1
25
6
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1903/36411/PSparkesW17010059.1.jpg
c44e760e35c735957a1c8e2d05844072
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
Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
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
2017-07-16
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
Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes 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
617 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Squadron photograph of a large group of airman in khaki uniform sitting and standing in two rows on an airfield with a Vulcan parked in the background. Captioned 'No 617 Squadron detachment Luqa Malta 1977'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1977
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1977
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Malta
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSparkesW17010059
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
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Sparkes, Ned. Album
617 Squadron
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1356/22525/PCoombesHS2043.2.jpg
eea433f2d4d40119b197388673169478
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1356/22525/ACoombesDC200306.2.mp3
a287977d72c3f7937dae30d1a2487d18
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
Coombes, Horace
Horace S Coombes
H S Coombes
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Group Captain Claive Coombes about his father Squadron Leader Horace 'Ken' Coombes (1921, 148799 Royal Air Force).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Clive Coombes 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
2020-01-13
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
Coombes, HS
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Clive Coombs. The interview is taking place at Clive’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 6th of March 2020. Clive, maybe we could start if you could tell us a little about your father’s life before the war.
CC: My father was born in Birkenhead in 1921. Went to, went to the local school which was the same one that John Lennon ended up going to a few weeks afterwards. They, the family lived in Garston in Liverpool, and my grandfather was a merchant seaman. My grandmother was obviously what’s the official term now, a homemaker? She had six kids that survived, and a couple that didn’t. My father was the eldest and he, following his secondary education joined the Mersey Dock Board with his brother, Alf. And in 1942, if my memory serves he decided that notwithstanding being in a protected employment that he would join up and he joined the RAF as a pilot, and went to training in America. Did all his training at, in Alabama and Florida as a sergeant pilot. Returned to the United Kingdom in ’43. Was immediately commissioned on a VRT commission as a flight lieutenant and joined 582 Squadron Pathfinder Force straight away.
JS: Ok. So —
CC: So that’s his career prior to, you know that takes him up to his first operational mission with 582.
JS: Ok. Spinning a bit in time your, your uncle also has a connection with Bomber Command. Can you, can you tell us a little about him?
CC: Yeah. This is, this is on the maternal side and my Uncle Jack, Jack Hanne or John Henry Hanne was from Llandrindod Wells in, in Mid-Wales but interestingly of German extraction. And he was the husband of my mother’s sister Nancy Vera Morgan as she eventually died, but it was actually Nancy Vera Guildford then. She married Jack and Jack was in the Air Force when they married. He’d actually joined very early. ’34 ’35. Served in Iraq, and was originally a mechanic. I’m not sure if it, I’m not sure exactly what his official trade was but he was a mechanic and having been a boy entrant, so he really was, you know a very young joiner and then was, then converted to pilot and ended up flying in Iraq on 13 Squadron if again memory serves. Came back to UK prior to the war. Still flying. Converted to Blenheims, flew some very early missions in the war and was killed on the 10th of January 1940 flying a 109 Squadron Blenheim from Wattisham on an air raid over Germany. And he was shot down by a Messerschmitt and crashed in the, in the North Sea. So one of the very early casualties and interestingly the first casualty of World War Two from Radnorshire, in Wales. He’s commemorated both at Runnymede, at the IBCC and on his family, sorry, and on the War Memorial in Llandrindod Wells and a couple of months ago on the 10th of January 2020 my wife and I went down and laid a wreath. Sorry.
JS: No. You’re ok. You’re ok —
CC: So, clearly I never knew Jack but I’ve got his medals, I’ve got a lot of his history and I’m quite proud of him.
JS: As you would be. As you would be.
CC: Yeah. Holder of the, he’s got his, probably one of the few of Aircrew Europe Crosses so he’s got the Star. He gave a lot to the Air Force, you know. Joined in ’35 and trained right through and I’ve got some wonderful photographs of his time as a trainer. As an airman. You know. Some wonderful pictures of air crashes and things like that. And then his time in Iraq as well. What I don’t have sadly is any details of his, of his flying time. I don’t have his logbook. I’ve no idea where that went. And strangely, you know Jack is, I mean he died what twenty years before I was born. I think the sad part is that Nancy, my aunt was pregnant when he was killed, and she gave birth to Jacqueline who, who survived for two days. And that was ultimately the only child that Nancy ever had. She remarried a stoker from HMS Belfast interestingly, and I obviously knew him as my uncle. Predominantly not Jack. And he died very suddenly many, many years ago. Strangely at a funeral for one of his friends. He died in the church at the funeral which was a bit tragic.
JS: Yeah.
CC: But Nancy was always I think actually very much in love with Jack and I’ve got some wonderful poetry written by Jack to Nancy and it’s, it’s quite evocative the memories that go with that. So I probably have a strangely close relationship with Jack albeit that he’d been dead for twenty years before, before I was born but I followed it up and, yeah he did some very good things. He did some very good things and sadly lost his life very early in the war.
JS: Early on.
CC: I hope he would have probably gone on to do a few more things but you know it’s, it’s life and death in that environment. But it was a privilege to do the [unclear] which garnered quite a lot of publicity in Wales. It made the front page of three local papers which I was quite surprised about, but, but quite nice. Quite nice. So his legacy lives on and, you know strangely Runnymede and IBCC, it’s nice to have his name on both and I’ve seen both and I’ve visited both and paid my respects there as well. So, no it’s good. Very good.
JS: The memorialisation thing obviously means a lot to you.
CC: Yeah. I think [pause] I guess it’s probably because, you know I’m very proud of what I did. I did thirty seven years in the Air Force. Got to a pretty senior rank. Been decorated. But there’s no legacy because I have no children. I was an only child and when I die my family name dies and so memorialisation as you get older has become slightly more, slightly more relevant I think and I don’t know what to do to commemorate that. I think, you know one of the things I am going to do is contribute to the ribbon at IBCC. And probably ultimately I would be very surprised if the IBCC didn’t benefit from a considerable legacy from the Coombes family. If there’s only some way of the Coombes family, when I say Coombes family, me and my wife of, of memorialising my father, my uncle, and you know in a, could I say entirely altruistic way myself as well because you know I believe that you know over thirty seven years I’ve, I had a pretty good career. I broke a few, a few glass ceilings in what I ended up doing and it would be nice if that was remembered. But there’s, there’s very little legacy in terms of human kind that will remember that because you know I have a half-brother and a half sister who were dad’s kids but they have they have, they have no kids and they’re much older than me. I have no kids. My wife’s sister has one child and they’ve gone different, different, different line. And so there’s nothing, you know. When Coombes, Coombes, this one dies, Coombes name dies which is really sad. So I just feel as I’ve, you know just hit sixty I think I need to do something about it. And this is probably a way of doing it so also —
JS: But, but there is a, the interesting part in this is, if you like long, very long ribbon of service through the RAF from, from your uncle through your father, through yourself.
CC: Yeah. I mean, I think if we, if we look at it between 1942 and 2014 there was only fifteen months that either my father or I were not serving because at the end of the war dad was demobbed. Went back to the Mersey Dock Board, and albeit that I never actually got around to asking him I’m not sure whether it was him who got fed up with the Mersey Dock Board or whether it was the RAF needed QFIs, but he was, he was dragged back in after about fifteen months on a, on a full term normal commission, and re-joined the Air Force as a flight lieutenant and was posted immediately as a qualified flying instructor. And then when he retired it was only a matter of months between him retiring and me joining. So, I think, you know we could probably stretch it to maybe eighteen, twenty months between early 1942 and late 2014 that there wasn’t either my dad or me in the Air Force which, which is interesting. If you then stretch it further back you know with Jack as a family connection, you know it goes back to sort of 1934, 1935. That, that is, you know that is quite a long time serving for three people alone and bearing in mind that Jack’s service was brought, brought to a very sharp end after only five years.
JS: Yeah.
CC: Having been killed. But dad did a full career. Retired at fifty five as a squadron leader. And I did a full career, thirty seven and a half years retiring in 2014 as a group captain. So, you know it’s, it’s something that we’ve given to blue suits. Yeah.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
CC: I’m proud of —
JS: Yeah. Absolutely. You, you spoke earlier about your, your dad doing the training in the US which was very common.
CC: Yeah.
JS: And then coming back and going on a squadron. So, with the [pause] how, what sort of operations was he doing then?
CC: Well, it’s, it’s strange that I mean looking in his logbooks which I’m still privileged to have he, he went, his first operational squadron was a Pathfinder Squadron which I think was probably quite unusual because obviously they, they, you know Don Bennett indicated that what he wanted was the best of the best for the Pathfinder Force and 8 Group. But I’ve no idea why dad went on to that. I’m looking at his logbook, looking at his flight assessments from Gunther Field and various bits and pieces. And interestingly I used to serve in the States and I actually went to Gunther Field fifty years virtually to the day that he graduated from there. Which was purely serendipity but I was, I actually visited the base on duty that, very close to fifty years. But I didn’t know that until I checked it. So he was assessed as above the average in pretty much everything so one would assume that he went back and was sent straight to 582. I go through his, his logbooks and they are standard bombing missions, you know, full time. Dusseldorf on the Ruhr. And they were, you know genuine front line Pathfinder operations. Subsequent to that 582 at Little Staughton, he then transferred to 626 Squadron at Wickenby. Still Pathfinder Force, with the same crew which I have no idea why they, why they transferred squadrons. I know that they used to do that and you know maybe 582’s losses were not high whereas 626’s were and they just transferred crews to 626. But he had the same crew throughout pretty much. One Brit, a couple of Aussies and a Canadian. I don’t know where the others were from. I could check, I think. But, but he flew through. He did twenty four, twenty five missions. I only ever once asked him why he didn’t do the thirty or how he felt not having got to thirty and to get his automatic DFC, and his quote to me was, ‘Had I son, you may not be, you may not have been here.’ But I look at what happened after that, and you know now things come out. You don’t know what, you don’t know the true meaning of it all but he went off to be a test pilot and whether that was because he was suffering from what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder or whether they needed highly skilled pilots to be test pilots I have no idea. But you look at some of the stuff that he did and it’s quite remarkable, you know. I mean, one day in his logbook he’s got I think Lancaster, Spitfire, Hurricane, Wellington, Mosquito. Pretty much on the same day. If not the same day sort of three days. And you go wow. Hang on a minute. What aircraft am I in today? You know it’s quite remarkable to do that. And yet you talk to friends of mine who I’ve served with over thirty seven years and, you know they have gone through careers commanding squadrons only ever having flown a Bulldog, a Jet Provost and a Tornado. Or a Hawk and a Tornado so you had four types of aircraft. He had five in two days. So, remarkable different world. I guess, I suppose when again I haven’t checked the dates entirely it could well have been that operations had pretty much finished. Formal operations had finished. I know, having checked his logbook very recently that he flew on Op Manna.
JS: Yeah.
CC: So that probably would indicate that formal operations over Germany had ceased by that time. Hence the reason he didn’t do the thirty. But quite surprising Manna didn’t count as an operational sortie. So, you know, that’s, that’s probably why. I don’t know but —
JS: Although, it wasn’t, it wasn’t without it’s dangers either you know.
CC: Correct. Absolutely right.
JS: Many, many aircrew I’ve spoken to flew on Operation Manna and they all talk about that doubt in their minds as to whether they were likely to be shot at.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
CC: You know.
JS: So, you know he went off and did that and then he did, he flew Mosquitoes in the PRU role before he was demobbed. And then when he re-joined QFI flying Vampires and Meteors from Shawbury, where he met my mum having divorced from his first wife. So yeah, an interesting career and then ended up for the [unclear] he converted to, to what we now call, is it aircrew spine or something like that? But he was spec aircrew but in those days you had to be dual qualified, so he was an air traffic controller as well and on his down, on his ground tours he was deputy SATCO at Wildenrath in the late ‘50s. And then in the early 70s was SATCO at Lyneham. So, you know that must have been an interesting time when you’ve got a SATCO with, with two wings. And then he went back to flying and finished as ops officer on, his last flying tour was ops officer on 10 Squadron. VC10s. So, you know, he had a pretty varied career in, in what he actually did. So it was, there’s lots of flying hours. There’s forty seven different types of aircraft in his logbook which is quite remarkable really when you think about it.
JS: And a very thick logbook I’m sure.
CC: Five of them.
JS: Five [laughs]
CC: Yeah. Five of them. Five different ones. Yeah. So, yeah pretty much ranging from sort of link trainer through to Harvard, through to Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster, Wellington, Mosquito.
JS: Yeah.
CC: A Varsity. VC10.
JS: Yeah. That’s not a logbook. That’s a library.
CC: Yes. It is a library. That’s what it is actually.
JS: Very much. Very much.
CC: It’s a very, you know they are quite important documents to me to see what he did. So, yeah. It’s very interesting.
JS: Yeah. Very good. There’s, there’s quite a lot of discussion about how Bomber Command were viewed after the war. Let’s say, sort of just after the war and that part after that. Did, did you dad ever, ever talk about that or give a view about it or —
CC: Not, not to me. And it’s, I think it might be indicative that it probably happened quite a lot that these guys didn’t actually talk about it. Sadly, my dad passed away in 1990 at the age of sixty eight which you think is not necessarily fair given what, what he went through during the war. You know, by that stage I had joined and strangely I was told what must have been two weeks after my dad died that I’d just been promoted to squadron leader and that would have been nice for him to know.
JS: Yeah.
CC: But, you know c’est la vie. Time is everything. So he never really spoke to me about, about that. I did ask him once when I was younger. I was doing a bit of research and clearly, you know his career influenced me quite markedly having, you know literally joined months after he, he retired. I realised at that stage that the Pathfinders were entitled to wear the albatross on their, on their number one jacket, left breast pocket and I asked dad why he didn’t wear his Pathfinder brevet because my understanding was that, you know once a Pathfinder always a Pathfinder and you could continue to wear it for the rest of your career. And he sort of passed it off saying that ‘Well, you know it’s not de rigueur anymore, and nobody wears it.’ And, ‘Well, probably they don’t wear it any more dad is because there aren’t many Pathfinders left.’ And he never really made comment about that. He always wore his medals with pride but it was just the standard four, you know ‘39/45 Star, France and Germany and the other two. The War and Victory or War and Defence. And sadly, stupidly I’ve never as yet applied for his Bomber Command clasp which I frankly should do I must confess. But he never really commented on it. I think he was amongst a crowd of people who were obviously Bomber Command pilots themselves in his QFI days at CFS but I still think he was quite proud of what he did albeit with the fact that he knew that, that flying over Germany however high dropping bombs was going to kill people. But no. He never really spoke about it. I think from my own personal perspective I, I do wish Bomber Command had had more recognition but it goes down to what we, what we as military guys and girls do. You know. We, we do what we’re told to do. It’s not, it’s not for us to question the policies. It’s for us to deliver what’s required. And, you know, you can extrapolate that argument straight up you know to the Falklands and the Gulf War One, Gulf War Two, the whole lot. You know. Was it the right thing to do? Did Saddam Hussain have WMD we don’t know. Still think there’s no proof but the government made the call. You go do it. Ours is not to reason why but ours just get on with it because that’s our job and I think that’s the way dad would have looked at it as well. He, I sense but only sense, I’ve no evidence that he found it quite strange in 1958/59 to be serving in Germany and living in Dusseldorf which is where we did live knowing that only a matter of years previous to that he’d been over it at thirty five thousand feet dropping two thousand pound bombs. That I think was slighty odd as far as he was concerned. And I honestly don’t think they particularly enjoyed their tour, my mum and dad particularly enjoyed their tour in Germany and I think they were quite keen to get home. And when I look at it they only did eighteen months in Germany and during the period I was born there but, but still not the happiest days of dad’s career probably because there was the subliminal issue of, you know, I’ve been here before but at a different height and with a different mission. So, but no he never formally said. I think what is sad, that he never saw the recognition that has now finally come to Bomber Command in terms of the Memorial and in terms of the IBCC. I think he would have been quite proud of that, and I think he would have been very pleased to have attended either the opening of the Bomber Command Memorial or the IBCC had he still been alive. Again, c’est la vie. The way things go.
JS: Yeah.
CC: As for Jack I can’t answer the question. I have no idea.
JS: Yeah.
CC: My aunt kept many, many clippings of, you know what he did because he was on one of the very early raids where a squadron commander got a DSO. They were presented to the King as a result of that because it really was one of the, it was a late 1939, very early air raid. And, and I think that’s in the days where you know before we were dropping, carpet bombing. And, and I think Nancy was very proud of Jack as well but again you know clearly I don’t know what he would have felt about it. Probably slightly stranger given that his extraction was German, you know. One generation German. So, I mean his father was a hotelier in Germany. So, you know, came over prior to the war so I think he would have felt quite strange about it.
JS: Yeah.
CC: But he was staunchly British. I understand that. And staunchly Welsh as well, strangely. So yeah, a different world. I don’t know. I can’t answer all the questions.
JS: That’s alright.
CC: Haven’t talked about it for a long time.
JS: That’s interesting. That’s interesting [pause] Because your dad served in the RAF for —
CC: Thirty five.
JS: That period after —
CC: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: And to a certain extent as you’ve mentioned earlier that you were born abroad when your dad was in service. Then, then at the end of the day, that thing, you’d been embedded for the, within the RAF a lot longer than you served in the RAF.
CC: Oh yeah.
JS: I suppose that was the, the thing is do you think it was always likely that you would join?
CC: Yeah. I think it probably, I think it probably was. I mean, I guess I vividly remember at school I mean I was fortunate I got a, I won an academic scholarship to an English Public School and it was a case of, ‘Well, Coombes, what are you going to do?’ And I think, that’s from my careers master and I said, ‘Well, I probably will join the Air Force, sir.’ And he said, ‘Right.’ and that was a tick. That’s one solved. That’s one less issue to worry about.
JS: Conversation over.
CC: Yes. You know, so I didn’t trouble my careers master for very long and I remember I, I went for a university scholarship or a university cadetship and didn’t get it, but was offered an immediate place straight from school and which I accepted. So literally after finishing school in the July I joined in the September of 1978. And clearly knowing I had a job I didn’t do particularly well at A level, and very much enjoyed my last year at school and then joined up straight away and actually have no regrets about that because subsequent to that the training I’ve done, you know I’ve got my, I’ve got my masters level education through the Australian Air Force having served out there on exchange. And yeah it was probably the easy option for me but I have absolutely no regrets. I mean, I think if I do have one regret it’s that my eyesight wasn’t good enough to, to allow me to be aircrew so I became a personnel support officer. But in so doing have had a very, very varied career. Done an awful lot of jobs, served pretty much all over the world and, and enjoyed my time. I guess if I were to be held down and pinned to the wall saying, ‘Do you regret not being a pilot?’ The answer is, ‘Hell yes.’ Because I know I had the aptitude and I proved, you know I went through Aircrew Selection Centre, and had pilot aptitude but sadly couldn’t see, and and that’s probably a regret. But not withstanding that I served in some great places. Had I been air crew I don’t think I would have been as good as my dad. I probably would have been a journeyman pilot flying maybe Hercs or VC10s around the world. Which would have been a great time. I don’t think I would have been good enough to go fast jet albeit that in my career I have fortunately managed to log about three hundred hours on fast jets because I’ve got some very good friends and I had a wonderful time. But I have no regrets being ground branch officer because you know what I did in the end of my career particularly, the last five years I did jobs that were aircrew jobs previously and ended up managing to convince those that needed convincing that actually a ground branch officer could undertake these jobs satisfactory. And I think, you know irony of ironies I ended up, my penultimate tour was in Germany as the deputy commander of the Rhine and European Support Group based at Rheindahlen, and part of my area of command was the former RAF Wegberg site where I was born. And so I ended up actually being the garrison commander of the garrison on which the hospital that I was born in resided. So it was a bit, that was a bit spooky but, but also quite oh wow you know how the wheel turns. So, you know no regrets about that. And I know full well had I been aircrew I’d never have done that so that little thing sort of comes, comes to pass. So yeah. Interesting. An interesting career for me but very much influenced by what dad did and sadly, you know I’d only been serving for twelve years when dad passed away so it would have been nice if he’d still been around to see me go, you know a couple of ranks above what he did, doing things that he never did. But, but there you go. That’s life. You make, you make your career choices as he did.
JS: Well. Yes. But I’m, I’m sure he knew that your career was on the right track.
CC: Well, one would hope so.
JS: You know. I think in —
CC: I do remember my second, third tour was I was the ADC to the air officer commanding in Cyprus and mum and dad came out to, to Cyprus for, for a holiday and they were invited kindly by the, by the AOC to come and have dinner and dad said to me afterwards, he said, ‘Oh, you know, the boss thinks you’re ok. He thinks you’ll probably make wing commander.’ I thought that wasn’t bad given I was a flying officer so that was, that’s ok. And, and to achieve one more than that was a great, was a great privilege, so that, that was interesting. He, he was quite good. I do remember that quite vividly. He thinks you might make wing commander. Well, thanks. That’s great.
JS: That’s good. You, you spoke earlier about Memorials.
CC: Yeah.
JS: Which was interesting. How, how important do you think memorialisation is to the RAF as a whole and also to yourself personally? I think we touched on that sort of personal thing earlier —
CC: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: But it would be interesting to hear your thoughts as a, as a recent serving officer. What, what you think the view in the RAF is on that?
CC: Well, its again interesting. I mean, I joined the Air Force in ‘78 when there were a hundred and [unclear] thousand, a hundred and twenty something thousand people in the Air Force. I, I left in 2014 when there were just a smidge over thirty thousand. Ok. Roles change. Technology changes and you don’t, you know you don’t have eight man crews on Shackletons, and six man crews on Hercules and you know it comes down to single crew aircraft. But I think sadly, you know this sounds like a really crusty old boy talking the Air Force was not, not the same when I left it as it was when I joined it, and clearly that’s, that’s obvious. But I still, I think that that when I joined it in 1978 it was a career. I think sadly now for most people who join the Air Force it’s a job. And that’s why I hope that, that memorialisation of some kind in whatever form is is continued and indeed improved because these, these things can’t be forgotten. I think, you know the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park is very special. I think the IBCC is a wonderful set up, and having visited it very recently for the first time I am hugely impressed. I’d like to see other things go in there. I’d like to be able to help with that. It’s a long way from Edinburgh to there and you know that but things like the RAF Club remain very special, you know. The memories that are in the RAF Club are absolutely amazing. And Runnymede still takes my breath away. We can’t forget.
JS: Yeah.
CC: You know, we did very well at RAF 100. And I was, I re-joined for a year for RAF 100 as a reservist and did, did a job up here, predominantly with the Tattoo. And it was nice to come back in. I think, I think to come back in when you’re fifty nine years old is quite strange and you know you’re dealing with a lot of young people who have a different ethos to you. And bearing in mind that I spent my last eight years of service, three of them in Germany commanding, effectively commanding an army garrison and five years, my last five years working for the Foreign Office overseas in South East Asia where you know you’re just going home when, when the Ministry of Defence comes to work. I really did notice a sea change when I actually re-joined the Royal Air Force having been out of it effectively for a decade and it wasn’t the same. There was a lot of self-interest, and I know that what we tried to achieve in RAF 100 was, was would have been impossible had it not been for reservists and volunteer reserves and part time reserve service people. Which is quite sad given that you would expect to be able to do what you needed to do with the regular people. Those who were actually serving. So, you know we had a big success with RAF 100 but by jingo if it hadn’t have been for the people who’d, you know served before and come back in as reservist there’s absolutely no way we would have achieved it. I do remember the words of the then Chief of the Air Staff Steve Hillier saying that, you know, ‘It’s a privilege to be the CAS at the RAF 100 but all I’m doing is laying a future for my successors, successors successor,’ blah blah blah, ‘Who will be CAS at RAF 200.’ I just wonder how big the RAF at two hundred will be. Not very big I don’t think. And whilst I won’t be here and none of my progeny will be here I do wonder what it will be like. I’ve got a horrible feeling being probably glass half empty on this one that it will be the Defence Forces of The United Kingdom all wearing green uniform. I don’t know. We’ll see. But you can’t take away what’s there. IBCC is there. Runnymede is there. Other memorials are there. Long may it continue as far as I’m concerned and anything I can do to assist with the memorialisation of that then I will continue to do that, and this is a first step for me. And I’m pleased to be able to contribute. And hopefully sometime in, you know RAF 200 somebody might listen to this and say, ‘Jeez, who was that old boy talking?’ We shall see.
JS: Clive, thank you very much.
CC: My great pleasure.
JS: That’s been fascinating. Thank you.
CC: Thanks very much indeed, Jim. I hope it gets somewhere.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Clive Coombes
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
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
2020-03-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACoombesDC200306, PCoombesHS2043
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:37:09 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Clive Coombes grew up on Royal Air Force stations, eventually joining and serving for 37 years before retiring in 2014. During this time, he served across the globe, including in Australia and Germany, as a ground branch officer. Clive outlines his father’s and uncle’s service, as well as his own. His uncle, was born in Llandrindod, Wales and joined the Royal Air Force in either 1934 or 1935, becoming a pilot and serving in Iraq before returning to Great Britain and serving in the Second World War. Originally flying Blenheims, Jack was shot down and killed on the 10 January 1940 flying an operation for 109 Squadron. Whilst Jack did not serve long within the Second World War, Clive retains a large amount of information pertaining to his service, including his logbook and a number of poems sent to Clive’s Aunt. Born in Burking Head, his father Horace 'Ken' Coombes joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 as a pilot, training in Alabama and Florida, before returning in 1943. His first posting was to the 582 Squadron at RAF Little Staughton, flying Pathfinder operations over Dusseldorf and the Ruhr, amongst others. He was eventually moved to 626 Squadron at RAF Wickemby. Throughout his service, Clive’s father flew Lancasters, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Mosquitoes and Wellingtons. After flying on Operation Manna, he was decommissioned and reenlisted soon after as instructor, later becoming an air traffic controller and a reconnaissance flyer, flying Meteors and Vampires at RAF Shawbury. Following his retirement in 1977, Clive recalls his father refusing to mention his opinion on the view of Bomber Command following the war. Clive wishes that Bomber Command would receive more recognition, especially through the efforts of the IBCC and Runnymede Air Forces Memorial.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Shropshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany
Alabama
Australia
Florida
Germany
Germany--Düsseldorf
Netherlands
United States
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-01-10
1942
1943
1977
109 Squadron
582 Squadron
626 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
Hurricane
killed in action
Lancaster
Meteor
Mosquito
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Shawbury
RAF Wickenby
Spitfire
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/882/11709/PHorshamES1602.2.jpg
67e67ad73fa2fc212dac0e588fd3a172
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/882/11709/ASymondsHorshamE170105.2.mp3
7d055b8f4144ed6db659e469c9e75ac0
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
Horsham, Eric
Eric Symonds Horsham
E S Horsham
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. An oral history interview with Eric Horsham (b. 1923), 9 photographs, and his memoirs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 102 Squadron from RAF Pocklington.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Eric Horsham 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
2017-01-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Horsham, ES
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 audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 5th of January 2017 and I’m with Eric Horsham down in Warminster and he was a flight engineer. And he is going to talk about his experiences in life but particularly with the RAF. So, Eric what are you earliest recollections of life?
ESH: Well, every year we went off to Devon for a holiday at relations because my people came from Plymouth and Devonport and this was held good right up until my teenage years. But early memories really, I suppose began at the age of about, serious memories, seven when we heard a very strange noise on one occasion and we all rushed out to see what it was. And do you know what? It was the R101 which was on its way to London and of course guided by the River Thames because that’s where we lived. In Plumstead. So it was logical. In fact the best view from Plumstead was the Ford Motor Works which had four big white chimneys and so that was a landmark. And following on from there it wasn’t until I was [pause] well I suppose fourteen really because that’s when I left school and they said, ‘Well, there’s a couple of jobs and one is — would you like to be a messenger in the Royal Ordnance factory?’ Which was right adjacent to Plumstead at Woolwich, you see and also the headquarters of the Royal Engineers. So that’s what I did for six months because it was destined that I should take the Railway Clerical Examination and join the rest of the family working on the railway. So that’s subsequent to that they sent me to train as a booking clerk. But I didn’t show up very brightly so they said, ‘No. We’ll send you to a goods depot.’ Which was rather like being banished, you know [laughs] because, can I be humorous at this point and say, well yes I was sent to a depot call Nine Hills which was in Vauxhall near Waterloo and on one side I had the Brand’s Essence and Pickle factory churning out pickle. And looking the other way we had horses because everything was delivered, delivered by horses, and drays at that. And on the other side we had the gaslight and coke company pushing out fumes so that was my early memory on the railway and then a friend of mine said [pause] well I told the friend of mine in the railway business that I was very unhappy there. So, indeed the friend said, ‘Well, we’ll try and rectify that,’ and apparently I didn’t shine as a booking clerk either. So they sent me to the estate office of the Southern Railway which was way out in the country at Chislehurst, but I digress because previous to — I mean we, talking about the year 1937. As you’ll appreciate if I was ’23 — born ‘23. ‘33, ‘37 that’s thirteen or fourteen years and 1939 came along. We can verify those dates and we had to join anything organised. All young people. So, but I think maybe I’m a bit previous to that because I went along to the Air Defence Cadet Corps. This would be somewhere about 1937 at least. So from there of course we went on to the Air Training Corps which was very much in evidence at Woolwich because we were, had the run of the Woolwich Polytechnic, and the chief there was indeed given the rank of wing commander in the Air Training Corps. Wing Commander Halliwell. So, that’s where I first got my, sort of my aircraft experience and of course it was a very good base for workshop practice. We all started off wanting to be flight — to be aircraft fitters. Fitters and turners. And the very basic things that we did were of course in connection with Tiger Moths where you really had the history of aircraft from very early days, and we had to learn all about turn buckles and things which kept the wings in place. But of course as time went by, here we are in ’39 and we were getting heavy bombers coming in, and if you’d, you had to decide, you know, really what you wanted to do because you were going to be called up for sure. And state a preference. So of course I did. And that was to be a flight engineer. Now, as an aside to this, engineers in the Air Force — flying, got twelve shillings a day. Now, you, you know seven twelves is eighty four. That’s four pound forty a week which is not to be, not to be sniffed at. But of course we also had to join something anyway. So, off I went to, to be called up but unfortunately there was a problem because I’d had a medical earlier for call up and the doctor discovered that one leg, ankle or calf, was slightly different to the other one. And of course yes it would be so because when I was born it was in a splint up until a year, eighteen months which straightened it out but it never did quite catch up with the other leg. Anyway, they said, ‘No. You’re grade three. We don’t want you.’ So off I went back to the estate office and soldiered on. Filing I think was our main job then because the railway had a vast estate. However, ok, come twelve months I was getting pretty fed up so I went up to the local recruiting office and said, ‘You know, I’m available. And I’m partly trained as an engineer. I want to join the Air Force,’ and they said, ‘Well that’s alright. You’re in the Air Training Corps. You should be alright.’ So they sent me off to Cardington and, for a medical. Went to Henlow actually. Adjacent. Just down the road from Cardington. Saw the top brass and he said, ‘Well, jump up and down there,’ and so I did. And he said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, off you go.’ So back to an interview at Cardington. The very, very modern method of identifying people. You had all these puzzles in a book, and you went through the book. A hundred puzzles and things like a bit of algebra, you know. And I knew a little bit. Anyway, I got the question right and I was the only one in that class who got it. So the squadron leader who was interviewing, and he was loaded with gongs, of course to a young man I couldn’t take my eyes of these gongs. Anyway, he put me through all the paces and he had a civilian officer too, with him, in the interview. And in his room he had every kind of aircraft and I was to — aircraft recognition. So I did very well at that because we were well trained in the Air Training Corps. So off I went then back to civilian life and then a little while later got called up for Aircrew Reception Centre at Lord’s. So we had a, we were very honoured because we had to be kitted out in the Long Room which was famous as you know. We had drill on the famous turf. Now, that lasted about three weeks by which time we were fully kitted up and said, ‘Right. Off to Torquay you go.’ We thought that was jolly good because Torquay was a lovely holiday centre wasn’t it? Anyway, we did, I did eight weeks there altogether. And we learned administration and the law of the RAF and the time came when they said, well, you know, off to the squadron — no. Off to the big training centre you go. And I remember I slept the night on Bristol Temple Meads Station because that was it. We were going to St Athan in Wales. And the train service being what it was we did arrive at St Athan with two kit bags by the time we got there. And humped them all the way up to the camp which we thought rather naughty. Anyway, we went through twenty six weeks, I think it was, of training throughout every facet of aircraft construction and the essential things that one would have needed to know. Like you had to be au fait with a very complicated system of petrol tanks. Now, each wing of a Halifax had six tanks. And this had to be in flying whittled down from, so that your main petrol was in the mid-section, in tanks one and three. Funny enough on the test training board they said, ‘No, you really ought to have another think about this. Go back and think for another week.’ So, then I passed out and they put a little white flash in my cap and they gave me papers for the Number 1652 Conversion Unit which was that Marston Moor.
[Telephone ringing. Recording paused]
CB: So we’re just re-starting now with St Athan and the rest of the things that you were doing in training there.
ESH: Yes. I’ll go straight into leaving St Athan.
CB: What else did you do in St Athan? Hydraulics. What else?
ESH: Is that running?
CB: Yes.
ESH: Well, yes, you had your petrol system. You had the other power that was likely to be in aircraft which were accumulators. Now, not as you would think an electricity accumulator but this was liquid in a cylinder. Oil actually I think it was. And air was pumped in giving it a pressure and on selecting undercarriage down the accumulator would push it down. This is in the case of a Halifax which was either hydraulic or pneumatic. So the way to get services to operate was by his accumulator. But not only that of course because you did have [pause] now let me think. You had the port inner engine on a Halifax is the one that supplies power to your services and —
CB: Electrical power.
ESH: Yes. Some of it would have been electrical power.
CB: But also hydraulic.
ESH: And hydraulics had to be learned. Flaps were hydraulic. The other services control are foot and pedals by the pilot on the fin and rudder. And the elevators — well they would be hydraulic you see running a pipeline out. And flaps for instance. Fairly high pressure, well two and a half pounds I think were the standard pressure in the system but it was enough to push a big flap down against the airstream. And so electrics — you had to be au fait with the electrical services, and therefore you had to mug up on Ohm’s Law if you like in order to appreciate the power that you could get from electric motors. So, and then of course you had to know the different gauges of the stressed skin of the alclad which was a compound of the aluminium NG7. You see, the mind gets very hazy when it comes to the complete structure but you were able, by the end of six months, to walk through a mock-up of an aircraft with your eyes closed. You could have bandaged the flight engineer. He was the one who moved around and you were perfectly au fait with where the main spar came across so you could sort of jump over that. And of course the controls for your petrol were underneath the, what’s called the rest position which was a little sort of bunk for resting people. We didn’t go to sleep there actually but it was very useful. And then in the front of the aircraft of course you had the pilot with the wireless op immediately underneath him. And the navigator and the bombardier in the nose proper. So they, we were pretty well genned up by the time we left there. We could go anywhere blind folded within the air craft there and operate switches without thinking about it. So then they said, ‘Right. Here’s, here’s your ticket.’ You’re on your on your way,’ to a place called Pocklington — no. Sorry. Marston Moor. The sight of the famous battle actually was just down the road. And this was number 1652 Conversion Unit where all the crews got together as and made up as crews. Now, I hadn’t met our crew before then but we were very late. The mid-upper gunners and the flight engineers only met the crew, the other crew of four who’d come along from EFTS and their various ‘dromes where they had been instructed, to make up a crew. And it was strange because we assembled in the hall and the flight engineers and the gunners — mid-upper gunners, would be sitting in chairs and then in came the existing crews because they’d been flying Wellingtons which only required five people. And then — how do you find a pilot? They said, ‘Join up with somebody,’ so eventually, I think we were down to about two flight engineers and a chappie came along and said, ‘I need a flight engineer. You’ll be my flight engineer won’t you?’ And it turned out that he was a very very competent pilot. His name actually was, he was a Pilot Officer Francis then, who came from a village near where we are now called Stoke St Michael near Shepton Mallet. Anyway, he was quite stern. He always said that he’d seen our records but I don’t think he had. Anyway, he brought the crew along and said, ‘This is our flight engineer. Do you think he’ll be alright?’ So that was it. That was our crew. And so then we started training on the next day on circuits and bumps because this aircraft was totally new to our pilot. And while we’re on the subject of crew we had a very important chap in the crew who is of course the navigator. Now, we had actually in retrospect, having had thirty odd ops to prove himself, and we wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t have been for Oscar Shirley, who was our navigator, because you could turn him upside down. You could have umpteen course changes. He knew exactly where he was. Because it could be very, I mean I heard of crews who had navigators that weren’t too good and that was curtains. However, we won’t dwell on that. But, and while we’re on crew our bombardier was fresh from the first few months of a teacher training course. He was called Johnny Morris but not to be confused with the comedian. And Alan Shepherd was our wireless operator. Now, Alan Shepherd came from Ringwood, off a smallholding. Wonderful chap really. Did a lot of good work after the war. Who else have we got to account for? Oh rear gunner. Yes. Rear gunner, another Londoner. I’m just desperately trying to remember his name. You wouldn’t believe it would you? [pause] I’ll remember it in a moment. We’ll come back to that. Now, who haven’t we accounted for? Mid-upper gunner. Jimmy Finney from Hull. Lovely lad who later got shot up on one operation and had to pack it in.
CB: And your bomb aimer?
ESH: Ron Alderton was the name of the rear gunner by the way. He is still with us as far as I know but when I phoned him the other day he said, ‘I’m losing my marbles. I can’t come and see you.’ So, there we were. Crew set up. And then of course we all had our bicycles with us. Off in the van and off we went to — I think we went by train from Green Hammerton to York. And then York out to Pocklington, and the station yard was just gravel in those days. And then of course we walked over to the ‘drome which was quite close. Each of us had two kit bags and a bicycle. But we knew we were going to Pocklington and it didn’t have a very savoury sort of record. In fact they said, ‘Now you’re here you’ll be lucky if you last three weeks.’ Which was a throwback from — 1943 was a desperate year and here we are in January or February was it of ’44, at the Conversion Unit. And Pocklington had, sorry not the Conversion Unit. Pocklington — the actual RAF station and there was definitely a pervading sort of sense that this was a bit dodgy, you know. However, we were led into operations in around about, just before D-Day. We’d done all our circuits and bumps and cross country’s and they let us down very gently on short trips to France. I mean the first trip we did was to a place called [unclear] which was a P-plane place. P planes were coming in thick and fast so Churchill had said to our boss Air Chief Marshall Harris, ‘Look get your lads on this. I want it stamped out.’ Because they knew the 6th of June was coming up. So we continued to do that until right through until well after D-Day. To various places which you wouldn’t be able to find on the map because they don’t give, you won’t find them as places like Foret de Dieppe. Which is unheard of, I mean, but there you are. And then we started ops didn’t we? And of course our accent was on night bombing. Can you imagine having a sheet of aluminium stood up against the wall and you gathered up in your hand and [pause] gravel? Now, you threw the gravel at the aluminium. Now that’s just what it’s like when you’re being shot. If you’re near a shot. Because all the shrapnel comes and hits the aircraft like that and that is getting just a bit too close for comfort. However, they were nights. Now, what you don’t, what you can’t see you don’t worry about do you? Even though it was seven or eight hours sometimes. Or five or six to the Ruhr. Because we were concentrating on the Ruhr. I mean Essen after we’d been there and some of the other lads had been there previously there wasn’t one brick standing on another. And that’s where Krupps the armament works were ruined, you know — finished. Because we were mainly at that time after [pause] I mean our targets were decided by the Ministry of Economic Warfare. And they said, ‘Right. Wipe out Germany’s oil and that will end the war.’ So that’s what we did. We went to all sorts of obscure places trying, in bulk, to wipe out an oil plant. Because, I mean, you’re looking at a complex in the middle of a small area of a village. Now it took a lot of aircraft to plaster it so we did a lot of this up and down the Ruhr. I mean there were so many places I won’t bore you with that. But that’s what we did. But also we went to one or two further places like Brunswick. Way across east to Berlin. And then Hanover, Soest, Osnabruck and they were very well defended. And of course the night fighters hadn’t quite been been nullified as they were a little later. So we had, I suppose a charmed existence. And one of the deadly things the Germans did was to position a gun at a fixed angle — called a shrage gun and it would come out and go straight for the port inner. Once you got the port inner — well that’s where your services came from. And there’s no way really you could put a fire out. You’d try by diving [pause] but no really we had a charmed existence I suppose. And then D-Day came along and in preparation for that the squadron was busy but we didn’t actually get over Normandy until, I think it was July the 18th 1944 when it was, there were troop concentrations around Cannes. Now, if you remember Montgomery couldn’t shift them and everyone was looking to him and saying, you know, ‘You’re going to be a failure aren’t you? You can’t. You’re army can’t do it.’ So they whistled up the Air Force east of Cannes where Tigers tanks had dug in in expectation of a bombing raid. and of course we were there 5 o’clock in the morning and it soon became obscured by dust and smoke. And really it was pretty terrible for the Germans I’m sure because they staggered out of their bunkers and that, having been bombed by I think it was a thousand aircraft. Not all at once but over a period of about half an hour. Your concentration was so great yes you could time them and of course this was, in effect, an army cooperation. We had to be very careful because the army had to lay down a yellow barrier of flares with a given margin which they decided was safe so — and I do remember on that occasion I think as we were coming — as we were going out on that raid as you’ll realise Cannes isn’t that far from England. They were coming back. So, quite amazing you know to see these aircraft coming back and you hadn’t got there. Now, this was daylight of course because they switched us from night after a time because we went on to daylight because of course if you can see something it should be, you should be more accurate. Now, we did go on right through the summer. We went to one P-plane place seven days running. Foret de Dieppe. If you can find it on the map. Because one operation was preceded by Mosquito. Now the Mosquito could — it was planned he would be on a fixed from England on the exact spot. So we were trundling away there getting towards — and the secret was when he dropped his bombs everyone else would do theirs. And of course unfortunately we got up near the target and one aircraft opened its bomb doors and dropped the bombs and of course everybody else did the same. So really that was — the idea was good but it didn’t work in practice. Whether the Air Ministry would like you to know that I don’t know. But yes, it was so. So, we were largely on P-plane bases but then we went on, as I say, to daylight. Oil installations. Because at that time it was really beginning to show that the Germans couldn’t really put enough in the field because they hadn’t got the petrol. So, mainly of course we were up at the Ruhr at places like Gelsenkirchen where there were oil installations and that more or less saw the summer out. But one operation did stand out for us and that was army cooperation with the Americans who were trying to push into the Ruhr and we hadn’t yet, they hadn’t yet done it but there were three towns. Julich, Duren and Eschweiler, and I think they are adjacent to the [pause] now what was the name of the forest?
CB: Ardennes.
ESH: The Ardennes, yes. Indeed. The Ardennes and these Germans had all their batteries concentrated in that area and they could dig in these Tiger tanks and they were very difficult. I mean they were very difficult to move. And the crews also were dug in and ready to come into action as soon as the raid had passed over. Anyway, we went through the target and on our way out and we must have wandered. At that time of course to nullify guns you dropped out metallic strip, Window, which really foxed the German radar. And they were pretty good on this radar. And we did wander around to one side on the way out. Out of radar — out of the Window cover and you could see. I was lucky I had a little dome and I could look out as a flight engineer to the rear and you could see these black dots coming up, but you didn’t know whether that one was going to follow that one but it did. And there was an almighty bang and so skipper Francis knew what that was so immediately put it into a dive. Now we were about fifteen thousand feet I think and we ended up diving and ended up at eight thousand feet hoping that the Germans wouldn’t be able to follow us down but the place was full of smoke and cordite. The smell of cordite. If you’ve opened up a firework or let it off you’ll smell cordite and that’s what, that’s what was filling up the aircraft. So you couldn’t communicate. Everyone had gone deaf so you had to wait for your hearing to come back. But being a flight engineer I was able to walk around because we were at level flight by that time. Previous to that we’d been pinned in our stations. The G-effect being such. And so the first thing I saw — the aircraft looked like a pepper pot on one side, the starboard side, and daylight was streaming out. No flaps. And unfortunately Jim Finney in the mid-upper turret was pointing to his leg and the shrapnel had gone through at the thigh which rendered him, his control of his foot etcetera to be nullified. So wireless op and bombardier got him out of the turret and laid him down in the fuselage, bandaged him up and they cut his trousers first in order to find out where the where he’s bleeding. And they did a good job on him because you know if a chap’s losing blood he’s losing life blood. So, anyway, the skipper said to navigator, ‘Give me a course for home.’ He gave him a course irrespective of what we were flying over and he pointed the nose in the right direction and off we went and we were soon back. I suppose at — oh yes it was awkward because there was a mist coming up and a fog but we were pointed towards Orfordness and the aerodrome there which had FIDO. Fog Dispersal [pause] Fog Incandescent Dispersal Organisation. So we were able to fly around once firing off all the red flares that we had so they should know down below that we hadn’t got radio, we hadn’t got brakes. But it’s a long runway and it was called [pause] There were two — one was at Carnaby further up the coast. This was Woodbridge. Straight in off the sea straight on the ‘drome. So it was getting pretty misty and it was closing in. November is a bad month isn’t it? Anyway, we got down didn’t we? And we managed to take up the full length of the runway, ended up on the grass at the end. But nevertheless we were off out of trouble. And along came, well they knew full well that this aircraft was damaged. Couldn’t talk to us. So they sent out the wagon and dear Jim was soon in hospital. And we, along with a couple, quite a few dozen others descended on the cookhouse for a supper, you know. Which we did eventually get because they didn’t expected all these people to come in 5 o’clock in the afternoon. And so what do you do? We’re down at Orfordness there in the east coast of Essex. They gave us tickets back to London and then back to York which was an excuse for everybody to spend the night in London. But I was lucky because I could get an electric train just down to Woolwich as it were and back home. We never got pulled up. None of us had hats. Well, I think, I think the skipper did because he was very particular about carrying his nice peak cap, you know. However — yeah, so we, but that’s only one of about six different aircraft that we had on the tour. Some of the numbers are in the logbook. But where we had different problems — for instance on one occasion we had a seagull in the engine nacelle which put that out of action. So of course you didn’t use that aeroplane the next day. We had so many we could have a new one every day if necessary. As I say, we had about seven. We got the undercart. That went down alright otherwise we wouldn’t be here would we? But it could be things like that which would be, could be very dodgy. And we eventually finished our tour on oil installations. Let’s see [pause] towards the end. Towards the end. Towards the [pause] October. October. Through Christmas. Probably about January or February of ‘45 and that was the end of our tour. And we had done twenty daylights and about thirteen night trips which clocked up something like four hundred, five hundred hours flying. Full stop.
CB: We’ll stop there for a —
[recording paused]
CB: So we’re just, we’re just doing a recap now which is on the damage on the aircraft.
ESH: Yes.
CB: So starting at the point of the big explosion. Then what happened and what was the effect?
ESH: Well I hope I can remember.
CB: That’s alright.
[pause]
ESH: Well we left the target area and unfortunately we may have erred to one side of the Window cover which of course blocks out their radar and nullifies their accuracy. But nevertheless they caught us up and in a flash there was an almighty bang and our hearing disappeared straight away and the skipper put it into a dive, And down we went. Down. Down. Down. Something like eight thousand feet I suppose before we levelled out and that was a relief but we were then, I was then able, as a flight engineer to move around and observe any damage and by jingo there was. Looking out the port side — the starboard side the flaps had disappeared. One important, very important thing. The whole side of the aircraft was peppered and daylight was, it was more or less a window. And our mid-upper gunner, now our hearing had come back and our visibility was quite goon— pointed to his leg and indeed he had caught, been caught by shrapnel right through his thigh from his turret. So that very shortly after our wireless operator and our bombardier came out and got him out of the turret and cut his trouser and stopped the flow of his blood. And we realised it was very urgent to get back to England because, fortunately our four engines are still turning over in spite of losing some major control of the aircraft, so on arriving at Woodbridge which was a mighty long ‘drome a mighty long runway and very wide too we had to circle. We had to tell the ground what was happening. And so there we were flying, running off red verey lights in case there were other aircraft in the circuit, but there was no issue. We did one. One circuit around the flying control and straight in to the funnel of the runway. Without — without radio we felt pretty helpless. The fog had closed in on the aerodrome now at this time but he was an A1 skipper and as I say one of his things that he was so good at was flying blind, he could fly in any condition. He got us down and we got Jimmy into the transport and away to the nearest hospital.
[pause]
CB: Was there any fire on the aircraft?
ESH: No. Fortunately we didn’t have fire. Which is a pretty terrible thing.
CB: So you had no, no hydraulics and you had no electrics. How did you get the undercarriage down?
ESH: Well, it’s heavy, it’s a very heavy undercarriage. Massive wheels on a Halifax. Six foot high nearly. If I remember rightly the hydraulics had gone which serves flaps, bomb doors, undercarriage and, actually what happened is [pause] there is another precaution because if your —
[pause]
CB: You could wind it down could you?
ESH: No. There was a precaution against it falling down which is called withdrawing the uplocks. This is a job that the flight engineer had to do. He would go down to what the rest position which is where our mid-upper gunner was. And there are two D rings. One each side protruding from the fuselage. The cable obviously comes through the back of the wing because the undercarriage would have been beneath the wing, and it was a simple system. Ok. You pulled the D ring which pulled a cable which released a sort of a gate bolt. This bolt, if you can imagine a gate bolt, held up the undercarriage. So the undercarriage would automatically fall down. So that’s obviously what the, as flight engineer, I did on approaching. We were fortunate in as much as that was all intact. I mean if the aircraft had lost its undercarriage earlier you not only would it have caused a lot more loss of fuel flying with an undercarriage down, total drag. But in this case no. The uplocks worked. Irrespective of any hydraulic system. And of course your warning lights came on here and there.
CB: Ok.
ESH: We covered that have we?
CB: You have. Yeah.
ESH: So therefore we got — we were on the ground, Jimmy’s off to hospital and we are left to go and find our supper again with another hundred bods as we used to call ourselves. The next morning we were given a pass to go back to Pocklington via London so everyone had a night in London if they couldn’t get home. We all seemed to arrive the next morning for the 10 o’clock up to King’s Cross, up to York and that was the end of that sticky situation.
CB: When you had a night in London where did you stay?
ESH: Well I was able to go back. Once we got to London I was able to go back to Plumstead to my folks, and one or two of the other crew had friends that they could call on. Or relations. In fact Skipper Francis had some relations down in Slough way. Now, Ron Alderton, the rear gunner, had Canadian friends temporary and he did a night of the rounds of whatever pubs he could find and night clubs. He had quite a roaring time. I mean we didn’t need to get a train before 11 o’clock from Kings Cross to get back to York. So, on the train back we were, you know, reminiscing. And I always remember I’d tried to write out something for the, for the skipper at the time when all our hearing had gone and it was an absolute shambles. Unfortunately, you couldn’t hear anything and I found I couldn’t even spell the word fuselage. What I should have done was “Jim hit.” Two words would have conveyed that but instead of that — in the event you do not act logically and you would find that you had difficulty in getting to grips with language. You could move about and you knew exactly what you should do but you couldn’t think it through. But we were all in the same boat weren’t we? We all lost our hearing for quite a time.
CB: So you —
ESH: But we got back. That was the thing.
CB: You experienced the initial shock. When did the secondary shock hit you and what was that like?
ESH: Well, we had a night’s sleep, as you will appreciate, in London and I suppose we were rehearsing the events in the train for five hours. But we well appreciated that we were very lucky. But I don’t think at that time that that sort of event had too much effect on a crew. We were all together weren’t we? Jimmy was unfortunate but he wasn’t killed. That would have been a terrible disaster. So therefore I think we’d already been used to five years of war. I mean I’m talking about ’39 onwards, you’ve already had four years and you became inured to stress, in effect. So although we went back over the ground again but we were as a crew, we were complete. We were very lucky.
CB: How long before jimmy rejoined you?
ESH: Jimmy, unfortunately was off to hospital in Oswestry and he was ruled out forever more as a flyer and we received then a young gentleman from Scotland called Onderson. He was very broad and I think mostly we didn’t call him Ian, I think we just called him Jock and he was quite happy with that. And he finished up something like five or six operations with us. He became one of us obviously.
[pause]
CB: Now, you were saying that you did thirty. In your tour there were thirty ops, twenty of them were daylight. How many of those were to do with the V weapons and what happened?
ESH: Well, as we said the V weapons and the P-planes. The V weapon was of course outside our control. It’s a rocket and you don’t hear it coming, you don’t know it’s left the ground even. And if you were anywhere near it then it could destroy half a dozen houses at one time. So we were mainly concentrating on P plane sites because you could flatten them. Until they put them on lorries and then of course you couldn’t find them. So, yes.
CB: So you were, you were in daylight but how easy or difficult was it to find the V1 initially and then V2 sites?
ESH: Well, I don’t think that we could ever find — the V1 for instance was secreted in the middle of a forest and certainly fighters could eventually have a go because they could see them and once we’d identified, or the Air Ministry had identified the location they knew what they were looking for on lorries. They would shoot them up but of course V2 was purely a mobile rocket. But once it was off it was off and it would perform a perambular and no one knew it had gone and no one knew it was coming. And there was just a terrible explosion and five houses could be — disappear.
CB: But the V1 sites, as you said, in forests — how effective would you say your endeavours were in dealing with those?
ESH: Well you want the truth. A question like where would you find the P- plane sites in a forest? All we had to go on really was what came back from our agents by wireless. That there was this activity in a certain place which the Air Ministry would identify, or the sight would be identified and it would be marked on our maps, as I say, as a very obscure village in Pas-de-Calais. The only thing we could do was mass bombing. In fact I don’t remember a site which wasn’t bombed on each occasion with less than three hundred aircraft. So that you hoped that within that aiming point you would destroy it. And I think we did a lot but not all.
CB: Saturation bombing.
ESH: Yes. That was the idea. Saturation bombing [pause] Stop.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: Now, some of your endeavours at bombing these V1 sites perhaps were more effective than others. Was there one site you went to several times?
ESH: What? A V1?
CB: Yeah. In Dieppe.
ESH: Yeah. Foret de Dieppe. Did I not mention earlier?
CB: No. So, just, just cover that can you? The fact you went several times.
ESH: Oh yes indeed.
CB: Why did you go to that several times?
ESH: Yes. In order to mitigate this nuisance of the V2, V1s of which many thousands were being aimed at England at the time on a fixed track. One morning, in fact five or six mornings continuously we searched out a fixed ramp in a forest called Foret de Nieppe. Which of course is in the Pas-de-Calais, if you can find it. And it took thousands of tonnes, must have done, to obliterate that site. But it was, it wasn’t able to fire off these V1s in rapid succession because, you know the Germans were very thorough and got it to a high state of proficiency but we did concentrate for many weeks and months on finishing off these P-planes because it was aimed at civilian population.
CB: How many times did you actually see V1s flying towards Britain on your way to the target?
ESH: Well fighter pilots did of course but not, not us.
CB: You were too high up, were you, to see them?
ESH: Yes. I mean they didn’t, they came in at about two thousand feet so I can’t say I saw one. But I saw the damage and I experienced a V2 standing on Albany Park Station which was on the, what’s called the Dartford loop line. Bexley Heath, Barnehurst and down there. And I was standing on the station and this thing dropped a quarter of a mile away and I had to ask the station staff what that was. I mean, you know, I didn’t see it. If I’d have gone along I’d have seen a row of houses demolished but that. No.
CB: And what was their reaction to your question?
ESH: Who?
CB: The railway people.
ESH: Well he sort of said, ‘Where have you been?’ Because it was — this is not live is it? Well he wondered where I’d been not to know that London was being plastered with P-planes bombs. That sounded by the way like a common 6oo cc motorcycle engine.
CB: And you weren’t able to tell them what you were doing to counter this. You weren’t able to explain what you were doing, to the people in London.
ESH: No. Well they could see —
CB: Bombing.
ESH: They could see I was in uniform.
CB: Yes.
ESH: But they were so busy with their ordinary lives that I was just one of two million servicemen. It didn’t rate more highly than that.
CB: Right. Ok.
ESH: Pause?
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: So what other events were noteworthy.
ESH: Ah well, now what comes to mind straightaway is on the way in to a target to see an actual aircraft hit. And you must remember this has got a full bomb load of what ten [pause] what had we got — five twenty thousand pounds of TNT going up as well as the fire bombs, and it’s the most horrifying experience. But I do remember that occasion when — and the skipper was quick to point out that the Germans did send up what they called Scarecrows. But I’m sure this would be more than that because the whole sky around that aircraft was just bits, black bits in the sky. Now, you see a Scarecrow couldn’t put up that much material could it? I don’t think so. I think this was a very salutary experience but you didn’t dwell on it because, well, you know, it could be happening at night time and you never knew anything about it.
CB: So we’re talking about night time now are we?
ESH: No. Night time, other than someone standing and throwing grit at your aeroplane that was the only indication you would have had that there were some shells very close by, but you see what the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve. Although you might feel the effect of it, especially if you’d another aircraft in front of you you’d be perhaps very difficult as a pilot to maintain your position because you’re right in his slipstream. And there’s a slipstream of four engines just in front of you. I mean there were so many aircraft in the sky that it’s a wonder and in fact we lost a lot of aircraft because of collision. Indeed we did if the truth is known. No, there’s a bit of variation. We also had some trips with mine laying. Now, what happens? Mine laying. Well we had a chap from the navy came up and showed us exactly what’s going to happen because these things are quite weighty. I think they weighed about a matter of hundred weights and I think the maximum we could carry would be two. But there would be a whole squadron perhaps, or a lot of aircraft from other stations, all on the same business, and so off we went out across the North Sea and in to the Baltic. We had to pass over an island called Bornholm. Now, how far it is into the Baltic I don’t know, not very far perhaps because we were after this shipping route between Swedish oil coming down to feed the German factories. But I do remember dear old Bornholm put up some ack-ack you know [laughs] as though they could catch us with it. One little gun you know. It was a bit of humour in a not too humorous event. But that made a change from flying over the Ruhr because actually the first time I saw the Ruhr at night, well you’d never believe it. We came into the south of Ruhr and there was a bank of searchlights for the next fifty miles. Up and curving around. And, you know, when the chaps had said you’ve got to avoid searchlights I can understand because once you get pinned or —
[Mobile ring tone. Recording paused]
CB: So we’re talking about in the Ruhr and the way they would have, the place was defended.
ESH: Yes. Right.
CB: And how they were able, in the dark to track where people were going.
ESH: Well if I describe the scene.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: The first time you saw these early night trips that we did it took a bit of getting used to. And the first time I saw searchlights. Now, if you can imagine Kiel up in North Germany. Right around and come down through the rest of the Ruhr down to [pause] what town would be the south of the Ruhr?
CB: Stuttgart. Stuttgart.
ESH: Stuttgart. And Nuremberg. That is something like fifty miles isn’t it? Or more.
CB: More.
ESH: A solid ring of thousands of searchlights, it was like day. And it curved actually from the north right down. Facing England to the south. Stuttgart. Nuremberg. And even further south than that I think. A solid — banks of hundreds. And if, if you got near one they had one particular, in groups, they had one particular searchlight which was extra powerful and it used to show up blue, and, well we did get coned on one occasion. We were lucky because very often you couldn’t get out of it. There were so many and they could sort of follow your track and there was this master searchlight and everybody else was following. And what we did, we managed to get out by just diving and weaving. And I suppose we lost a few hundred feet and you had to make that up because you had a flight plan. You know, you didn’t depart from that flight plan. You just didn’t go off on your own doing your own thing. That was certain, certain tragedy that would be because you had whole squadrons of night fighters still and they were still able to fly. Although, they couldn’t do the training because they hadn’t got the petrol, so the petrol bombardment was beginning to show. I mean we’re talking now about mid-’45 aren’t we, you see? Sorry —
CB: ’44.
ESH: ’44. From ’44 to the end of ’44 it was gradually having an effect on German oil production, synthetic oil. And of course being as they were small patches they were very difficult to find. I mean, you might have one oil refinery and its ten miles from the nearest town. Now, you’ve got to be very accurate to get anything delivered to that site and — if you could get there, you know. But of course the German fighter production was going down so fast that I think we had a charmed existence from nineteen — from June ‘45 really to, or September ’45 to the end of [pause] ’44 to the end of ’44. I mean we were very busy D-Day time for the next three months, and then it sort of slackened off because you were limited to what you could do in the way of army cooperation. In fact the army didn’t want the Air Force to take full credit for having liberated Germany. So [pause] but raids were still being, operations were still being carried out by the squadron right through to mid-‘45. Or ‘til D-Day.
CB: You talked about the intensity of searchlights. What effect did that have on the air bomber’s ability to identify the target?
ESH: Well, searchlights. Yes. But you had visual and of course later in — from D-Day onwards the squadrons were equipped with H2S which was radar with the ability to show up features on the ground. To be able to distinguish between water and land. Now, if an oil refinery was situated just off a river that aiming point would certainly be able to be calculated and it left an aiming point for a whole squadron of aircraft marked by Pathfinders. You didn’t go on your own. It was, at that time, after D-Day, everything was Pathfinders and they would blaze the trail and you’d have a Master Bomber and he would come through your RT. I remember one occasion when the Main Force was given a name so it would come out rather like this. ‘Widow 1, Widow 1 to Main Force. Bomb the red TIs.’ And then a minute later, ‘Widow 1 to Main Force. Bomb the yellow TIs.’ Because of bomb creep.
CB: TI being target indicator.
ESH: Target indicator. Yes. So you had a whole spectrum of colours. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. And they could be changed rapidly by RT from the master bomber to the main force so that he kept, you kept pace with bomb creep and you became more effective with that. In fact very effective in the end. I mean such people as Wing Commander Cheshire as he was then would be up the front there giving the, giving that RT direction.
CB: Would you like to just explain what is bomb creep? Bomb creep. What is it?
ESH: Bomb creep. Yes. What happens is that [pause] it creeps back rather than on to the target. How it happens — I suppose if you’ve got a conflagration then bombardiers could think that that was where you should be aiming. So a lot of aircraft, I mean, don’t forget there are five hundred aircraft on this job so that some of them would think that was the target. But, so the Master Bomber had to keep reminding people that it was creeping back and it shouldn’t do. He’s got to go on to his new target indicators. And he changed the colour of course. So you knew what to look for. Otherwise your bomb load was nullified.
CB: Ok.
ESH: Go on to [pause]
CB: Yeah go on. So we’ll stop there for a mo.
ESH: Yeah then —
[recording paused]
ESH: I said Cora’s mum and dad yes.
CB: Yes. On a slightly lighter note clearly as a crew you had your, and personally you had your social side. So what did the crew do, and what did you do individually?
ESH: Well, that’s what I did individually and didn’t take any part in any social activities with the crew.
CB: Right. So what did you do?
ESH: I didn’t go drinking, you see.
CB: No. So what did you do?
ESH: I spent most of my time in York.
CB: Right. And what did you find there?
ESH: This family.
CB: Right.
ESH: And I was made like a son.
CB: Were you?
ESH: So I didn’t — we all went as a family to the theatre one evening and we saw the famous lady who had just started acting. She was in, “Last of the Summer Wine.” Very famous. You chaps have got memories haven’t you?
CB: We’ll latch on to her later. So, but but the family —
ESH: I’d better jot her name down while I think of it.
CB: Ok. Yeah. So you —
ESH: Thora Hird.
CB: Yeah. So the family was in York. What did the father do?
ESH: He was invalided. He couldn’t do anything because of the start of silicosis.
CB: Right, but what was his trade?
ESH: That was — he was in charge. He had his own firm of plasterers.
CB: Right.
ESH: So I’ll go on to that. I’ll just make a quick note, Thora Hird.
CB: And they had a son and a daughter.
ESH: Yeah. Yeah. Famous restaurant in the middle of York. Still there.
CB: But you’d go to that as well would you?
ESH: Yeah. I’ve got it. Yes.
CB: Go on.
ESH: Ok.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: Live?
CB: Yes.
ESH: We were talking about the social life on the squadron. Well, as I say I think I was eighteen when I, nineteen when I arrived there, and went out into York and I met this delightful young lady called Cora. And she said, ‘Well, if I’m going out with you my people want to see you.’ So I went along and they became my mum and dad for that time. And her dad was a, had a plastering firm but he was suffering then from, I think, the start of silicosis and he couldn’t work but nevertheless they went out of their way to look after me, and of course the extra attraction was of course la belle Cora. And at that time there was a show going in York and who should be a young actress was Thora Hird. But I don’t think she remembers that herself now, bless her. She’s passed on hasn’t she? But Mr Parker’s claim to fame as a plasterer was the ceilings, for instance, in Betty’s Bar. Now Betty’s Bar is very well known in York and it’s still there. And if you go down into the basement you will find a mirror which is now cut up into three parts. And pretty well every famous flyer has got his signature on the glass having done with a diamond ring. And they’re all there. I think you’ll find Group Captain Cheshire left his mark there. And quite a lot of others passed through but they’re all on this mirror. So that’s down in the basement of Betty’s Bar. It’s worth going down to see. There’s history galore down there. So they looked after me like a mother and father, not withstanding the fact they had a son in the Middle East. With the 8th Army I think it was. But of course being really a dangerous occupation I had no business stringing this girl along. I mean I was her first boyfriend and you know the effect that has on young ladies. So, the crew were very good. They didn’t question me as to where I was spending all this time you see. Which brings us to —
CB: How you broke it off.
ESH: How we —?
CB: Broke it off.
ESH: Oh yes. I mean, we used to have, our famous perambulation was around the wall of York. And, you know it took quite a time so, and broke her heart I’m sure, but it had to finish. It would had been too traumatic otherwise. And we were then left to finish our tour which, there again was mainly oil installations. But come September of ’44 the CO called us all into the briefing room and said, ‘Now we’re all going to France tomorrow. We are bringing petrol to the army.’ The army was fighting at Eindhoven and so they said, ‘You are going to be loaded up with petrol,’ which they did. Each aircraft. Two hundred and fifty, five gallon cans stacked along the fuselage and tied in so they didn’t bounce around. Off we went to a German field which they’d laid out what’s called Sommerfield tracking to stop an aircraft or aircraft and vehicles bogging down in a puddle. So that was rather jolly. I mean there we were — flew a hundred feet all the way. And really that’s one of the nicest things to do, you know. Flying low level where we’d see haystacks with pigs on top because Jerry had pulled the plug on the dyke. Very naughty of course but you know it really devastated thousands of acres. And we had to fly over that into Brussels. Well into an area of Brussels called Melsbroek which was just a grass field. And it was very enjoyable. We landed there and fresh air and went to the village and do you know what? There were grapes growing on the trees. Oh grapes. Well, I mean who wants to leave there? Anyway, this so happens, you know that we tried to get off the next day, I’m sure it was the next day. So soon you could be accused of organising this. But we oiled up the plugs trying to get out of a big puddle and there’s no way you’re going to get out of it because what the wheels do and they’re big, they just churn a great gap, pit in the soil. So therefore that was, we were stuck there until you get a fitter out with a set of plugs to put it right, and I think all four engines were oiled up. Anyway, that meant that we had three days in Brussels. So what did we do? The first day we piled into a local tram and went into Brussels where we stayed at the Gare de Nord Hotel. And I was the only one who had any money [laughs] you know, because they said now any money you’ve got to change it. You’ve got to, sorry we had to change it for the currency that was wartime currency. And so of course our money was soon gone staying at hotels. And we went in to one, oh yes we, I must tell you a little story here. We went in to one hotel and up to the second floor and it was a night club with an amphitheatre and a stage and events, you know. Acts taking place. But on the way up the staircase in a corner there were two six foot six American sergeants and they had a lovely carton of cigarettes, a big carton. And they were presumably flogging them off. I mean if they could get another carton like that they’d make a fortune because there were no cigarettes in Europe. In fact, people would give you their gold watch for a packet of cigarettes but that — now our rear gunner being a sort of international type said, ‘No,’ we must find, he’d come from Canada on, he was trained for something else in Canada because he talked about Montreal. And he said, ‘We must see an exhibition.’ And actually it wasn’t what I fancied but anyway we didn’t get that far because there was no exhibition. So we met this old boy in the road and Ron says, ‘Exhibition?’ So, he didn’t speak French perfectly. The chap was quite happy. This old boy. ‘Come with me. Come with me.’ And off we went with this chap down the main thoroughfare and down some back entrances, back places, back roads, alleyways to a pub. And this pub was run by this aged lady who sat at the high stool and dished up what went, passed as beer. And there were us. We were all sitting around on stool, a continuous stool like in a queue. And I mean, you know, it was alright. A bit of light fare. And the skipper was there of course and he hadn’t taken his hat off that time. And in comes all th ese girls in bathing costumes. I mean, to eighteen year olds you know this is seventh heaven isn’t it? What’s next then? And they were sitting on our knees and some of them very shapely. And the skipper suddenly caught on, he said ‘Right. Here’s the gun. Out you lot.’ And we had to leave because it was a brothel wasn’t it? And he wasn’t, he wasn’t having his crew sullied by such goings on. So, that was, that was Brussels for me.
CB: So you got two black eyes and you couldn’t hear anything either.
ESH: [laughs] So. No. We had to make apologies to these young ladies and disappear. We would have liked to pass on perhaps a bar of chocolate.
CB: Of course.
ESH: But we didn’t go prepared. But it’s a pity. But Ron did — he went to a private family that night. I don’t know what the attraction was but anyway he did — no. Johnny Morris this is, ex schoolteacher. He obviously thought about it because he brought a bag of coffee back next time and made arrangements for it to be delivered to a particular curie. A priest at the local church who he had met somehow. But that’s the best we could do really. Normally you went in with your two hundred and fifty gallons. The army came up with a truck, unloaded [pause] and there we went off again. The next day with another load. So we were really kept busy bringing in something like two thousand gallons at a time for the army to use up at Eindhoven. Because they were six hundred miles from the port at that stage and just couldn’t keep going, you know. I thought I saw somebody moving out there but maybe I’m wrong.
CB: So did you carry, did you then later deliver any other kind of goods or was it only petrol?
ESH: Only petrol. But I believe later. Very soon. Our squadrons were engaged on dropping supplies to Amsterdam and it made a great impression on our Dutch friends.
CB: That was food. Operation Manna.
ESH: Yes.
CB: Yes.
ESH: We weren’t engaged on that but rather carried on with the last few trips into Europe.
CB: So when you come to the end of your tour what happened then to the crew?
ESH: Ah yes. Well, do you know on the aerodrome was an experimental department run by a squadron leader. And they, one of the problems with the Halifax was coring of the oil in the oil tank. Super cooling. And it was called coring. And every effort was being made, well funny enough in my tour I never came, never had the problem. I dare say we never flew in an icing. What you call an icing.
CB: Weather condition.
ESH: Yeah. You get icing conditions at certain heights and if you stayed in it it was very bad for the oil coolers but we managed to keep out of that. But a lot of experimental work was being done because a lot of the aircraft did — was affected. And so they, we worked for the experimental department there which was set up at Pocklington. Going on cross country’s with modified aircraft that in effect would fly through anything up to Scotland and back in the hope that we would be able to pinpoint the procedures to cure it. But unfortunately we had an aircraft, an aircraft engine go over speed for some reason so that rather folded up at that time.
CB: Which kind of engine was that?
ESH: Well, Halifax — a Bristol Hercules 100. That was the latest. But coring was a very difficult thing. So of course what was happening was that everyone was now asking us to be re-mustered. There was nothing for us to do except hang around. So —
CB: Was there an option of going on another tour?
ESH: Oh yes, that was always an option, yes indeed. But — and a lot of the chaps did but I think I was more anxious to go back to civilian life. But I was ‘Duration of Present Emergency.’ Or I was D of P E.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: And of course they were not giving out any commissions at that time. So there wouldn’t have been a lot of future in staying so I applied to be re-mustered.
CB: And what happened?
ESH: And then left Pocklington.
CB: Ok.
ESH: Being posted to whatever came up in the Air Ministry I suppose. And off we went then re-mustering at a famous station for the army in north Cornwall — north [pause] Catterick. Now, there was a little RAF station for re-mustering at Catterick in an ex-mine working. Anyway, my number came up eventually but in the meantime we were sent on indefinite leave. Now, I didn’t want to have to pay to go to the skipper’s wedding because train fare was quite expensive. But I gave his address on my 48. My seven day pass as it were. Or indefinite leave. The consequence of that will be explained a bit later.
CB: Right.
ESH: But from there I got a letter a little later being posted to the Isle of Man as an airfield controller. But it just so happened that my papers actually never got to my home. They got to the skipper’s address. Now, you can have a bit of a laugh if you’ve been in the service because this was six weeks later, or rather that was alright but it was the last seven days. I was absent without leave. But I turned up. I was on my way to the Isle of Man. Well, I got to the Isle of Man alright. Yes. And having got to the Isle of Man you got off at Douglas and, you know, looked at the local restaurant. Two eggs, steak and chips, that’s marvellous. Have some of that. So immediately dived in and had a good nosh as we used to say. And then you got a little local narrow gauge train up to the Isle of Man up to the north. Because I was going to be stationed at a little place called Jurby which was a good hopping off point for anybody going to or coming from Reykjavic. Which, I would then put three searchlights up to guide them in. But it was more disastrous from my point of view because what could the CO do? He has a chap seven days adrift. The first — I went to the guardroom and he said, ‘We’ve been looking for you. You’re seven days adrift.’ So, go up before the CO. Very nice chap. By the way first of all you have to be vetted by the station WO and he actually said, ‘Do you know I’m awfully sorry to have to do this but you’re up before the CO tomorrow.’ So, you march in, in the usual way with the, you know, left right left right left. Turn right. ‘So young man. What do you want to do? A court martial or do you want my punishment?’ ‘Well your punishment sir. Thank you.’ ‘Right. Seven days loss of pay.’ And do you know what? You can imagine the scene can’t you? Pay parade. And you announce yourself before the cashier’s table, ‘1869854 Horsham. Sir.’ And he would say, ‘Three and sixpence.’ This went on for weeks at three and six pence a week it takes quite a time to get to four pounds forty. Seven days pay you see. You can clue that if you like but its [pause] but indeed I think because we had a chap at High Wycombe and he was called Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris and of course they did think twice before they shoved the book at one of Bomber Harris’s boys. And I think I was saved by that because it’s a heinous crime in the air force to be AWOL anywhere. Anyway, we carry on from there because I enjoyed the time on the Isle of Man. Being in charge of the airfield. Not a lot went on but we did [pause] we were a home for stray aircraft and of course the station was very busy training the rest of The Empire Air Scheme for training navigators. And we would use, or they would use Ansons. So of course we had a squadron of Ansons to fulfil the contract. And of course my job, one of the jobs, mine and my crew — I had a crew by then of Scots lads that were setting up a parking area with glim lamps every day, because they were doing night flying, and these glim lights were fuelled by accumulators and shone a red light. And you had to put them in a certain order because then the aircraft on the way back knew where they were to park. And they used to get it in the neck if they ran over a glim lamp. Other than that when we wasn’t flying we were all in flying control and we used to do a shift where we had two and a half days off. They still do that in the police force apparently, here. Afternoon, next morning or night, off the next day and the next day and the following morning. So that enabled you to go and see the local sights. Peel Castle on the Isle of Man. And of course we did get busy aircraft and they would come in some awful times from Reykjavik and sometimes I was, what did they call it? Duty officer? Duty. Yeah. Duty officer. And I had to find them accommodation so I had to lay the law down. Pull rank on whoever was in charge of the blanket store so that these chaps had a night’s sleep and could get, we would — the cookhouse would provide a supper for them. That broke up your time. So, in effect, eventually they sent us back to the mainland. To top — I was stationed at Topcliffe which was an ex-Canadian station and underneath every table and ever chair was chewing gum [laughs] That’s how I remember the Canadians. But there was no flying going on which was a shame because we [pause] I was only thinking these chaps had applied for discharge and therefore I was in charge of an airfield with no aircraft. We kept the grass nice and tidy. But as I say we could go into, no, we couldn’t go in to Topcliffe for two eggs, steak and chips. It was unheard of. But what you could do is you could go to a local village called Topwith . Now, there are two brewers in Tadcaster. One is Sam Smith and one is John Smith. Now, you’ll know John Smith because his beer is everywhere but what we ought to have down here is Sam Smith’s which was thick and black. And it was as black as your coat. Black as night and it was the next best thing today to Mackesons. But you could get quite squeamish, not squeamish — quite drunk on it. So then you met up with a lot of other interesting aircrew and you absorbed their experiences, and then gradually, one by one, they disappeared. As I did one day. On the 2nd of January 1947, in the bleak midwinter. It was very bleak down south anyway and there had been a lot of snow around. One interesting side now, talking about cold. We were very cold in Pocklington so we could burn, burn bicycle tyres in the hut. But old Jim said, ‘Do you know what,’ Jim Finney that was then [pause] now wait a minute I’m wrong. Jim has already had that shrapnel in his leg. But anyway, there was another member in the crew. It must have been Alan Shepherd, the wireless op. He said, ‘I know. There’s a bottle of petrol over there.’ And somewhere someone had left a bottle of petrol. And it was a hundred octane. So he said, ‘Stick it in the stove to get it nice and warm.’ And it did. It blew the whole thing apart [laughs] Which wasn’t very clever was it? Anyway, we’ve left. We’re at Topcliffe aren’t we? And then, sooner or later, ok the 7th of January or thereabouts I found myself out on my ear having been discharged at, somewhere near Preston. And we asked for a taxi and do you know that’s the only time in my life so far that I ever have driven in a Rolls Royce. There was a very famous place near Preston. If it wasn’t Preston it was Southport where there was a big demob place. Anyway, that’s where we ended up, in a taxi going to Preston Station. And home on indefinite leave still. Well, no a fortnight wasn’t it then? Fourteen days and that was it finished. Now, the thing is then going back to the old firm. Now, I found myself in the railway estate office before long but they didn’t really want me I don’t think. They said, ‘You can go up to Victoria Station and go to the archives.’ Temporarily. So that was a fill-in job. Going back through papers going back to 1900 where people had to pay for a sort of fly privilege to bring a pony and trap on to the station property and they had to enter into an agreement. Time goes by awfully quickly doesn’t it when you’re demobbed? So I stuck with the estates office for [pause] until 1957. And I didn’t seem to be going anywhere much so I went out into the big bad commercial world. And went to a builder’s merchants called Roberts Adlard who were quite famous in the southern counties. Their headquarters were Southampton. I had this friend of mine who was a rep and that’s how I got there. But, and mind you I’d left London so it was a big change to go to work in Rochester Cathedral, Rochester, the ancient town on the Medway. Rochester Cathedral. Yes. And this builder’s merchants wasn’t going anywhere so Horsham said to himself, ‘Look. Hadn’t you better find a job with a pension?’ So I had experience in the estate office which was very similar to the housing department of Rochester City Council. And applied and got the job as a rent collector of all things. Going around collecting. They had five thousand houses all broken up in to thirty different schemes or so. So that enabled a transition from that to a more permanent sphere. And of course the only way you can get up the scale in local government is either by passing a lot of examinations or becoming a professional man, like, I don’t know, an accountant which is a good solid five years work. But no there we were at Rochester with several other ex-service people especially from the navy, being next to Chatham. And so we said, you know, ‘What about a rise?’ They said, ‘Oh no. No. No. We can’t give you that but if you take a certain examination there will be money in it for you.’ So the one I took was the simple one. It was the clerical division of local government. That is talking about local and central government. Writing an essay etcetera. And after six months we took the exam and we all passed. So we thought go and see the governor again now. A different kind of governor. And for passing the examination I think — I was paid five ninety in those days. So he said, ‘Yes. Well, you can go up to five ninety five.’ A five pound a year increase. So we’ve got to do better than this. So you had lists of jobs you see, circulated. And the next port of call was Maidstone Borough Council as a senior rentable assistant in charge of five rent collectors and proving the books every weekend. Now Rochester City was a purely written system. Now I got to Maidstone and it was all done by a machine called a Powers - Samas punch card accounting. And a dreadful business because my collectors used to go out with a run off. The rent for various properties. And they would put X Y Z here and they wouldn’t put anything on their sheet. So, immediately you were what –? Two pound fifty out. I used to be there at half past nine, 10 o’clock at night on a Friday balancing the books because you had, in effect, over thirty different schemes so you had to sit down and balance these schemes to find out where the error was. Which was good training wasn’t it?
CB: Amazing. Yes.
ESH: I remember the deputy who we worked under. You never saw the treasurer. He was the high and mighty. The holy of holies. But I saw the treasurer on one occasion. He said, ‘Horsham,’ he said, ‘How is it that you spent all this overtime?’ Four hours on a Friday night, you know. I said, ‘Well you know. The chaps put one thing on the sheet and then put another in the book.’ He said, ‘Horsham you really should consider the propriety of asking for overtime.’ It’s not much of a thing to a chap who’s just put four hours extra sweating his guts out. Anyway, that’s another aside isn’t it? Next thing is of course to get promotion isn’t it? And where did I go from there? Yes. I applied for a job in the County Council’s office, in the planning department. Which is where I ended up in 1978. Yeah. 1978. And then took a sort of early retirement.
CB: How old? How old were you when you took early retirement?
ESH: In ‘78. I was born in 1923.
CB: Oh right.
ESH: ’23.
CB: Fifty five.
ESH: Just short of sixty. Oh there’s a bit more to come isn’t there?
CB: Go on then.
ESH: Yeah. Well then [pause] I go back, to retrack a little bit. Going back to my days at Maidstone Borough. Wasn’t getting much anywhere and a friend of mine, who lived adjacent to us said, ‘Why don’t you come into the poultry business with me?’ He said, ‘We could then step the production.’ Because he was, he was managing single handed two thousand layers. So we promptly put some new housing up and I put all my wealth into it and we ended up with eight thousand head of poultry. Not quite as big as JB Eastwood who came along and said, ‘Look you chaps. I don’t care, I’ve got millions of birds. And I don’t care if I only get a farthing a head. I shall still make a profit.’ Which was quite true but it was disastrous for us because we couldn’t compete with that although we did very well. I mean we had a neighbour a few miles away and he was able to keep five thousand which was less than we had. And he could work in the mornings and take all the afternoons off and play golf. That’s what he did. We thought that’s a good idea. But we were saddled with our eight thousand and with fowl pest in the offing if we didn’t look after it then we’d be sunk. Nobody else was going to look after it. So you put in a fairly, a fairly full day. Eight till five minimum. But it was very good experience because it sort of taught me that come what may I could always get a job because you’ve got some skills. Especially you’d be very valuable to a poultry farmer if you could go in and say, ‘I can go in and look after ten thousand.’ He’d say, ‘Well, you know, I’m like Mr JB Eastwood. I’ve got millions.’ But nevertheless it was the same principal. So we didn’t make a fortune but we didn’t lose our shirt. I say we being collective. And then what did I do next? Well, I went back to the old firm didn’t I? Back to local government. Into the planning department this time, of the County Council. And my draughtsmanship experience came in very handy because we dealt with maps all day long. And so in 1974 I got the most marvellous job because the ministries were all on to local governments and County Councils to find out how many, what land have you got. You don’t even know what you’ve got to build houses on. And he said, ‘Well Horsham. The job’s yours. And we will depict it on a twenty five hundred scale ordnance survey sheets,’ which was a bit better than what you get on your deeds, you know. You could even show a rainwater pipe on a twenty five hundred scale. And Kent had forty seven, forty eight District Councils which I had to visit one after the other because if you didn’t carry the local authority with you you’d be sunk. They hated County Council. And they hated them because they put extra on their rates didn’t they? So that was a very enjoyable job. So thirty nine, forty, forty one, forty two [pause] No. What do I say? 1974 — 5 — 6 — 7 - 8. It took four years to do but at the end of the time we could show in the planning department that we had fifty two thousand units of accommodation each housing three people. That was your capacity then but of course a lot of it was land that you wouldn’t want to release straight away. I mean there was something like fifteen, twenty acres at Folkestone on the golf course. I know because I lived looking over these lovely green fields but you couldn’t release it all at once but that was my job.
CB: And you enjoyed it.
ESH: I enjoyed that. I never — it’s a time when I was glad to go to work because it was so, it was my job and it was interesting and I had to fulfil this promise made to the governor that it would be finished in a certain time, you know. And then we, we retired officially.
CB: When?
ESH: In 1978. 1978. Yes. Yes and went off to live in Cornwall for seven years. Froze the pension which was the thing to do. So I froze mine for another eight years so I had to go and get a job to keep the wolf from the door.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: Which I did. In Cornwall.
CB: Doing what?
ESH: Well, I saw an advert in the paper to the effect that, “Handyman wanted,” and they gave the telephone number and it turned to be at what was the Ritz Cinema which is now a bingo hall. And the idea was that I was going to look after all the maintenance. Well, it was rather nice to do something different if you’ve done the other jobs for forty years, you know. So I did that for two or three years. The firm was called Mecca. You’ll know Mecca. They’ve got them everywhere of course. All your Ritz cinemas now have gone to bingo halls. I had to do many things. Change all the lights and there was a lot of lighting. Also you had an emergency system on what was it? Ten volt accumulators which you had to cut in if your mains failed you had your own generator as well. So you had that system and you had emergency lighting if all else failed. So I enjoyed that job really.
CB: ‘Til when?
ESH: About three years later. Right up until about 1981. In that time my and a crew of two or three lads we painted the whole of the inside of the cinema including the ceiling. Which pleased the powers that be because they said, ‘Well done Horsham. We will send you to Tenerife for a fortnight for you to recover,’ [laughs] So that was something that came out of the blue. Yes. You see every year they have competitions and whoever wins the competition probably wins a place to summer holiday. And this time it was Tenerife. So there were about a hundred of us went off to Tenerife. All found, you know. Very nice indeed. Now, you wouldn’t get bonuses like that in local government of course. Since then I haven’t done much of anything have I?
CB: Throughout this time you were —
ESH: Hmmn?
CB: Throughout this time you were supported by this lovely lady. Ellen.
ESH: Yes.
CB: Where did you meet her?
ESH: I met her the first day I went to work for the railway. She was going on the same train. There is a station south of London called New Cross. So that people from further down went up to New Cross on the train and then down to where the estate office was evacuated. It was at Chislehurst. Now there was a big house at Chislehurst called [Sidcup?]. And it was on an elevated position and there’s the railway coming up and there’s the tunnel. Elmstead Woods Tunnel. So that’s, I met her in the train and she was busy there with her needles and you know sticking her little fingers stuck up like that click click click. And so that’s how it started. Her and her friend actually. Her friend was called Winnie Glover and I suppose she thought, ‘Well, she’s done alright for herself,’ [laughs] And that’s, we’ve been going ever since.
CB: When did you marry?
ESH: 25th of May 1946.
CB: And how many children have you had?
ESH: Two girls.
CB: So one’s called Gillian.
ESH: One’s Gillian. Yes.
CB: Yeah.
ESH: And she trained and became a teacher and married a headmaster. And then she went, they went off to Hong Kong and taught for seven years. And now she lives in an old mill on the Vienne River just outside Chauvigny. Whereas Alison trained as a nurse here and she trained in Weymouth and Dorchester and then went on to the hospital at Warminster. Hence the reason that we’ve came somewhere near her in old age.
CB: And she married a —
ESH: She married a —
CB: A doctor?
ESH: A sergeant in the MOD police. A young sergeant who is now or rather shocking really some year ago he went in one Monday morning and they said, and he has twenty five years’ experience as a policeman and by that time as I say, he was a sergeant. No. She didn’t marry a sergeant then but he became a sergeant. And they said, ‘We don’t want you anymore.’ Made him redundant, just like that. So, but funnily enough he still works as an instructor for the police. Driver. He trains their drivers and that’s what he’s doing today. Alison’s just finishing up her last eighteen months as a nurse.
CB: Well I think many many thanks, Eric.
ESH: Pardon?
CB: Many thanks, Eric for two and a half hours of interview. And absolutely fascinating.
ESH: Well it’s one man’s experience isn’t it?
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Eric Horsham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASymondsHorshamE170105, PHorshamES1602
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
02:07:40 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Eric Horsham was born in East London in 1923. Leaving school at 14 he was a messenger at the Royal Ordnance Factory before working for the railways. In 1937 he joined the Air Training Corps and learned about aircraft maintenance. On his first attempt to join the Royal Air Force he failed the medical but a year later was accepted for flight engineer training.
Eric describes his basic training in London and Torbay then recollects his technical training at RAF St. Athan. He then went to 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Marston Moor and joined his Halifax crew. In 1944 they were posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington where there were told that they wouldn't last three weeks.
Eric and his crew carried out a vast range of strategic bombings including daylight operations on V-1 sites, night operations on The Ruhr and Essen, night and daylight operations to oil targets, minelaying in the Baltic. They also provided tactical support in support of Allied troops near Caen and in the Ardennes, where they were badly damaged by a fighter and the mid-upper gunner received serious injuries. After landing at RAF Woodbridge in fog using FIDO he was hospitalised and did not fly again. The crew also supplied petrol to troops in Belgium, enjoying the low-level flying on these trips
Eric describes the sound of shrapnel hitting the aircraft, recalls a bomber exploding in flight, but dismisses the Scarecrow theory. He describes the use of Schräge Musik against the bombers; how search lights in the Ruhr operated, the use of H2S and how the master bomber controlled the rest of the formation.
At the end of his tour Eric remustered and was posted at RAF Jurby as airfield controller. From there he went to RAF Topcliffe and was demobbed in January 1947. Eric went back to the railways for ten years before working in local government. He retired in 1978, moving to Cornwall. While at RAF Pocklington he dated Cora noting that her parents made feel like a son. But he then ended the relationship because, with his own life in such jeopardy, he thought it was unfair on her. After the war he married Ellen, who he had met when starting his first job with the railways.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Andy Fitter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Bedfordshire
England--Devon
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man
Wales
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
France
France--Ardennes
France--Caen
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Nieppe Forest
Germany
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Denmark
Denmark--Bornholm
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1923
1937
1939
1940
1944-01
1944-02
1944-07-25
1944-09
1945
1946-05-25
1947-01-02
1957
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1981
102 Squadron
1652 HCU
Absent Without Leave
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
FIDO
flight engineer
forced landing
H2S
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
love and romance
Master Bomber
military living conditions
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
pilot
radar
RAF Pocklington
RAF St Athan
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Woodbridge
recruitment
runway
searchlight
tactical support for Normandy troops
target indicator
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/900/11140/PJarmyJFD1703.1.jpg
d79a334eec7e8edd1dfa7ded9dc46172
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/900/11140/AJarmyJFD170726.2.mp3
f54aa76abd3793861cf39e00fcebb13f
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
Jarmy, Jack
Jack Francis David Jarmy
J F D Jarmy
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. And oral history interview with Jack Francis David Jarmy DFC (b. 1922, 134695 Royal Air Force) his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 75 and 218 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jack Jarmy 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
2015-09-21
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
Jarmy, JFD
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GT: Ok. This is Glen Turner from 75 Squadron Association as Secretary and a certified IBCC interviewer interviewing Mr Jack Jarmy and this is for the Digital Archives to be based at Lincoln. And Jack is with me and good evening, Jack.
JJ: Good evening.
GT: Evening. So, I’m going to ask Jack some questions on the history of Jack’s life with Bomber Command in the middle and Jack can we start please by you describing your title and your service number please?
JJ: Say again, sorry?
GT: Your service number and your title.
JJ: Service number.
GT: And your trade.
JJ: Airman’s number 1337329 and officer’s number 134695.
GT: And your trade was RAF navigator.
JJ: My trade was, originally was pilot. U/T pilot.
GT: Great. Jack, can you begin with us please by stating your date of birth, where you were born and your, your years growing up?
JJ: I was, date of birth was 26th of April ’22 in Romford, Essex and I, from the age of twelve I lived with my grandparents. No. From the age of five I lived with my grandparents because my father had died when I was five. Do I go on then to joining the RAF?
GT: Yes.
JJ: I was very keen to join the RAF and I thought initially as a wireless operator but then at the age of eighteen, the very day I was eighteen I was living outside of Portsmouth, I got on my bicycle without telling my grandparents, cycled down to Portsmouth and volunteered for training as a pilot. And I was accepted on the spot actually but I wasn’t officially called up for about another eight months or so.
GT: In, in —
JJ: 1941 that would be.
GT: Jack, how well did you do at school then before that?
JJ: I did very well actually. My last examination at Ilfracombe Grammar School I was first in every subject except one and when we were having to leave my grandparents had to move away to make some money somewhere as their capital was running out the headmaster told me that I was an absolute cert. There were two university places at Cambridge in those days and he said, ‘If you could have stayed here you’d have, without a doubt you would have got one of them.’ But I didn’t know at the time until we got to Portsmouth that I was having to leave school and help in the family shop. So that was a bit of shock needless to say.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: And I did that for three years until I was eighteen and on the very day I was eighteen as I say I went down and joined the RAF and they accepted me when they saw my Grammar School report.
GT: So, all your subjects were fabulous except one.
JJ: I was first in every subject except one.
GT: And what was that?
JJ: I think that was Religious History [laughs]
GT: Fabulous. So, once you’d gone to sign up and they’d accepted you —
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Please continue that story on how long you waited and where you joined up from there.
JJ: Yeah. I waited about, I think seven or eight months before I was called up for attestation in London and then I was in the RAF. So we went to [pause] I’ve got it here. Sorry. I have it here and I can’t bloody well read it. [pause] Terrible this. I’m on the wrong page. Sorry. Oh. [pause] Here we are. 9 Initial Training Wing at Stratford on Avon, is it? Stratford on Avon. I can’t see the dates. If you want to have a look here.
GT: No. That’s alright Jack. So, you were then —
JJ: Initial Training Wing for pilot training. About six weeks and then we went, I went to EFTS at Swindon, Cliffe Pypard where I soloed fairly quickly. And I had done about twenty hours when we were informed that the system was training. They were introducing grading school for everybody but the training would be done overseas. Either in the states, Canada or, or was Africa —?
GT: Rhodesia?
JJ: Rhodesia. That’s right. So, I went across to Canada and we got on the train for three days down to Florida. And I, the first thing they told us that the scheme we were under twenty, a good twenty percent would be washed out at Primary School, another twenty percent at basic and a further twenty percent the final school because that was the way they got, the American way they got all their gunners, navigators etcetera. So I passed out fine in the Stearman at sixty hours. Lots of aerobatics. A lot more than we did in the UK. You could throw the Stearman all over the skies. It was a wonderful biplane. Then I moved on in Montgomery Alabama for basic training and of course I’d only done about seven or eight hours I think and the course ahead of us did a cross country, their final cross country and they ran into a tornado and about twenty nine out of thirty three aircraft crashed. So I think morale was a bit down that morning and when I landed I had a German instructor, Lieutenant [Kloppenstein] and he just said, ‘Mr, you’ve had it.’ Bad landing. And I was fourteen days leave and then back to Canada.
GT: So, he cancelled you from flying training.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Because of one bad landing.
JJ: An American. Virtually one sortie I think, yeah. Twenty percent were being knocked out anyway around about then you see and I’m sure I was shaking. A friend of mine was [unclear] before so we got fourteen days leave and we went down to New Orleans. Hitch hiked down to New Orleans. Then we went back and up to Trenton, Ontario where you were re-selected. Whilst at Trenton I met two pilots who had been washed out at Carlstrom Field, Arcadia, Florida for not being sufficiently doing well and they went back to Canada then and they put them on a pilot’s course and they got their wings whilst I was washing dishes in the officer’s mess [laughs] Met them. Three months and they’d got their wings. That was the system. Anyway, I opted for a navigation course and did well on it and then came back to the UK on the Queen Elizabeth with about fourteen thousand aircrew. Mostly Americans. And we stayed in Harrogate for a few weeks waiting for OTU. I then went to Operational Training Unit. That’s right. Where we all met in a room. About ten of each grade. Navigators, pilots, wireless operators and they just said, ‘Have a chat around and sort yourselves out into crews,’ which we did.
GT: So, so, Jack if we could just confirm the dates on here.
JJ: Ok.
GT: So, I’m, I’m just looking at your logbooks.
JJ: You’ve got the dates there, I think.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: So as a navigator January 1943 and you were then arrived at number 11 OTU at Oakley.
JJ: Oakley. That’s right.
GT: Yeah. April 25th 1943. So please tell us how you crewed up.
JJ: We just walked around with a cup of tea and chatted to people and mostly the pilots would say, ‘Would you like to fly with me?’ And this New Zealand sergeant came up to me and said, ‘Would you like to fly with me, sir.’ Because I was a pilot officer [laughs] And he seemed a nice fellow you know and I said, ‘Yeah, fine.’ And then we walked around and found a bomb aimer and a wireless operator. You didn’t get engineers then until you got to Dishforth training on to four engine aircraft. We picked up an engineer there. So we did the, the Wellington training cross countries and circuits and bumps etcetera. And then we went to Dishforth. 1335 or something HCU. Heavy Conversion Unit to convert on to the Stirling.
GT: Ok. Now, again looking —
JJ: Did I say Dishforth? Sorry no.
GT: From your logbook Jack can I just help you for a moment there? I’ve got there —
JJ: Near Cambridge.
GT: Yeah. Now, you, you completed with the Wellingtons forty seven hours day and twenty eight night and then you moved to 1651.
JJ: That’s right. 1665.
GT: 1651 Conversion Unit at Waterbeach.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And there —
JJ: Waterbeach.
GT: That was July 1943 and you converted to what?
JJ: Converted on to the Stirling at Waterbeach and then we were posted to 75 New Zealand Squadron at Mepal.
GT: And your logbook says July 25th 1943.
JJ: Was it as late as that?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: I thought it was earlier.
GT: And then, then you became —
JJ: That was probably the first flight.
GT: You began your operations then did you not? So —
JJ: Immediately. Yeah.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: And who was the —
JJ: You just —
GT: Commanding officer at the time, Jack.
JJ: Pardon?
GT: Who was the commanding officer at the time for you?
JJ: Roy Max I’m sure. A wonderful fellow. Absolutely wonderful. I met him later on. It was the first time an officer had called me by my first name. We just walked into his office and he says, ‘Hello Jack,’ you know, ‘Pleased to meet you.’ No officer of any rank [laughs] and I’d been in for about a year had called me by my first name before. He was wonderful. We loved him. Yeah.
GT: Fabulous. And is there —
JJ: A marvellous CO you know.
GT: And you, you completed your tour of how many operations on 75?
JJ: I think it was about twenty six because we went in to, we called it Prayer Meeting about 9 o’clock every morning which was just a meeting you know. It wasn’t no prayers or anything and the CO said, ‘Flight Sergeant Mayfield —’ and there was another crew, ‘You’ve finished your tours.’ And we sort of thought, ‘You’re joking.’ And he said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘3 Group has decided you, you know you’ve done a good tour and they’d like you to, well they want you to finish your tour now.’ So we couldn’t believe it you know. We thought we’re going to live after all [laughs] which you didn’t think you were before that you know. We lost so many crews. I think we lost twenty two out of, two out of twenty two every night.
GT: 75 New Zealand squadron at the time and they were based —
JJ: Yeah.
GT: At Newmarket for you or Mepal?
JJ: No. Mepal. They’d just moved to Mepal when I joined them. Yeah.
GT: That was a brand new airfield.
JJ: A new airfield. There was mud everywhere, you know and we were in Nissen huts but that was alright.
GT: And it had a rather terrible nickname at the time.
JJ: They were known as the Chop Squadron in 3 Group. Everybody knew 75 for some reason as the Chop Squadron because they lost so many crews. But there was nothing wrong with the crews. They were absolutely first class wonderful chaps. Never flown with anyone better and we were just, somebody had to be unlucky and it seemed that we were whether we were the start of a raid or the end of the raid, wave or something we just [pause] I’m sure one night we lost three crews. One had done twenty seven, it sticks in my memory and they were almost finished their tour. One at twenty three and I think the other one was fourteen and I think at the time we’d done thirteen. We were then the senior crew on the squadron. But three best crews like that just went. A fighter or something must have got into them you know. They were close together. But they were first class crews you know. But it wasn’t very good for morale. We lost our radio operator after one trip actually. He went LMF and we had another w/op and two more trips he went LMF. They disappeared over night, you know. You didn’t see them to say, ‘Goodbye mate.’ One was Wally [Gee] I remember. He was twenty seven. We called him grandad. He was older than we were at twenty, twenty one but a nice lad but he got the shakes and he couldn’t do anything when we got back in the circuit and he was gone in the morning and the other one the same. There was quite a lot of LMF at the time. People couldn’t cope, you know.
GT: What, what was the feeling about the aircraft? The Stirling itself. Was there a doubt?
JJ: We liked it you know. We came back several times on three engines and once on two you know and the only trouble was you rarely got about fourteen thousand six hundred feet because you know they’d had this trouble. They’d locked off, had to lop off the wingtips. They couldn’t get them in the hangar before they went in to service. And it couldn’t get the height with the bomb load. You couldn’t get, rarely got to fifteen thousand. I think we got to fifteen thousand on the trip to Turin in the cold air over the Alps. But the rest of the time it was about fourteen six for bombing. Halifaxes at eighteen and Lancs at twenty, twenty one.
GT: Were all your operations at night?
JJ: Yeah. In the first tour.
GT: And did you encounter night fighters at all?
JJ: Oh, a lot, yes. We were, we had some very close deals you know with night fighters coming in but luckily the rear gunners were good. They seemed to go somewhere else you know. Sprayed. We always came back with holes, flak holes in the wings and everywhere. Holes everywhere in fact. But, and I think about three times we had to corkscrew with a gunner coming in and you’d lose about a thousand feet like this, you know. And if you were coned the Germans, had some searchlights that were on radar and if you were coned you had a devil of a job and you were a sitting target for the night fighters then. So you did a terrific, lost a thousand feet or so over ninety degrees down and then up and my stuff on the navigation table would all hit the roof. I was hanging on to the table. I would have hit the roof. But pencils and paper and everything went up and down on the floor but you were lucky. You avoided being shot down.
GT: That was your tail gunner yelling, ‘Skipper corkscrew left or right.’
JJ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did it immediately.
GT: Could you hear him? Could you brace yourself?
JJ: Oh yes. ‘Corkscrew.’ So you grabbed the desk you know and you went over and down about a thousand feet and then up again and it seemed to work every time. You evaded the fighter or the searchlights. It happened I would think on the first tour at least six times because I remember blooming charts and everything going up to the roof. Trying to hang on.
GT: Was your skipper good at that?
JJ: Very very good. He was first class. Cool as a cucumber. No bother. He was. We had the utmost trust in him. He was a very good pilot. Very good. Yeah. Alan. Wonderful. I was so sorry I couldn’t get in touch with him at the end of the war, you know. I’d have liked to have done.
GT: Several, several other chaps have told me of a story of being on the toilet can in the back when a corkscrew happened and it wasn’t very pleasant so —
JJ: No [laughs] it wouldn’t be. No. Had to make your way down to the toilet you know in pitch darkness. Climb over the spar and feel your way down. They used to say take an oxygen bottle with you. I just took two deep breaths, you know and then had a whiff down there and then came back. Usually managed to wait until after the target area to go for a wee. I couldn’t do that nowadays.
GT: Yeah. Fabulous. So —
JJ: But they had a wonderful spirit in the crew despite all these losses. In all the crews you know. The only words you ever heard at breakfast someone would say, ‘Poor old Gerald Smith and Dick Tracey bought it last night.’ And that was what we always said. ‘Bought it last night.’ And that was it. You didn’t talk any more about it. I think you couldn’t. It would have upset you you know where they’d gone. You just hoped they’d baled out but you never knew. We never had the messages back. That was just, that’s all you ever said. So and so bought it last night. Oh God. Hard luck. Then you got on with your job. You had to.
GT: What was it like flying into Newmarket because I understand —
JJ: I didn’t fly from Newmarket. Mepal.
GT: I beg your pardon. Mepal.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: You were flying out of Mepal then and you had Witchford next door.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: So did the two airfields conflict at all?
JJ: Then when we came back we did a circuit around the two airfields. So there were about forty aircraft milling around and sometimes you had to put your lights out because there would be a Jerry around you know. A fighter. And, and often VHF was so bad then, the HF was the wireless operator would get the ok to go in and land, you know on the Morse. The voice communications were terrible then in ‘43. They improved later.
GT: Because Lincoln always had their cathedral to home by. What did Mepal have that you guys could home in on?
JJ: We had a light. A flashing light, you know. What do you call it? I can’t think of the light giving the two letters of the airfield.
GT: The aldis lamp.
JJ: You had, you had Gee. Gee was just starting up. The first Gee we had the Mark 1. It was terrible, of course. It wouldn’t, you would just set it up and ten minutes later it would go off frequency. But fairly quickly after in that first tour we got Mark 2 Gee and that was a great help and that was good for getting back to base. It was wonderful. You could just home down easily. It was really good if that was working and it usually was. It was a wonderful aid that was. We got that going out as far as the Dutch Coast and then you lost it so you could get good winds as far as the Dutch Coast and then you were on dead reckoning and guessing what the winds were from what they’d been wrong. The Met winds were always thirty degrees out and ten miles an hour but they were something to start with. But you usually got a wind, a good wind by the time you touched the Dutch coast from the Gee. We took pictures back I think about every four minutes or something like that while you’d still got it. Wonderful aid.
GT: And what about the the Ely church or the spire from the Ely side of things.
JJ: I don’t think we ever saw that.
GT: You couldn’t see it.
JJ: No.
GT: No.
JJ: No. We did training on it on our next tour with GH. I’ve got a lovely photograph with the tower right bang in the middle because I was the GH leader in the second tour on 218.
GT: Right. Well, I’ve got you completing your tour —
JJ: December.
GT: Well, November 26th was your last flight with 75 New Zealand squadron out of Mepal.
JJ: ’43.
GT: In 1943.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: Yeah. And, and from there where did you move to from there because your crew was —
JJ: I went direct. Myself and my bomb aimer both went to Lancaster Finishing School which was at Feltwell as instructors and my pilot went to another airfield not far away. I can’t remember where because later on one night we cycled over there and then got caught by a policeman coming back. Funny story. Do you want to hear that?
GT: Please. I’d love to.
JJ: Right. Jock Somerville, the bomb aimer and myself got a call from Alan Mayfield one day to say he’d just been commissioned because he was just a flight sergeant when he went to, I can’t think of the name of the airfield. It was only about six miles away. And he said, ‘I’ve just been commissioned. Can you get a bicycle and come over for Sunday tea?’ So we got the out the old [Senda] bike you know and we went off on the Sunday afternoon for tea. We didn’t drink. No one was really drunk in those days you know. All the times on the first tour I never had a drink of spirits or beer or anything. I don’t think the majority of the rest of the crew did. Alan Mayfield didn’t. It was difficult. I was in the officer’s mess and the rest of the crew were in the sergeant’s you see so you couldn’t have much to do with one another other than crew room and what not. But we all got on so well together but so we went over to Chedburgh would it have been? No. Not Chedburgh. That’s where I did my second tour. I can’t think of the name. Six miles away roughly. So we went over and then he said, ‘Well, you know, stay for dinner, you know.’ So we stayed for dinner and I think we did have a couple of beers because he’d been commissioned. So we were on our way back to Feltwell and there was a light ahead of us waving so we slowed up and there was a blooming policeman in the middle of the road. So, I don’t know whether Jock or I said, ‘Go.’ And he went one side of the policeman pedalling like mad and I went the other and we went about thirty yards and there was a barrier across the road [laughs] I had to stop. So of course, the policeman came along and you know we said, ‘Well, we’ve been a year, or you know, months bombing over Germany. We’ve just had a rest now.’ And he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ll have to take your names.’ And we thought that was the end of it. We cycled on and I was lecturing about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. There was a tap on the door and there was this blooming policeman and oh, Jock had said his name was Smith and I said it was Jones [laughs] So he said, ‘Are you Mr Jack Jones.’ And I said, ‘I’m afraid so.’ He said, ‘I’m sorry but you’re going to be summoned.’ And believe it or not we were summoned to the local court for riding a bicycle without lights at 11 o’clock at night on a country road with no, no traffic or anything at all. Well, I went into Ely Hospital to have my tonsils out then. I’d had some throat trouble. Jock went along to the court and he was fined ten shillings. And then they called my name and Jock explained that I was in hospital and the judge said, ‘Fifteen shillings.’ Well, Jock was a very fiery Scotsman and he jumped up and he said, ‘You can’t do that. We were both together and you fined me ten shillings and fifteen shillings for him.’ Well, the judge said, ‘Very well, you can find, you can pay fifteen shillings as well.’ [laughs] You can’t believe it can you? In the middle of the war.
GT: Astonishing. Jeez. So —
JJ: It was quite a joke.
GT: What a joke. Jack, I’m looking through your logbook and you joined Number 3 Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: January 8, 1944 and, and pretty much you spent all year there. Is that correct?
JJ: Yeah. Ten, ten months before I was back on ops.
GT: So how many crews would you have trained or lectured or shown?
JJ: I think the crews came for a month because they did quite a bit of circuits and bumps and then they did a couple of cross countries and then went off. Crews coming mostly from the, from Cambridge you know. There.
GT: So, you’d done a full tour on Stirlings and then went to a Lancaster Finishing School.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Where did you get your Lancaster training from or didn’t it matter?
JJ: Oh, it just, well I mean the equipment was all the same. It was no bother. You just got in. We didn’t do much. Sometimes I flew on a cross country with a crew but that was just finishing. Most of it was circuits and bumps and lecturing in the, you know, ground school lecturing. The information you could give them. How to, you know, be sure and keep on track, not to stray off because they picked up the strays and other little tips you learned from navigating, you know. How important it was to keep in the main stream and not get out of it. Things like that we used to give them. Other odds and ends. There wasn’t a lot of Ground School but they did a couple of cross countries and we had to mark them of course and you know help them with any tips or anything on navigating. It was mainly after you crossed the coast you were on your own. You hardly got a fix on anything you see. You couldn’t get anything. You couldn’t anything in the Astro. I used to do a bit of Astro coming back but not on the way out to the target. Bomb aimer would look out and he would see probably fifteen miles away flak going up. Someone had gone off track and you knew that that was some town you know or other and you could get a bearing. He’d give me a bearing on that on the astrocompass. And that was a good ground speed check or something like that you see as you went out and you just used your Met knowledge mainly to think what the winds had changed to and then you always got a good fix over the target. That’s why I never got into the astrodome except once because you got a fix there and you got your, you could get a good wind for the last three or four hundred miles you see to use on the way back.
GT: So your bomb aimer helped you with a lot of the navigational help.
JJ: With the visual. If we, if it was clear he might be able to see crossing a river on the way just if the moonlight was out. He could say, ‘We’re crossing a river now.’ And that was a great help. You could look it up on the topographical map and that would be a hell of a good help and give an estimate, ‘Oh, there’s a town over — ’ And he’d take a bearing on it with the astrocompass coming up and say I would think it was about, you know just a guess ten or twelve miles away. Well, that was a great help. One of the greatest things was you knew if you got a lot of buffeting from time to time you knew you were in the main stream then, you know. There’s about six hundred other aircraft going that way. So you were delighted to get a bump, you know. You knew you weren’t far away from the from the main stream.
GT: When you were in the main stream did you have aircraft above you and therefore they were dropping their bombs? Did you have any near misses in that way?
JJ: We had a very near miss. I’m not sure if it was first tour or second on Peenemunde. The end of the tour I think. You know there was the rocket range there. It’s the first tour wasn’t it?
GT: So that was the V-1 flying Doodlebugs.
JJ: No. The V-2.
GT: It was the V-2s was it?
JJ: V-2s they were developing there. I think they’d done the V-1 already. Is Peenemunde? I think. I thought Peenemunde was on the first tour.
GT: Ok. So, so what happened there? The bombs went past you.
JJ: We flew up nearly to Sweden and then we were bombing from eight thousand feet coming in and the Stirlings were on the first wave. Have you found Peenemunde?
GT: That’s fine. You carry on telling the story and I’ll see.
JJ: It was the first time I’d managed to get into the astrodome because it was fairly quiet flying in. There wasn’t a lot of flak or anything and I looked up and saw a Lancaster just above us probably not more than sixty or seventy feet, maybe a hundred feet with bomb doors, bomb doors open and I screamed at the pilot, ‘Turn hard starboard now, now, now.’ And he immediately went up and as the wing went up the stick of bombs went down about twenty yards. Where we’d been. And they would all have gone through us. You see, the bomb aimer’s looking ahead. Doesn’t see something here. And that was a Lancaster actually. I reckon he was early on target. He shouldn’t have been above us. We were just eight thousand feet but that was the nearest we ever had of having bombs through the wing. I certainly wouldn’t have been here now if I hadn’t gone into that astrodome. You see the mid-upper gunner is busy looking around at his level for fighters and didn’t think to look up. But it was a very close shave.
GT: Great.
JJ: It didn’t miss us by more than twenty yards I reckon. You could see every five hundred pounder going down.
GT: Your bomb loads that you had was there anything special or everything was just cookies, five hundreds?
JJ: Usually had a cookie. Four thousand. Four thousand and made up of five hundreds and incendiaries depending on what the target was, you know. Occasionally a few thousand pounders but mainly five hundreds.
GT: Did you do any special ops or was it all just standard?
JJ: No, it was all, the first tour was all standard targets. Yeah.
GT: So, from your time with Lancaster Finishing School did the crews come to you brand new from joining up or —
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Were there a mixture of experienced —
JJ: Yeah. No. Virtually no experience. They were all new trainees. There might be the odd pilot or the odd navigator doing a second tour. The odd pilot doing a second tour. But nearly everybody coming through LFS when I was there were first tour people, you know. They’d come from overseas, done OTU, conversion on to the Stirling at Cambridge and then they came to us to fly the Lancs.
GT: So once you’d finished at LFS was that your choice and did you apply for another tour?
JJ: No. You didn’t apply. You just went where you were told. Yeah.
GT: So they put you on a second tour without you asking.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they just came through one day. December wasn’t it? Just before Christmas and said, ‘You’re posted to 218 Squadron.’ And I was off in about a week. Had a week’s leave and away we went. But I was delighted to get on the Lanc you know. Such a good aeroplane to fly. You know the Stirling soared up at this angle and you had a job to climb in. We had faith in the Stirling but we, I don’t know we knew that we’d have been better on Lancasters, you know. We just because the height you know. You got the light flak. You got all everything at fourteen thousand five hundred feet or so.
GT: What was your main height for the Lancaster bombing raids?
JJ: They were more about eighteen. Usually about eighteen or nineteen. You could get it up to twenty one but usually bombing height was eighteen or nineteen. We did quite a lot of daylight raids in ’45 on 218 and we, we qualified as a marker, GH marker so we had two aircraft formating on us. A daylight raid you had one either side. You know, a few yards off and then you had to watch us and push the bomb tit as our bombs went and even though the bomb aimer could see the aiming point he wasn’t allowed to push the tit until I said. On the GH was very accurate. You had two intersecting lines. You kept yourself on one and then said, ‘Bomb now.’ You know and you pushed the tit for the bombs. Lots on bridges and specialised targets. Mainly on bridge crossings it was in the book there, I think. Shorter trips. And of course, we had a bit of fighter cover as well so it was a lot safer. The losses weren’t anything like they were on Stirlings in ’44. ’43/44 was a bad time for everybody wasn’t it?
GT: So, the aircraft numbers for instance. Each, each squadron generally had twelve aircraft per flight.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: So 75 Squadron had three flights of twelve. Did 218 Squadron have that many and how many did you fly?
JJ: No. Two flights I’m sure. 218.
GT: Ok. You might have gone up with twenty four aircraft a night. Or a day trip perhaps.
JJ: Say again.
GT: Did you fly with twenty four aircraft all the time?
JJ: No. You know, there was always two U/S or something or you hadn’t the crews. If you lost two crews and two new crews would arrive that day. I think on average we put up twenty. Twenty aircraft. Sometimes twenty one and very occasionally twenty two but usually it was about twenty aircraft.
GT: Can you describe for me the purpose of a pilot from a new crew arriving and going as a second dickie? Can you describe that for me?
JJ: Well, all the pilot did when you arrived on the squadron your pilot went as a second dickie with an experienced crew just to get the feel of the thing. See what it was like, you know and learn a few tips on flying and corkscrewing and that sort of thing. And then you were on your own. And you always, I think you always did two mining trips. You did what do you call it? Probably got the name in there. You did a mining trip to just off Germany. The islands there.
GT: They did some gardening.
JJ: Gardening. It’s called gardening. That’s right. So you did that low. You dropped them from I think about a thousand feet. They were on parachutes you know and you got to the area, you got quite a lot of flak on that first area. There must have been a lot of ships around us. And we, I can’t remember if it was two or four and then we did a second gardening trip down to Bordeaux and we were coming back fairly low because we’d dropped the things low. And it was a nice moonlight night and bomb aimer was sitting in the nose then and he said, ‘There’s a train down below skipper. Let’s go down and shoot it up.’ So we did and we blew it up. When we got back to debriefing the intelligence officers said, ‘Don’t you ever do that again because they’re equipping most of the trains with, you know machine guns and whatnot because the fighters had been doing a lot of this and the train had got a chap with four Bofors guns or something and you hadn’t got a chance if you flew in at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. So we thought we’d done well, you know. We were thinking everybody was going to say, ‘Well done.’ [laughs] But they said, ‘Don’t ever do it again.’
GT: You got lucky.
JJ: It was quite fun to see this train blow up.
GT: Some crews have told me that they did a whole tour without using their nose guns. Did you in your tours did they use them at all?
JJ: That’s the only time we used it. On the train. Nose and the tail. Yeah. No. We never saw anything in front. Fighters came up behind you and underneath you see. So no bomb aimer never fired those guns. He used to test them and that was all.
GT: And that was going to be my next question. Do those that man those guns in the nose was generally going to be the bomb aimer if —
JJ: The bomb aimer in the front.
GT: If he needed to.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. So going into your second tour then Jack so you were posted off to 218 Gold Coast Squadron.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: And Gold Coast is Australian or South African?
JJ: South Africa.
GT: South African side.
JJ: I think. I’m sure it was South African.
GT: And there was a South African connection like New Zealand had.
JJ: There must have been some connection in, you know a lot earlier. They had Gold Coast in brackets for some reason or other. We never met anybody from the Gold Coast or anything. It was probably the first war. They might have provided some people. Fighters or something and they kept the name going when they resurrected it anyway.
GT: So when you were posted on did you get a choice of a crew or did you just get given?
JJ: No. I was posted. Posted there and arrived and, ‘This is your crew.’ You know. The pilot was a first tour. I was second tour and the two air gunners were second tour. Great chaps. They were a bit older than me. They were thirty one and they’d both been gunnery leaders on different, you know, in between and they were first class they were. So —
GT: Your logbook shows that you, you did, you arrived there in February 1945.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And you continued on from your first tour of twenty one ops and you did your twenty second op on February the 7th. So —
JJ: That’s right.
GT: So was there anything outstanding about 218? Anything that you remember that was of note.
JJ: Well, I don’t want it to go in the book. The CO. Are you recording?
GT: Yes.
JJ: No. I won’t say anything.
GT: Ok. Whatever.
JJ: I’ll tell you afterwards. Yeah.
GT: Yeah. So, so you got various. I can see day and night flights here.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And —
JJ: We had a good, we had a good crew. We had two excellent gunners and we did get the odd other attack. I think I did a Berlin trip there didn’t we? Yeah.
GT: Right. So, I’ve got your second operational tour was completed on the 24th of April 1945 and your total operational hours by day sixty eight hours and total operational nights fifty hours. Total grand operational hours a hundred and nineteen and ten minutes.
JJ: That was a full tour anyway for me and a second tour was, was that.
GT: Now, for your work you were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Can you tell me about that please?
JJ: There’s not much to say. I think I’d probably been a good navigator. Good results, you know from our bombing and everything. So for some reason or other I was awarded the DFC. Nobody else in either of the crews was actually so I think, I think I was a good navigator. We didn’t have any problems. We had one dicey coming back trip when we were on two engines coming across France and the engineer said we were losing fuel. We’d been shot up a bit. I can’t remember which, I think we landed right at the end. Bradwell Bay. And coming across France and I managed to pick out a diversion airfield and got us there and as we’d taxied around the, as we were going in to land the engineer said the tanks are just about empty. As we taxied around the runway all four engines cut. Another five minutes and we wouldn’t be here now anyway.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: We’d have stalled out but we’d had, we knew we were losing fuel you know and we’d had fighter attacks and whatnot but we couldn’t do anything about it. We just made it to the South Coast so that was Bradwell Bay. So we went, left the aircraft and went back on the train with parachutes and everything else [laughs] nav bags and sextant.
GT: Were your aircraft replaced pretty quickly if you lost any?
JJ: Yeah. We didn’t usually fly in the same aircraft. At 218 we did. We had Queenie that had done about fifty, sixty trips and we did quite a few trips in Queenie. And she features in some of the post-war picture books, you know. That one lasted, oh it was just about the end of the war when we finished anyway. But otherwise, you know we never had an aircraft last long enough you were different aircraft nearly every, pretty well every night.
GT: Your logbook shows Queenie to be LM577 and your total operational tally of sorties was forty one.
JJ: I don’t know.
GT: Now, for me that’s, the use of the word mission was —
JJ: No.
GT: Was not correct and you guys did operations.
JJ: Yeah. We didn’t call it missions. The Americans called it missions. We never used the word mission. No. So many ops was the term. Nobody ever used missions. No.
GT: Fabulous. Alright so and then once you had finished your last operation, your forty first one there and that was April 1945 what happened to you after that? Was it VE day to come?
JJ: I was posted. No. It was just before and I was first tour, second tour you see. The rest of the crew and the gunners were second tour. They told us we’d finished our tour. The pilot and the engineer and the wireless operator hadn’t finished. They were on their first tour so they were left and they, I went on leave for a fortnight and when I came back they started dropping the food to the Dutch. So I went along to see the CO and said, ‘I’m posted up to Catterick, you know to get me out of the way. I’d like to stay and fly with my crew.’ Well, I don’t want this to go on the — turn it off.
GT: Ok.
[recording paused]
JJ: Ok. I think the flight commander or the station commander must have put up for the DFC because I got it just, just before I finished my tour and I was the only member of that crew to get one and my other crew hadn’t either. First tour. So I had to be off to Catterick to Selection Board trying to find someone to take the place of all the bank managers and people who had been doing admin jobs. So I was sent off to be adjutant at [pause] it was near Lincoln. Fighter Sector Headquarters. Wonderful. I thought my God some people have had an easy job. It was a Fighter Sector with about sixty, seventy girls and about ten airmen and a group captain, a wing commander and a squadron leader in charge of it. And they had Group Captain Arthur Donaldson as head of them. A fighter man. Wonderful chap and he insisted on having a beer every lunchtime actually [laughs] And it only lasted about three months I think and they closed the station down, you know. They didn’t need Fighter Sector Headquarters any more. And I went from there to Molesworth which was 1335 Conversion Unit for Meteors. Jets.
GT: Now we’re talking February 1946.
JJ: That’s right. And I was the first navigator to fly in a, in a jet because they converted one on the station. The engineering officer went for the first trip and I went up for the second. That was before they had dual seats in the, in the Meteors. Wonderful. Zoom. I loved it.
GT: I’m looking at your logbook and that flight was October the 16th 1946 in EE229 Meteor 1 and your pilot was Flight Lieutenant Williams. That’s pretty fair for twenty minutes. Yeah.
JJ: Yeah. I was —
GT: So with your DFC, Jack did you get handed it or did you have to go and get —
JJ: No. I got the letter from the, signed by George, you know saying I’m sorry I can’t give it to you.
GT: In person.
JJ: But well done. That sort of thing.
GT: You didn’t have to go down to the —
JJ: Didn’t have to go down to the Palace. No. No.
GT: So, did your CO just pin it on you or —
JJ: No. Just got it in the post I think. I can’t remember the CO giving it to me.
GT: God.
JJ: He might have done but he wasn’t on the squadron, you see. I’d moved on.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Admin jobs and whatnot there.
GT: So after the war had finished were you given an option to carry on? And you were what rank by then?
JJ: I was flight lieutenant then.
GT: Ok.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: So did you get given an option to stay on in the peacetime?
JJ: No. Just with your age they just said, you know, ‘You won’t be demobbed for another year or so.’ So then I went from [pause] I went down to Chivenor as adjutant. I went to I think Molesworth first. That’s right. Molesworth and Bentwaters. That’s where we had the Jet Training Unit. Yeah. And from Bentwaters, oh I had a chat on the phone to the [unclear] people at Command one day. They were very friendly you know and they said, ‘Is there anything you wanted to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, I want to get back on flying.’ They said, ‘We can’t do that but there’s a job going as adjutant down at Chivenor.’ So that was the Spitfire OTU sort of thing you know. They were still converting people then flying Spits. So I went down to Chivenor and I seemed to get on well with the CO there who hadn’t been a flying man during the war. He was a very nice man but we had several Spit accidents you know and I had to arrange funerals and things. Totally new. Never had any experience of all these jobs and one day he said, ‘Would you like to apply for a permanent commission?’ I think I’d been there about six months. He said, ‘I’ll recommend you if you like.’ So I was delighted. Didn’t really know what I was going to do when I went there. I wanted some different job than the one I’d been doing before you know and I hadn’t had any training. And I got a permanent commission while I was there you know. Group Captain Whitfield or something. Something like that. I can’t remember his name. But I don’t think I did any, I don’t think they had, they had an Oxford or something there I flew around in but not very much. I think I did about eighteen months there and I was constantly court martials and things. Talking to the [unclear] people at Command and I always said, ‘When am I going back on flying?’ And they came up one day and said, ‘We can’t get you back into Bomber Command. We don’t move people there.’ From where I was it was fighter I think or something or training but he said, ‘Would you like to go on to Hastings?’ I had to do all refresher courses because I’d been off flying for about three years. So I went to Swinderby on Wellingtons and then Hastings up at [pause] oh dear. By the Great North Road. You’ve got it there. Dishforth. And another refresher course at somewhere. Somewhere near there. Anyway, Dishforth was the Hastings course and I went to a squadron. 511 Squadron at Lyneham on the Hastings and I loved it and I’ve still got a, you know you had a grading system. You had to pass exams. I was sort of a fully fledged passenger and everything else. We did trips to Singapore. The Middle East mainly. Usually did about one trip a month or two months to Singapore. Did lots of trips to the Middle East freight and passengers. A lot of passengers.
GT: Jack, I’ve got you 241 OCU. You were there from December 31, 1949. And you —
JJ: About three months.
GT: You flew right there to the end of March 1950 and then you joined 511 Squadron.
JJ: 511 Squadron.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: April 1950.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: And you flew with them right through to [pause] well your logbook goes on up until 1952. So you were flying all over the world with the Hastings.
JJ: Yeah. Mainly the Far East. Not the world but I think we did one trip to America. I can’t remember now. Maybe not. I think we went to the Azores but I can’t remember. But mainly it was to the Middle East and the Far East. I went to Japan. The war was on then and we took winter vests out for the British who had been sent out in the middle of winter without any winter clothing. And we actually arrived there the day before Christmas and we said, they said, ‘Oh, you needn’t fly over on Christmas day.’ It was an American base you see. And we said, ‘Well these chaps need these vests. We’ll go.’ So on Christmas Day we flew over to Tokyo and we had to orbit for fifty minutes before we landed. The jets, American fighter jets were just around and around you know. The Korean War. We landed. They all came over because they hadn’t seen an aeroplane sitting up like this before [laughs] They were quite surprised. Wondered what it was and then we went back and went into the mess and they said, ‘Sorry they had lunch at lunchtime. There’s no food.’ [laughs] At that time funnily enough I had an American pilot on an exchange scheme, a Polish co-pilot and an Irish wireless operator and we had a bottle of whisky between us and went to bed. That was our Christmas. Christmas dinner. We hadn’t had any food over in Tokyo. You know. Too busy. But that was something to remember.
GT: So then you moved over to, I see Valettas. What squadron were you with there?
JJ: Valettas. Oh, what did I do in between?
GT: In Libya.
JJ: Libya. Yeah. I went out to, I was posted out to Castel Benito in Libya as adjutant and I was promoted there after about six months to squadron leader. So I was posted down to the Canal Zone and I was in charge of the, mainly with the Army dropping paratroops and doing the routes down to Livingstone and all over the place there for a bit. And then for some reason or other, oh that was it the senior admin officer at Shallufa down in the Canal Zone was repatriated for inefficiency or something like that and I was sent down as senior admin officer. There was a wing commander there and we had the Lincolns used to come out and do their bombing on the bombing range there. So I was there until probably about eighteen months. The station closed down and I actually handed over to the Egyptians and they’d all been trained at Cranwell. There was about six majors came along. Everybody on the station had gone except myself then and the Egyptians arrived and our lads, a few left to guard the place were flown home and I handed over to these Egyptians. So I’d laid on a lunch for them and it was a good lunch and the first thing they said was, ‘Have you got any whisky?’ And we brought out, luckily we’d got a crate of whisky left and they all had whisky. Lots of whisky with their lunch. Then we brought the flag down and put theirs up and I was off to Fayid. And I’d left my car. I’d bought a car at Castel Benito and I had to leave it there for eighteen months but the young MT officer used to look after it for me and I arrived back and the family were actually out there then. They did come out to Shallufa. The wife and the two boys about five and six. So we all flew back to Shallufa and I said, ‘I’m not putting my car on a boat and taking it home. I’m driving home.’ And I got the ok to drive all the way. Five thousand miles. North African coast, back through France and I arrived back about two days before Christmas Day. It took us six weeks and lo couldn’t get any film to take any pictures on the way but it all went fine, you know. We’d find a little hotel every night and booked into it. Oh, the young, we had a great help. The young MT officer was going out of the Service and he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You couldn’t find room for me?’ I had the Ford Zephyr. A big car. I had big cases on the top you know and I said, ‘Oh, we can squeeze you in, Norman.’ So he came with us. Well, before we got to Algiers he said, ‘You know, the engine’s making a nasty noise. I think you’d better stop.’ So I stopped and he dipped the, I didn’t know there was a dipstick for the engine oil. The oil. Gear oil. It was dry. So he said if we’d gone on another ten miles it would have seized up. So he went, he hitchhiked about twenty miles into one of the towns. I can’t think of which one. He said, ‘I couldn’t get the proper oil. I got some oil. That’ll get us to the next town.’ And it did and we got, there was a Ford dealer there you know and Northern Algiers. It wasn’t as far as that. No. I can’t remember where it was. Anyway, we got the car checked over and it was ok and filled up with the proper oil and we carried on. Crossed over from Tangier to Gib. My eldest son, it was misty, it was just before Christmas and suddenly Gibraltar appeared. I knew the skipper of the ship because I’d met him when he was on Hastings. He used to come in the mess you see. And two days later we were in what’s the [pause] Malaga. That’s right. David who was about six and a half then. He said, ‘You know dad. I’m going to join the Navy.’ It was this strip across, you know just the thing from, so I said, ‘You’re not joining the Navy until you go to university.’ But he applied to Dartmouth and was accepted. He served a year. He loved it but he said, he came home one day and he said, ‘Dad, I’m not going to be a normal Naval officer.’ It was a bit snotty you know and he liked to do what he liked and when he liked and he said, ‘I think I want to come out.’ So I saw his CO who said, he was doing engineering he said, ‘If he doesn’t come out within three months they won’t let him out because he was doing all the, getting all this training.’ He’d just done the service training. So anyway, we didn’t have to pay much but we got him out and he applied for university and all three accepted him. He went to Swansea and got a good degree in engineering and he’s the one who’s in America now. Seventy years old. Still working. Loving it.
GT: Well —
JJ: Teaching you know modern electronics and whatnot to everybody.
GT: Well, military is obviously in your family Jack and I’m looking at your logbook from 1954 in Shallufa and I can see the aircraft types range from the Hastings to the Valetta, Beaufighter and Pembroke.
JJ: Oh, we had the Beaufighter at Shallufa.
So the, well where was that from?
JJ: Used to go down and the CO flew in and I went with him and we used to go down and get fruit and veg from Akaba because the Egyptians wouldn’t let us buy any local fruit and veg. The NAAFI. So we used to go and fill it up there. Probably got a bit of whisky as well I think.
GT: So, by, by March 1955 you were back in England and it says here you were based in [Khormaksar?]. What aircraft types did you work on from there and where did you move to?
JJ: I went to 18 Group when I came back from first of all from the Middle East. I can’t remember which station. 18 Group were the headquarters at near Rosyth. Pitreavie Castle. That was it. It was the headquarters and it controlled all the aircraft in the Atlantic you know. All the Shackletons and everybody else in the Atlantic. Anti-submarine warfare. And there again I said, ‘Can I get back flying on Transport Command?’ And again the [unclear] people said, ‘We can’t. The Air Ministry do that. But if you like we can get you on to Shackletons.’ So I jumped at it and I went up to Kinloss and did the Shackleton course and I went to Ballykelly as a flight commander then for about two years.
GT: Two years on Shackletons.
JJ: Yeah. Great. We used to do, well fifteen hour trips mainly. One a month fifteen hours which was pretty wearying and you worked all the time. You didn’t just fly around. You had a rendezvous out with a submarine somewhere in the Atlantic you know and probably a ship and you got sonar buoys tracking the submarine. You did exercises with them out, two or three hundred miles out or more in the Atlantic and you used to get the odd ship, trip to Gibraltar as a bonus occasionally. But it was all anti-submarine work all the time you know tracking Russian submarines. Very interesting work photographing them if there were warships out. Fly alongside and wave [laughs]
GT: So, your logbook reads that you were on 204 Squadron for most of that time.
JJ: That’s right. I was flight commander.
GT: And then your last entry in your logbook is from MOTU, St Mawgan.
JJ: That’s right. I was posted down at OC Ground Training at St Mawgan. Again the Shackleton.
GT: And your last flight —
JJ: Operational Conversion Unit. Yeah.
GT: And your last flight showing 29 June 1966.
JJ: What was that in?
GT: Shackletons.
JJ: Shackleton. Yeah.
GT: And your final hours total two thousand two hundred and fifty two hours fifty minutes by day, and night six hundred and ninety three twenty five minutes. That’s, that’s a huge sum of hours there Jack.
JJ: Quite a lot isn’t it. Yeah.
GT: Total.
JJ: Yeah. It was a lovely aeroplane to fly in, the Shackleton you know. It was reliable and and the crew we had five radio, five radio operators and two that rotated the jobs. One on radar, one on tracking the sonar buoys, another one looking out and observing. One probably in the galleys [laughs] And I forget what the other one did but it was enjoyable flying you know. Good crew flying.
GT: So when did you retire from the RAF?
JJ: I went out from St Mawgan to Cyprus as OC of the ops room there. Most of our aircraft we had to control the Vulcans at [pause] what’s the place?
GT: Akrotiri?
JJ: Akrotiri. That’s right. Actually, I had all the Vulcan. I had top secret. It was more than top secret. It was something else. I had the safe with all the plans for a war with Russia. Even the air commodore wasn’t allowed to look at it, believe it or not. The air commodore. And I used to give him, he wanted, he only lived across the road like that in a big thing, you know and he used to come across to the Ops Room every morning for briefing. And then he found out in the UK they had television so they sent me back to Bomber Command to do a quick course on television presenting and we got television in and so I briefed him just across the road. Pointed to the targets every morning on the television. I can’t believe it. Absolute waste of money and we used to like to see him as well because he’d have a chat. He sat in his office with his briefing on the screen. Oh dear.
GT: So the ultimate for you was —
JJ: And from there I was OC. I went out with short notice from St Mawgan. The previous squadron leader was someone I knew. He had been CO of ASWDU, Air Sea Warfare Development Unit at Londonderry. Yeah, where, I did a tour there as well. He was a very efficient chap and he fell out with the group captain and he packed him up one weekend and sent him home. Said he wanted another officer. So I was, went out because they wanted a maritime man out there. I went out at about a week’s notice to, to Headquarters and took over the ops room there. And then I was coming out. I was due out at forty nine. So I put in an application to stay in you know to normal retiring age sixty years and they came back and said they couldn’t give me a flying job, you know. You know, flying. But they offered me to transfer to the supply branch so I went as OC. I did the course, and it was funny there were two of us. Two. A pole and myself had been wartime and the other, I think eighteen students were all university. Fellas and girls and we came top of the course. We didn’t know a thing about it but you see they were out at dances every night and enjoying themselves in the pubs and we were sitting, we sat together and swatted. Anyway, we came top of the course which was very satisfying and I went to the Helicopter Conversion Unit which was good because I never put that in my logbook, you know. I had the odd flight there and worked with them and I found it was the easiest job I’d had in the Air Force. Being OC Supply for a big unit, you know. I thought my golly some people have had an easy time. And from there I was very keen to settle in Scotland and I applied for any chance of a job at Kinloss. About the only place and they said no. But they offered me a job at Carlisle. OC packaging. So I went on another course and learned about packaging and I packed everything from a split pin to an aircraft wing you know at Carlisle. And again it was good. They were all civilian. They just had one squadron leader and then they were all civilians. The rest were people in the hangars you know. But we got on well again and I found it a piece of cake you know from flying days with all the troubles and things that happened when you were flying. It was, it was easy going. Yeah. Quite fun. So that was my career.
GT: And this, you retired from Carlisle.
JJ: I retired from Carlisle.
GT: And what year was that, Jack?
JJ: I tried to get a job, fifty five and thirty two. Seventy seven. I tried to get a job and I thought I’m in packaging you know. Equipment. I went to a big furniture place in Carlisle and I told him what I’d been doing and I said, ‘You know, we’ve got the computer and we put in automatic supply when something is sold and whatever.’ Well, they hadn’t got any and he said, ‘I’m afraid you’re too experienced.’ He was afraid I was going to take over his job. I said, ‘I’m quite happy to do a menial job. I just want a job to do something.’ So he said, ‘I’m sorry. No.’ He thought I was after his. And then I decided well I’d met Joyce. My wife and I hadn’t been getting on for a long time. You’re not putting this on tape are you?
GT: No. So ok, you met Joyce and —
JJ: I met Joyce and we got married after about three years. But the reason I haven’t been, you’ve got nothing on there I would have loved to have gone to New Zealand, you know. All the New Zealand people I knew I loved them. I got on so well with them and I loved fishing and I would have loved to have gone to South Island with a caravan but because I married after I left the Air Force Joyce wouldn’t get any pension from the RAF. They changed it now but not retrospective. So if I passed out you know as I very well could have done at any time on I didn’t tell them why. I just said no. I don’t want to go. She would have got about a hundred and ten pounds a week to live on you know. No pension from the RAF and no pension from her husband who had died. He was a bank manager. So she would have had about a hundred pounds, you know. I threw away thoughts about going to New Zealand.
GT: Did you keep in contact with any, one of the people from earlier crews like 75 or 218?
JJ: No. I tried to but they said their wartime crews you see. I wrote to the New Zealand government to ask for flight, well he’d been a pilot officer then and gave his name and they said they were sorry they couldn’t disclose. Perhaps they thought there might have been something funny. I don’t know. Then I wrote to the MOD about my bomb aimer, Jock earlier than that and they said they couldn’t give me any information and I presumed he’d been killed because he went back. He went back to 75, Jock Somerville for his second tour and I never knew that until I met his son Simon all these years afterwards and he’d survived and we could have seen. We were such good pals you know flying together. So that put paid really to any keeping in touch with people.
GT: Any, any other stories you can think of from your wartime Bomber Command?
JJ: I don’t think so really. Nothing at the moment. No.
GT: So you joined up for Bomber Command —
JJ: There was plenty of, you know, excitement. We invariably I should think every three trips you were attacked by a fighter or you had searchlights on you or something like that you know and you were corkscrewing and pretty worried and short of fuel. Fuel troubles you know from flak in the tanks and whatnot. Losing fuel flying back short. Diverted. Bad weather when you got back. You were always a bit worried. Quite a lot of aircraft they put oil drums out on the, I forget the diversion airfield now. Flare path you know and you could get in there if you pushed the fog out a few yards. But, well, I would think you know one flight in three you were a bit worried when you got back you know getting down and getting short of fuel and that sort of thing. One thing I’ll never understand that our squadron, 75 we only had a tot of brandy on two occasions after a long trip to Berlin. I think both occasions I think it was and yet you hear people from other squadrons used to get it regularly you know. A nip of brandy when you finished debriefing, yeah and went off to bed. But you see we were in Nissen huts on 75. I think there were five either side officers. Well invariably you know you probably got back 3 o’clock in the morning or something like that. You’d just get to sleep and the lights would go on and the adj would come in with the station warrant officer collecting up somebody’s kit. You know. It happened almost every trip you know. You could guarantee it. It was terrible really. So many people. You see there weren’t a lot of, there weren’t many commissioned navigators. The pilots, a lot of them there were still a lot of sergeant pilots you see. I had a sergeant pilot as well. But so there weren’t many commissioned people in Nissen huts you know but most of the pilots, most of them were pilots and they’d come in and just collect. The only good thing was that the New Zealanders used to get food parcels. They used to get oysters and I was afraid I didn’t fancy oysters then. Joyce loves them. I still don’t really like them. I tried one. And fruit cake. And we used to have these lovely fruit cakes around the little fire in the middle of the room you know. Had a job to get the fuel for it in the cold weather but the lads used to dish out this fruit cake all around and, which was lovely. Always remember that fruit cake from New Zealand. But everybody got on so well you know. You were, they were great people. I just loved them all I would have loved to have emigrated to New Zealand. If I’d had, if I hadn’t got the, you know the job, the permanent commission I would have definitely gone I think.
GT: You’ll be pleased to know that Roy Max’s medals have been loaned to us in New Zealand by his wife.
JJ: Oh good.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Good. Marvellous. Wonderful. Now, Dickie Broadbent was my flight commander. Did you ever know him?
GT: I met Dickie Broadbent quite a bit.
JJ: I say I, I only spoke to him on the phone. I’d have loved to have gone down and met him somehow but the following year I think he died. I can’t remember the other flight commander’s name or, the bombing leader was a great fellow. We used to have long chats. He and another fellow before he joined the Air Force they used to go off into the mountains shooting deer. They’d go for about four months and they’d live on deer meat and porridge stuff that they made up for four months. And they said for the other month remaining they made enough money they kept some of the tails or something and others they took photos or what. Anyway, they were able to prove how many deer they’d shot and he said, ‘In that four months we both made enough money —' he wasn’t married, ‘To live it up in a good hotel for the other eight months of the year.’ Wonderful, wasn’t it?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: I saw a programme a couple of years ago. They don’t do that now. They go in helicopters and shoot them because there are far too many aren’t there?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: South Island. Yeah.
GT: Well, the farmer —
JJ: He was a great lad. I can’t remember his name now. He was the bombing leader and gunnery leader you know. I can’t think of his name. I used to have long chats with him about New Zealand you know. Particularly the island fishing. They’d take their fishing rod as well of course up there and they’d sleep on this for four months he said and then live it up in a hotel for the other eight months.
GT: So your aircraft preference? The Lancaster or the Stirling or the Shackleton?
JJ: Say again? The —
GT: Your preference.
JJ: Preference? I think the Lancaster you know. We had the utmost faith in it. I think it was mainly because the losses were so heavy on the Stirling. We still liked it, you know. We were, we were quite heavy on it and it got us back as I say a lot of times. Very often on three engines. More often than not on three engines all the way back. One would seize up or something or get shot up with a night fighter but we always got back alright. And we, we came back on two on one occasion whereas the Lanc would fly on two grand you know. You could almost fly on one once you got rid of the bombs. And of course, two years later or a year and a half later the equipment was more reliable. We had Air Position Indicators, and we had [pause] What did we have on the Shack? The API, the Air Position Indicator was a great help when they brought that out so you didn’t have to give a manual plot all the time you see what you were steering to get your winds. You wanted your manual plot and in a fix that would give you wind. But the API would give you an air position where you’d be if there was no wind you see. Work from the air pressure and whatnot of the pitot head. That was the great thing and we did and the last few trips on the Lancaster we had the oh, the radar. What did you call it?
GT: H2S?
JJ: H2S as well. And that was a great help navigation. You know you could pick up rivers and things like that. Made it so much easier at night. You’d see when you were crossing the river and it was wonderful check on ground speed and everything and small towns as well. You could work out where you were with that. So that was, that was that was the great thing about the Lanc. Having that. Once we got the H2S, we didn’t get it until about halfway through the tour I think but when we got it it was great. But the thing I remember the most was the good comradeship always, you know. No matter rank. NCOs didn’t mean any different you know when you were together. It didn’t matter if you were a sergeant or you were a squadron leader you were all doing your job and fine, you know. In the Shack we used first names for all the sergeant AO operator. You know, air signallers etcetera in the airplane. We used, we’d use the first names and then they brought in you must say, ‘Pilot to nav.’ You mustn’t use your name. That was getting on after the war you see on the Shackletons you’d got the people in Cranwell trained in MOD who said we’d got to get back to the old systems ,you know. Keep people apart.
GT: So Jack you’ve had a marvellous career in the RAF.
JJ: I enjoyed everything too. That’s the great thing you know. I was never unhappy. I wasn’t very happy on the flying you know. When you’re on ops you think God am I going to get back or not, you know. If I’m always thought if I’m lucky I’ll bale out. Try and get back or in a POW camp but I never expected. I wouldn’t have put any money on finishing a tour you know because chaps were disappearing every night really. First class chaps you know. Just couldn’t believe it. It was upward firing young guns cannon that the Jerries had were fatal you know. Particularly in the last year of the war. God. Remember was it Nuremberg we lost about ninety bombers I think, one night. Terrible. They got something wrong. Met winds or something and it was a clear night and they just shot them down. I went to Nuremberg and we did a, Joyce and I last year did a trip on the Rhine and we went to Nuremberg and I must say they showed all the pictures you know and I thought my God I can’t believe how they’d built it all up. Skyscrapers are going, you know. Wonderful.
GT: Did you think about the damage that was happening underneath you? Was it just a job or —
JJ: I didn’t think about the damage. I used to feel for the folks and families down there, you know. You’d think, God, what are we doing this to them for? You know. Because you know although you had, although you had an aiming point and hundreds of people were getting killed and injured as well and you used to think about that. I think night time when you’re in bed you thought oh poor blighters you know. What a crazy world this is. Sort of getting nowhere by pulverising the place to death and families you know getting blown apart. I used to think about that a lot actually. I think probably everybody did but you just had your job to do. Oh, I’ll show you those two pictures.
GT: Now, Jack, what, what did you have? Bomber Harris, he was your leader.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: What was thought of him?
JJ: We thought he was a good man. He was doing a good job.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And and who did you have visit? Did you have anybody visit you on the squadron like the King or —
JJ: No. I always seem to be falling over nowadays. I lose my balance. No. We didn’t. We had, oh no that was after the war. I was on a fighter station and was it [ ] we got sort of five minutest notice. But annual inspections you know you get a fortnight to prepare and everything was on the top line but this fighter man you’d suddenly get a message to say he’s on his way down in a Spitfire. He just came down and he said, ‘I’d like to go and see the airmen’s mess.’ That was just after the war. He came down to Bentwaters I think. A very cheery nice fellow. But he, you know they couldn’t, you couldn’t fool him what was happening on the station. He did that all over the place apparently. They got the message on the VHF about a quarter of an hour before he arrived. He just walked down and invariably went along to the airmen’s mess and sergeant’s mess and wandered around for a bit and then cheerio and back again. It was good leadership wasn’t it?
GT: Yeah. Did they mention anything about Tiger Force to you?
JJ: No. This was for the Far East wasn’t it?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Yeah. No. I finished my second tour you see so I, but the rest of the squadron thought they were probably going out. Yeah.
GT: Well, Jack I think we’ve covered a huge part of your —
JJ: I hope its been a help.
GT: Your career.
JJ: But a very good memory now you know for names etcetera but I enjoyed chatting to you anyway.
GT: Well, thank you Jack because this this will go into the archives at in Lincoln.
JJ: I think. And polish it up and —
GT: Yeah and it’s been it’s been an honour to sit and chat with you.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: For the time that you served.
JJ: Thank you.
GT: And it’s been marvellous so —
JJ: Thank you.
GT: I’m going to sign off now. This is Glen Turner who has been interviewing Mr Jack Jarmy and Jack whereabouts do you live?
JJ: Now?
GT: Gatehouse of Fleet.
JJ: Gatehouse of Fleet near Dumfries.
GT: Near Castle Douglas, Dumfriesshire.
JJ: In Scotland. So this is the 25th of July 2017 and my interview with Jack Jarmy is now concluded and this is Glen Turner saying thank you Jack very much for your service.
GT: Ok.
JJ: And your, your time tonight.
GT: Thank you. I hope it’s been useful.
JJ: Very much so.
GT: Ok. This is now the end of our interview.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah. Ok.
GT: Please show me your photographs, Jack.
JJ: My photographs as well.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: I’ve got no photographs of 75 but I’ve got two you weren’t supposed to pinch your bombing —
GT: Oh photographs.
JJ: The flash.
GT: The photoflash.
JJ: I’ve got one there.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: You can see where it is and that was the target. You can see it was.
GT: Obliterated. Yeah.
JJ: Just about.
GT: Flashed out.
JJ: Yeah. And I’ve got one picture of the old that I got somewhere or other. The Stirling. Only one. You know, you just couldn’t get photographs or anything. This is Canada. And there’s one more. That’s right. Is it Castel or something.
GT: Yes. It is. It’s got Castel there. Yeah.
JJ: Yeah. And this was Ely when I was doing afterwards on the Shackletons for the [pause] No. Sorry, 218 Squadron that must have been. Yeah. GH bombing. Yeah.
GT: Yeah. Well that’s March ’45 you’ve got.
JJ: That was the target. That’s right. Yeah. That was the target and we qualified on that. On that picture and I managed to get that. There was something about 75 I cut out. I can’t read it now. My eyes aren’t very good.
GT: Ok. I’ll take a photograph of that tomorrow because it’s quite, quite small. So where you see that’s wrong too because it’s got the wrong crown on it.
JJ: Yeah. I see.
GT: Yeah. So where was this one? In Belgium.
JJ: They must have given us that in Belgium. Yeah. Yeah.
GT: That’s a shame.
JJ: That’s the —
GT: That’s a window with —
JJ: Yes. That’s right. When we went to this Belgian sergeant had resurrected and dug a swamp with a crowd of people obviously and got the Stirling out and they invited us over then, you know. Civic function. And they gave us a lovely time for about four days or so.
GT: What year was that Jack?
JJ: Now, it was the first year we were here so it’s, or the second year. Thirty years ago. Thirty years ago. Yeah. And that was a Stirling but I don’t know from which squadron it was but it was Mepal that arranged the trip.
GT: Ah. Ok.
JJ: You see. We went with a bunch of people from Mepal. That was in the Canal Zone and a Daily Mail reporter. That was when I was OC admin.
GT: Wow. [pause] Great photos.
JJ: Don’t know what those cuttings are. Must be something from the paper. I don’t know what there was.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Cuttings from the paper. [pause] I don’t know what that was.
GT: It’s great It’s great that you’ve got some photographs. That you ended up on a four engine jobby again. Very good, Jack. And let’s just confirm the time for us. It is quarter past eleven at night
JJ: Ten past yeah
GT: Oh gosh. Well obviously, you’ve got a day tomorrow so we’d better —
JJ: Well just, we’ve got to get this freezer you know.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: No rush. We never go to bed before about 11 o’clock. Joyce is a night bird. She’ll stay up longer that I do.
GT: Well, those are probably —
JJ: Oh, I think that bit fell out.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jack Jarmy
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Glen Turner
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
2017-07-26
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AJarmyJFD170726, PJarmyJFD1703
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:38:26 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Jarmey was born in Romford Essex. At the age of five. following the death of his father, Jack moved to live with his grandparents in Illfracolme. Despite excellent results in all his subjects at Grammar School Jack left school at 15 to work in the family business. On his eighteenth birthday Jack signed up to join the Royal Air Force as a pilot and commenced training at No 9 Initial Training Wing at Stratford-upon-Avon followed by elementary flying training school at Swindon. Flying training continued in Florida and Montgomery Alabama flying Stearmans. Following a bad landing Jack was cancelled from flying training and transferred to Trenton Ontario for navigator training. On completion of training he returned to the UK onboard the Queen Elizabeth with 14,000 other aircrew. Jack joined No 11 operational training unit at RAF Oakley in April 1943 flying Wellingtons and completed his training at No 1651 heavy conversion unit at RAF Waterbeach flying Stirlings. Posted to 75 Squadron at RAF Mepal in July 1943, Jack completed 26 operations. He commented on the much-improved Gee Mk2 navigation system which he said was very accurate up to the Dutch coast. He also recalled being in the astrodome during the operation on Peenemünde and called on his pilot to corkscrew as he could see a Lancaster above them with their bomb doors open, the Stirling he explained had a much lower flying ceiling than the Lancaster. On completion of his first tour Jack trained crews at No 3 Lancaster finishing school at RAF Feltwell for ten months before joining 218 Squadron in early 1945 for a second tour of operations flying Lancasters. Jack commented on the increased accuracy of Gee-H navigation with multiple aircraft in formation with the Gee-H equipped aircraft during daylight operations. Jack had completed a total of 41 operations and remained in the RAF following a permanent commission. He served in a number of administrative and flying roles in the Far East and the UK including Shackeltons at RAF Ballykelly on anti-submarine maritime patrols, finally retiring in 1977.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
United States
Alabama
Alabama--Montgomery
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Trenton
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Norfolk
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany
Germany--Peenemünde
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jim Sheach
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-04-25
1943-07-25
1944-01-08
1945-02
1945-04-24
1977
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
11 OTU
1651 HCU
218 Squadron
75 Squadron
aircrew
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Gee
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Feltwell
RAF Mepal
RAF Oakley
RAF Shallufa
RAF Waterbeach
Shackleton
Stearman
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2124/19886/PCulkinJ17010382.1.jpg
da97e89208642aeba9605c00e449c643
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2124/19886/PCulkinJ17010383.1.jpg
83bc076a249c19e7bbfecebe8441d026
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
Culkin, Jean. Album
Description
An account of the resource
64 items. An album containing photographs and newspaper cuttings from her husband John George Mackel Culkin's service as ground crew in North Africa and Italy, and Hong Kong post war.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
John George Mackel Culkin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Culkin, J
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jack leaving Gutersloh
Description
An account of the resource
Jack standing in front of reproduction Wessex, squadron buildings in background. Reverse captioned '18 Sqn leaving RAF Gutersloh 1977 Helicopter specially made'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1977
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCulkinJ17010382, PCulkinJ17010383
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--North Rhine-Westphalia
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1977
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.
18 Squadron
arts and crafts
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1236/18427/PThompsonKG15010149.2.jpg
d7c0552a78c77bcd0bae1cea68c9da51
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1236/18427/PThompsonKG15010150.2.jpg
51cb03b5c21d2e8964dce85a431737c0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1236/18427/PThompsonKG15010151.2.jpg
72d43ca99ea84edf582b54139ba99f4b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Thompson, Keith G
K G Thompson
Description
An account of the resource
95 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Keith Thompson DFC (1238603 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, photographs and training material as well as his navigation logs. He flew operations as a navigator with 101 and 199 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mark S Thompson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-07
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
Thompson, KG
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Keith Thompson's time with 41 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Cutting reporting that 41 Squadron had been disbanded at RAF Coningsby in March 1977, also a small colour image of the RAF Coningsby badge and the invitation to Jessie Thompson to attend the 41 Squadron disbandment party.
A news cutting reporting the squadron disbandment and another from October 1976 reporting 41 Squadron's 60th birthday celebration.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Cuttings and printed invitation on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Artwork
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PThompsonKG15010149, PThompsonKG15010150, PThompsonKG15010151
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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.
1976
1977
RAF Coningsby