t work at the Colman’s factory then. She was —
BH: No. No. Separate.
DK: Separate incident. Oh dear. Yeah.
BH: But that’s the sort of thing that got me thinking about, I mean.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I mean, at the time I thought I mean a girl of seventeen you know they’re in the bloom of their life aren’t they?
DK: Yeah.
BH: But that really, that really struck me. Those two occasions. That’s all. That’s why I volunteered for aircrew. As simple as that.
DK: And what year was it you volunteered for aircrew then?
BH: ’43. Early ’43. I had to go in. I had to go in to have my tonsils and adenoids out so I got delayed actually, you know.
DK: Right.
BH: Through the RAF you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: Went before what they called an Attestation Board at Cardington in Bedfordshire.
DK: Right.
BH: And then of course you have your medical, and seven doctors I believe there were.
DK: So, it was quite thorough then was it?
BH: Oh yeah.
DK: So as you joined what were you hoping to do in the RAF? Were you hoping to be a pilot? Or —
BH: I think we all were.
DK: You all were. Yeah. Yeah.
BH: I mean to be honest I mean I could send Morse because I mean I was taught it in the ATC.
DK: Right.
BH: Quite capable. I could send better than I could receive. I think that’s natural if you’re not proficient at it shall we say.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: And I didn’t want to be a wireless op. So I was straight AG.
DK: Yeah.
BH: A — it was a shorter course.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You were a sergeant at least.
DK: So was that one of the reasons you became an air gunner then because the training was a shorter period?
BH: Yeah, it was one of the reasons. Yeah.
DK: So, so what did the training as an air gunner actually involve then?
BH: Well, I was called up to what they called ACRC, that’s in London.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I reported to Lord’s Cricket Ground of all places. We got all our inoculations, vaccinations, kitted out, and then we went on to Bridlington.
DK: Right.
BH: And in Bridlington was what they called initial. ITW, I think they called it anyway. And you were taught certain things. Marching and all that sort of things. And one of the, one of the things I remember of course I couldn’t swim and they marched us down, you know. They said, ‘You’re going down to the harbour,’ you know, ‘For dinghy drill.’ Of course we went down at night and thought oh that’s not far to drop. We went back the next morning the tide had gone out [laughs] It was about a fifteen or twenty foot drop. I mean, they lined you up. You might as well jump because they’d have pushed you anyway. You’ve got Mae Wests on.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And then you had to get in a fighter dinghy. A fighter one, you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: And then get out of that and get in a bomber dinghy and come back.
DK: So, you didn’t —
BH: I did alright.
DK: You did alright. You never realised how deep it was until the next day though.
BH: But I was, I wasn’t shall we say afraid because I think when you are with other people, most of these were you know were joined up lads like myself.
DK: So, how old were you at this point?
BH: Eighteen.
DK: Eighteen. Yeah.
BH: When you join up like that you think to yourself, ‘Well, I’ve got to go with the flow. I can’t show myself up.’ And I think you get accustomed to that kind of relationship don’t you?
DK: Yeah.
BH: Especially as you get older and more in with the RAF. It’s a comeraderieship of being with other people isn’t it?
DK: Yeah. So what, what was your next part of the training then?
BH: Well, then I went to, I can’t remember how long we I’ve got a record.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: Of all my service history there. Went then to Bridgnorth. This was called, I think it was advanced ITW. Initial Training Wing, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: We did, I don’t know how long we were there but we [pause] it was quite a, quite a big camp. I think it’s still going today. I’m not sure mind you, but it’s going on for long after the war anyway but we then of course you got a lot of sport.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And of course, and I was very lucky there of course. My mother wrote to me and said, “You’ve got an aunt in Bridgenorth.” So of course the aunt wrote to me and said, “Oh, come for Sunday lunch.” Beautiful home cooking [laughs] We went to church in the morning and then we went to Sunday lunch. Oh, it was lovely. Yeah. I went several Sundays. They were, he was a big business man in Bridgenorth. He’d got a big store or something. I don’t know. But they were very very kind to me.
DK: So the food at your aunts was better than what the RAF did for you then.
BH: Well, yes. You miss your mum’s cooking don’t you? [laughs] Yes.
DK: So what, what sort of training were you doing at Bridgnorth? Did this involve weapons training?
BH: No.
DK: No.
BH: No. No. We didn’t get that training until I then moved to Morpeth.
DK: Right.
BH: Near Newcastle.
DK: Yeah.
BH: That’s what they called, that was the Air, Air Gunner’s School.
DK: Right.
BH: We had, we had rifles. That was all at Bridgnorth.
DK: Right.
BH: But that was all, you know. We did a bit of firing with rifles in the, in there but —
DK: So was Bridgenorth mostly kind of square bashing and —
BH: Yeah. And as I remember more or less teaming you up to go to the Air Gunner’s School, you know.
DK: Right.
BH: But then, because we went to the Air Gunner’s School, we were flying in Ansons, with film and drogues, you know. Which was the targets.
DK: Yeah.
BH: That was —
DK: Did, did you start your weapons training on the ground or or was it straight in to the air?
BH: We, we, you did a certain amount, you know with as I said with rifles.
DK: Right.
BH: You’d go down the range and fire and that. But the thing which sort of got me interested there more than anything was the fact is that they gave you also, I mean I couldn’t swim.
DK: Right.
BH: So they used to take me to [pause] with some others not just me to Newcastle Baths. So, so we got out of the camp that way [laughs] But I mean I could swim if I’d got a Mae West on.
DK: Yeah.
BH: As soon as they took it off I panicked like hell.
DK: Did you ever master learning to swim then?
BH: No, I never got around to it but the, the best part of there was that this, this is the kind of course in my RAF career this. Whether it’s my soft face or attitude I don’t know. There’s three air gunner’s courses going through at the same time there.
DK: Right.
BH: I don’t know how many is on a course. I can’t remember. Quite a number and yet there was some big AOC who was coming to visit the camp, out of all those people eight people were going to form a guard. I was one of them [laughs] So, we had to do guard. Had to do rifle drill. You know, present arms and all that. He never came so we never — [laughs]
DK: You can’t remember who it was supposed to have been who came.
BH: No. I can’t remember. No.
DK: No. No. So the actual, so they’ve got you in an Anson then and you’ve taken off. What, what happens while you’re all in the Anson?
BH: Well, you get, you either get primary [pause] I’ve got my logbook, it’ll say in there. It’s a bit battered about now but —
DK: Let’s have a look.
BH: I’ll go and get it.
DK: Ok.
BH: You’ll have to excuse me.
DK: Yeah. No worries.
[pause]
BH: I’m a bit slow, you see.
[recording paused]
BH: Things [pause] There’s all sorts of things in here. Number 4 AGS, Morpeth.
DK: Oh, ok.
BH: I’ll tell you what. This. Mostly air firing.
DK: Right.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Ok if I have a look?
BH: Go on. You have a —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: There’s certain things.
DK: Ok.
BH: Other pieces I’ve kept in there.
DK: So I’ll just say this for the recording here.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, this is your air gunner’s flying logbook.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, we’ve got —
BH: It tells you at the front the results.
DK: Yeah. I see it’s got the —
BH: Right at the front I think.
DK: Right. Oh, I see it’s got the, so two hundred yards range.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Cine film. Rounds. So theory average and then air firing above average.
BH: Yeah.
DK: You’re a bit of a shot then.
BH: Well, I think it says —
DK: “Will make an excellent air gunner.” There you go.
BH: That’s it. That’s it. It’s, yeah because I’ll tell you what. I’ve always, I’ve always had difficulty with my English. I can tell you but I can’t put it into words very well.
DK: Find the right words. Yeah. Yeah.
BH: Now, as I say I went to school on mathematics. I mean I watch “Countdown.” I can do, well I do about eight percent of them in my head. I’m good at that.
DK: Yeah.
BH: But my English is poor.
DK: Poor. Yeah. So you went to Number 4 Air Gunner’s School.
BH: Yes.
DK: And then, so this is October, November 1943 so you’re flying on Ansons.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So were these the Ansons that had the gun turrets?
BH: Yeah.
DK: In them.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And then you took it in turns to follow them.
BH: You see, it was about four of us gunners went up at a time and we took turns you see and they registered who you were.
DK: Yeah.
BH: The pilot flew and there was a big bay there. I remember that’s a beautiful bay. Golden sands there was. Of course, it was cold but because we didn’t have flying gear then.
DK: Oh right.
BH: I mean we weren’t issued with it, you know until we went to OTU.
DK: Right. So it was a bit cold up there then was it?
BH: Yeah. It was.
DK: So four of you have gone up and there’s presumably with you is the pilot.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Is there any other crew there? Or —
BH: Instructor.
DK: Instructor. So the four of you take it in turns to —
BH: Yeah. And he would tell you what to do. Go in, because you would climb into the turret because it was inside you see.
DK: And can you remember what sort of machine guns they had?
BH: Yeah. 303.
DK: Right.
BH: Browning 303. They were all, they were pretty standard I think.
DK: Yeah. So, a lot of the, I’m just reading from the logbook here. So there’s beam tracer. Air to ground as well.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And a lot of cine gun as well.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, did you fire on drogues as well?
BH: Yeah.
DK: And that —
BH: That’s, yeah that’s on the live ammunition and of course they had a cine gun, because that’s what you were assessed on because they’d got a copy of it.
DK: Right.
BH: They could, they could assess it all.
DK: Yeah. So you’ve passed this then and then you’ve gone to 26 OTU.
BH: Yeah.
DK: At Wing.
BH: Wing.
DK: So, what kind of aircraft were you flying?
BH: Wellington.
DK: Wellingtons. What did you think of the Wellington?
BH: Well, we went to, of course we went to Wing. Then we went to the satellite. Little Horwood. The trouble with OTU is, as I found it anyway was the fact is that the aircraft was being flown night and day.
DK: Right.
BH: And the one episode I remember is that we’d gone on a night trip and it was a pitch black night. Well, of course it was winter time and this is a brand new aircraft which is unusual. And as we took off we’d just get airborne and one of the engines cut dead. Now, as I understand in theory that wasn’t supposed to be kept airborne, especially from take-off.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And I heard a voice calling, ‘Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.’ I thought someone’s in trouble. Of course, I was in the turret down the end.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And I thought to myself I could see the drem lighting of the aircraft that were you know around the airfield, and I thought well that’s not very, that’s pretty close. I suddenly realised it was us that was in trouble [laughs] But the skipper somehow with the bomb aimer they, I don’t know how he did it, because as I understand it especially I mean you could fly on one engine but take-off you were at your lower speed.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: But he got it around and he daren’t put the wheels down or the flaps. He put, he put it down on its belly. Then we scrambled out.
DK: So, you were still in the turret then when it hit the ground.
BH: Yeah, I could, yeah but I moved it around, opened the door.
DK: Right.
BH: So when it landed I could just —
DK: Get straight out.
BH: Jump out the back. Yeah.
DK: So, had, had you actually met your future crew at this point?
BH: Oh yes. I was with the crew then.
DK: Right.
BH: They, it was rather peculiar because I would think most people could tell you were just left to your own devices to crew up. I mean, I was walking down the road and this pilot approached me. He said, ‘Are you crewed up yet?’ You see. I didn’t even know him. So I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Would you like to be my gunner?’ So I said, ‘Well, yes.’ I felt honoured to be honest about it, you know. And then we got, I was obviously the youngest.
DK: Right.
BH: The wireless op, Jim was the oldest. He was —
DK: Just going back to your pilot. Can you remember your pilot’s name?
BH: Oh yes. Michael John Warner.
DK: Michael John Warner.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Right. Ok.
BH: The wireless op as I said he was, he was, he was getting on. He was thirty something. And he, you know, said after we because he said to me you know he said, ‘If we don’t like this pilot you know we can change.’ So I said, ‘Oh, can we?’ Because I mean he’d been in the air, he was a, he’d been in a while I think. He was a flight sergeant then.
DK: Oh.
BH: Anyway, I said, ‘Oh, can we?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, anyway, after the crash he came up to me because he’d become my dad sort of thing. He said, ‘He’ll do.’ Because, you know, he came when we were stationed on the squadron which was at Waterbeach. That weren’t too far from Norwich, you see. Get on the train direct into Norwich you see. So we often went. He promised to look after me to my mum.
DK: So your pilot then, Sergeant Warner.
BH: Yeah.
DK: After that accident in the Wellington do you think you sort of gained confidence with him?
BH: We, well we all, we all in, because Wing that that was a wartime aerodrome, you know. Scattered billets all over the place and we were all in one billet.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You soon get to know one another when you’re together. But we all gelled together you know. We all got on very well. Then of course later on you’re joined by the other gunner.
DK: Right.
BH: And the flight engineer.
DK: Can you, can you recall their names?
BH: Yes.
DK: What were their names?
BH: Well, I’ve got it —
DK: Are they all in here? Ok.
BH: I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I think this might be of interest in the conversation. I should have brought it through then. I’m afraid that my —
[recording paused]
BH: I only had it the other day, showing somebody.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I must have put it somewhere I can’t remember. Yeah. The pilot was, well yes Michael John Warner.
DK: Yeah.
BH: The bomb aimer was Cyril Holmes. I’ll leave the flight engineer ‘til last for a reason. The wireless op was Jimmy Foyle. The rear gunner was Don because we changed over. I’ll tell you about that. Don Shepherd.
DK: Right.
BH: I’m the only survivor now. That I know of. While I remember on this because we all had to have a second job in case of emergencies.
DK: Right.
BH: And nobody could send Morse or receive Morse to any kind of standard. Only me. So the skipper said, ‘Look Bert, you’re no good down the bottom if anything happens to the wireless op,’ you know. ‘So will you swap with the mid-under? You’re a lot nearer.’ You see. So we swapped over —
DK: Right.
BH: But that was when we were at —
DK: On the squadron.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And the flight engineer we had one and we ran into a bit of trouble over Gelsenkirchen and he, he didn’t make it sort of thing back.
DK: Ok.
BH: We come back with practically no airworthy instruments and we had to land at an emergency drome down near Ipswich [pause] Damn it. I —
DK: We can come back to that.
BH: Yeah.
DK: But —
BH: But we had one. I’ve forgot his full name now. Then we had a second one. It was Tommy Buchanan.
DK: Right.
BH: He finished. He did the rest of the tour. He did about another —
DK: Yeah.
BH: Twenty five ops.
DK: Right.
BH: With us. So that’s the one I remember more than anything.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve just noticed in your, your logbook here you talked about that crash while you were training in the Wellington.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And it’s, it’s got it down here. Just for the recording here it’s, it’s got a date.
BH: Yeah.
DK: I think this must have been it. The 19th of March 1944. And it’s in Wellington 244.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Sergeant Warner and it’s for, you’ve put in brackets there, “Crashed on take-off.”
BH: Yeah, that’s it.
DK: So, that would have been it, would it?
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So, it’s recorded as fifteen minutes flying time. See this.
BH: I was sat in the back there like [laughs] just didn’t realise until suddenly there was this drem lighting this close.
DK: So just as I say just for the recording then.
BH: Yeah.
DK: As I say that was the 19th of March 1944.
BH: Yeah.
DK: That was a Wellington. And was that at Wing?
BH: Yeah.
DK: That you crashed.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So that’s all 26 OTU.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And then, so looking at the logbook here you’ve done twenty six hours forty minutes day flying, and twenty seven hours fifty five night flying.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So then during the time at the OTU you didn’t do any operational sorties at all did you?
BH: Oh, well you’d hardly call it that. We were doing, I forget what they called them now. We went sort of somewhere near the Belgian coast, I think.
DK: Oh, was this a diversionary raid?
BH: Yeah.
DK: Right.
BH: But you know we, it was all taken over on the short trip when that was back sort of thing. I think it was mainly to do with the radar perhaps or something. I don’t know.
DK: I think that’s on the logbook here that you’ve got diversionary raid.
BH: Yeah.
DK: On the 15th of March 1944. Wellington 242.
BH: Yeah.
DK: I suspect that’s it there then.
BH: Yeah. That’s what it was.
DK: So, no actual bombing raids.
BH: No.
DK: While you were on the OTU. So, and then after that I’ve got you as going to 1678 Heavy Conversion Unit.
BH: Yeah, that was at Waterbeach.
DK: Waterbeach.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And there you’re, by this time you were the mid-upper gunner then.
BH: Yes. Yes. Mid-upper.
DK: So at Wing was Wellingtons.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And then Waterbeach.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Lancasters.
BH: Conversion Unit, yeah.
DK: Yeah, and you were converting to the Lancaster.
BH: Yeah. That’s the Mark 2.
DK: Ah. Right. So, it was the Mark 2.
BH: Yeah.
DK: With the Hercules engine.
BH: That’s what I was trying to find. I don’t know where I’ve got it. I had it the other day.
DK: It’s not in here is it?
BH: No.
DK: Is there a photo of it?
BH: No. It’s, it’s a paperback. It’s, it’s, it was the actual aircraft we did seventeen ops in was in, there used to be a magazine called “Flight.”
DK: Oh right. Ok.
BH: It was in there and we managed to get and then it’s come out in a book and I don’t know what I’ve done with it now.
DK: Oh, that’s a shame. Perhaps we can find it a bit later.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So it’s at 1678 Heavy Conversion Unit then.
BH: Yeah.
DK: That, that’s when you’ve met your first flight engineer presumably.
BH: That’s right, yes.
DK: Yeah. And the second gunner.
BH: No. He came he came, he came to us in —
DK: At the OTU.
BH: OTU. The end part of the OTU.
DK: Right. The end part. So, you’re now mid-upper gunner.
BH: Yeah.
DK: What did you think of the, comparing the two mid-upper gunner to the rear gunner was?
BH: It was [laughs] to be honest I didn’t think much of the mid-upper really because you saw too much. You were wide open you see.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You see, at the back you see where you’ve been. At, up there you could see all the way around.
DK: All the way around.
BH: No. I mean you adjusted yourself to the requirements. Skipper’s the skipper. Of course, then he was made an officer.
DK: I see. He is now Pilot Officer.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Warner, isn’t he?
BH: Yeah. Made him the pilot.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And of course the point before I forget when we were moved to, to Waterbeach, because he was an officer he couldn’t come in the sergeant’s mess. So we billeted ourselves voluntary in, because it was a peacetime built camp into barrack room so he could come over and be with us you see.
DK: Yeah. Do you think that put you as a crew to a bit of a disadvantage where the pilot’s an officer and you’re not? Did you think that affected you? How you worked together?
BH: Not me personally because I had all the rest of the crew around me, but he was on his own.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Nobody else was an officer in the crew, you see.
DK: Do you think that’s not necessarily a good idea then? Or —
BH: Well, it —
DK: Did it affect people?
BH: I mean obviously he was a very quiet person, you know. He was not one, I didn’t think to make quick relationships you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: He was sort of laid back, and I used to feel to myself you know you’d gone into a strange world where before we went to the sergeant’s mess all together and now you’re going on your own. Me, I got all the, all the rest of the crew around me. I was alright. Yeah.
DK: So you’re on the Lancasters Mark 2s with the Hercules engines.
BH: Yeah.
DK: What did you think of those as a, as an aircraft to fly on?
BH: Oh wonderful. The thing I make about them they were so quiet. You know the, the only trouble was when we got on to the squadron they were about eighteen thousand feet maximum.
DK: Right.
BH: So you got the Lancs above you, the Mark 1s and 3s you know, missing the bombs.
DK: So, so the Lancaster Mark 2 couldn’t fly as high as the —
BH: No, about eighteen thousand was the maximum.
DK: Right.
BH: Around about that.
DK: Well, do you know if they were any faster? Or —
BH: Near the ground.
DK: Near the ground. Right.
BH: Yeah.
DK: But they, you don’t think they were as noisy inside.
BH: No.
DK: As the other ones.
BH: No. The Mark 3 we went on they were American Packard Rolls Royces. God they were noisy, you know. God. I mean they were, they were built under licence.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Because I think the fact is that the Americans turned out the Mustang. I mean the Rolls Royce they put in them made them it a long range fighter for their bombers.
DK: Right.
BH: You see they put a Rolls Royce in. It was a different aircraft then. They could do the distance.
DK: I’m just reading from your logbook here for the recording.
BH: Yeah.
DK: It says here you were on at, at Waterbeach you were on the Lancaster 2s.
BH: Yeah.
DK: This had all been training. Air to air bombing training.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Whatever. So you were on Lancaster. I’ll just read this out 619, 622, 617, 787, 624, 617 again.
BH: Yeah.
DK: 619, 787.
BH: Yeah.
DK: 624, 617. So, that’s from through from May ’44, well, all of May ’44.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So you were on a number of different Lancaster 2s then.
BH: Yeah.
DK: On various training at Waterbeach. So that carries on to May ’44. Lancaster 2 again. LL 620. Well, 620 three times. And then I notice here 30th of May 1944 you’ve done an operation to Boulogne.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So would that have been your first operation then?
BH: I believe so, yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So, I’m just —
BH: The wing commander came with us. You know, the station, well the squadron commander.
DK: I’m just, I’m just jumping ahead of myself there. I’ll read this again. So, on the 30th of May ’44 you’ve left 1678 Heavy Conversion Unit.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And gone to 514 Squadron.
BH: Yeah.
DK: They were both based at Waterbeach then.
BH: Yes.
DK: Oh right. I’m with you. So, 30th of May ’44 fighter affiliation Lancaster LL 620. Then you’ve taken LL 620 on the first operation to Boulogne.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, 30th of May ’44. Your first operation to Boulogne. What was that like? Because the first time over enemy territory.
BH: How I felt? [pause] Of course the first thing you know you’re going on ops is that the Battle Order goes up in the mess. Both messes. Officers and sergeants. And if your skipper’s name is on it you’re on that night.
DK: Right.
BH: And when that, from that start to the finish you, you get a bit of a grip in your tummy and you go out and you do your DI on your turret. Make sure everything is all right. You get a little idea where you’re going, the distance by what’s in the tanks, you know. If they’re quite full you know you’re on a seven to nine hour trip at least. So, it’s a bit of apprehension.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You’re, I mean I’ll be honest with you if anybody says they weren’t frightened I’m sorry I’d call them a liar. But you’re so controlled. You have to be. Once you get in the aircraft it’s different. It goes.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Because you’ve got a job to do.
DK: And, and what exactly was your role? Your job as an air gunner. You’re, you’re there and as you say you’ve got this panoramic view all around you.
BH: Yeah.
DK: What was your job?
BH: The job of both of us don’t forget that.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Is, the fact is we are the eyes of the aircraft. We’re looking for fighters. We’re looking for other Lancasters because you fly, you fly in a stream you see. And your main job if you see anything is quickly report it, you know. I mean we talk between the gunners.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I see something, you see and I say, ‘I’ll keep an eye on that,’ you know, if you, what, because that could be a decoy you see. But I mean you, we were lucky. We got not too much trouble with fighters, you know.
DK: No.
BH: We saw them in time so we, we didn’t have many problems like that, but we got one or two holes from ack ack.
DK: So you, you can’t recall you were ever attacked by fighters.
BH: No. No.
DK: Yeah.
BH: We, we sussed them out you know. We, and by that, I mean by that stage we had an aircraft tracking device. Radar which the wireless operator operated so we could tell if any fighters were in the vicinities and we veered away from them.
DK: Right. Ok.
BH: Yeah. But that has to be, in those days it was Gee radar for navigation and then of course when we went on the Mark 3 they had the old what did you call it?
DK: H2S.
BH: Yeah, H2S. That’s right.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. So, I notice here your first operation then 30th of May 1944 to Boulogne that you’ve got your pilot, Pilot Officer Warner.
BH: Yeah.
DK: It also says you’ve got Wing Commander Wyatt DFC on board.
BH: That’s the, he was the squadron commander.
DK: Right. So you’re very first op you had the squadron commander on board.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Did that make you feel a bit nervy?
BH: Well, it’s, you know, he sort of, see the skipper always went on one trip before you.
DK: Right. Ok.
BH: He went. What did they call it? Sit in the second dickie sort of thing to get experience. So he’d already done one.
DK: So, Warner’s done one operation already.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: So, anyway went out and of course the wingco is sort of saying, you know to us, ‘Right gunners. Keep your eyes open.’ And all that, you see and Mick was saying nothing [laughs]
DK: So Wyatt was there really to keep, to see how you were performing. Was that the idea then?
BH: I think also to see what reaction he got from us.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Also to see and keep in touch with the situation with flying you know, on ops. I don’t know whether he was, had to do anything like that. I mean the flight commanders did.
DK: Yeah.
BH: They had to do, you know so many.
DK: So, so looking at your first operations then through May 1944 most of them seem to be the pre D-Day.
BH: Yes. Yes.
DK: Landing operations.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So they were sort of in to France mostly.
BH: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. So, there’s a couple into France and then you’ve got one here. 12th of June 1944 Lancaster 2 again. 826. Lancaster 2, Serial 826 and its to Gelsenkirchen.
BH: Yes. The one, yeah where we had to land.
DK: It says here you landed at Woodbridge. So —
BH: That’s the name of the place. Yeah
DK: Yeah. So —
BH: That’s an emergency ‘drome.
DK: Right.
BH: There was, there was three of them about the country. There was one up in York. I think it’s called Coleby. Something like that.
DK: And Manston’s the other one isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.
BH: Manston in Kent. Yeah.
DK: So what exactly happened on the Gelsenkirchen raid then?
BH: Well, we caught up with a bit of trouble you know with anti-aircraft fire.
DK: Right.
BH: And we lost the, lost the, you know, the instruments and the point was the flight engineer was, how shall I put it? Skipper lost complete confidence in him.
DK: Really.
BH: I know it’s a fright but he, anyway he went back and he said he needs retraining or something you see, you know. I think he spared him. He panicked. But it’s one thing you don’t do in the air, panic.
DK: Yeah. Had the aircraft been badly hit then? Or —
BH: No. Not too bad. It caught, it caught the sort of the front of the aircraft and I don’t know what happened to be honest about it.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And when you go over there you get waves and you go up and down with the, with the anti-aircraft fire because over, over certain cities it’s, it’s immense.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I mean in France its reasonable, you know.
DK: So, you’ve then made an emergency landing at Woodbridge.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Because the aircraft was damaged.
BH: Well, there was no instruments.
DK: Right. Ok.
BH: Well, I say no instruments he’d got no flying speed. That had gone. So he didn’t know what speed he was landing at. He could land it, you know. He’d got full control of the undercarriage and the flaps. There was no problem there. It was just, you know as I said trying to. I forget. I know he’d got no airspeed indicator.
DK: Right.
BH: So what happened I don’t know really because you were just glad to get back.
DK: Yeah. So you landed at Woodbridge.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Because that’s the emergency landing ground.
BH: Yeah.
DK: With the really big runway.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And it was after that point you got the new flight engineer then.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Because he reported back and he said he thought he needed retraining. Left it at that. And the other chap we got, the new one, Tommy Buchanan was a different person altogether.
DK: And if I could just take you back a couple of days.
BH: Yeah.
DK: I know, I know the Gelsenkirchen raid was on the 12th of June.
BH: Yeah.
DK: You actually flew on D-Day itself.
BH: Yeah.
DK: The 6th of June. Do you remember much about the D-Day operation?
BH: That that was D-Day night.
DK: Right.
BH: We were, we were on to go on D-Day and it was cancelled. Nobody was allowed out the camp. The door was guards because of secrecy, you see. And we knew. We knew what was on. Somebody yelled, ‘You’re not going anywhere. Nobody.’ There was double guards on the gates and that. Of course, they had to be. Thousands of lives at risk weren’t they?
DK: So, you were aware that was D-Day.
BH: Oh yeah. We knew.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: And what you’ve got there is D-Day night.
DK: Right.
BH: We went.
DK: So, D-Day night it was operations to, for the recording I’ll spell this out L I S I E U X.
BH: I’ve no idea what that was.
DK: No. That’s, that’s that being France it’s, it mentions Channel guns.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So you were hitting the gun emplacements.
BH: Yes. Yeah.
DK: And do you remember could you see much of the invasion itself as you flew over there?
BH: No, no. I mean all we saw was, all I saw was because you don’t look for that. You’re looking all the time for your own protection you see. But I did see a parachute. So somebody baled out.
DK: Right.
BH: I don’t know who it was but if one parachute means it could have been a fighter and that means it could have been a German fighter. But one parachute. You never can tell can you? Someone may have jumped.
DK: So on D-Day you were on a Lancaster again, 816. Just for the recording here the Gelsenkirchen emergency landing at Woodbridge was Lancaster 2, Mark 2, 826.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So let’s go through here then. It’s France again isn’t it because you went to Le Havre.
BH: Yeah.
DK: On the 14th of June.
[telephone ringing]
BH: Oh, excuse me.
DK: Yeah. No worries.
[recording paused]
DK: So, so through June 1944 I notice there’s, there’s one in green here. So, was one a daylight operation?
BH: Daylight. Yeah. Daylight.
DK: And that was to —
BH: That was peculiar. To go down you could see all these lakes, you know. Because the skipper was a good, he was a good [pause] He, he was trained in America so what’s the word? You’ll have to excuse me. Words fail me sometimes. Formation flying. He was good at that.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
BH: Yeah. He was good at that.
DK: So this operation it’s 21st of June 1944 to Abbeville.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And that was in daylight.
BH: Yes.
DK: And you’ve gone over in formation then.
BH: Well, straggling.
DK: Straggling.
BH: It wasn’t as good as the Americans by no way there [laughs]
DK: So you would have seen Lancasters.
BH: All around. Yes. Yes.
DK: All around you. Yeah. And how did that make you feel? Was it quite an impressive sight then, or —
BH: Yeah, because I mean you could go at night and never see them. You could feel them. You could feel the turbulence if you were near one but it’s, it’s the sight because you see we saw one aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft and he turned around and come back. We’d got fighter escort you see but they were way above and all of a sudden we saw these Spitfires come down and go alongside him. One kept alongside him. The others kept above him and behind. He got his, one engine was on fire, so whether, you know he turned around. He went against the bomber stream
DK: Yeah.
BH: On the outside, you know. So I don’t know whether he made it all.
DK: Yeah.
BH: But I mean I should think so.
DK: But the Spitfires escorted him back did they?
BH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So you did a number of daylight operations then.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And then mostly over France again and then I noticed, so 20th of July you’re back over Germany. Homberg.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, what, what was it like flying back over German cities again?
BH: Different. It’s, it’s a different feeling altogether because you’re in the pitch dark again, you know and you search, search, search. In daylight you could see everything. I mean you could get [pause] and not only that you have to make sure you’ve changed your ammunition because in daylight you’ve got daylight tracer bullets.
DK: Yeah.
BH: They’re bright obviously and at nights they’re not quite so bright. If you’ve got daylight in they frighten to death. Be like the Blackpool Illuminations. You have to check you know every time you go. You have to check your aircraft to see that they’ve changed it because you know in the hustle and bustle of a bomber station at the time it’s all go sort of thing.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Day in and day out.
DK: So just talking about a normal operation then how, you’ve got the call in the morning and your pilot’s name’s up on the list.
BH: Yeah.
DK: What happened then? Was there briefings and —
BH: Well, as I said we go, it’s in the morning you, you, I mean we went to briefing probably, I don’t know what time but you know at that time of year you didn’t take off probably ‘til about 9 o’clock, 8 o’clock. Something like that. I can’t remember now. It’ll tell you in there anyway.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: And of course you go to briefing and you know you go in and of coruse there’s a guard outside the doors and you look at, you look at where the ribbon ends [laughs] That tells you. Full stop. Yeah. I mean, you got a little idea as I said the distance.
DK: So briefings then. Would they have all of the crews in there?
BH: Oh yes.
DK: And all of the —
BH: But the pilots and the bomb aimers, was it? And the navigators. Oh, the navigators. They had a special briefing before us.
DK: Right.
BH: Then we got a general briefing. I mean they get all the gen for navigating for that but we went in a general, you know. Just sit and you’re informed of your targets which you could see anyway. You’re informed why you’re going. You’re informed of all the, various people get up and tell you, you know. ‘Be careful around here. Don’t stray off course because there’s a battery of anti-aircraft there.’ And all that. ‘Fighters. Keep your eyes open because you know when they’re about,’ sort of thing. We knew that but there was general information and then of course you know you stood up when the CO come in and you sat down again. But it was about, and then there was the weather.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You get to talk about the weather and you sit there and listen to try and digest everything for your own benefit, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So after the briefing then.
BH: We had a meal.
DK: You had a meal.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Do you remember what you used to eat?
BH: Yes. Bacon and egg. I remember one trip. That was a daylight. I forget where it was now. It kept getting cancelled. We had about ten meals that day [laughs] Never felt so good. We ran out of eggs. Yeah. Mind you, I must say this. I have heard some lads where they’ve been on the camp and it’s not been, it’s been alright. We were exceptionally looked after well there. Exceptionally.
DK: And this was at Waterbeach.
BH: We had, we had fruit on the table. Mind you there was orchards all around.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Around that area. We had milk. Jugs of milk.
DK: Yeah.
BH: We were well looked after. Yes.
DK: So you’ve had the briefing and then you’ve had the meal.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Do you then go out to the aircraft or are you —
BH: Well, you decide then, you know. It depends.
DK: Right.
BH: Sometimes you have a little time. Or you, you then get in the aircraft or you get in the transport and they take you. And of course you sit in the aircraft waiting. Well, it depends sometimes. And then of course you take your turn to take off. Now, this is where the Mark 2 easy. Mark 3 we seemed to struggle nearly all over bloody Cambridgeshire to get up any heights.
DK: Really?
BH: But then there was always people standing by the, you know the observing what do you call it.
DK: By the runway.
BH: Yeah. You know. Waving you off.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. So that would be off the ground staff then were waving you off then were they?
BH: Well, there was WAAFs. There’s all sorts. They had boyfriends and things like that, you know and then people in general used to.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Did that, did that fill you with a bit of confidence that there was people waving you off?
BH: Well, I thought if they’d take the trouble.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You know. To do that, I mean. It was, there was no skin off their nose to be there. They came by voluntary terms.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Many had various reasons but it was nice to see it. Let’s put it that way. Yeah.
DK: So you found the Mark 2 Lancaster with a, presumably with a full bomb load of fuel.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Easier to get in the air than —
BH: Yes. Definitely.
DK: Than the Mark 1s and 3s.
BH: And then, of course the higher you got the Mark 3 took over.
DK: Right.
BH: You see as you got higher in the Mark 2 it got more difficult to get up there but of course you could get, you got up to about twenty two, twenty three thousand in the Mark 3. Twenty one easy.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Depend what bomb load you’d got, you know.
DK: Yeah. So just going through your logbook again then.
BH: Yeah.
DK: You did 23rd of July ‘44 to Kiel.
BH: Yeah.
DK: The Naval yards.
BH: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: Do you remember much about that?
BH: It was one, one of the first. We’d been twice actually but one of the most, I don’t know why but when we got there the ground was lit up as though it was daylight. I’d never known that before. I mean before you got over a target you got the target indicator. The master bomber would tell you what to bomb. You know, the colour of the TI. You know, the target indicator.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And again. Over there you got target indicators and just I could you know, I mean I could see streets below all lit up like daylight. I think, you know afterwards, after the First World War I think there was trouble there.
DK: Yeah.
BH: During the war. They thought they could perhaps you know arrange the same thing again. That’s why we went but it’s uncanny because you know it suddenly become more sort of like a daylight over the target which is, of course you’ve all the ack ack flying about.
DK: Yeah. So was it the lights of the city were on then?
BH: No. No.
DK: Or just —
BH: The Pathfinders had illuminated them.
DK: Oh, I see. Oh right. I see. So that was the Pathfinder flares.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Target indicators.
BH: Well, there was target flares on the ground.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I mean it was just like daylight.
DK: Right.
BH: I only can assume, you know that was the reason that they went to that target and what they did to the target. I’ve got no other ideas.
DK: And then I notice 25th of July, and 28th of July you went to Stuttgart twice.
BH: Yeah. That, I had in there the first one I think, I think it’s in there. This is it. Found this at the, they found this for me. This is my pal in Norwich.
DK: Ah.
BH: He, they’ve got to find some more for me.
DK: Yeah.
BH: But I couldn’t give enough information. He was at ATC with me.
DK: Oh, right. Ok.
BH: He was at Mildenhall and he went on that first op.
DK: To Stuttgart.
BH: That was his first op and he never came back.
DK: Can I have a —?
BH: Yeah. That was my pal Richard.
DK: So, for the recording then this is Richard Duffield.
BH: Yeah.
DK: D U F F I E L D. Richard Duffield and this is the IBCC Losses Database.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So Richard Arthur Duffield, nineteen. Died, yeah 25th of July 1944.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So that was the operation to Stuttgart.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So you were both on the same operation.
BH: Yeah. I didn’t know that obviously.
DK: Right.
BH: I mean I didn’t, you see at Mildenhall there was two squadrons so I wasn’t sure which one it was.
DK: Yeah.
BH: But they kindly found this out for me.
DK: So Richard Duffield then was on Lancaster LN 477.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And he —
BH: Buried at, buried in France.
DK: So he was with 622 Squadron at Mildenhall.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And reason for loss? Crashed in the outskirts of Nancy, France.
BH: Yeah. We went to ATC. Well, he used to call for me to go to ATC on his bike.
DK: So did you only find this out quite recently then?
BH: I knew he was at Mildenhall. That’s all I knew.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I knew. I knew, I knew George had got, because my mother wrote and told me. It’s very helpful when you’re on a squadron when one of your best pals has gone missing and I found out. I phoned up on the telephone because there was an Association, you know but they didn’t, he said there was two aircraft from Mildenhall missed that night and they said there was one survivor. Now, I think there was one survivor there if you count up. There was six graves.
DK: Right.
BH: There was seven in a crew. So I presumed it was from Richard’s aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
BH: As there was a survivor.
DK: Oh yes. Yeah. It was, fellow servicemen. One, two, three, four, five. Yeah. There’s five there so one of them would have survived wouldn’t they?
BH: Yeah. I assumed that anyway. I said they’ve got some others which they can’t find. It’s difficult. Perhaps I can, I you know, they can have another go for me.
DK: Yeah.
BH: There’s a George Chapman. He’s a navigator. George. They all, I ought to have told them this, they were all from Norwich. That would have helped wouldn’t it? But I can’t find, he was, he went missing before me.
DK: And he was in Bomber Command as well was we?
BH: Yes. Yes.
DK: Yeah. If you give me the names I’ll see if I can find them as well.
BH: Well, there’s one name. I mean George was not too far. He wasn’t a particular friend. I just knew him.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Richard was a friend.
DK: Yeah.
BH: But I used to come with him. I used to come home on leave and this is the sad part, and I used to have to pass George’s house and his mother used to be, ‘Hello Bert. How are you?’ And she used to look at me and I used to feel guilty about being alive.
DK: Yeah.
BH: It’s a horrible feeling, but she was a lovely lady you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I suppose she looked at me and you know, ‘My son has gone.’ Yeah.
DK: If you give me his name later on I’ll see if I can find him.
BH: Well, the only other information I’ve got as I said he’s from, I’ve got his, I’ve got the road he lived on. Of course I can’t remember the number.
DK: Yeah.
BH: But there’s another one too. I’m not quite sure the name. Later I thought he was a policeman’s son further down the road. I didn’t know him well but I knew of him. He was Jimmy [unclear] I think that’s his name. And I’m pretty sure he was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
DK: Oh right.
BH: He was a wireless operator and he lived at Wall Road. Somewhere up Wall Road in Norwich.
DK: Right. And he was killed as well then.
BH: Oh yes. This was about, I would think about 1942.
DK: Right. I’ll make a note of the names later and —
BH: That name I’m not too sure. It began with a W, I know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Wombon or something like that.
DK: Right. Ok. Well, if he’s got the CGM.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Well, there’s [unclear]
BH: I’m sure he did afterwards I remember. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Ok. Well, I’ll try and look into that for you.
BH: Thank you very much. They’re just people. Comrades in arms sort of thing that, you know you, there was —
DK: What was the name of the Spitfire pilot from Norwich?
BH: Jim.
DK: Sorry.
BH: Tim Colman.
DK: Tim Colman.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And he survived the war did he?
BH: No.
DK: Oh, right. Ok.
BH: No. And there was only one other person. You know, I’ve mentioned these names —
DK: Yeah.
BH: Who survived the war with me. There’s six of us, I believe. Another bomb aimer named George Jarmy and he, he survived it, but he had trouble with his marriage and he drove straight at a tree and killed himself.
DK: Oh dear.
BH: His mind you see. The mind’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Yeah.
DK: Definitely.
BH: I’m the only survivor. So I think there was six.
DK: So, six of you from Norwich.
BH: Yeah. Out of that parish.
DK: From that parish in Norwich.
BH: Well, it’s a big parish.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: In fact, Sprowston now is a town so you know how big it was.
DK: Yeah. Ok. So I’ll see if I can find anything on those two.
BH: Thank you very much. I don’t think there’s any more information I can give you.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I thought the address would be helpful.
DK: Yeah. I’ll see what I can do because they should be in the IBCC’s Losses Database there somewhere.
BH: Yeah.
DK: It’s just a question of getting enough information to find it.
BH: That’s right. To find them. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. You’ve obviously got one here.
BH: I’ve got that thank you very much.
DK: No problem.
BH: I’ve said he’s, that’s the most important one.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Because as I said Richard was, he was a nice lad too. Quiet. Not like me [laughs]
DK: So your, your operations have gone into the end of 1944 and it looks like you’re, you’ve now converted to the Lancaster 3.
BH: Yeah.
DK: With the Packard Merlin engines.
BH: Yes.
DK: So you’ve done three daylight operations then in September ’44.
BH: Yeah.
DK: In fact, it looks like you’ve gone to Le Havre twice on one day. So, Eindhoven.
BH: Yeah.
DK: 3rd of September. 6th of September, Le Havre and then the 6th of September, again Le Havre. So, would you have gone twice in one day?
BH: No. I’ve got the dates wrong there or something.
[pause]
BH: Have you got that squad? Oh, it’s —
DK: It’s my, my mistake. It’s the 3rd of September is Eindhoven.
BH: Yeah.
DK: The 5th of September Le Havre.
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And then the 6th of September Le Havre again.
BH: We went to Stettin. That was one. You got that?
DK: Stettin [pause] Oh, here we go. Yeah. That’s the 29th of August.
BH: Yeah. That was a fateful trip for me.
DK: Why was that?
BH: It’s a bit delicate this, I’ve got to be careful how I put this. I was sort of, if you put it taken ill the day before, and we were down to go on ops. I went, went sick. I had dysentery.
DK: Oh.
BH: And he gave me some tablets. He said, ‘See me at briefing. I’ll give you some tablets.’ Well, they were useless and I stuck. And I mean I said that I was going to, you know where you have to go about twenty odd times a day you know, and there was, I never eat much. And I mean to be honest I shouldn’t have gone on that trip.
DK: No.
BH: Because I was a liability to the crew and when you come back I stuck it for six hours and I said to the skipper we were coming back over the coast I said, ‘Can I go to the elsan at the back?’ And I just moved one muscle because I sat with my legs crossed.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I was in a [pause] I landed in the mess.
DK: Oh dear.
BH: And Jimmy, Jimmy my wireless operator, you know he came up and he put his arm round me and got me out my turret, ‘Never mind, Bert,’ he said, ‘You stuck to your post in more ways than one.’ [laughs] And I went, I went back and cleaned myself up. I, I mean the navigator said, ‘You should never have gone.’
DK: No.
BH: He said —
DK: So that was the 29th of August 1944.
BH: Yeah.
DK: You were in Lancaster Mark 3, 687.
BH: Nine hours. We cut the corners.
DK: I was just about to say it was nine hours not six. Nine hours to —
BH: Yeah.
DK: Operations to Stettin.
BH: Yeah. Well, six hours I stuck at my turret.
DK: Oh right. I’m with you. Right.
BH: And we cut the corners too.
DK: Right.
BH: Coming back, to get back.
DK: Get back. Right. So and it says here Stettin operation was the dock installations in support of the Russian offensive.
BH: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: So it’s in support of the Russians.
BH: Well, they requested it didn’t they?
DK: So you’re last operation then is as I say the 6th of September 1944.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Le Havre. So you did thirty altogether.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, what, what was it, we talked about going off on the mission and then a bit about the missions themselves. What was it like when you came back and landed?
BH: Well, of course you get, it all depends. If it was a long trip you were, I mean I used to smoke then and those cigarettes were a Godsend. I mean, I mean I’ve often come back with my eyes bloodshot. Search. Search. Search. Search. And it’s pitch dark, you know. And when you get back of course you were all trooping all out together. Someone cracks a little joke or something. Some have a laugh. I mean, you were just whacked out after a long trip you know and you go for briefing and of course the first time we went they give you a pint of tea, and they have this little cask of rum. It’s naval rum, you know. Like treacle.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: And I, and that of course, of course Jimmy who knew these WAAFs and instead of putting one tot in I went to bed pickled and I hate rum. That spoiled a good cup of tea. But then, then of course you go for a meal.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And then you go to bed. Sometimes, I said, but this Mark 3 I laid there because there was still the drumming in your, and I mean our navigator what, you know although we didn’t do many ops on that he went deaf. He had a hearing aid later on because he was right beside the air, you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: But I mean the drumming in your ear, you know and you lay there and you think oh God. Eventually you go off and that’s it. Peace.
DK: So was it, as you were landing then is it a bit of a relief that you’re, you’re back again?
BH: Oh yes. It’s, it’s a funny, funny kind of war for the aircrew because one minute well to put it bluntly you’re trying to save your skin, and the next night you’re not on ops. You’re down town you know having a good booze up and chasing the girls sort of thing. You know what I mean? I’m being honest about it.
DK: Yeah. I was going to ask you what you did on your time off as it were, when you were? Did you go into town much?
BH: We went into Cambridge.
DK: In to Cambridge. Yeah.
BH: And we used to go in to I still remember the names of this [laughs] We used to, we found this pub in Lensfield Road. It’s called the Spread Eagle. And at that time she was an ex-lady what kept it, an ex-London actress. We found in the back room they had a piano because I played you see.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: The skipper played the guitar and of course once you got that, you know we were away because she, you know she used to say, I mean the skipper was I think he was twenty one over Stettin. So when we came back you know we had a party in there sort of thing.
DK: So your skipper spent his twenty first birthday —
BH: Over Stettin. Yeah.
DK: Over Stettin. Yeah.
BH: But I mean life in general, you know. In between its like, it’s like it’s one thing I said like this Jimmy [unclear] I once saw. I’d be sixteen or seventeen at the time. Something like that. He was running down, you know. I thought what is he running for? He was on leave. I was doing the same thing. Every second counted.
DK: Yeah.
BH: It didn’t matter. I mean, I mean I realise now why he was doing it, you know. He didn’t want to miss anything.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, so September ’44 then what did you go off to do then because you’d finished your tour? You’d only done the one tour then.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So, I say only but you’ve done the one tour.
BH: Yeah.
DK: What did you do after that? Did you leave the squadron at that point?
BH: Yeah. They sent me, sent me up to, there’s nothing in there but they called it a rest camp way up in Scotland. Near a place called Nairn near Inverness. I was up there for a month until they decided what to do with me and I mean of course I come back and I got, I got some more leave. I got a telegram to, and a railway warrant to be posted to RAF Manby.
DK: Oh right.
BH: The one place I hated to go. I’d been taught at Manby, you know. Training Command. And coming off a squadron which was free and easy and then come to this very strict, you know. And of course what happened was there I finished up as, I mean at that time there was, it was a hell of a big camp.
DK: Right.
BH: There was three bomb aimer’s courses, three, all instructor’s courses, three air gunner’s instructor’s courses. I think it was one or two small arms instructor’s courses, because it was an Empire Air Armaments School.
DK: Right.
BH: So all we could do was get in to a kind of a wooden hut. We couldn’t get in the mess at all because it was so, you know cramped and then of course we were, we were once I’d sort of, they kept me there much to my disgust. But the, the thing I’d finished my service. I was there until I was demobbed. Then the air gunners, after about a year I think this is roughly the air gunners moved to Leconfield. The bomb aimers went somewhere else and the small arms, I don’t know what happened to them. We were left with nothing for a while and then all of a sudden we started to get these, it was suddenly become something else. Manby. Not the Empire Armament School. And we were getting officers in.
DK: Right.
BH: On a two year course. So we were, I mean it was only I think six of us. Four or six instructors including the flight lieutenant, you know, in charge of us.
DK: So, so were you actually instructing then?
BH: Yes.
DK: You were an instructor.
BH: Ground and air.
DK: Right.
BH: Anyway, we saw these, I mean it was flight lieutenants up to squadron leaders coming on these courses. Two year courses.
DK: Right.
BH: And I went in, well two of us went in to this gunnery officer in charge, you know. Our boss. I said, ‘Well, look, we’re instructing these — ’ I said, you know I was warrant officer by then.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I said, ‘We’re only warrant officers,’ I said, ‘How can we deal with a squadron leader?’ He said, ‘When you enter that room you are automatically a rank above them.’ ‘God,’ I said, ‘That’s a quick promotion.’ [laughs] But I mean they were fine, you know. I felt at ease.
DK: Yeah.
BH: With all the instructions we had.
DK: So as a warrant officer and a trainer.
BH: Yeah.
DK: You were telling the squadron leaders what to do.
BH: Well, they were, obviously a lot of them. We also got foreign. Polish pilots on the camp.
DK: Right.
BH: We had Belgians come. We had Norwegians and all sorts. But then we finished up with this, and that’s when I had left.
DK: So, so this is Number 1 Empire —
BH: Air Armaments School.
DK: Air Armaments School.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Number 1 Empire Air Armaments School based at RAF Manby.
BH: Yeah.
DK: And I notice you, you were back on Wellingtons again.
BH: That’s right.
DK: So all the training there —
BH: Yeah.
DK: Was, was Wellingtons.
BH: Yeah.
DK: It’s all Wellingtons, isn’t it?
BH: Yeah.
DK: So you were there right through to —
BH: Got demobbed.
DK: Warrant officer. And you were demobbed in 1945 presumably. Oh, 1946, sorry.
BH: Seven.
DK: 1947.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Quite right. Yeah. So you were at Manby and this other place through to —
BH: About two years wasn’t it?
DK: About two years, yeah. And you were just training then for two years.
BH: Yeah. I mean, I said at one time I never had any courses and I mean I’m an active person and I got myself attached to the photographic section, you know for something to do. And I’m very interested in that.
DK: Yeah.
BH: So yeah there was a corporal there. He said, ‘There should be a sergeant here,’ he said, ‘And another airman,’ he said. I’m short staffed.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll, I’ll come and help, you know. I’m glad to do something,’ you know. Oh, by the way, time I was there we had some, time I was in the photographic section they had some Italian prisoners of war.
DK: Right.
BH: And I had to go out on a, to take some photographs of a bombing sight at Saltfleetby, and I, God talk about the drive of your life. I mean Lincolnshire roads are not that clever up there. They’re windy. Anyway, they come back and it must have been three weeks later they all left. They weren’t much good anyway. The next thing I knew the station warrant officer called me in. He says, ‘I’ve got a job for you, Bert.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m in the photographic section.’ He said, ‘No. This is extra.’ So, I said, ‘Oh yeah?’ You know. But he’s a, he’s a nice chap you know. He’s one of us sort of thing.
DK: Yeah.
BH: He was a time serving man. He said, ‘We’ve got eighteen German prisoners of war coming,’ he said. So I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘And you’re in charge of them.’ So I had them ‘til, oh I don’t know how long for. I had to go down in the morning. Count them in. They could have walked out.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: Because they were only in part of the camp.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: And go down at night and check them all in. Any mail I took back to the station headquarters and they checked it all I suppose.
DK: And this was at Manby still, was it?
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: And then one day the station warrant officer he says, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘The German POWs are going.’ He said, ‘You’re taking them down to some camp near Sandy in Bedfordshire.’ Somewhere near. I can’t remember now. So I said, ‘How am I going to— ’ he said, ‘Oh, there’s a carriage booked at Louth. It’ll come in. There’s a whole carriage booked for you.’ So he said, ‘Here’s a rifle and —’ [laughs] And five, five bullets. I said, ‘Well, there’s eighteen of them. I shoot five and then — ’ [laughs] And also there, this is what I was saying when I started this talk.
DK: Yeah.
BH: The next thing we had, turned up I forgot to tell you this there was a Wellington crash and it caught a woman’s, I think it was a sort of a cottage.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And it killed her.
DK: Oh dear.
BH: I’d been flying and the tannoy went. ‘Warrant Officer Hammond report to the station warrant officer.’ So he said, ‘I’ve got a job for you, Bert,’ he says You’re on guard all night.’ He said, ‘You’ve got an airman there.’ he says, he says, ‘He’s bringing the truck around. You’ve got everything you want. Full the lot. Off you go.’ God, and it was cold and all.
DK: So you had to guard the crash site.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Of course the woman had been killed you see.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. Were the crew killed as well or were they —
BH: No. They, they survived. There was, they were bomb aimers on.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: That’s when the bomb aimers were there. Joe got it again you see. Yeah. It was all good fun. I played football for my station so, you know I loved football.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And cricket.
DK: These, these Germans you were escorting then. Was this the first time you met Germans face to face?
BH: Yes.
DK: How did that make you feel as you had been obviously —
BH: I was.
DK: Flying above Germany just a few months before.
BH: I was a bit uncomfortable but because by then we began to know what we’d actually done you know, because I was a bit disgusted we were bombing houses.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Because we weren’t told that and I was a bit apprehensive because I thought well they’ll know more than anybody. And I was, I said they used to line up and they used to and I always felt there was one German there I didn’t know whether he was taking the mickey of me or not, you know. So I had one mate there. He was a prisoner of war. He was on that Long March.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: I think it was six hundred mile. He was on that so, and he was a prisoner of war. I said, ‘Would you mind coming with me, Cyril?’ I said, and I told him the reason why. He said, so anyway he stood. You know. I was counting them in and shouting out numbers and all that and he stood behind, well behind me and all of a sudden he let out in German and this fellow he was a warrant officer, a German well the equivalent anyway.
DK: Yeah.
BH: He swung to attention and there were no more trouble. But I felt he was taking the mickey out of me you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I didn’t know German but —
DK: No, but your, your colleague then who shouted out this German order —
BH: Did.
DK: Was, someone they were —
BH: That’s it. I took them back. I felt, I did feel sorry for them because it was a boiling hot day and I got to the railway station. I was met, you know. There was a truck to take you up to sign and you get your lunch there as well and as I was coming back I said, ‘What about the — ’ you know, because they were still my responsibility. But he said, ‘Oh, they’ll walk up.’ and of course I don’t know whether you know but the German prisoners of war kit bags are very, very big.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And they were, they were on the side of the road whacked out, walking up. Nobody escorting them.
DK: Yeah.
BH: They all thought they were going home. They were going on the farms. Yeah. God, it was a boiling hot day. They were carrying these, you know. I mean I did have some photographs of the prisoners of war. They made a walk in village out of scrap.
DK: Right.
BH: All run by water. Beautifully made.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah. I took photographs of it. Yeah.
DK: So, did you, did you stay in touch with your crew after the war then?
BH: Yes.
DK: All of them.
BH: Yeah. We’ve got, I’ve got some photographs here. One of my cleaners, well she’s my friend now. One of my little angels [laughs] There’s [pause] there’s my, that’s my demob book. Look at that. There’s, oh sorry [pause] there’s that’s the other gunner.
DK: Yeah.
BH: That’s the skipper. He went on to fly. It became his career and he flew second dickie to start with for BOAC, was it?
DK: Oh right. Yeah.
BH: BOAC.
DK: BOAC.
BH: Long trips.
DK: Long trips. BOAC. Yeah.
BH: That’s, that’s my dad [laughs] wireless op, Jim. And that’s, that’s me. Long shorts.
DK: So what year would that have been taken then?
BH: Oh, I don’t know. That’s —
DK: There’s a —
BH: There’s my wife there with all the rest. But I had this book and I I found my, this Lanc 2 which we did all these seventeen ops in and it’s, I don’t know what I’ve done with it. I had it the other day. I forget things. And anyway he, he I bought him one because we met up before we met this. I knew where he lived and I made contact but that was with his brother.
DK: Right.
BH: It was his home address and he put me in contact with where he was living. And then we met in Stamford.
DK: Right.
BH: At the George at Stamford. And, and I took my book of this and he said, ‘Oh, my goodness me. Look at what’s in here, Bert.’ He said. ‘One of my trips,’ I forget where it was now. In America, South America. He said, ‘We ran into a thunderstorm,’ he said. He said, ‘I was second dickie,’ and he put it down he said, ‘And we were miles from the ruddy runway but we got away with it.’
DK: Right.
BH: But he said the aircraft was in there. Funny that isn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
BH: Got the aircraft we flew on during the war, and he got the aircraft he was flying in civvy which he crashed in.
DK: Which he crashed.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So how long was he with BOAC for then? Was he [unclear]
BH: Well, then he got married. His wife was here. She was an air hostess.
DK: Right.
BH: She could be up there. In those days they could speak several languages couldn’t they?
DK: Yeah.
BH: So he went on short haul. You know. Just Europe. He made his career out of it, you know.
DK: That’s Warner, isn’t it?
BH: Warner.
DK: Warner. Yeah.
BH: Yeah. But —
DK: So, so is this, probably really finish there but one sort of final question for you all these years later how do you look back on your time in Bomber Command and Bomber Command itself?
BH: Well, a funny thing it was [pause] I mean the next door neighbour’s daughter in law she was interested so I went to go around there for a meal and I had, I had to give her little lectures because she wanted to know. And after the war I didn’t want to know anything. My wife said, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m going to see, “The Dam Busters.” Are you coming?’ So, I said, ‘No. I don’t want to.’ I wasn’t interested. I suppose as you get older you look back.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You don’t look forward too much, and I get more memories now and they keep coming back now. Something triggers something off in your mind, you know. You forget a lot but then you remember a lot, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And I will, I will say this and I’ve said if I had to live again and the same situation come which I explained I’d do the same thing again. I would.
DK: Because you mentioned earlier about finding out what was happening in the bombing.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Do you see that differently now or is it something that you feel —
BH: I’ve come to terms with it.
DK: Right.
BH: Because people have said. I mean. Well they were, they’ve said, well, I should, well I should know this. They were bombing Norwich and they were bombing houses.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And I said I was disappointed because we were told one thing yet we were doing another. That’s what I didn’t like, you know. We were misled. We thought we were bombing military targets. The only military targets we bombed was during the days.
DK: Yeah.
BH: You know during D-Day time.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Over Germany we just let them go didn’t we? I mean the famous saying, these, you know because when you’re going on the bombing run you’re straight and level until you’ve taken your flash you know. And of course the members of the crew were, ‘Let the ruddy things go.’ [laughs] It was a bit hot over these German cities.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Oh yeah.
DK: So after, after you dropped the bombs then you were flying straight and level for the photo to be taken.
BH: The flash. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Then you —
DK: Photoflash. Yeah.
BH: Then we dived away. But we got caught in the master searchlight once, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And of course as soon as that comes on that’s radar controlled. About twenty other small ones come on and the skipper put the nose down and the bomb aimer threw out Windows by the buckets full. I gradually watched the beams disappear.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Normally once you’re caught, you’re caught.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah.
DK: So how, how was that? Was that quite a frightening experience then in the searchlights?
BH: I was never frightened once I was, you know once I [pause] I was more frightened in the build up to it. Do you know what I mean?
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BH: Nerves. Nerves in your tummy. But once you’re in the aircraft I always felt safe. It’s a funny thing isn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
BH: You felt, though you weren’t really but I always felt there was something wrapped around me, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: Yeah. I was lucky. I mean you get lots of better stories than mine. I was just an ordinary sort of person caught up in the war sort of thing, you know.
DK: Yeah. Ok then. That’s gone on for a while there but thanks for that.
BH: Well, I hope I’ve been some use.
DK: That’s been absolutely marvellous.
BH: The only other thing —
DK: Hang on. Yeah.
BH: The other thing I would like to say is during the war it was a great leveller of personnel. You could be all walks of life. I met some wonderful people. I played football with pros, and against them which I enjoyed every minute of that though I was bashed about [laughs ] because I wasn’t very weighty then. But I met at Manby, I met two people, well one person which actually changed part of my life. One of them was I can’t remember his name. I tried to find it. He was a French horn player.
DK: Right.
BH: Sergeant, oh God, isn’t it silly? I’ve got a photograph of all the instructors. He, he was nice to talk to because he, he was on a retainer for all these big orchestras and in fact he was on telly after the war. He —
DK: Right.
BH: He was then played with the orchestras and solos and that and then he was BBC judge on the, you know, “Young Musician of the Year.”
DK: Oh right.
BH: He was judge on the brass section.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And the other one what changed was a fellow called Ronnie Price. I went in to the mess one afternoon at four o’clock and of course my father taught me to play the piano but he wanted, he played all sort of semi classics, you know. He was, he taught music. And I heard this music that I thought was the radiogram, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BH: And I got past the ante-room with the two doors like that. And, oh somebody is sitting at that piano because it was a good piano, you know. I went in and I thought, ‘He is playing that.’ Took a chair up, sat beside him and he stopped playing, you know. He said, ‘Oh, do you play?’ I said, ‘Oh, not like that.’ I said, ‘That’s beautiful.’ We became sort of friends, named Ronnie Price. I don’t know. You may be a bit too [pause] He was a pianist on, “Name That Tune.”
DK: Oh right. Yeah.
BH: Remember that do you?
DK: Yeah.
BH: And he was one of the top pianists in this country and abroad.
DK: Right.
BH: He had a wonderful career. He taught me no end about playing dance music. He opened doors which I never would have gone through.
DK: And that was that chance meeting in Manby.
BH: Chance meeting. He was the sound I was looking for. Like Glen Miller was looking for a sound.
DK: So was it, is that what you went into after the war then? Was it the music or —
BH: No. I played. No, I went, I went home to my own parents. My grandparents had a laundry. I didn’t know what I was going to do and I thought to myself well, my father said, ‘What are you going to do?’ My grandparents had, they’d wound it down a bit, ‘Why not take it up and build it up again?’ So I started on that but then the wife lost her father and her mother was totally invalid sort of thing in a way. Stone deaf and needed someone to be with her, you know. She was getting on. So I came up to Lincolnshire and I got a job at Fenland Laundries and then I sort of progressed through the ranks. Became a manager and that’s how I — but I played. Over the years I played part time. Not here. Never here.
DK: Right.
BH: I packed it in then. I played in holiday camps, in little bands.
DK: Right.
BH: Night clubs. I mean it’s all down to Ronnie Price. He taught me.
DK: Yeah.
BH: All sorts of [pause] well, it’s training you could not buy.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. All little techniques.
BH: Oh yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BH: I’ve got, I’ve got no end of his. My cleaner friend she’s here this morning. Took me to the doctors. She, I’ve tried to get some CDs because he’s no longer with us now, Ronnie.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BH: And she’s found them.
DK: Oh wow.
BH: I’ve got about four now. So, I’ve got all his music to listen to.
DK: Wonderful.
BH: Yeah.
DK: Ok then. Well, I’ll stop the recording there.
BH: Yeah.
DK: That’s been absolutely marvellous but thanks so much for your time.
BH: Well, I hope that’s been some use.
DK: Oh, you’ve been a lot of use. It’s been absolutely marvellous.
BH: Well, it’s, it’s nice of you to call on me.
DK: I’m more than happy to be here. Thanks.
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 Bert Hammond. One
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-09-04
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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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AHammondBF180904, PHammondBF1801
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Pending review
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01:25:50 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Bert Hammond was born and brought up in Norwich. He was a grocer’s assistant and an air cadet at the start of the war. He recalls bombing attacks on Norwich and a lone aircraft machine gunning female workers leaving the Coleman’s Factory. In 1943, at the age of 18, he volunteered for the RAF as an air gunner. His initial training took place at RAF Bridlington and RAF Bridgnorth. He was posted to No. 4 Air Gunnery School, RAF Morpeth, in October 1943. His training included the use of cine-guns and target drones, and flying took place in Avro Ansons.
Posted to 26 Operational Training Unit at RAF Wing, he was formed into a crew to fly Wellingtons as a rear gunner. On one training flight, an engine failed on take-off and the pilot managed to complete a circuit before carrying out a belly landing. As Bert had learned morse code as an air cadet, he was tasked to take over as the wireless operator if necessary, therefore, moved to the mid-upper turret to be closer.
In 1944 he was posted to RAF Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, initially with 1678 Heavy Conversion Unit to convert to Lancasters, and then to 514 Squadron as operational crew. His first operation was on the 30th of May to Boulogne. He describes a number of operations over France and Germany. On the 12th of June during an operation to Gelsenkirchen, they were hit by anti-aircraft fire putting their instruments out of action. They were diverted to RAF Woodbridge for an emergency landing.
Bert describes the differences in performance between the Mark II and Mark III Lancasters, and what happened during the day of operations. He completed his thirty operations in September 1944 and, after a period of leave, was posted to RAF Manby as an instructor with No. 1 Empire Air Armament School. He explains how he felt about the bombing of Germany, the loss of friends, and how the war was a great leveller of persons. He was demobilised in 1947.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Germany
Poland
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Suffolk
England--Tyne and Wear
France--Abbeville
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Poland--Szczecin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944-03-15
1944-03-19
1944-05-30
1944-06-12
1944-06-21
1944-07-20
1944-07-25
1944-08-29
1944-09-06
1678 HCU
26 OTU
514 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Boston
forced landing
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Lancaster Mk 3
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Manby
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Wing
RAF Woodbridge
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/159/1992/LParkinsH1891679v1.2.pdf
276900754f39dfa9ed3aa80a655cd108
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
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Harry Parkins' flight engineer log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LParkinsH1891679v1
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
Belgium--Antwerp
Belgium--Kortrijk
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Suffolk
France--Mimoyecques
France--Grandcamp-Maisy
France--Creil
France--Amiens
France--Annecy
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
France--Caen
France--Chalindrey
France--Châtellerault
France--Donges
France--Étampes (Essonne)
France--Givors
France--Joigny
France--Nevers
France--Paris
France--Pommeréval
France--Saumur
France--Tours
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Munich
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wesseling
Germany
France
Belgium
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-06-01
1944-06-02
1944-06-04
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-25
1945-04-29
1945-04-30
1945-05-02
1945-05-03
1945-05-05
1945-05-11
1945-05-26
1945-09-12
1945-09-29
1945-10-01
1945-10-10
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training and operational career Sergeant Harry Parkins from 20 December 1943 to March 1954. He flew in Stirling, Lancaster, Anson, C-47, Lancastrian, Valetta, Lincoln. Harry Parkins flew 47 operations - 30 night operations and 17 daylight operations - with 630 Squadron and 576 Squadron, including six for operation Manna, plus five for operation Dodge. Includes details on bombing on targets in France, Germany and Belgium: Paris-Juvisy, Paris-La Chapelle, Brunswick, Munich, Annecy. Burg Leopold, Amiens, Kiel, Antwerp, St Valery, Saumer, Maisy, Caen, Balleroy, Etampes, Beauvoir, Wesseling, Pommereval, Mimoyecques, Chalindrey, Nevers, Thiverny, Courtrai, Donges, Givors, Stuttgart, Cahagnes, Joigny, Trossy St Maximin, St Leu, Chattellerault. His pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Jackson, Flying Officer Lennon and Pilot Officer Fry.
148 Squadron
1657 HCU
199 Squadron
50 Squadron
576 Squadron
630 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
mid-air collision
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Hemswell
RAF Scampton
RAF Shawbury
RAF Stradishall
RAF Sturgate
RAF Syerston
RAF Upwood
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-3
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/194/27238/BPattisonLEPattisonLEv2.2.pdf
aeeefce175b85bf44c34653c3689d720
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
Adams, Herbert
Herbert Adams
H Adams
Herbert G Adams
Description
An account of the resource
88 items. Collection concerns Herbert George Adams DFC, Legion d'Honour (b. 1924, 424509 Royal Australian Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 467 Squadron. Collection contains an oral history interview, photographs of people and places, several memoirs about his training and bombing operations, letters to his family, his flying logbook and notes on navigation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Herbert Adams and catalogued by Nigel Huckins and Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Adams, HG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[map of North Wales and the Midlands showing where Herbert Adams was stationed at Llandwrog]
A piece of the map-reading (topographical) map of Midland & Wales. The arrows show the A.F.U’s at Llandwrog & Mona where I & Sid trained. The other 2 arrows are to the castles at Caernarvon & Conway.
[page break]
[extract detailing the methods of use of the Douglas protractor with diagram]
This is one of the simple instruments used a lot in navigation chart work, along with a pair of dividers, a parallel rule & a pencil.
All our chart work was done on Mercator projection maps with a scale of 1:1000000 …. All the meridians were parallel, and latitudes at right-angles but further apart as latitude increased.
[page break]
[map of parts of the Midlands and Wales]
This piece of the Midlands & Wales map-reading map is to a scale of 1:500000 on a modified polyconic projection which results in shapes about as good as possible considering that the earth is spherical. The meridians converge about 5 cm in a map of their size for England’s latitude.
After we finished the A.F.U. course we left, & on 27th March, moved to Lichfield, No 27 OTU (Operational Training Unit) where we were to “crew-up”, and fly in Wellington bombers (designed by Barnes Wallis of Dambusters fame. Lichfield is not for NNE of Birmingham. The town has a nice cathedral
[page break]
At Llandwrog, and all later airfields, we used the Dalton computer for doing flight plans (given track, speed & wind-velocity – it works out course & ground speed.) and for all changes of direction &/or speed. It was a huge improvement on the C.S.C. we used at Cootamundra.
We had the loose-leaf pad disconnected.
[diagram of Dalton Navigational Computer Mk. IIID]
[page break]
[diagram of underside of Navigational Computer Mk. IIIH]
This reverse face of the Dalton computer is really a circular slide rule for quick calulations [sic] of time distance & speed.
The slots allowed setting of altitude and temperature for converting Indicated Air Speed (I.A.S.), to True airspeed; this was used on each leg of a flight plan.
[black and white photograph of a Wellington aircraft in the air]
We were at Lichfield from 27th Mar. to 21st June. We didn’t have our first flight in the Wellington until 20th Apr. the first few days involved “crewing-up” then a lot of ground work; pilots using simulators.
[page break]
[black and white photograph of a Wellington on the ground with airmen in front of it]
VICKERS-ARMSTRONG WELLINGTON
With a range of 3,200 miles and a heavy bomb-carrying capacity, the Wellington has figured prominently in attacks on enemy war concentrations. An all-metal structure, with fabric covering, its distinctive feature is the tail rudder. Wings (span 86 ft. 1 in.) and tailplane taper sharply. Guns are mounted in nose and tail, and a third turret, which is retractable, is situated under the fuselage.
Two 1,000 h.p. Bristol Pegasus XVIII air-cooled engines give a speed of 265 m.p.h. There is a crew of five.
The Wellingtons we flew were Mark X which had more powerful Bristol Hercules engines of about 1600 H.P. each. We crewed-up with 2 gunners who took turns in the rear turret … later on, the Sterlings & Lancasters had a mid-upper turret.
It is certified that I have received instruction in and fully understand the following Crew Drills:-
1. Parachute Drill. 2. Dinghy Drill.
3. Crash Landing Drills.
Date 12/4/44 Signature [signature]
CERTIFIED that I have received instruction on the Wellington III fuel and oil system and that I thoroughly understand the operation of this system and manipulation of the control.
[signature] Officer o/c Synthetic Fuselage. Signed [signature]
This was part of our “ground-work”; if the Wellington flew for more than 4 hours it was the job of the navigator to pump oil to the engines, using a hand-hydraulic pump inside the fuselage.
[page break]
[four drawings of Vickers Wellington aircraft]
[black and white photograph of six airmen standing in front of a hut]
Our crew at Lichfield L. to R. Eric Taylor W.O.P.
Bert Adams. Nav
Ken Nicholls, Rear Gunner.
Ray Giles, Mid-Upper Gunner.
Peter Gray-Buchanan. Pilot.
Sid Payne, Bomb-Aimer.
There was no official direction for crewing up. A couple of days were allowed (& nights in the sergeants mess) for us to “sort our selves [sic] out.” Sid Payne and I made a pair & we went looking for a pilot. I was able to boost Sid’s qualifications by telling that he’d begun as a pilot, passed EFTS on Tiger Moths, but was ‘scrubbed’ near the end of his SFTS on Wirraways … this plus his Observor [sic] training in Australia was the same as mine. Sid had worked, after leaving school, at the main office of the Dept of Road Transport, Bridge St., Sydney.
We joined up with a Pilot-W.O.P. combination from Queensland, looking for a likely nav-bombaimer pair. Both pairs seemed happy with each other. We began looking for gunners.
[page break]
It turned out that the two gunners who’d topped their AFU course had paired up and had a good look at the groups needing gunners. I guess we were lucky that they picked us.
Ken hailed from Sydney. I’m not sure if he’d already married Tina Mitchell from Mudgee or if they wed after the war. Tina’s mother was the live-in caretaker of the A.U.A. rooms in Market St. Ray came from a farmland district in W.A., he was 25 & married; the other 5 of us were all 20. Peter was a very quiet lad from a wealthy family in Brisbane – he’d spent some time as a jackaroo in Western Queensland. Eric was more extrovert and came from Mackay.
For navigation we were introduced to two invaluable aids. The first was the Air Position Indicator, or H.P.I. Up until now we had drawn manual air-plots on the chart, needing to change it for every alteration of course or speed & requiring the pilot to steer his course accurately & keep the speed constant (which may not be convenient over Germany). The A.P.I. had an input of airspeed, corrected for altitude & temperature to give True Air Speed; also it had an input of direction from a big Distant Reading Compass mounted near the tail of the plane (less magnetism from the engines there) which combined magnetic direction & gyro stability (2 seconds from each alternately I think); the resulting [inserted] magnetic [/inserted] direction was sent (by wire) to a V.S.C. above the Nav’s table where he set the Variation for that local area & any compass deviation for that direction thus feeding True directions to the A.P.I. and to the bombsight and to the pilots display.
[page break]
The A.P.I. had 2 knobs and scales. The nav. could set known latitude & longitude, (of his airfield normally), then as the plane flew, regardless of directions & speed changes, the API scales kept track of it all & gave latitude & longitude to the nearest 1 minute ([symbol] nearest 1 nautical mile) [underlined] relative to the air [/underlined] … so we had an automatic air plot.
Therefore if we flew for say 20 min. and got a FIX (known ground LAT + LONG), the difference between the FIX and the API reading would be the wind effect for that 20 min. Plotting both on the chart, measuring with protractor & dividers, allowed the nav. to get the wind velocity.
But getting accurate fixes (up ‘till now) mostly relied on map reading (not possible on dark nights or above cloud.).
Now enter the 2nd aid, called GEE. A box on the nav. table with an oscillograph screen & 2 knobs allowed the nav. to pick up pulsed radio signals from ground stations. The master station triggered 3 other stations (I think about 50 miles apart) and the GEE-box measured the differences in time for the pulses to reach the plane. The nav. only had to pick the better pair, twiddle the knobs to align the blips with that from the master station, flip a switch & read off 2 numbers from a scale, and note the time. We learnt to do that in 1/2 a minute or less. We had special GEE charts, just like our Mercator plotting charts, but overprinted with many curved lines, in 3 colours for the 3 stations, and numbers printed on the curves often enough for us to find where the 2 numbers met. That was our FIX, and it could then be transferred to the plotting chart with dividers.
[page break]
The curves on the charts gradually became to cut at shallower angles at long distances, but all over Britain, and as far as the front line in Germany, the GEE box gave fixed with an accuracy of 1/2 mile or less. This was enormously helpful, even though the Germans jammed the G.EE frequency so that we couldn’t read the blips much beyond the front line. Much of the first week or two at Lichfield was spent learning to use the API and GEE.
[extract detailing the purpose of the Astro Compass Mk. II with photograph]
We carried this in case of emergency, but didn’t have to use it. (I still have one in the shed, souvenired after VE day.)
[page break]
[underlined] AIR NAVIGATION [/underlined]
When we began learning air navigation, we had to rely on our pilot to fly straight and level on the compass course given without any alteration to airspeed. Thus we could keep an airplot, corrected for every change of course, speed or height. Pilots flew at an indicated air speed (IAS), which had to do with stalling-speed safety, but the true air-speed changed considerably with increased height (& a bit with temperature). For example, an IAS of 165 mph at 14000’, -8o C, gave a TAS of 206 mph to use on a manual air-plot. Also, the pilot flew on a magnetic compass course, which the navigator needed to correct to a true course allowing for magnetic variation (it was 11o W at Lincoln) and deviation due to metal in the aircraft (engines, bomb-load) and which varied with the direction flown … hence the need to “swing-the-compass” on the ground to record a deviation chart for use in the air.
A simple manual air-plot could look like this:-
[diagram]
By the time our training (in England) graduated to operational type aircraft (Wellingtons, Sterlings, Lancasters) we had the benefit of an Air Position Indicator (API) … a clever little black box with windows showing latitude & longitude to the nearest minute. These aircraft had a master compass (distant-reading) down towards the tail so that deviation would be minimal, and it fed magnetic direction to a Variation Setting Control (VSC) above the navigator’s table. The navigator set the VSC to the local variation & then repeater compasses for the pilot, bombsight & navigator all read [underlined] true [/underlined] directions.
[page break]
Also, the API had an input of I.A.S. altitude and temperature & (somehow) converted that to T.A.S. (true air speed). The API now had the 2 inputs which enabled it to produce an automatic air-plot, regardless of any changes of direction, speed, height or temperature! For shortish trips, we would set the A.P.I. to read the latitude & longitude of our airfield. On longer trips, or when expecting strong winds, the wind vector could become too long as to be cumbesome [sic] (longer than our parallel ruler). Early in our operations we would reset the API to the lat. & long. of a “good” fix … but after some errors in resetting (& perhaps a “bad” fix) we, later, offset the API to about 1/2 the expected wind vector so that it shrank for the first half of the trip, the [sic] grew again coming home … a much safer and more elegant solution to that problem.
With the API giving us air-position all the time, we now had the ability to find accurate wind-velocities whenever we could get a good fix. The most usual fix was from the GEE-box … a gadget about a 1’ cube size, which picked up radio pulses from ground stations spread across England & linked so that the master station triggered pulses from the other 2 stations. We could twiddle the 2 knobs to line up 2 lots of blips simultaneously, note the time & Air Position, then flick a switch which showed 2 lots of 3-figure “numbers” to draw in freehand arcs on special GEE-charts – and where the arcs crossed was a fix, quite accurate over & near England, less so as we got further away. And the Germans jammed the frequency so that we’d lose GEE about where the front-line existed. This generally meant we had about 2 hours of good wind-finding to allow us to amend the forecast winds sensibly and enable us to proceed to our target on dead-reckoning without seeing the ground for a visual fix.
[page break]
Our first 9 flights in Wellingtons were called Circuits & Landings. The first 6 were with an instructor pilot, then 3 with Peter going SOLO. I practiced GEE fixes (except that GEE-box didn’t work on 4 of them.) We did 4 daylight cross-country navigation trips (4 or 5 hours each) usually combining some bombing & gunnery practice, and 3 pure bombing flights, dropping 12 bombs singly each time. Then 4 dual flights with a pilot instructor at night and 4 more SOLO, circuits & landings. I practiced GEE fixes, and Eric did so on two of those flights. We did 4 night cross-country nav. flights with some gunnery & bombing practice, a gunnery trip with an instructor pilot and 5 gunners aboard, another solely bombing flight at 20000’, with Sid getting an average error of 165 yds. We also did a BULLSEYE flight where we and lots of other Wellingtons flew out over the North Sea as if to attack Wilhemshaven, while a large Bomber Command force flew in towards another target. We were a diversion hoping to divide their night-fighter reaction. We turned back before getting really close to land, saw no fighters nor searchlights, but had the privilege of counting that as one operational sortie.
In total at Lichfield we flew a bit over 77 hours, 1/2 of them at night. We left there for a week’s leave on 14th June. Our first stop was at Birmingham where we changed trains for London. We went first to the Boomerang Club in Australia House where we got the address of a Servicemans Club west of Kensington where we stayed for 17/6 a night, which was OK as we’d been told that London was expensive; we also got 4 lots
[page break]
of free Theatre tickets for stage shows, which we used, & they were worth about 16/- each. We did a couple of tours over some of the old historical places … the Tower, Abbey, St Pauls & the Art Gallery. Our 2 gunners were tee-totallers (a good thing we reckoned, as we knew a lot of gunners who drank a lot & often) so we put in a fair bit of time at cinemas and a visit to the Windmill theatre where music dancing & vaudeville acts seemed to be secondary to their showing of almost-nude girls who posed around the set without moving .. the sets were changed, the girls too, frequently. Most had elaborate headwear, feathers etc. We didn’t get about as a crew all the time. Sid, I think, went to a ballet or two … he often burst into song in bits of Italian while waving arms like a conductor. He did have a nice voice. Peter had some people to visit known to his older brother who’d already done a tour (probably 2 tours by now) as a rear-gunner on Lancasters. I went out to Taplow and revisited Margaret Vyner and her mother … a nice talk with lunch.
Our crew was pleased with the results on our course at Lichfield; I was rated above average & recommended for a commission, perhaps in 3 months. We heard a rumour that we’d next go to a conversion course on Halifaxes, then probably to an RAAF squadron on Lancasters, in 5 Group.
For our final night in London we decided we’d all visit the Savoy Hotel, the poshest nightspot. We had very little money left, so just bought a drink each, listened to the orchestra & prepared to leave.
[page break]
We were all Flight-Sergeants (we got automatic promotion after 6 months) & I guess stood out among the high-ranking officers (many American) and well-heeled Britons. One of them came over & introduced himself & invited us to join his table. We thanked him but said we’d no money, we just wanted to say we’d been to the Savoy. But he said they’d foot the bill, so we joined him & his wife & 2 daughters and an American Colonel. The man was the managing director of Lysaghts at Wollengong. He seemed pleased to hear where we were from and a bit about our training. There was a dance floor and a famous band, Carol Gibbons the leader. The girls wanted to dance. We all said we couldn’t dance, but I said I could waltz OK. Carol was called over & asked to play a waltz. I got up with one of the girls & the music was a jazz-waltz, which I couldn’t manage. (I should have asked for old-time, like the Blue Danube.) We stumbled around for a while, I very embarrassed, and retreated early to the table. Apart from that it was a great night-out, nice food, a few drinks and interesting conversations.
On return we were posted to 5 Group Air Crew Category School, on 21st June, at Scampton, just north of Lincoln. We were there for 10 days, but did no flying there. I can’t remember what we did do but I guess it was some sort of training.
We moved to 1660 H.C.U. (Heavy Conversion Unit) at Swinderby on 2nd July, where the planes were Sterlings … huge planes 100’ long; with tail undercarriage – no danger of losing you [sic] head walking under a propellor, as you can see from this photograph overleaf.
[page break]
[black and white photograph of a Sterling aircraft on the ground with a few airmen around it]
The Short Sterling. Our pilot Peter, hand on wheel, Ken, Sid & Eric at the end of the tailplane, Don Coutts our new Engineer with 2 of the ground crew closer to the plane & me, with Nav. bag & Ray Giles, our mid-upper gunner at the door.
Don, the engineer, had been a policeman in Coventry & Birmingham. He was “old”, about 42 I think. He was born in Scotland; his parents now lived in Ireland.
I read that the Sterling was originally designed to have a greater wingspan, perhaps 120’, but none of the regular hangers could take such width, so they clipped the wing design back without changing the rest of the design. They didn’t have 2-stage superchargers like the Lancasters, and although their big radial engines were more powerful than Merlins they didn’t perform well above about 15000’. So as more & more Halifaxes & Lancasters were built the Sterlings were used as trainers and as glider tugs, particularly in the big Market Garden debacle around Arnhem and in the Normandy invasion.
[page break]
This is about the sextant we carried in the nav. bag on all flights but never used on Operations. It came in a solid carrying box … I still have one that I “souveneered” [sic] after VE day. As well as charts, maps etc we had to carry the current Air Almanac & 1 or more books of A.N. Tables, each book only covered 4o of latitude, in a green canvas carry bag.
[extract detailing the methods of use of the Bubble Sextant with photograph]
[page break]
We did a bit over 48 hours of flying at Swinderby spread over a month. 10 of the 27 flights were with instructor-pilots doing day & night circuits & landings including 2 & 3 engined landings. 3-engined overshoots, corkscrews & banking searches, feathering propellors, fighter affiliation using cine-camera “guns”. Most of the other flights were bombings & gunnery, 3 cross-country nav. trips, and practice at all the other things mentioned above.
One “hairy” landing stands out. We’d had some wet weather & the grass verges beside the runways were boggy. Another pilot, trying to land in a cross-wind touched down with one wheel off the runway – the undercarraige [sic] collapsed & the plane plowed to a stop in the mud. We helped dig the bomb-aimer from the nose (he should not have been there for landing) where he was jammed up into the front turret by mud. The next day we were trying to do a 3-engined landing. The “rule” was, once you got below 1000’ on 3-engines you must land, … I guess the rule applied to emergency situations where the other engine couldn’t be restarted & may be some damage to the plane. Anyway, there was a cross-wind & when we were about to touch down, Peter said “we’re going around”, slammed the throttles forward & told the Engineer to get the 4th engine restarted. My job, on landings, was to call out the airspeed to save the pilot having to look down at the airspeed indicator. The stalling speed with flaps down was about 80 mph, and I’m calling 65, 65, 65 … while Peter juggled the controls to keep us just above the mud.
[page break]
He managed it and once the 4th engine started, the speed built up and we just cleared the hedges beyond the runway’s end. Peter was “dressed down” for ignoring the rule, but I reckon he saved them a Sterling … and us some bruises or worse.
We were moved from Swinderby to Syerston, a bit further S.W. of Lincoln on 12th of Aug. and got a week’s leave at once. I went to Edinburgh; Ray & Don were going to Rugby & Birmingham respectively & the others to London. I had intended joining them after 3 or 4 days, but since it wasn’t long since I’d been there, and they were getting a fair number of VI flying bombs I didn’t bother. While in the bath there someone stole my wallet including my identity card, army discharge papers, my pen & some other papers. Then on the way back to Lincoln, I stopped for a meal at Newcastle & someone stole my gas-mask bag which also held my pay-book, log book, & the few clothes etc. I took for a week. I was in big trouble (reprimanded) for losing the identity car, and inconvenienced for 2 months of no pay, until a duplicate pay-book was arranged. Months later the police at Newcastle sent the log-book back.
A couple of pages on, I’ve underlined the airfields we trained at on the map, with Lincoln near the top, & have shown Waddington & Wigsley underlined too.
At Syerston we converted to Lancasters … it was called 5 L.F.S. (Lancaster Finishing School). We did 9 flights totalling 18 hours, 5 of them with an instructor pilot, doing circuits & landings, 3-engined overshoots & landings, corkscrews & banking searches.
We moved from there to No 467 Squadron (RAAF) at Waddington on 7th of September.
[page break]
I’d forgotten, but while were [sic] still at Syerston we went in to Nottingham to the indoor swimming pool, and practiced dinghy drill … all the crew working together had to learn the technique of turning it upright from being upside down as they may be that way after being automatically ejected & inflated in case the plane crashes in the sea. We managed it OK although it was a shock putting on cold wet Mae Wests before diving into the cold water; I can imagine it might be much tougher at night in a rough sea. We had time for lunch & a wander in the town. Peter has bought a second-hand Ford 10 sedan for $25, which he & Don have “restored” to good running condition. Civilians get no coupons for petrol. Doctors etc. get a ration. Airmen on Operations get about 5 gallons a quarter, with some more if going on leave to a place not serviced by train. I had an auto-cycle … like a pushbike with a tiny 2-stroke engine, and was able to scrounge a little petrol from some of the drivers of the transports which took us out (& back) to the planes … a bottle full now & then. It need [sic] a bit of pedalling going up steep grades. I was given a licence to ride it, drive a car/truck/tractor merely by showing my expired Aussie licence … no test, just pay the small fee.
After settling in to our nice brick, centrally-heated room, 6 of our crew down one side, 6 of another crew on the other side, 8 rooms altogether like that, in our block, with toilets & ablutions in the centre of the [symbol] (same upstairs) all the new crews, 8 of us, assembled in the C.O.s office next day for a welcome talk. The C.O. was Wing Commander Bill Brill, originally from Ganmain.
[page break]
[map of Lincolnshire detailing RAF bases]
He and another young man from Ganmain, Arthur Doubleday, had enlisted early in the war. Both had done 2 tours with Bomber Command. Bill had earned D.S.O., D.F.C and Bar, & I think Arthur had the same decorations … he was then C.O. of 463 squadron also at Waddington, though he soon moved on.
[page break]
One of the things Bill told us Flight-Sergeants was that if we applied for a commission after about 20 Operations he’d recommend anyone who hadn’t done something stupid. What he didn’t say was that he didn’t want to waste time interviewing those who hadn’t got that far because a lot of them wouldn’t. As it turned out, when we finished our tour in Jan ’45, only 3 of the 8 crews remained.
After he finished his welcome talk, he dismissed the other 7 crews, and asked us to go up with him for a dual check, airtest. The reason he favoured us was that Peter’s older brother had been his rear gunner in his first tour. (Years later I met Arthur Doubleday at Wagga where he addressed Air Force Association members. I had an invitation and I mentioned Bill & Peter’s brother. He said “Old Buck eh, I had him as my rear gunner in my second tour.” Small world eh?)
He seemed satisfied with the way Peter handled the Lancaster, until he asked him to do a corkscrew. Then he took over the wheel (the Lanc’s [sic] had dual controls although only 1 pilot in the crew) and showed how he’d do it. He said the Lanc. was tough, you wouldn’t hurt it by being harsh with the controls even with a big bomb load. So it was “down port”, with a vengeance, really steep diving turn, “down starboard” still steep but faster, up port, up starboard as usual – quite harsh on the controls. He had Peter copy him.
When we’d landed he told us that there was an easy daylight Operation on Le Havre coming up on the 10th & he’d put us on for our 1st Op. despite Peter not having first done a “second-dickie” operation with another crew.
[page break]
The next day we did 2 flights, the first a fighter affiliation with cine-camera “guns”, the second a 5 hr 4 min cross-country navigation exercise with 6 bombs at the end, with Sid getting an ‘A’ assessment.
We did our first Operation the next day on Le Havre. I have already done some commentary, along with my original logs & charts for our tour of Ops, so I’ll leave that & just mention that Peter did his “second-dickie” the next night, 11th Sept. on Damstadt; and I’ll digress a bit about the lead up to D-Day and the months that followed, particularly from the viewpoint of Bomber Command.
Up until that time a tour of operations was 30 trips, and 20 more for a second tour. Because Bomber Command (I’ll use B.C. from now on) did so many short trips leading up to D-Day, and for some time after, they raised the quota for a tour to 36 trips, which was the case when we bombed Le Havre. From June to August, B.C. maintained a running battle against VI “buzz-bomb” launch sites & supply depots; these were short trips and once they eased off in August, the quota was lowered to 33 Ops. in mid-September. By the end of ’44, many of B.C.’s ops were longish, so the quota was back to 30 again, in time for us to end our tour on 16 Jan ’45.
When we started Ops, the maximum all-up-weight for take-off was 63000 lb. It was found that Lancasters handled that so well so that it was raised to 65000 lb approaching winter. Then, they replaced the existing Merlin engines with a later Mark, & raised the max. weight to 67000 lb in November. And 617 squadron (Special Ops) later carried the 20000 lb “grand slam” bomb with take-off weight 72000 lb.
[page break]
Here are some Extracts from “The Hardest Victory – RAF Bomber Command in WWII by Dennis Richards. (Hodder & Stoughton, 1994.).
The Transportation Plan, preparatory to OVERLORD … the invasion in Normandy. As part of the plan to convince the Germans that the landings would be in the Pas de Calais, far more bridges & railway workshops & marshalling yards were attacked North of the Seine than South of it. In this phase, B.C. dealt with 37 of the railway targets, American 8th Air Force heavies 26, and AEAF (fighters, fighter-bombers, light & medium bombers & reconnaissance planes, a mixture of RAF & USAAF squadrons) 20. B.C. dropped nearly 45000 tons on these centres, twice the tonnage of the other 2 combined. Harris in “Bomber Command” wrote:- “B.C.’s night bombing proved to the rather more accurate, much heavier in weight & more concentrated than the American daylight attacks, a fact which was afterwards clearly recognised by SHAEF when the time came (later) for the bombing of German troop concentrations within a mile or so of Allied troops.”
In this Transportation phase, B.C. made 69 attacks, flew 9000 sorties & lost 198 planes (1.8 percent loss rate). They caused enormous damage. At the end about 2/3 of the 37 centres were completely out of action for a month or longer, with the remainder only needing some further “attention” from fighter-bombers.
Unhappily, the toll of friendly civilian lives was sometimes more than the “prescribed” limit of 100-150 per raid. (Coutrai 252, Lille 456, Ghent 482), but the overall total was much less than the 10000 people they hoped would not be reached.
The attacks on rail centres by all 3 air forces
[page break]
proved catastrophic for the German armies. Only about 12 percent of rolling stock was fit for use. A division from Poland took 3 days to get to West Germany, then 4 weeks to the Normandy battlefront!
During the struggle in Normandy, B.C. operated in strength close to battlefields. On the night of 14/5 June, 337 planes attacked troops & vehicles at Aunay and Eurecy (near Caen). On 30th June, B.C. did its first daylight raid … 266 Lanc’s [sic] & Hali’s [sic] & a few Mosquitos, with Spitfire escort bombed a road junction at Villers-Bocage from 4000’ and thwarted a Panzer attack. Of B.C.’s 5 other attacks in close support, the biggest was on 18th July … operation GOODWOOD … a maximum effort involving 1056 heavies of B.C. and 863 American bombers to help the push SE of Caen towards Falaise … but bad weather and unsubdued anti-tank guns stopped the push at 6 miles at best. However, it impressed the Germans. Von Kluge, who’d just replaced Rommel, wrote to Hitler on 21st Jul.:- “There is no way by which, in the face of the enemy air forces’ complete command of the air, we can discover a form of strategy which will counterbalance the annihilating effects [underlined] unless we withdraw from the battlefield. [/underlined] Whole armoured formations allotted to counter-attack were caught beneath bomb carpets of the greatest intensity so that they could be rescued from the torn-up ground only by prolonged effort. The psychological effect of such a mass of bombs coming down with all the power of elemental nature on the fighting forces, especially the infantry, is a factor which has to be taken into very serious consideration. It is immaterial whether such a carpet catches good troops or bad. They are more or less annihilated, & above all their equipment is shattered.” (He suicided a month later when Hitler wouldn’t allow a withdrawal.)
[page break]
On 7/8 Aug. (night), 1019 heavies of BC. raided 5 points ahead of Allied troops … helping the Canadian 1st Army to open the way to Falaise.
The Allies had 14000 aircraft against Germany’s 1000 in those weeks. By 3rd Sept the British 2nd Army was in Brussels, but had by-passed the ports which were needed to boost supplies to the troops. Le Havre & Dieppe were left surrounded, but the attack inland aimed at Antwerp (the biggest port) swung inland leaving Boulogne, Calais & Dunkirk and a bit of territory East of the coast still strongly held by Germans, including the Schelt [sic] estuary, leading to Antwerp, which was heavily mined and defended by heavy guns both on its south bank and on Walcheren Island to the North.
B.C.’s resumption of attacks on oil targets were delayed by the V1 threat. Hitler had hoped to begin mass attacks by VI’s on London as a “New Year Present” in Jan ’44, but damage to “ski” sites & raids on the Fiesler works at Kassel, plus their own trouble getting the bomb to function reasonably, caused set-backs. Allied bombing of railways held up deliveries of launchers & bomb components. It wasn’t until 12/13 June that the first VI attacks occurred, & then only 7 of 55 sites managed to launch a total of 10, of which only 3 reached England. But on the 2 nights of 15/6 & 16/7 June, 144 crossed the Kentish coast and 73 reached London.
In operation CROSSBOW, B.C. & 8th US Air Force and AEAF attacked VI sites from Mid-June to mid-August, using 40 percent of B.C.’s strength. Targets were the modified launch sites, supply depots, and “large sites” preparing to launch the big VII rockets.
[page break]
B.C. attacked these day & night; they flew 16000 sorties, & dropped 59000 tons of bombs on VI & VII targets only losing 131 planes, a loss rate of less than 1 percent.
By mid-August, there was less need, because of better defences (A.A. & fighters began using proximity fuses on shells, that with balloons resulted in less than 20 percent reaching their target, and finally the Canadian & British armies over-ran the launching sites.
On every day but one from 5th to 11th September B.C. sent 300 or more heavies to bomb the German-held territory at Le Havre. The total for the week was 2500 sorties dropping 9750 tons. The ground attack there on 11th, after the last air-raid, captured the port, and a lot of Germans with only 50 fatalities. However, the garrison had destroyed the port facilities; it was not able to be used by ships until mid-October. (Our first ‘Op’ was on the 10th, as part of 992 heavies that day.)
A week later, on 17 Sept, BC. did a big raid on Boulogne … 762 heavies, opening the way for an attack by the Canadian Army. The garrison surrendered on Sept 22nd. A quote from a diary of a captured German officer:- “Sometimes one could despair of everything if one is at the mercy of the RAF without any protection. It seems as if all fighting is useless & all sacrifices in vain.”
The Canadian Army captured these 2 ports, plus Dieppe (without a fight), plus the big cross-channel batteries at Cap Gris Nez, losing only 1500 men, but capturing 29945 prisoners. However it took over a month to repair the port at Boulogne, and all of them, including Cherbourg were unable to unload the big crates of heavy equipment from USA … the cranes were beyond repair, so the big crates had to be unloaded in England then ferried across the Channel.
[page break]
This slowing of supplies plus Eisenhower’s reluctance to stop the American armies in the south, especially Patton’s 3rd Army, slowed the Canadian advance on the Schelt [sic] Estuary due to lack of supplies; and probably influenced Montgomery to plan Market Garden without enough support from the British Army, who hadn’t enough supplies. (Bad luck and bad weather & bad radios also contributed to the actual failure of Market Garden.).
[black and white photograph of two men. One laying in bed and one sitting up]
Ken Nicholls & Bert in our room, sergeants quarters at Waddington, late 1944.
[black and white photograph of two men loading bombs into the bomb-bay of an aircraft]
Loading 1000 bombs into D-Dog’s bomb-bay.
[black and white photograph of six airmen standing in front of an aircraft]
Morrie & Rupe (ground crew)
Ken Nicholls, Ken (“ “ mechanic)
Don Coutts, Ray Giles near tail of D-Dog.
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Title
A name given to the resource
H Adams memoir - training and operations
Description
An account of the resource
Shows maps of North Wales and the Midlands as well as an explanation of the Douglas protractor as well as diagrams of the Dalton computer and photographs of Wellington. Describes training at RAF Lichfield from end of March to 21 June 1944. Shows photograph of his crew which he describes as well as crewing up process. Describes navigation techniques in great detail using air position indicator, GEE and astro and crew navigation procedure. Describes first trip in Wellington as well as subsequent training flights. Goes on to describe post course leave including visits to the theatre and historical places in London as well as other activities. Goes on to describe training at RAF Swinderby on Heavy Conversion Unit flying Stirling. Describes flights including one hairy landing. Then moved to Syerston where they did Lancaster Finishing School before moving to RAF Waddington 467 Squadron. Describes arrival on squadron and first operation to Le Havre. Writes that because of short trips during Normandy campaign tours were now extended to 36 trips as well as describing bomber command's targeting strategy. Then provides some extracts from "The Hardest Victory - RAF Bomber Command in WWII by Dennis Richards". Followed by photographs of people and aircraft.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H G Adams
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Twenty-eight page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Map
Photograph
Technical aid
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 Australian Air Force
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Wales
England--Staffordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--London
France
France--Le Havre
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03-27
1944-06-21
1944-08-12
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-30
1944-07-18
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BPattisonLEPattisonLEv2
1660 HCU
27 OTU
467 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
Gee
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Lichfield
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Mona
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/10639/LHolmesGH1579658v1.1.pdf
bf036945795cfbfa29a4383912ff5c45
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
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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
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Partial transcription of page 60 - 61]
LUCKY ESCAPE – iii
One night on return – on the circuit we collided with another A/C on opposite direction – losing about 4-5 foot of the tip of main plane and nearly spun upside down – but recovered level flying – and landed – OK!!
On the night of July 24th in Lancaster VN-O. 50 Sqdn Skellingthorpe we were on route to Stuttgart when we were attacked by a german night fighter. Which shot away our bomb bay door. Damaged the starboard landing gear Fractured the main spar and put 5-6 cannon shells in the fuel tanks, on a 2nd attack the gunners shot the attacker down. We all agreed to carry on to the target, on arriving back at Base we were told to orbit until all the other A/C were down – On inspection we found that the cannon shells were still there. They were removed and were emptied. They were found to contain SAND instead of explosive – which saved all our lives. A very lucky escape. After a Belly Landing our first big escape.
15/3/2016 – G Holmes (aged 93)
[Page break]
RAF Coningsby 83 Sqdn 1945
Between Feb 1 to 18 March 1945 I flew with an Aussie pilot F/O Cassidy
His A/C was named –
“Hopalong Cassidy’s Flying Circus”!!
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' 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.
Contributor
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Mike Connock
Anne-Marie Watson
Format
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One booklet
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
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LHolmesGH1579658v1
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.
Chile
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
France--Argentan
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--La Pallice
France--Le Havre
France--Limoges
France--Normandy
France--Orléans
France--Rennes
France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes)
Germany--Bremerhaven
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Siegen
Germany--Stuttgart
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Norway--Horten
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-29
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-30
1944-08-01
1944-08-02
1944-08-05
1944-08-14
1944-08-19
1944-09-10
1944-09-18
1944-09-19
1944-09-20
1944-10-23
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-24
1945-03-21
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-17
1945-09-10
1945-09-29
1945-10-02
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for G H Holmes, covering the period from 7 June 1943 to 23 May 1947. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Evanton, RAF Turweston, RAF Silverstone, RAF Swinderby, RAF Syerston, RAF Bardney, RAF Skellingthorpe, RAF Coningsby and RAF Hemswell. Aircraft flown in were, Dominie, Procter, Botha, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster, Lincoln and Oxford. He flew a total of 31 Operations, 7 night with 9 squadron, 9 daylight and 4 night with 50 squadron and 11 night with 83 squadron. Targets were, Ferme D’urville, St Peirre du Mond, Argentan, Rennes, Orlean, Gelsenkirchen, Limoges, Beauvoir, Kiel, Stuttgart, Cahagnes, Mont Cadon, Bois de Cassau, St Leu D’esserent, Brest, La Pallice, Le Havre, Bremerhaven, Mönchengladbach, Flushing, Politz, Siegen, Karlsruhe, Ladbergen, Dresden, Rositz, Horton Fjord, Hamburg, Lutzkendorf, Pilsen. <span>His pilots on operations were </span>Squadron Leader Stubbs, Flying Officer Inniss, Flying Officer Cassidy, Flight Lieutenant Siddle, Wing Commander Osbourne and Flight Lieutenant Weber. He survived a fighter attack and a mid air collision. He also flew on a Cook's Tour, Operation Dodge to Bari and a goodwill tour to Chile. The log book has been annotated and also contains various pictures of the aircraft flown in, the squadron badges and a photo of himself in uniform.
1660 HCU
17 OTU
50 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Botha
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lincoln
mid-air collision
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
Proctor
RAF Bardney
RAF Coningsby
RAF Evanton
RAF Hemswell
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Turweston
RAF Yatesbury
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2047/33336/LBiltonGHA175723v1.1.pdf
16f63e7fb0b27a19684d3564ed2f2c0a
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
Bilton, George Henry Albert
G H A Bilton
Description
An account of the resource
Nineteen items. The collection concerns George Henry Albert Bilton (b. 1923, 175723 Royal Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, his log book, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 428 and 434 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anthony Bilton 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
2018-09-14
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
Bilton, GHA
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 Bilton - observers and air gunners log book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBiltonGHA175723v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending temporal coverage. Allocated
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Observer's and Air Gunner's Flying log book for George Bilton, flight engineer, covering the period from 18 August 1943 to 1 August 1946. Detailing his final flying training, operations flown, instructional postings and flying in transports. He was stationed at RAF Croft, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Middleton St George, RAF Woolfox Lodge, RAF Warboys, RAF Upwood and RAF Wyton. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster, Anson, Wellington and C-47. He flew a total of 34 operations with 428 and 434 Squadrons. Targets were Dusseldorf, Ludwigshaven, Stuttgart, Berlin, Kiel, La Rochelle, Copenhagen, minelaying, Trappes, Aulnoye, Lille, Villeneuve, St Ghislian, Le Crepiet, Disemont, Boulogne, Beinnies, Caen, Hamburg, Acquet, Foret de Nieppe, Paris, St Leu d'Esserent, Foret de Chantilly, La Breteque, Brunswick, Falaise and Brest. His pilot on operations was Wing Commander Watkins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
1944-07
1944-08
1943-11-03
1943-11-18
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-02-03
1944-02-04
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-21
1944-02-22
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-03
1944-03-04
1944-03-06
1944-03-07
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-21
1944-07-01
1944-07-06
1944-07-18
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1945-06-05
1945-06-08
1945-06-23
1945-06-29
1945-08-17
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Aulnoye-Aymeries
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Creil
France--Falaise
France--La Rochelle
France--Lille
France--Nieppe
France--Paris
France--Soligny-la-Trappe
France--Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
156 Squadron
1651 HCU
1659 HCU
1664 HCU
29 OTU
428 Squadron
434 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of the Boulogne E-boats (15/16 June 1944)
C-47
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Croft
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Woolfox Lodge
RAF Wyton
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1993/41338/LHowkinsF1576710v1.1.pdf
152cfcf74ea85cc9ba9c191962c4cb30
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
Howkins, Frank
F Howkins
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-30
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. 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
Howkins, F
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. The collection concerns Frank Howkins (1546410 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, flying programme and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 467 and 617 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Keith Howkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Frank Howkins’ navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for F Howkins, wireless operator, covering the period from 29 April 1943 to 30 August 1953. Detailing his flying training, operations flown, and post was flying with number 5 Reserve Flying School. He was stationed at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Bobbington [aka RAF Halfpenny Green], RAF Lichfield, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Waddington, RAF Woodhall Spa and RAF Castle Bromwich. Aircraft flown in were Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He flew a total of 48 operations. 36 with 467 Squadron, 5 daylight and 32 night operations, and 12 with 617 Squadron, 11 daylight and one night operation. Targets were Frankfurt, Toulouse, Tours, Juvisy, Leipzig, Lille, Bourg Leopold, Duisburg, Brunswick, Eindhoven, Nantes, Saumur, Ferme D’Urville, St Pierre du Mont, Argentan, Rennes, Orleans, Gelsenkirchen, Limoges, Prouville, Vitry, Beauvoir, St Leu D’Esserent, Villeneuve St Georges, Nevers, Thiverny, Stuttgart, Dortmund, Pas De Calais, Brest, L’Isle Adam, Darmstadt, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Westkapelle, Kembs Dam, Tromso, Urft Dam, Bielefeld Viaduct and Bremen. His pilots on operations were Wing Commander Tait and Flight Lieutenant Sayers.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
England--Birmingham
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Wiltshire
France--Abbeville Region
France--Argentan
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Creil
France--Kembs
France--Lille
France--Limoges
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Nantes
France--Nevers
France--Orléans
France--Paris
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Paris Region
France--Rennes
France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes)
France--Saumur
France--Toulouse
France--Tours
France--Valognes Region
France--Vitry-sur-Seine
Germany--Bielefeld
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Urft Dam
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Walcheren
Norway--Tromsø
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHowkinsF1576710v1
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-04-03
1944-04-04
1944-04-05
1944-04-06
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-04-29
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-07-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-07
1944-07-08
1944-07-14
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-19
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-14
1944-08-18
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-10-03
1944-10-07
1944-10-29
1944-11-12
1944-12-08
1945-02-14
1945-02-22
1945-02-24
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-21
1946
1951
1952
1953
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
1654 HCU
27 OTU
467 Squadron
617 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing of the Creil/St Leu d’Esserent V-1 storage areas (4/5 July 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Dominie
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Castle Bromwich
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Lichfield
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
RAF Woodhall Spa
RAF Yatesbury
Tallboy
Tirpitz
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1845/36469/LJonesFT1717191v1.2.pdf
6867e6c93a249bf579a340beb35fb563
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
Jones, F T
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
2017-05-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, FT
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant F T Jones (b. 1923, 1717191, 186036, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, diary and photographs. He flew 38 operations as a flight engineer with 420 Squadron from RAF Tholthorpe.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Chris Jones and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
F T Jones’ navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LJonesFT1717191v1
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for F T Jones, flight engineer, covering the period from 12 December 1943 to 15 September 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Topcliffe, RAF Tholthorpe and RAF Wombleton. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster, Oxford, and Mosquito. He flew a total of 38 operations with 420 Squadron, 9 daylight and 29 night. Targets were Augsburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen, Nuremburg, Paris, Ghent, Lens, Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe, Aulnoye, Somain, St Ghislaine, Louvain, Merville-Franceville, Le Mans, Bourg Leopold, Au-Fiere, Houlgate, Coutance, Cambrai, St Pol, Boulogne, Nouvelle Bois, St Martin, Bientiques, Thiverny, Caen, Fermes de Forestal, <span>Œuf-en-Ternois</span>, Foret de Nieppe, Bois de Cassan, St Leu D’Esserent and La Hague. Four post-war Cook's Tour flights are recorded. His pilots on operations were Flight Sergeant Keegan and Flying Officer Ward.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-12
1944-05-13
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-17
1944-06-18
1944-06-21
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-07-12
1944-07-18
1944-07-20
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Belgium--Ghent
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Belgium--Louvain
Belgium--Mons
England--Yorkshire
France--Avesnes Region (Nord)
France--Beauvais Region
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Caen
France--Cambrai
France--Cape La Hague
France--Coutances
France--Creil Region
France--Houlgate
France--Le Mans
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Merville-Franceville-Plage
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
France--Nieppe Forest
France--Normandy
France--Paris
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Dunkerque
France--Somain
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Netherlands
Netherlands--Hague
France--Œuf-en-Ternois
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
1659 HCU
1666 HCU
420 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Boulogne E-boats (15/16 June 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
forced landing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Wombleton
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1411/26583/LHaddowEJ1623118v1.2.pdf
a133913f143d91583b7c3c80592bdf97
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
Thomson, Thomas
T Thomson
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
2016-03-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Thomson, T
Description
An account of the resource
18 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Thomas Thomson (1919 - 1991, 1366937 Royal Air Force) He flew operations as a wireless operator with 49 Squadron. It contains photographs, documents, a brief biography and a copy of E J Haddow's log book.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Suzanne Fletcher and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
E J Haddow’s navigator’s air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for E J Haddow covering the period from 28 November 1943 to 26 September 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Wratting Common, RAF Waterbeach, RAF Witchford, RAF Talbenny. RAF Silverstone and RAF Dunkeswell. Aircraft flown in were Stirling, Lancaster, Wellington and Warwick. He flew a total of 28 operations with 115 squadron, 1 daylight and 27 night. Targets were Leipzig, Stuttgart, Le Mans, Frankfurt, Berlin, Nuremberg, Laon, Rouen, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe, Essen, Friedrichshafen, Cap Gris Nez, Courtrai, Duisburg, Dortmund, Trappes, Calais, Caen, Lisieux, Gelsenkirchen, Le Havre, Valenciennes, Mont Didier and Domleger. His pilot on operations was Warrant Officer Hemming.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photocopied 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
LHaddowEJ1623118v1
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Mike French
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Kortrijk
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Devon
England--Northamptonshire
England--Suffolk
France--Domléger-Longvillers
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Île-de-France
France--Laon
France--Le Havre
France--Le Mans
France--Lisieux
France--Montdidier (Hauts-de-France)
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Rouen
France--Valenciennes
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Wales--Pembrokeshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Cap Gris Nez
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-03-07
1944-03-08
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-11
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-04
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-18
1944-06-21
115 Squadron
1651 HCU
1678 HCU
17 OTU
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Dunkeswell
RAF Silverstone
RAF Talbenny
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Witchford
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
training
Wellington