IBCC Digital Archive]]> Sue Smith]]> eng]]> Text]]> Royal Air Force]]> Royal Air Force. Bomber Command]]> Royal Air Force. Coastal Command]]> Canada]]> Great Britain]]> England--Leicestershire]]> England--Nottinghamshire]]> England--Lincolnshire]]> England--Norfolk]]> England--Yorkshire]]> England--Suffolk]]> England--Cambridgeshire]]> Scotland--Moray]]> Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway]]> Northern Ireland--Londonderry (County)]]> Malta]]> England--Cornwall (County)]]> 1942]]> 1943]]> 1944]]> 1945]]> 1948]]> 1949]]> 1950]]> 1951]]> 1952]]> 1953]]> 1954]]> 1955]]> 1956]]> 1957]]> 1958]]> 1959]]> 1968]]> Great Britain. Royal Air Force]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Mike Connock]]> eng]]> Text]]> Text. Log book and record book]]> Royal Air Force]]> Royal Air Force. Coastal Command]]> Great Britain]]> England--Cornwall (County)]]> 1966]]> 1967]]> 1968]]> C G Field]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Steve Baldwin]]> eng]]> Text]]> Text. Memoir]]> Royal Air Force]]> Civilian]]> Great Britain]]> England--Huntingdonshire]]> England--Oxfordshire]]> England--London]]> England--Hertfordshire]]> England--Bushey]]> England--Huntingdon]]> England--Herefordshire]]> 1941]]> 1942]]> 1990]]> 1948]]> 1968]]> Top right - certificate of competence for Warrant Officer Sparkes as flight engineer all trade groups for Lancaster.
Bottom centre - newspaper cutting with photograph of Lancaster, Hurricane, Spitfire and Lightnings parked on hardstanding at Coltishall with hangars in the background.
Bottom right - two men wearing civilian suits standing talking under the nose of a Lancaster. Text explains that they are Dr Barnes Wallace and Wing Commander R A B Learoyd VC.]]>
IBCC Digital Archive]]> Sue Smith]]> Sparkes, Ned. Album]]> eng]]> Text]]> Photograph]]> Royal Air Force]]> Royal Air Force. Bomber Command]]> Great Britain]]> England--Lincolnshire]]> England--Norfolk]]> 1968-10-16]]> 1968]]>
Bottom - front quarter view of parked Lancaster. Captioned 'waiting for the off at Waddington for RAF founders day fly-past Hendon 1968'.]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Sparkes, Ned. Album]]> eng]]> Photograph]]> Royal Air Force]]> Royal Air Force. Bomber Command]]> Great Britain]]> England--Lincolnshire]]> England--Norfolk]]> England--London]]> 1968]]> 1968-06]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Sparkes, Ned. Album]]> eng]]> Photograph]]> Text]]> Royal Air Force]]> Royal Air Force. Bomber Command]]> Great Britain]]> England--Lincolnshire]]> England--Oxfordshire]]> 1968]]> Photos 1, 2 and 3 are air to air photographs of two Dominies, captioned 'RAF Stradishall, Norfolk, 1971. Summer Camp. Dominie aircraft of No 1 Air Navigation School'.
Photo 4 is a Slingsby Cadet glider of the Air Cadets.
Photo 5 and 6 are Ernest captioned 'Escape & evasion exercise in Snowdonia while on Summer Camp at RAF Valley, Wales 1968.
Photo 7 is Ernest and colleague in a doorway, captioned 'Peter as an RAF Apprentice. The Old Codger (me) Officer RAFVR.']]>
IBCC Digital Archive]]> eng]]> Photograph]]> Royal Air Force]]> Great Britain]]> Wales--Snowdonia]]> 1968]]> 1971]]>
Great Britain. Royal Air Force]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Mike Connock]]> eng]]> Text]]> Text. Log book and record book]]> Royal Air Force]]> Great Britain]]> England--Wiltshire]]> 1967]]> 1968]]> 1969]]> 1970]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Photograph]]> Royal Canadian Air Force]]> 1968]]> Photo 2 is a group of 22 airmen and women arranged in three rows outside a building, captioned 'Annual Inspection RAF Bishops Court 1968'.]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> eng]]> Photograph]]> Royal Air Force]]> Great Britain]]> Northern Ireland--Down (County)]]> Great Britain]]> 1967]]> 1968]]> Peter V Clegg]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Anne-Marie Watson]]> eng]]> Text]]> Text. Personal research]]> Royal Air Force]]> Royal Air Force. Bomber Command]]> Great Britain]]> England--Nottinghamshire]]> 1942]]> 1943]]> 1944]]> 1945]]> 1946]]> 1947]]> 1948]]> 1949]]> 1950]]> 1951]]> 1952]]> 1953]]> 1954]]> 1956]]> 1957]]> 1958]]> 1959]]> 1960]]> 1961]]> 1962]]> 1963]]> 1964]]> 1965]]> 1966]]> 1967]]> 1968]]> Postcard of the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin.]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> eng]]> Artwork]]> Civilian]]> Germany]]> Singapore]]> Germany--Berlin]]> 1968]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Geolocated]]> Photograph]]> Civilian]]> Royal Air Force]]> United States]]> Florida]]> Florida--Clewiston]]> Florida]]> 1968]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Geolocated]]> eng]]> Photograph]]> Civilian]]> Royal Air Force]]> United States]]> Florida]]> Florida--Clewiston]]> Florida]]> 1968]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Geolocated]]> eng]]> Photograph]]> Civilian]]> Royal Air Force]]> United States]]> Florida]]> Florida--Clewiston]]> Florida]]> 1968]]> Graduating as top of his course, he was sent back to England and was asked fly as an instructor for one year with the promise of joining an operational fighter squadron. He joined Number 1 elementary flying training school at RAF Panshanger but the war finished before he was made operational and he continued in his training role, at one point training senior royal naval officers to fly. Ken considers himself fortunate as most of his course friends were retrained as glider pilots and took part in Operation Varsity which had a high casualty rate.
Demobbed in 1947 he returned to his civilian banking position but a year later re-enlisted for ten years in the volunteer reserve and continued his training role flying Tiger Moths and Chipmunks. Ken retired with the rank of flight lieutenant in 1968. He joined the 3 BFS Association and had reunions in both England and America.

Diana Odell was also a child at the start of the war and shared her home with various refugees her father brought home while working as a lorry driver. Diana volunteered for the WAAF and trained as a telegraphist with Coastal Command.

This item is available only at the University of Lincoln. ]]>
Chris Brockbank]]> IBCC Digital Archive]]> Terry Holmes]]> Pending revision of OH transcription]]> KO: Well, I was born in October 1923, in London, and at the beginning if the war I was still at school, Tollington, Muswell Hill, but the school was evacuated to Buckden so, as I was in my matric year, I went with the school to Buckden for one year. When I left I got a job in a bank, in an Australian bank, in the City of London where I started in October 1940 just in time to work there all through the Blitz and, in 1942, having reached the ripe old age of eighteen, I then had to register for national service, volunteered for the Air Force, had all the normal medical checks and intelligence tests and was accepted for air crew but, I was told there would be a ten months waiting before I could actually join the ranks but I was given a button-hole badge, of the RAFVR, to avoid any rude remarks because I was not then in the Forces. I was eventually called up and [clears throat] went through basic training in, in Newquay and after basic training I started flying, er, in Northampton, at RAF Sywell. This was eight hours under the PNB scheme to decide whether I was going to be a pilot, a navigator or a bomb aimer. I was lucky and was accepted as a pilot. I then waited a few months, mostly in Heaton Park, Manchester, until I was sent to Southern Rhodesia, or Canada or USA. I was a lucky one and I finished up in Miami, Oklahoma, Number 3 British Flying Training School course number 20, where I did my basic training, advanced training and passed out in 1944 as a pilot officer. And returned with my wings of course to England, er, where I went before a selection board, and because I learned later that, that I was given the term ‘creamy’ which meant that I was taken off. I was at the top of the final results of my wings exams and I was asked would I become a flying instructor for one year at the end of which I would then join a squadron and get my Spitfire or Hurricane. Fortunately, or unfortunately, before my year as an instructor was up the war ended. I did not get my Spitfire but I did continue as a flying instructor at Number 1 EFTS which was RAF Panshanger in those days. When the war ended, when a lot of RAF pilots were grounded, sent back to Civvy Street, I was lucky. I continued flying for another two years until I was demobbed in 1947, having completed some seven or eight hundred hours flying. I would like to add at this stage, when I returned from America in 1944, nearly all my friends, colleagues, were transferred to the Army Glider Pilot Regiment and became pilots of Horsa gliders. Some of them joined the, um, Varsity Operation, which was one of the largest airborne inv— battles of the war. One of my friends was killed there. Another one of my friends was lined up on the runway about to take off for Operation Varsity the flight was cancelled and he never flew again. He was given a job in an office as a, a, an accountant, many of my friends became lorry drivers, I believe some of them went to drive trains. This was at the end of the war. So, I was lucky. I was still flying for another two years. I was demobbed in ’44, sorry, I was demobbed in ‘47, I went back to the bank in the City, where I worked for twenty years, but in 1948 I went back into the RAF Volunteer Reserve, flying again at Number 1 RAFS Panshanger, my original, my original, um, place as an instructor. I was in, I was in, I signed on for ten years in the Volunteer Reserves but after five years flying the Government stopped flying in the VR but I continued until 1968, when my time finished, and because of that I was allowed to retain my rank of flight lieutenant. So I am still, at ninety-two, a flight lieutenant in the RAF.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there.
KO: Can I have a rest?
CB: We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you very much. We’ve just done a summary so for Ken and now we are going to get on now to some specifics Ken, about your situation. So, where did you come from and where was the family and how did you come to do your original career?
KO: My mother and father lived in Highgate, where I was born. I — they moved to Muswell Hill when I was seven and I was at school until the beginning of the war when, as I already said, my school was evacuated to Buckden. I stayed there for one year and I came back and worked in a bank in the City until 1943. I had one brother. We lived in a flat over a shop owned by my uncle.
CB: What did your brother choose to do? What did your brother do? Did he —
KO: Well, he was only three years older than I was so when, when we moved to Muswell Hill from London he was, he was, I was seven and he was ten so I don’t know what he got up to. But what did he do?
CB: Because he then got a job when he left school?
KO: Yes. He was a complete no-hoper at school. He was asked, my parents were asked to withdraw him from school when he was fourteen because [clears throat] he was no use to them and no use to himself. He got several odd jobs of little importance but then he volunteered for the Army and went into the Royal Army Service Corps, where he was of great use in the Western Desert for four and a half years. He, I believe that he used to service ambulance for the American Civilian Ambulance Corps. When he came back in 1945, er, he’d already been engaged for four and a half years to my wife’s sister so they were, they wanted to get married. So, we jumped on the bandwagon because at the end of the war to get married was a very expensive business and by doing that we halved the price.
CB: So you had known Diana, your wife, for a long time? And —
KO: We’d grew up together in a collection of young people so we never really got introduced. It was just one of those things.
CB: Yeah and so when the war came —
KO: But then, as I’ve said, when the war came, um, I was evacuated with my school for a year but when I left I got a job in the banking industry, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and I just had to register when I was eighteen, volunteered for the RAF. I did my basic training in Newquay, Number 6 Training School, I think it was called and from there, after the basic training, I was transferred to Sywell for a few weeks where we did eight weeks flying on Tiger Moths to decide whether we were going to be pilot, a navigator or bomb aimer. I was lucky. I became a pilot. And from there having waited two or three months in a holding depot in Manchester, Heat— Heaton Park, I then was taken on a boat to Canada where we were sorted out. Some went to training schools in Canada. I was lucky. I went to one of the six British flying training schools in America. I was at Number 3 BFTS, which was in a small town in Miami, spelt Miami but pronounced Miama, in Oklahoma.
CB: And who were the instructors? Who were the instructors?
KO: The instructors were all civilian pilots.
CB: American?
KO: They were given a sort of a uniform but they were not service people. In fact, one of the instructors was a young lady who had only done twelve hours flying herself. We trained — we were there for seven months, basic course, middle course, senior course. The basic course was on Fairchild Cornells, otherwise called PT, PT 17s, PT 19s I beg, I beg their pardon. That was for thirteen weeks. We had flying for one half a day and was at school for various subjects for the other half of the day. The exams at the end of the first basic course. I was lucky. I came out at top of a hundred blokes with the result that I was made a flight leader, a cadet officer in fact. After a week’s leave in New Orleans, we then became the basic course flying Harvards, American Texans, AT6s otherwise known, for another thirteen weeks. At the end of the middle course we had another leave and I had been promoted then to a senior cadet. There was only seven of us out of the hundred. Well, there were three hundred at the school because as one left another one started. I finished, I got my wings and a commission in August 1944 and I then, of course, returned to England. Before, but before I finish the American paragraph I must pay tribute to the wonderful people in Oklahoma who looked after all those boys for four and half years. The school had opened in 1941, some months before Pearl Harbour, and the first one or two courses there had to wear civilian clothes because America was not then in the war. The family that looked after me had a daughter. She was a seventeen-year-old high school girl. She had a friend who was also seventeen. Those two girls are now eighty-eight years old in America and I’m still in touch with them.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a moment. Thank you.
KO: I’ll get as much as I can in.
CB: So, what we’re going to do now is to talk a bit more about the American, about the American bit, talk a bit more about the American bit Ken and the — let me just ask you about the initial training. So, you had American instructors, who were all civilians?
KO: Yes.
CB: So, why were they not — because we are now at a situation where, time when the Americans were in the war — why were they civilians and how did they treat that with you as a military man? Thank you.
DO: I was just thinking about that.
KO: They were not Army people or ladies or gentleman because our — I‘ve got a film of all this which you might like.
DO: Television.
KO: I can, I can do you a copy of it. I’ll explain it now, um, a man who was a film producer or television producer in Tulsa, Oklahoma came to England to interview a lot of people. This was well after the war and he took film and he came to — met some of us at the RAF Museum in Hendon. He went back and he produced seven programmes about the RAF in the wartime and he had, like, one ten minutes’ programme each night, well, twice, twice nightly for a week on Tulsa television. This was, this was only what? Twenty-odd years ago, well after the war. I’ll let you have a copy of this.
DO: Longer than that dear. We’ve been here twenty years.
KO: And he had it translated into — from, from the American television he had it, he put it all on a, on a disk and had it transferred to the PAL, P A L system, so that we could see it. I’ve forgot what I was going to say now.
CB: You were talking about the fact this was a film about the RAF but we were talking about how there were —
KO: Yes, about the RAF in Oklahoma.
CB: Yes.
DO: It was amazing.
KO: But I’ve forgotten the point I was going to make but, anyway, it doesn’t matter does it?
CB: What we are trying to do is to focus on is the people who were doing the instruction.
KO: Well, this, this film will give you a good idea because, even today, every year they have a memorial service out at the, at the cemetery where there are fifteen RAF graves. I mean, I can say all this later on. There was one lady who looked after those graves for twenty or thirty years? Every — she used to go up and tidy the graves and put flowers on the graves on, on Veterans Day.
DO: When she died —
KO: When she, when she died the, er, British Graves Commission, the British Graves Commission —
CB: War Graves Commission.
KO: War Graves Commission, they gave her a tablet and she asked to be buried with her boys.
DO: Her boys and she —
KO: There were fifteen graves and now her grave is at the end.
CB: That’s very touching.
DO: And in the film you will see we all, we all went, didn’t we? And they had a gun salute and the people of Oklahoma all turned out and we all stood and they had a celebration.
KO: And every year the local townspeople go out to the cemetery for a cele— they call it a celebration —
DO: To celebrate those boys’ lives, those who got killed while they were training.
KO: A memorial celebration at the RAF graves and they have pipers from Tulsa, and they pull the flags up and they fire rifles and, you know, real, real American stuff, um, but I must see, see if I’ve got a spare one of those films otherwise I’ll have to make one and send it.
DO: If [unclear] that’s the story you haven’t really got time to tell now about the pilot that died and you we’re still in touch with, the son and, you know, the one who had an affair already married —
KO: I don’t really want to talk about that.
DO: Well, you don’t have to talk about that particular —
CB: Well, what we’re doing is covering history that can be edited because you will have the right to edit it. But the point here is that we’re trying to do here to get a feel of what it was like in the war because people of my generation and later really have no concept because when I was in the Air Force it was done quite differently.
DO: Well this is important because in the telegraph Ken put a —
KO: Yes, um, one of the chaps in my flight —
DO: Thank you. I’m coming. Our postman, he always knocks. OK love, I’m coming.
Other: I’ll put it on here.
DO: Thanks a lot.
KO: I was actually his flight leader, was crashed and killed. He was doing aerobatics. He was an ex-policeman from Muswell Hill. There’s a suspicion and I don’t [emphasis] want this — that’s not on is it?
CB: OK, we’re just going to stop for a mo. We’re restarting now, talking about the initial training and the American civilians who trained you.
DO: Can I have a little something here? Would you like sit in a more comfortable chair [unclear]?
KO: No, I’m alright in my chair.
DO: Well, don’t lean forward because of your chest. OK?
CB: So the civilians?
KO: So, when we left Heaton Park we went to Liverpool where we were put on a boat. This was in Feb— this was in January 1944. We had a terrible crossing. The weather was awful. We went up the northern route via Greenland to avoid the U-boats and we finished up in New York, where we transferred to Canada, to a reception centre, where we were sorted out for our various training schools. A good proportion of schools in Canada, some went to the six flying schools that had been set up in America under the Lease Lend before Pearl Harbour, before America came into the war. I was lucky. I went to Number 3 BFTS which was in the town of Miami in Oklahoma. We did thirteen weeks, flying PT19s, Fairchild Cornells, with civilian instructors. So, that was the first seventy-hour training on basic course. At the end of the course, of course, we had ground examinations for the — because ground school was in the morning, flying in the afternoon or vice versa. Exams at the end of the course were held. I was lucky. I came out top and was imm— immediately made a flight leader for the next course.
CB: Who, who were your instructors? Who were these people?
KO: My instructor was a local bank clerk, a civilian. They were all civilians, all presumably private pilots with some experience or very little experience some of them. One, one of our instructors was a young lady who claimed only to have had twelve hours actual flying herself. But, um, they were only civilians but they were given a sort of uniform to make them look official. After thirteen weeks on the basic course, we were then — on, on the elementary course, we then joined the basic course, flying Harvards, AT6s, otherwise known as Texans, in America. We did another seventy hours on those. We were flying half a day, ground school half a day. I was a flight leader, as explained, and I had to take my flight, to do drills and other important duties. I used to pull up the flag in the morning and make everybody stop by blowing my whistle [slight laugh] and once again at the end of that course we had more ground exams and, once again, I’m ashamed to say I came out top out of a hundred blokes. We then had another, we had a weeks’ leave in Kansas City, once again entertained by wonderful American people, and we returned to Oklahoma for the last third, advanced course, still flying Harvards, and towards the end we did another seventy hours on Harvards and towards the end of the course, um, we had our flying tests, which I did reasonably well and, of course, we had more ground exams, which I’m ashamed to say I only came second but, combined with my flying results and my results as a senior cadet I, once again, came out top of the course and was returned back to England, where I was, became — to use an RAF term — a ‘creamy’. I’m almost ashamed to say it but they still use that expression in the RAF to this day, where a person who comes at the top of a particular course, is then asked to become an instructor for a period.
CB: Right we’ll stop there for a mo because that was really useful. Thank you very much.
KO: In Tulsa Oklahoma and in 1941 they built this school for the RAF, under Lease Lend. To make it, to make it clear —
CB: So, it was a civilian base and they were training other people who were civilians?
KO: It was a civilian base and it was built by the, by the Spartan School of Aeronautics especially for us and at the end of the war it was then leased out to a packaging company, um, so you know, it ceased to be a flying school at the end of the war because they were still training American pilots down in Tulsa but all this will become clear on my, on the film, if you get a chance to look at it.
CB: OK, OK. So you finished, you finished your training in the USA, you came back to Britain —
KO: You didn’t want me to mention the chap that was killed? No.
CB: So, can we just go now returned to the USA, to Britain.
KO: Yes.
CB: OK.
KO: So when I, when I got my wings in August 1944 I was lucky. I also got a commission so came home as a pilot officer to Harrogate, the reception centre. I went before a selection board, where I was asked if I would consider, asked very politely, if I would consider to become an instructor, a flying instructor, just for one year after which I would join a squa— an operational squadron. In the event, the war ended so I never did get my Spitfire or my Hurricane but I did keep on flying as an instructor for another two years. But I must say at this point that all those chaps that came back from America with me, nearly all of them were transferred to the Army Glider Pilot Regiments, where they were given two hours flying in Horsa gliders to become glider pilots. Many of them took part in Operation Varsity in March the 23rd 1945. One of my particular friends was killed.
CB: That was the crossing of the Rhine.
KO: That was the crossing, that was crossing the Rhine to allow the American Second Army to get across without opposition, which they did. Another of my friends was lined up on the runway in his Horsa glider attached to a Halifax bomber. Their flight was cancelled and all those pilots never flew again in the RAF. They were transferred to ground jobs, lorry drivers, accounts office people, some even became train drivers I believe. I was the lucky one. I kept flying.
CB: So, we’ll have a rest there just for a mo. OK. Fire away.
KO: So, having agreed to become a flying instructor for a year, I then went to an elementary school near Reading, er, just to get used to flying Tiger Moths once more, happy days. From there I went to Woodley on the outskirts of Reading [clears throat] which was a flying instructors’ school. My course there was interrupted by a weekends leave to get married in March 1945 but shortly after, um, I qualified as a flying instructor, C grade, and I was asked where I would like to go. Well, having lived in North London all my life, I asked if I could go to Number 1 ETFS, Elementary Flying Training School, which was at Panshanger, a small private airfield just outside Welling Garden City. When I arrived, before the end of the war, towards the end of the war, we were training a lot of young army corporals who hoped to become flying, er, glider pilots to replace all those glider pilots who had been lost during the war. I had those for a few months, er, after the war. When the war ended, er, we, the RAF was at rather a loose end so they sent all sorts of people to the training schools to do a fifty hour elementary course. Our first course was a group of senior naval officers from aircraft carriers who having guiding planes in in their own jobs they were then given the opportunity to learn to become the pilots. These were followed by a group of scientists from — stop.
CB: OK.
KO: We then had a course —
CB: We are just restarting again now, er, because we have just talked about the, the naval officers who were being trained and now the scientists.
KO: After the naval officers we had a co— we had a couple of courses of naval, of scientists [emphasis] from Farnborough, um, where they did a lot of, lot of inspections for crashes and all sorts of things. Unfortunately, one of my scientists was a bit of a no-hoper and he managed to land me upside down on a cold, wet afternoon. He was expelled, I beg his pardon. They were followed by two courses of Canadian observers who wanted to become pilots. One of those, unfortunately, was killed in a, in a mid-air collision. His instructor was killed instantly but the pupil, the Canadian, who was doing instrument flying under the hood, he tried to bail out, well in fact he did bail out but he was only five hundred feet above the ground and his parachute did not fully open so he, unfortunately, was killed . What was even more unfortunate he was the one guy whose wife had come over from Canada and was staying in a pub just up the road and our CO had the job of going and telling her that her husband had just been killed.
CB: Right, we’ll stop there for a mo. So we’re, we’re restarting now. Just to clarify the glider pilot training was in ‘45 and ‘46, the naval officers was, were in ’46 and the scientists were in that time and then we had the Canadians.
KO: The Canadians came about October ‘46. They had been, were all trained observers, um, from two-seater aircraft, flying with a pilot but they wished to become pilots so they were sent to us to do an elementary course on Tiger Moths, er, so that they could go back to Canada and proceed from there. I don’t know what happened to them afterwards but, in February 1947, round about the 25th, I came to the end of my duties with the RAF and I was demobbed and returned to the bank in the City, where I completed twenty years’ service. But I left, I left after twenty years for completely different reasons, that my life changed completely, but after I’d been back at the bank for a year, I fancied to go flying again so I joined the Royal Air force Volunteer Reserve and was, because I was living in Kingston at the time, I went and joined the reserve at Fair Oaks in Surrey but I was only there a year and then my family moved out to Enfield so, once again, I transferred to Panshanger where I flew for another five years, starting in Tiger Moths, but in 1950 they took our Tiger Moths away after I’d done about seven hundred hours and gave us Chipmunks just for a couple of years. Flying with the VR finished after only five years. In about 1940, about 1952, I met several of my old American trainee friends in the VR. They’d lost flying time in the RAF, they were grounded towards the end of the war, but many of them went back into the VR after the war so they could do a bit more flying. It was more like joining a flying club quite honestly. But the Government stopped flying after about five years in the VR but we did, I did continue to complete my service of ten years, about 1958, at which time I was allowed, I was allowed to keep, keep my rank of flight lieutenant, which still exists, although being a member of the RAFVR I started as a flight lieutenant I said, ‘Forget it. I’m only a mister.’ But I did finish up with a very high instructor’s rank because in the VR we were given the job of training ATC lads. One of my pupils, his name was Des Richard, and my log book says I flew some eleven hours with him, he had won an RAF scholarship. He couldn’t go solo with me because he was only seventeen but the moment when he was eighteen he went across the airfield and joined the London Aero Club, also at Panshanger, where he immediately went solo, and he had a very distinguished career in the RAF and he retired as an air commodore and, in about 2008 or 9, he took over as chairman of the Air Crew Association and he had the unfortunate job of scrubbing the Air Crew Association. [background noise]
CB: What, what caused the Air Crew Association to be scrubbed? We’re just stopping for a moment.
KO: So where do we start?
CB: Right, we’re restarting now. Ken, we’re going back now when you came — you did your flying in America. You met lots of people there. You came and did a lot of instructing but what happened to all the other people after they returned to Britain and did you keep in touch with them?
KO: Well, I kept in touch with quite a few of them because the 3 BFS Association used to have reunions in this country and we also organised about every third year to go back to Oklahoma for reunions there. I met, in those reunions, I met some of my old colleagues from Number 20 Course but most of them had been transferred on to gliders. Some of them had about two hours further flying before they were grounded and never flew again unless they joined the VR. One chap that I did keep in touch with but I’ve lost contact now, he became, he joined and became a civilian pilot. He joined BOAC, did very well as a, as an officer with BOAC and eventually he was asked to go and test the Concorde for BOAC, which he did, and he finished up as the BOAC Concorde instructor. He was the chief Concorde flyer. I last saw him about five or six years ago but I have not been in touch with him recently. I think he was very ill and so, as far as I know, he may have passed on but at the moment I know of no other of my original colleagues who are still alive, I’m not in touch. Of course, over the years, our Association, the 3BFTS Association did organise four, five, six reunions in America. I didn’t know of them to start with but I have been over there four or five times with the reunion. I’ve also been over there as a private holiday maker to see my friends in O–, in Miami. I, we have also had several reunions in this country and towards the, towards the end, in the — I suppose the late ‘80s, ‘90s I did in fact organise reunions for my course only. Every year we used to go to the Shuttleworth airfield, near Bedford, and, and have a little private compound of our own together with the, um, the Spitfire Association. In fact, the chairman of the Spitfire Association was in fact a member of the Miami group, um, but I’m afraid we all got, we all got passed it and I now, apart from my friend, two friends, who have since died, I am no longer in contact with any of my course. I’ve met one or two chaps who were on other courses who were in the 3BFTS Association but, you know, I think it came to the end when we were ninety.
CB: But when you had your reunions all those years ago that was with the American instructors in the States, was it?
KO: Yes, some of them, yes. Four or five or them, yes. They were wonderful blokes. They were wonderful.
CB: So, can you just describe what the atmosphere like on your training with the Americans? How did they react to your circumstances and the UK’s circumstances?
KO: Although we were there, the, the RAF, were there for the best part, I suppose, of four years 1941 to ’45 the local people were wonderful to us. No boy had no home to go to at weekends. Some people had four or five chaps who used to go there every weekend. Some had, had Christmas parties. My family, who I’m still in touch with, well the daughter, he was one-eighth Cherokee Indian. They had a lovely little house on the outskirts of Miami. I still go to that house on Google Earth street view. It’s still there and the local people still, every year, have a celebration, a rem— a memorial celebration out at the airfield where there are graves of fifteen pilots, RAF pilots, who were killed in flying accidents between 1941 and ‘45. Those fifteen graves, all in a long line, looked after by the War Graves Commission. They were looked after for twenty-one years by a lady who used to go out, tidy up the graves, put flowers on the graves and when she died the British Government, well, before she died the British Government gave her a medal and when she died she asked to be buried with her boys so she has now got the sixteenth gravestone at the end of a long line of fifteen RAF pilots. As I say, I’ve been out, I’ve been back to, I’ve been back to Oklahoma, not only with the reunions but as a private person to go see, you know, my friends over there. The last time we had a reunion my friends up in, up in, Old Dalby [?] and his wife came with us. We all stayed with my daughter in Illinois and we all went down to as a — my, my daughter drove us all down to Oklahoma where we met both, both my, both of our ladies, um, that we met during the war. As I say, they were seventeen-year-old high school girls then. In fact I went to their graduation when they left college. That was in 1945. But as I say, they are now 88, 89 but they are both alive and they are both at the end of a computer.
CB: Marvellous. Now, the accommodation in Britain was not very comfortable in the war. What was in like in training in America?
KO: Very nice, hard concrete floors, double tier bunks. We had a lovely refectory, mess, dining room whatever you like to call it. We went there in 19—, beginning of 1944 from a Britain which had rationing, in which you were allowed one egg a week, or at least my parents were. We went into the restaurant in Miami the first day for breakfast, ‘How many eggs would you like? How do you like them cooked? Sunny side up?’ But, of course, to us it was wonderful. The food, the food was super. We just weren’t used to it. As a senior cadet I used to have to go out and pull up the flags in the morning. The Star Spangled Banner of course would go up top and the RAF up on the side arm, blow your whistle, everybody would come to a halt, pull up the flags, blow your whistle and everybody would carry on. This was just before — this was at breakfast time. But, you know, every, everything about Miami really was wonderful. The people was good, the food was good, our instructors were good, you know, they were all jolly, you know. I mean, we met so many after the war at reunions. And, um, as I say, every year the people looking after the cemetery organised this reunion to which a lot of people attend and it’s quite — and, er, every year they send me a V, CDC of the celebrations.
CB: Great, so we’ve talked about the accommodation and the diet. How was this run? Because if you were raising the flags, the stan— the flags in the morning then this was on a military basis so was there an RAF administration officer there running —
KO: There was a CO, an adjutant —
CB: What was the structure?
KO: There were one or two ground instructors, although some of them were Americans, we had a mixture. I think we had a, an RAF officer who used to do airmanship and —
CB: Who was a pilot?
KO: Ay?
CB: He was a pilot?
KO: He had been, yes. One of them there was a famous BBC announcer actually. I can’t think of his name. We had, um, an English PT instructor [slight laugh] who nobody liked. He was a nice chap really, you know, he used to put us through our paces. So, it was a mixture of both really but we never had any problems being in America being British or anything.
CB: What about sport? What happened?
KO: Oh, we had sport. One day a week we had sports.
CB: Wednesdays?
KO: We used to throw the cricket ball, we had, we had, um, obstacle races. I can’t really remember what we did. I was never any good at sports anyway so I’d steer clear.
CB: Did you ever do anything with the Americans in sport?
KO: No, no they were never involved. We never knew their families, we never — we only ever knew them as individual instructors. Where they went at night, we don’t know. We did have a small group of American medical men who had a little hospital out in the grounds. I never met any of them luckily apart from FFIs, um, free from infections —
CB: You didn’t have any STV problems then—
KO: The only time I met them was, if I was waiting at the gate for a lift into town, they would always stop and pick us up if they were going in that direction. So, you know, really I never met any of them accept at the end of the course, when we had our stag night, I had the job of thanking them for all their efforts looking after all the, all the boys who had sweat rash and all those things, you know, because it was very, very hot. We’d had one or two tornados while we were there in Oklahoma. I can remember one of those occasions the, the basic trainers, the AT— Chip— Cornells were coming in from a base, from a separate airfield, and were caught when they were still ten feet above the ground and were pulled down and tied down because, you know, it was, they came, they sort of beginning or a tornado, I suppose, the wind was so strong it got a bit dicey. But that was, was just another one of those things that happened.
DO: Right, I’m just going to have to go because my birds are banging on the window. Their feeder’s empty. I’ve just got to go and top it up.
KO: Oh, poor birds. Is it still raining?
DO: No.
KO: Oh.
CB: So, that’s really good. Thank you very much. So, we’re now switching, we’re now switching to Mrs Diana Odell, who was a WAAF herself and, er, Diana, perhaps you could start with the early days and right to the end of your service in the RAF?
DO: Well, the early days are interesting because my mother was the eldest of fourteen in little port in Cambridgeshire, a farmer, so she had to look after all the children, do the farm work and read to her blind grandmother every night out of the Bible. When she met my father from Wisbech — I didn’t find out till later in life they got married and more or less ran away to London where he had been a repairer and mender and driver of the lovely old-fashioned, um, not steam roller, what is it I’m saying?
CB: Steam engine?
DO: Yeah, the farmers and, er, so when he came back to London he really was a bit out of touch but he got a job as a lorry driver and my mother — I was the youngest of five children and we grew up in, first in Edmonton and then we moved out to Muswell Hill and, um, I was the youngest of five children. Times were a bit hard. My father was a long distance lorry driver so he used to be driving all over the place during the war and, interestingly, he used to bring home sometimes people that had escaped from Europe in the war and bring people home for my mother to feed and he drive his lorry all over the country. He was in Coventry during the terrible bombing and one night he got up and drove his lorry, which he parked outside our house, down on to the North Circular road and in the morning I said, ‘Dad, why did you do that?’ And he said, ‘Well, actually I was carrying quite a load of ammunition and there was an air raid so I thought I ought to move it in case in blew up.’ [slight laugh] I went to elementary school, got a scholarship to, um, high school, but I couldn’t go because my mother and father had to pay in those days, and all my elderly lot, they passed and they all went to secondary, or whatever you call it, grammar school, but when I passed out my mother couldn’t really afford to send me. It was going to be five guineas a term so I left at fourteen and I had visons of going to be an actress or a singer but my mother was very strict said, ‘You’re going into the post office. It’s a good trade.’ So, I went to work at the Central Telegraph Office in London for three years as a girl probationary. You wore a green overall and you ran up and down the Central Telegraph Office with telegrams. It was a very good job but also you were sent to school at the City of London School twice a week. It was the equivalent I suppose of GCEs. And then I passed out in a group of a hundred and sixty seven, twenty-seventh. The first forty in that exam became counter clerks and telegraphists, the second lot telegraphists, then down to sorters which of course is quite different now in the post office. [background noises] So, I then travelled round post offices in London and Finchley and then one day in — when I was at the northern telegraph office in Islington for some odd reason I went down to Holborn and I enrolled in the WAAF. And from there I went to Gloucester for the usual beginning, then up to Morecambe to train and then to Cranwell, which was bitterly cold in the winter, to train but as I already was a telegraphist that’s what I had to be. So, I was there for about a year I think and, um, came down to Coastal Command because I wanted to be near London, which is still viable, at Northwood, as a telegraphist and I was there for three years. It was quite hard. We worked underground and, um, then we had an audition and I became Cinderella in a pantomime that ran a week because I could sing and that was interesting because Sir Sholto Douglas was head of our group, Coastal Command, and he came to a performance and in the end he actually gave us all nylon stockings, which was wow! It didn’t do me a lot of good because in those days the hierarchy there was very strict and my flying officer — my Buttons was a wing commander, Timber Woods and, um, he was very good when Ken came out to the camp but my flying officer sent for me and told me I was trying to get above my station, which I was only about nineteen. It was very upsetting but I got over it. And then I was demobbed. Well, we got married and had a double wedding and, um, what did I do after that? Oh, of course I had children, didn’t I?
KO: And you survived another seventy years.
DO: And I surv— [slight laugh] yes. And we lived in Kinston on Thames and then when we had our second child we moved to Maida Vale and from there we moved out to Oakwood, which was amazing because we wanted to move out of London and the couple who lived in the house in Enfield, where we lived, they wanted to move to where we lived in Maida Vale because it was a special church. So, we were lucky to buy the house for two thousand three hundred pounds and we moved there and we were there for forty-something years and it was very happy. The whole road of twenty-three houses all got on. We used to organise theatre trips. We left there twenty years ago and moved up here. During that time we had our toy shop and we used to have lunch around the corner with a lady that had a very nice restaurant in Palmers Green and one day I was talking to her, um, about yoga and she overheard, the restaurant lady, and she said to me, ‘Are you interested in yoga?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ I’d read a book that somebody gave me called “Teach Yourself Yoga”. It was a terrible book but the next day I thought it was rather good. She said, ‘Well, I’m a yoga teacher. Would you like to come and have some lessons? Which I did and we then had a yoga group and she taught us for two years. Then quite suddenly she upped and said, ‘I’m going to New York and start a yoga class.’ And we said, ‘What about us?’ And she said, ‘You can do it Diana.’ So, I started to teach and then I was asked to go out to all sorts of places and do demonstrations. And then one day when I was teaching at Theobald’s College a woman in the group — I had mostly friends from my classes but I remember her standing up and said, ‘By what right have you to teach me? What qualifications have you got?’ And I said, ‘There aren’t any.’ When I got home I was quite upset but Ken had been reading the local paper and in it said, ‘Do you wish to be a teacher for the British Wheel of Yoga? If so, ring this number.’ It was meant to happen, which I did. And then I did my training for the British Wheel of Yoga and I got my diploma. It didn’t make any difference but it was a qualification and I had a wonderful time, teaching at Theobalds College, which is now changed to a business college, and staying for weeks and weekends and became very friendly. In fact, Ken occasionally was asked to be Principal when they went on holiday [laugh] and it was a wonderful time. And, um, then I started teaching local classes and in fact I was teaching nearly every day and then my friends, one of my students, moved up here and — to South Luffenham and she said, ‘You ought to come and live up here.’ But we were quite happy forty years in where we lived but the Enfield Council were allowing people to move out and the Greeks were on the move and a Greek family moved over the road opposite, couldn’t pay their mortgage, got evicted and the Council — we never did found the answer to it — opened it as a remand home, which was impossible, the kids were running away, the police cars were all coming and I said to him, ‘That’s it.’ So, my friend in South Luffenham said, ‘Why don’t you come up here?’ And we came up here and we looked and we came up several times. In the end I said, ‘That’s enough. I don’t want to come up any more.’ And that night my friend from South Luffenham said, ‘You’ve got to come up to Edith Weston. There’s a place coming on the market and I said, ‘Well you go and look at it.’ She looked at it and phoned us up. She said, ‘Came up on Wednesday.’ Came up Wednesday, walked in here and knew immediately this is where I wanted to live and the young couple who owned it — by Wednesday it was ours and, apparently, another couple were after it, a doctor and his wife. When they found they couldn’t have it she said, ‘She sat in the garden and we had to give her a gin and tonic.’ And the reason we got it was next door lived an elderly couple and she thought we would be the right people to look after them when it was necessary, which happened, and I inherited her, well her husband died and I looked after her until she died. And that’s why I’m here.
CB: Fascinating. Thank you. May I just go back to your WAAF days? You met a lot of people. How many did you keep in touch with over the years?
DO: Only one and then that — because it was very difficult. We all trained. We went to Gloucester and then we went up to Morecambe to do the military stuff and then we were asked what we wanted to do and I said, ‘Well I’d like to go nearer home.’ And so I came down and was stationed at Northwood and, um, made friends, my friend Duchy who was my bridesmaid and I was her matron of honour when we got married. And I was at Northwood about three years, wasn’t it? Then I was demobbed.
CB: Meanwhile Ken’s in America and you here, so how did you keep in contact with Ken?
DO: Well, what were those lovely letters? Airgraph?
KO: Airgraph letters.
DO: Airgraphs, weren’t they called? Funny forms.
KO: Very flimsy, air— airmail paper, you used to write and fold them up and they were very light so they’d be used to get through very cheaply.
DO: So, I used to write to him in America and he’d write to me and then I got — did I get de— we got married, didn’t we? We had our double wedding and then I was demobbed.
CB: So the double wedding was Ken’s brother?
DO: Yeah and the funny thing about that, I’ll be brief, um, we had an aunt, everybody’s got an aunt, and this aunt she phoned the Sunday Pictorial, which was quite a paper in those days, and said, ‘Did you know two sisters are marrying two brothers?’ And they sent a reporter and this reporter, you know, she asked me the story and I said, ‘Well, they were already engaged four years and when Ken came back from America he bought a wedding ring and his mother said, ‘You don’t think you’re going to get married until the other two came back do you?’ Jack came back and we decided on a double wedding.’ I told all this to the newspaper lady and the next morning on our honeymoon, which was in Margate, which was terrible because the war was on. We picked up the Sunday Pictorial. We went into a shop, a store, and a man was reading the paper and we said, ‘Could we see if our picture is in there?’ And when we opened it there was the picture of the double wedding, rather like that, but the story was complete lies. I apparently met Jack on the doorstep when he came back from Tunisia or wherever it was and said, ‘I’ve found the right girl for you.’
KO: And they’d been engaged four years.
DO: They’d been engaged four years. I’ve never believed anything in the paper since.
CB: Amazing.
DO: Yeah, so that’s that.
CB: Very good.
DO: [laugh] Funny story —
CB: So, we’re just on the double wedding so say that again.
DO: Well, the double wedding was quite satirical because Father Cooper would — we were standing in front of him and he would say, ‘Have I done you yet?’ And somehow I think I married the one that became a millionaire but he says, ‘I think I married my sister.’ [slight laugh] But it was — you weren’t nervous about it. It was — I mean, I had a WAAF guard of honour, as you saw, and everybody came and it was quite amazing.
CB: So this is, it says here, for the record, there’s a picture of the double wedding. That’s it. Thank you.]]>
Sound]]> Royal Air Force]]> Royal Air Force. Coastal Command]]> Great Britain]]> England--London]]> England--Northampton]]> United States]]> Oklahoma]]> 1943]]> 1944]]> 1945]]> 1946]]> 1947]]> 1968]]>